ABSTRACT
Madawi Al-Rasheed has argued that Saudi solidarity with the believers has a clear agenda of subservience to religious puritanism, a “theology of obedience at home and rebellion abroad in pursuit of turning Islam [Wahhabism] into a hegemonic force in the world”.1 The International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) was established in October 1978 in Mecca, with its administrative headquarters in Jiddah. Although IIROSA has been identified by the USA as a terrorist front, this chapter will show that its activities in Thailand have indeed been religious and charitable, and that such Islamic resistance as there is in Thailand is not imported but due to local grievances. The stress in the chapter is thus two-fold. First, the alleged link between Saudi charities and terrorism is unfair in the case of Thailand and forces the debate out of the oftennarrow Arab focus of Islamic charities. Second, the real focus should be on the economic underdevelopment of the violence-prone areas that overlaps with resistance tinged with Islamic identity and a search for Malay kinship.
