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The Muslim World League (MWL; Arabic: رابطة العالم الاسلامي, romanized: Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami [ra:bitˤat al ʕa:lami al isla:mij]) is an international Islamic[1] NGO based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that promotes what it calls the true message of Islam by advancing moderate values that promote peace, tolerance and love.[2][3][4]
The NGO has been funded by the Saudi government from its inception in 1962,[5] with that contribution growing to approximately $13 million by 1980.[3] Because of the Saudi funding, the League is widely recognized as a representative of the Islamic principles promoted in that country. Under Saudi Arabia's modernization agenda, Vision 2030, the country has embraced a moderate form of Islam, which the Muslim World League seeks to promote in Saudi Arabia and around the world.[6][7] The Oxford Dictionary of Islam says that "the group has acted as a mouthpiece for the Saudi Arabian government, which finances it."[8][9]
Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Issa is the General Secretary.[3] The organization propagates the religion of Islam, encouraging Dawah and conversion of non-Muslims,[3] and rebuke and debunk criticism of Islam. The organization funds the construction of mosques, financial reliefs for Muslims afflicted by natural disasters, the distribution of copies of the Quran, and political tracts on Muslim minority groups.[10] The League says that they reject all acts of violence and promote dialogue with the people of other cultures, within their understanding of Sharia, but they are no strangers to controversy, having been the subject of several ongoing counterterrorism investigations in the U.S. related to Hamas, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.[11]
In its 2019 Country Reports on Terrorism, the U.S. State Department stated that the Muslim World League's Secretary General, Dr. Al-Issa "pressed a message of interfaith dialogue, religious tolerance, and peaceful coexistence with global religious authorities, including Muslim imams outside the Arab world," as well as conducted extensive outreach to prominent U.S. Jewish and Christian leaders.[12]
The League founded the International Islamic Relief Organization in 1978.[13][14][15][16]
The movement for Pan-Islamic unity, however, was not without some results. Its tenacious adherence to the concept of a united world of Islam ultimately triumphed in the 1960s, when new and more vigorous attempts to develop bonds among Muslim countries emerged. The Saudi crown prince, later King Fayṣal, led this new effort, motivated by his desire to contain Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser's Arab nationalism. He toured Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, Sudan, Turkey, Morocco, Guinea, Mali, and Tunisia advocating an Islamic ummah. In 1962 Saudi Arabia also established a philanthropic organization, the Muslim World League (Rābiṭat al-ʿĀlam al-Islāmī) to combat socialism and secularism.