Fundamentalist Wahhabism Comes to U.S.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2001 (AP)--Austere mosques, women relegated to the background, a puritanical faith that rejects change. A brand of Islam that drives the Taliban and influenced the young American who fought by their side has taken root in the Mecca of modernism, America.

Saudi benefactors who have broadly promoted Islamic culture in America have at times expected the donations to cultivate their particular strain of Islam, Wahhabism.

The effect may be to shape the faith on U.S. soil along the rigid lines of a fundamentalist creed practiced peacefully by millions in the Persian Gulf, yet which also drives Osama bin Laden's hatred of the West. Not everyone agrees, however, about the scope of Wahhabi influence.

``It has hindered the development of an American Islam, which is a shame,'' said Earle Waugh, a University of Alberta professor who studies Muslims in North America.

Muqtedar Khan, a political science professor in Adrian, Mich., disagreed. He said American Muslims have followed the same trajectory of the Puritans, from militant faith to melting-pot tolerance.

``There has been an argument between backward-looking Muslims - typical of any first generation - and forward-looking Muslims,'' Khan said. ``The Muslim democrats have won, and they control the mosques.''

Wahhabi donations to U.S. mosques have been estimated in the millions of dollars over some 20 years. Most American Muslim leaders agree a significant share of U.S. Islamic institutions have taken such money - at least one-third, perhaps a large majority.

The Saudi-based sect's most prominent adherents are that country's royal family. In recent years, Wahhabism has spread to Central Asia and Pakistan. Afghanistan's Taliban adhere to Wahhabi principles.

Saudi royals have distanced themselves from bin Laden. ``This guy does not belong to the Wahhabis,'' an angry Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal said in October as he toured the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York.

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