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have joined the ISIS ranks or travelled to Syria and Iraq to live in the Islamic
State, hail from Kerala (PTI 2017b), a state which contributes over half the
Indian migrant labourers to the Gulf (Rajan 2004 ).
Moreover, Wahhabism has emerged as one of the most powerful fun-
damentalist trends in modern Sunni Islam. Within this, there are radical
groups such as Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, PFI, KSM, and KMK which are
partly inspired by the Saudi Wahhabi ideology. There is no direct and
conclusive evidence to suggest that the Saudi government, its senior offi-
cials, influential princes or private citizens have been directly involved in
the promotion of radicalism in India. At the same time, the general per-
ception is different. Many informed observers believe that Saudi Arabia
has been the harbinger of radical Islam especially through the promotion
of Wahhabi Islam. Besides providing Arabic and Quranic education in the
home countries, Riyadh offers a large number of scholarships to madrassa
students to study in the Islamic University located in Medina, often iden-
tified as a major source of radicalization among the Muslim youths
(Preckel 2013 ).
The Saudi involvement and funding in jihad in Afghanistan and build-
ing of mosques and religious seminaries in other parts of the world have
been identified as the primary cause for radicalism. Above all, 15 out of the
19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 terror attacks in the US
were Saudi citizens and some studies have accused the Saudi educational
system of fomenting extremism among the Muslim youths (Shea and
Al-Ahmed 2006 ).
Global backlash over the September 11 forced the Kingdom to distance
itself from the jihadi groups and compelled it to initiate actions against
individuals and groups responsible for fomenting terrorism and extremism
both within and outside the kingdom. This was also partly due to the
Kingdom being at the receiving end of terrorism, especially during
2002–04. Moreover, the growing criticism of the West of radicalism in
Islam could not be merely dismissed as Islamophobia (Akbarzadeh and
Mansouri 2010 ).
These, in turn, forced the al-Saud to initiate a spate of measures to com-
bat the negative stereotype not only against the Kingdom but also against
Islam. These include revision of school curriculum, reforms in the educa-
tional system, introduction of new teaching methods, removal of hateful
references to other religions and faiths (Prokop 2003 ; Basbait and Wilson
2005 ; Le-Renard 2008 ; Quamar 2016 ), improvements in the conditions
of the Shia minority in the country (Kechichian 2013 ; Alshamsi 2012 ) and
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR