The Muslim World League (MWL) is a Saudi Arabia-based international organization that promulgates a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam around the world through a large network of charities and affiliated organizations.

In recent years, the MWL's has attempted to portray itself as a broad global Islamist organization, outwardly emphasizing tolerant aspects of Islam and promoting itself as a leader in interfaith dialogue. Its ideological backbone, however, is based on an extremist interpretation of Islam and several of its affiliated groups and individuals have been linked to terror-related activity.

While the MWL has on several occasions condemned terrorism in general terms, it has a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups or having organizational links to them, including to Hamas, Abu Sayyaf group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaat al Islamiyya, and Al Qaeda.

The MWL also provides a platform for inflammatory speech, including anti-Semitism. For example, Sheik Yusef Qaradawi was invited to speak at the MWL's First International Islamic Conference on Dialogue in Mecca in June 2008. Qaradawi, a radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue who openly calls for violent jihad against Jews, told the gathering he would "never sit with Jews on one platform and never hold dialogue with those Jews who have committed injustice against us and support Israel."

The organization also has a history of virulent anti-Israel rhetoric. In January 2009, in response to Israel's military action in Gaza to staunch the barrage of Hamas rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities, the MWL released a statement condemning the "Israeli Holocaust in Gaza." MWL secretary-general Abdullah al Turki also wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on behalf of the MWL on January 6, 2009, describing the Israeli operation in Gaza "as the worst form of state-sponsored terrorism ever known to the mankind."

The Muslim World League (MWL), also known as the World Muslim League, is an international organization headquartered in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Founded in 1962 by the Saudi government, MWL describes itself as an Islamic non-governmental organization involved in "the propagation of Islam, and refutation of dubious statements and false allegations against the religion." It states that its objectives are "to help to carry out projects involving propagation of the religion, education and culture, and to advocate for the application of the rules of the Shari'a (Islamic law) either by individuals, groups or states."

The MWL has offices throughout the Muslim world as well as in non-Muslim majority countries. The organization's Web site lists 36 offices outside of Mecca, including in Washington, New York and London. The degree to which these offices are active is unclear; however, the organization has reportedly used its network to fund Islamic centers and mosques and to distribute materials promoting its fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

Through the MWL's Fiqh Council, a body that establishes jurisprudence according to its own interpretation of Islamic law, the Saudi 'ulama (religious establishment) has attempted to coordinate the efforts of Imams around the world. The Fiqh Council holds yearly religious conferences in Mecca and disseminate fatawa (religious edicts) upholding a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islam in the Wahhabi theological tradition.

The Wahhabi tradition is embodied in the strict interpretation of fiqh (jurisprudence) by the Saudi 'ulama. Wahhabi theology calls for a return to the sunnah, i.e. the way Muhammad and his companions lived in early Islam. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, a Muslim theologian of the 18th century after whom the movement is named, did not accept the developed body of Islamic law as it was applied in the centuries following the advent of Islam, and thus advocated a return to the literal practices of the sunnah. Therefore, his movement is considered by some Muslim scholars as a sect, and not part of orthodox Islam as defined by the 'ijma, or consensus of Muslims.

This fundamental and often radical interpretation of Islam is often expressed in the statements made by the MWL leadership. For example, during an appearance on the Saudi TV channel Iqraa on May 20, 2004, Sheik Abdallah Al-Muslih, chairman of the MWL's Commission on Scientific Signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah, justified suicide bombing, saying:

"Regarding a person who blows himself up, I know this issue is under disagreement among modern clerics and jurisprudents…There is nothing wrong with [martyrdom] if they cause great damage to the enemy. We can say that if it causes great damage to the enemy, this operation is a good thing."

The Commission on Scientific Signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah is one of eight different bodies that comprise the MWL. The other seven are the Al Haramain & Al-Aqsa Mosque Foundation; The Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Council; Holy Quran Memorization International Organization; International Islamic Organization for Education; International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO); Makkah Al-Mukarramah Charity Foundation for Orphans; and the World Supreme Council for Mosques. The World Assembly for Muslim Youth (WAMY), based in Riyadh and sponsored by the Saudi government with chapters worldwide, is another group closely connected to the MWL.

Three of these well-known international charities, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and Charitable Foundations of al-Haramain, are charged with funding terror by U.S. government officials, United Nations Security Council resolutions and others currently engaged in legal investigations against them. For example, the US Department of Treasury designated the Philippine and Indonesian branches of the IIRO as a terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224 "for facilitating fundraising for Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups."

Although the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 similarly designated the Philippine and Indonesian branch offices of the IIRO in November 2006 as an entity associated with Al Qaeda, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced a partnership in June 2008 with the IIRO to cooperate on issues related to child development and children's rights. The MWL maintains observer status at the UN as an NGO, as well as membership at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The MWL has also provided a platform for inflammatory speech, including anti-Semitism, and its own leadership has issued conspiratorial statements about Jews and fiercely maligned Israel. For example, when the MWL issued a condemnation of an earlier Hebrew translation of the Qur'an in 2001, MWL secretary-general Abdullah al Turki remarked that the Jews altered the holy book because it "revealed the true nature of the Jewish people…particularly where it is shown how perfidious the Jews are."

The Muslim World League (MWL) has increasingly promoted itself as a leader in interfaith dialogue, organizing a major international interfaith conference in 2008 and broadcasting its intentions to hold others in the future. Publicizing its outreach efforts to Jews and Christians, the organization outwardly emphasizes the tolerant aspects of Islam. However, these conferences have been marked by anti-Semitism.

On July 16-18, 2008, MWL hosted a world conference in Madrid, Spain, ostensibly to promote interfaith dialogue and to reaffirm the religious communities' commitment to peace. Abdullah al Turki, the MWL secretary-general, invited Project Aladdin, a web-based project that provides Holocaust education to Muslims. The attempt at sincere partnership with Holocaust educators was offset by the anti-Semitic speakers invited by the MWL to the conference.

For example, William Baker, a known anti-Semite and former chairman of the extreme-right Populist Party, spoke in the session titled, "Dialogue, Peace and Coexistence," as the President of Christians and Muslims for Peace (CAMP), a group that claims to try to reconcile global conflicts promote peace and understanding between Christians and Muslims. Baker wrote Theft of a Nation, a conspiratorial anti-Semitic book which is advertised on CAMP's Web site.

Although there were a number of Jewish leaders invited to attend the interfaith meeting, Rabbi Yisrael Dovid Weiss of Neturei Karta, whose members have a long record of extremist statements and support for anti-Semites, was the only Jewish speaker invited to address the conference. In response to protests by Jewish groups and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Muslim organization in the U.S., Weiss was replaced as the principal Jewish speaker by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and founder of the interfaith Appeal of Conscience Foundation.

"The conference, initiated by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and organized by the MWL, was a follow-up to the "First International Islamic Conference on Dialogue" for Muslims in Mecca held a month before. That four day conference, also organized by the MWL with the support of King Abdullah, gave voice to anti-Semitic remarks without censure."

Sheik Yusef Qaradawi, a radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue who openly calls for violent jihad against Jews, spoke at the conference about which Jews he believed Muslims should engage in dialogue. Qaradawi said he would "never sit with Jews on one platform and will never hold dialogue with those Jews who have committed injustice against us and support Israel" but would have dialogue with those Jews who are against Israel.

The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Aal al-Sheikh, also spoke at the conference, declaring that it is impossible to have dialogue with the Jews because "they seem to be against us in every way."

Although the MWL has on several occasions condemned terrorism in general terms, it has not addressed its own support for terrorist groups, including Hamas, Abu Sayyaf group, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaah Islamiyya and its chapters' support for Al Qaeda.

• In August 2006, the US Department of Treasury designated the Philippine and Indonesian branch offices of the IIRO "for facilitating fundraising for Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups." The Treasury additionally designated Abd Al Hamid Sulaiman Al-Mujil, the Executive Director of the Eastern Province Branch of IIRO, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. "Al-Mujil has a long record of supporting Islamic militant groups, and he has maintained a cell of regular financial donors in the Middle East who support extremist causes," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Al-Mujil provided donor funds directly to Al Qaeda and is identified as a major fundraiser for the Philippine Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Southeast Asian group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
  
  
• In November 2006, the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267, also referred to as the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, updated its "Consolidated List of individuals and entities belonging to or associated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda," thereby including the Philippine and Indonesian branches of the IIRO.
  
  
• In January 2005, a Manhattan U.S. District Court allowed a suit by family members of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the IIRO (and others) to go forward. The suit alleged that IIRO financed terror. The case, first submitted in 2002, brought the suit against the IIRO, Sanabel al Kheer Inc., the Muslim World League, the SAAR Foundation, Rabita Trust, al- Haramain Islamic Foundation, Benevolence International Foundation, and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).
  
  
• In July 2003, during the 9/11 Commission hearings, numerous analysts identified IIRO as a major radical Islamic institution in part responsible for fueling Islamic militancy around the world. Testimony delivered at the commission attested to the fact that Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden, arrived in the Philippines in 1988 and became the founding director of the IIRO. He used the IIRO to funnel Al Qaeda funds to the Abu Sayyaf group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
  
  
• In April 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces discovered official documents of the Palestinian Authority in which "the IIRO report submitted to the Palestinians lists 14 Islamic committees and bodies that were given IIRO money, a sum of $280,000. All 14 bodies are known to be identified with the Hamas. It is noted in the report that the money is provided for supporting the fatalities, the wounded, as well as the Hamas-identified committees/bodies themselves."
  
  
• On March 20, 2002, U.S. federal agents raided the offices of the MWL and the IIRO along with a dozen other organizations suspected of laundering money for Al Qaeda in Virginia and Georgia. According to authorities, the IIRO's Virginia office contributed to charities convicted of financing terror, including contributions to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), and the Taibah International Aid Association. The Bosnian Branch of Taibah International was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on May 6, 2004, for financing Al Qaeda.
  
  
• In December 2001, the Canadian government blocked the financial accounts of several Islamic charities operating on Canadian soil, pending investigation of their alleged links to Al Qaeda. These included: Benevolence International Fund, Islamic Relief Organization (a.k.a. the IIRO), Muslim World League and the SAAR Foundation.
  
  
• On October 12, 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Rabita Trust, a charity in Pakistan "for its close ties to senior al Qaida leadership and for providing logistical and financial support to Al Qaida." The Rabita Trust was founded in 1988 by Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, the former secretary general of the Muslim World League (MWL) in the 1980s.
  
  
• In October of 1999, Abdullah al Turki, secretary general of the MWL, in his capacity of advisor-minister to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, entered in negotiations to become business partner with Muhammad Zouaydi, an Al Qaeda financier for Europe, according to a counterterrorism report prepared by Jean-Charles Brisard for the President of the United Nations Security Council in 2002. The partnership was allegedly initiated for a construction project in Madrid, Spain, worth $ 2.3 million. Several documents, including evidence of financial transaction, established that al Turki and Zouaydi had business relations on a regular basis until at least the year 2000.
  
  

Despite its efforts to promote itself as an interfaith-advocacy organization, the Muslim World League's leaders and its institutions have a long history of providing a platform to known anti-Semites and promulgating virulent anti-Israel rhetoric. 

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.