Especially since the 1970s, the oil-rich Saudis have funded an aggressive campaign to spread Wahhabi and related "Salafi" ideas worldwide, and to repress other forms of Islam as illegitimate. But claims of restoring "the only legitimate form of Islam" are "fraudulent," he asserts.

He is equally severe in his denunciations of American Muslim leaders for ineptitude, which Khan says has made him a rather isolated figure.

Abou El Fadl says that after Sept. 11, U.S. Muslim leaders should have led a "massive" response and "expressed pure, unmitigated outrage." He also says they run undemocratic organizations and lack courage to denounce the Saudis for promoting "this radical ideology of hate."

Of America's Muslims, a community of somewhere between 2 million and 6 million, he says: "We have the numbers, we have the wealth, but not the power or influence or voice."

Because of his controversial views, Abou El Fadl no longer feels welcome at his local mosque, the Islamic Center of Southern California, and worships elsewhere. The center also stopped running his longtime column in its Minaret magazine.

He blames the tyranny in Muslim nations on Europeans, who liked democracy but gave little of it to peoples they colonized. Because "civil society was practically absent," homegrown despots took over with independence.

Though the frustrations of terrorists are understandable, he says, their tactics are "illogical and strategically stupid." Worse, they ignore Islam's ethical teachings and traditions. And they caused masses of people to associate Islam with violence and terrorism.

"Is that what we want for our religion?" he asks. "What will become of what Islam stands for a century from now?"