Saudis plan 4,500 madrasas in S.Asia

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Saudis for 4,500 madrasas in South Asia

 

13 September 2004: The Saudi royal family has cleared plans to

construct 4,500 madrasas in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka

at a cost of $ 35 million to promote "modern and liberal education

with Islamic values", and the Saudi embassy in New Delhi is pushing

this somewhat tentatively with the Union HRD ministry and Minorities

Commission.

 

While the House of Saud sees this as an exercise to correct the

distorted worldwide image of Islam, crown prince Abdullah having

pulled up the Jeddah-based International Islamic Council and Riyadh-

located World Muslim Council recently for not having done enough in

that direction, similar attempts have been rebuffed in Europe after

the Madrid commuter-train bombings and China has rejected religious

donations.

 

The money is proposed to be canalised through nine Jamaat Ulema

organisations in the four countries, and the project is targeted to

take off in February 2005, although Saudi diplomats could not

explain how teaching "liberal Islam" in India or the other South-

Asian countries would alter negative European and generally Western

thinking about the religion.

 

Saudi Arabia but particularly the ruling family has come for severe

attack in the West, with a class-action suit filed against for 9/

11, while the Nobel laureate, V.S.Naipaul, has called for the

destruction of the kingdom for promoting jihad.

http://www.indiareacts.com/nati2.asp?recno=2938&ctg=Community