Awqaf Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa underlined that the ministry has focused on renewing religious discourse and spreading moderate thought in line with directives of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
He made the remarks on Sunday in an interview with Board Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the Middle East News Agency (MENA) Ali Hassan.
He said Egypt – under the leadership of Sisi – has strongly restored its position in the religious affairs score at the international level.
He referred to the international conferences and meetings organized by the Supreme Council For Islamic Affairs as well as Egypt’s participation in events abroad.
He noted that the Egyptian University of Islamic Culture in Kazakhstan ranked number 1 among all Kazakh universities for religious studies.
Gomaa added that the Egyptian cultural center in Tanzania – which is affiliated to the Awqaf Ministry – was upgraded.
He noted that nine international conferences and six international contests were held to promote Egypt’s pioneering role in disseminating the moderate religious discourse.
He added that 3,621 scholarships were secured for students from various world countries.
Gomaa added that the ministry printed, translated and distributed 260 new books among embassies, international forums, universities and foreign reporters. The books focused on means of ditching extremist thought and working up minds to understand the Quran as well as sayings and teachings of Prophet Muhammad.
He added that the ministry also worked on teaching these books to imams and training them.
He noted that the ministry is implementing a training program – which is the first of its kind – entitled “thinking imam” which aims at upgrading preaching and research thought of imams.
He added that the ministry is also applying several high-level training programs under national partnerships with an aim to have a generation of imams who can have a say in explaining the upright teachings of Islam.
He said the ministry has an international training vision and is collaborating with other Arab and sisterly countries to implement joint training programs, referring to training Sudanese preachers.
He added that the social and financial conditions of imams and those working at the ministry were improved in accordance with the directives of President Sisi.
Meanwhile, he thanked President Sisi for giving due attention to mosques, especially historical ones.
He noted that the ministry established 1,500 new mosques since August 2020 to August in course at EGP 3 billion in addition to renovating 200 mosques.
He noted that the ministry managed to increase revenues of the Egyptian Endowments Authority to reach EGP 1.8 billion in the 2020-2021 FY against 629.634 million in the 2014-2015 FY.
As for the sacrifice vouchers (Adahi Sukuk) project, he noted that a sum of EGP 142 million was collected from Adahi Sukuk project, thus upping the number of beneficiaries of this project to 1.450 million families.
He added that the ministry has also spent about EGP 1.781 billion for serving the society.
He added that the ministry contributed EGP 100 million to the decent housing initiative under a cooperation protocol with the Social Solidarity Ministry.
He added that the ministry allocated EGP 50 million for supporting irregular workers and EGP 60 million for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
The ministry also earmarked EGP 30 million for furnishing 1,000 apartments for needy families, EGP 20 million for the Noor Hayat initiative, EGP 20 million for the charitable investment fund for supporting disabled people, EGP 32.609 million for building 100 homes in the Red Sea governorates in tandem with the Ministry of Housing, and EGP 16.300 million for upgrading 270 homes in North Sinai.
He added that the ministry allocated EGP 25 million for issuing Aman insurance certificates for female breadwinners in collaboration with the National Council for Women.
The ministry also contributed EGP 50 million to Ataa charitable fund for people with disabilities, he said.
He added that the ministry spent over EGP 108 million in the health care domain.
The minister also underlined the importance of promoting various state institutions.
Source: State Information Service Egypt