Saudi Arabia will build a massive Islamic center complete with a university and a mosque in Afghanistan, an Afghan minister said yesterday, describing the project as “grand and unique.”
Estimated to cost up to $100 million, the center on a hilltop in central Kabul will house up to 5,000 students, Dayi-Ul Haq Abed, the acting Haj and religious affairs minister told AFP.
It will be named after Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the minister added. “The agreement was signed last week in Jeddah. The construction will start next year, in a couple of months or so,” Abed said.
The mosque, similar to the Faisal Mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad that was also built by Saudi Arabia in 1980s, will hold 15,000 worshippers at a time.
The minister said the center would be jointly run by the Saudi and Afghan ministries of religious affairs. Other universities in Afghanistan are run by the Higher Education Ministry.
KSA to fund $ 100 m Kabul Islamic center
