Saudis for 4,500 madrasas in South Asia

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Publication: Newsinsight.net
Date: September 13, 2004
URL: http://www.indiareacts.com/nati2.asp?recno=2938

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.
 

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