Wahhabism in Thailand
Mary Madigan
In May, 2004, this was published in Yale Global
An insurgent movement within the Thai Muslim community has led to over 200 deaths in southern Thailand this year. The presence of the expensive, brand-new Yala Islamic College, primarily funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, is not unrelated to this violence, says this article in Singapore’s Straits Times. The 1,500-some students there dress in traditional Arab garb and are taught a strict version of sharia Islamic law in Arabic. Professors there come from further west, products of universities and schools in the Middle East and North Africa. With them, these teachers, including the president of the institution – a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi university in Saudi Arabia – bring a wave of radical Islamism that poses a threat to the mainly peaceful, moderate version practiced by most Thai Muslims. The Thai government, slow to recognize the security threat, now sees the college along with smaller "pondok" Islamic schools in the country as "breeding grounds for radical separatists." More Thai Muslims are studying abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the fear that they will return to their country inundated with terror training has officials in Bangkok increasingly concerned.As reported by John Bradley in the Straights Times
When you enter the college's reception, you feel like you have suddenly been transported to the Gulf. The 1,500 students there dress in Arab-style clothes and are taught a strict interpretation of syariah law in the Arabic language....and this is the result:The receptionist introduces himself, in perfect classical Arabic, as a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The president, Dr Ismail Lutfi, is himself a graduate of a hardline Wahhabi institution, Riyadh's Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University.
Dr Lutfi, who says he is against violence, has thousands of followers installed in key Islamic posts throughout the south.
The south's largely unregistered pondoks (Islamic schools) - which offer religious education, a regular curriculum and training in Arabic and the local Yawi dialect - are meanwhile now recognised by the Thai government as breeding grounds for radical separatists.
PATTANI, Thailand – The open-air market in this southern Thai city falls eerily quiet on Fridays. Most vendors stay home, terrorized by leaflets threatening to kill or cut off the ears of anyone who works on the Muslim holy day.more here..After 20 months of insurgent violence, the no-work threat has driven another nail into what is becoming an economic coffin in Thailand's terrorized southern provinces...
..."Trade has dropped 70 to 80 percent. Shopkeepers complain loudly. It is very quiet at night and people from outside dare not to come to the area," said Panya Ongsakul, chairman of the three provinces' chamber of commerce.
Always among the country's poorest regions, per capita monthly income in Narathiwat is 2,120 baht ($51), less than half the national average. Many Muslim villagers are angry at the government, but also want them to quell the violence so they can continue what have traditionally been peaceful lives in this rural region of 1.8 million people...
Some sources claim that the Saudis have been very secretive about what they're doing, but in reality, they're about as subtle as a whack on the head with a 2 by 4. They've been doing this for more than a decade. If the press and the government had been honest about this from the start, if more people understood what was going on, the situation would never have gotten this bad.