51
Wahhabi religious orthodoxy is rooted less in a universal theology than their own idio-
syncratic, parochial norms.
However, as Kovacs (2014) notes, other groups in the region have adopted cultur-
al forms and religious interpretations from Wahhabi-style Salafi groups. The recent rise
in intra-Islamic violence in Indonesia, she claims, is predominantly carried out by the
Salafi Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, or FPI), founded in 1999 by Habib
Rizieq, a graduate of Saudi Islamic and Arabic College of Indonesia (Lembaga Ilmu
Pengetahuan Islam dan Arab, or LIPIA) who later studied in Riyadh on a Saudi scholar-
ship. The group is “modeled on the Saudi religious police,” and targets night clubs, res-
taurants serving alcohol, and liberal-minded Muslims for violent attacks to discourage behavior deemed un-Islamic. The Indonesian Salafi Warriors of Jihad (Laskar Jihad, or
LJ) was founded shortly after the FPI by Jafar Umar Thalib, another graduate of LIPIA
who ideologically based the group’s violent acts on Saudi scholarship. Institutions like
LIPIA can be seen as part of a broader Saudi battle for “ideological hegemony” (p. 4) in
the Muslim world, a campaign to combat the spread of divergent forms of faith or gov-
ernment. Their pedagogy propagates their own strict religious interpretations alongside positive images of the royal family, “opposes free and critical thinking and teaches blind
obedience and submission” to Saudi theology and law. Their textbooks take an opposi-
tional stance toward various forms of philosophy and government, and endorse hatred of
other religious groups, including Jews, Christians, Hindus, and even heterodox Mus-
lims. 26 Such teachings are “intended to cement loyalty to the supposedly single, true, and
immutable Islam,” and specifically target Sufis, whose “mystical religious practices,” are
deemed “idolatrous” (p. 3).