How is Saudi Arabia’s shift to "moderate Islam" manifesting abroad?

Two weeks ago, I was in Sarajevo for a dear friend’s engagement. After the ceremony, which took place outdoors in a lovely garden in the Ilidža area, we headed back to the city center and stopped at the King Fahd Mosque for the evening prayer. It was a place I’d always wanted to visit on my previous trips to Sarajevo, but never quite made it.

The King Fahd Mosque was built between 1998 and 2000, shortly after the Bosnian War, in honor of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd bin Abdulaziz. The mosque is part of a large complex that includes a spacious and bright prayer area, a conference hall, a library, and a cultural center. Today, it mainly caters to Arab tourists visiting Bosnia, which was evident from the large number of them present during the prayer. The cultural center also offers free Arabic and Bosnian language classes, providing a great opportunity for both locals and visitors.

The King Fahd Mosque is one of many such complexes that Saudi Arabia has constructed and financed around the world since the 1950s. Under the reigns of the country’s founder, King Abdulaziz, and his sons—Kings Saud, Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, and Abdullah—numerous religious schools, mosques, libraries, and cultural centers have been established in various countries. This policy not only promotes the spread of Salafism, the official ideology of Saudi Arabia, but also bolsters the ruling family’s standing among the people.

Among these names, the late King Faisal stands out as the only one who managed to appeal to the broader Muslim world and took on initiatives that went beyond the confines of the official ideology. During his reign from 1964 to 1975, Saudi Arabia became a haven for many figures from across the Islamic world, offering them a safe space for religious and political activities. When Sayyid Qutb was executed in 1966, King Faisal ordered funeral prayers in absentia to be held in all mosques across Saudi Arabia. He also had a booklet of Hasan al-Banna’s writings on jihad, titled "Jihad in Islam," published by the Saudi Ministry of Education and included in the country’s official curriculum. Even today, you can find traces of King Faisal’s influence in places like the Madrid Mosque and Cultural Center or the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan.

My visit to the King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo wasn’t just about performing the evening prayer. I was also curious to observe firsthand the “non-ideological Islam” image that Saudi Arabia is now promoting under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Crown Prince’s project, which he describes as a return to “moderate Islam,” marks a complete departure from the policies implemented during King Faisal’s era. This shift is evident not only within Saudi Arabia but also in the “Saudi Salafi mosques” around the world. These centers, once hubs for spreading Salafism, now show zero tolerance for any “extreme” ideology. Moreover, all elements that could be linked to “Political Islam,” from the content of sermons and lectures to the collections in libraries, have been carefully removed, ensuring that the foreign centers funded by Saudi Arabia align with the country’s official policies.