The Growing Salience of Moderate Islam SYNOPSIS COMMENTARY

COMMENTARY Saudi Arabia and Moderate Islam The export of Wahhabism by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a matter of discussion and debate for decades. [...] In Islam and the Arab Revolutions: The Ulama between Democracy and Autocracy (OUP 2022), Usaama al-Azami of Oxford University wrote that other Gulf monarchies, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, had created entire stables of religious scholars that had become part of their broader regional and geopolitical strategies in the Middle East and beyond. [...] In Rivals in the Gulf: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, and the Qatar-UAE Contest Over the Arab Spring and the Gulf Crisis (Routledge 2021), David Warren of Washington University explained the differences between the versions of Islam championed by Abdullah Bin Bayyah and the late Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who were backed by the UAE and Qatar, respectively. [...] Muslims in Singapore are keenly aware of the need to develop an interpretation and praxis of Islam that is suitable for the Singaporean context, as demonstrated by MUIS’ (aka Islamic Religious Council of Singapore), initiation of the Singapore Muslim Identity project in 2003. [...] Furthermore, Singapore’s new Islamic college would provide for the teaching of inclusivist and moderate aspects of Islam, be a model for plural societies and a resilient anchor against the constant shifts of geopolitics in the Middle East.