Saudi Arabia's Global Religious Campaign 

Everyone talks about “Saudi money,” but no one really knows what it means. Journalist Krithika Varagur, an OPC member and 2019 Sally Jacobsen Fellowship winner, connected the dots on Saudi Arabia’s 20th century campaign to propagate its brand of ultraconservative Islam worldwide in her new book The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project.

On May 14, Varagur will share her insights about Saudi influence in the Muslim world as reported from Nigeria, Indonesia, and Kosovo. In The Call, she traces the campaign’s complex history and diverse effects, from a Riyadhi university in Jakarta to a beleaguered Saudi movement in Nigeria.

OPC Second Vice President Christopher Dickey will moderate.

Varagur is an American journalist and National Geographic explorer who writes mainly about religion and politics in Southeast Asia. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Financial Times, and more.

Click here to read more about Varagur's book >>

Dickey is the Paris-based world news editor for The Daily Beast. Previously he served as the Middle East bureau chief for Newsweek, and before that, for The Washington Post. His critique of "MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman," was published recently on the cover of the New York Times Book Review.

We will email a link to registered participants to join the Zoom session about two hours before the event on May 14.