Join award-winning journalist Krithika Varagur as she tells the story of Saudi influence as it has never been told before. Everyone talks about "Saudi money," but no one really knows what it is. Join award-winning journalist Krithika Varagur, a longtime chronicler of religion and politics, as she tells the story of Saudi influence as it has never been told before. She’ll report across the breadth of the Muslim world, from Nigeria to Indonesia to Kosovo. This talk is adapted from her book "The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project."

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“The Call” connects the dots on Saudi Arabia's campaign to propagate its brand of ultraconservative Islam worldwide after it became oil-rich in the 20th century. Varagur visits diverse outposts of its influence, from a Saudi university in Jakarta to a beleaguered Shi'a movement in Nigeria. She finds that the campaign has had remarkably broad and sometimes uniform effects, from the intolerance of religious minorities to the rise of powerful Saudi-educated clerics. The kingdom has spent billions of dollars on its da'wa, or call to Islam, at many points with the direct support of the United States.