RIYADH, 14 November 2006 — The Shoura Council yesterday urged the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance to assign a legal accountant to compile a report including specific financial details of the ministry’s endowments, its spending, investments and total assets.
The council said the report would be included in the annual financial report submitted by the Ministry of Finance to the Council of Ministers.
The head of the council’s Islamic and Judicial Affairs Committee, Ibrahim Al-Ibrahim, refused to comment, saying the ministry had informed the council that it would increase efforts to include more specific details about endowments in future reports.
Council members yesterday decided to discuss the matter in a vote of 95 to 21 voices. Member Abdullah Al-Thafeeri earlier requested the council to look into endowments and how the ministry utilizes them.
Several members said the council should discuss whether profits from the endowments remained with the ministry for future spending or were sent to the Ministry of Finance.
The Islamic Affairs Committee said it would contact the ministry and submit a response in another session.
The council yesterday turned down three proposals for discussion, among which was a proposal to unify the call to prayer (Azan) in mosques within the same neighborhood.
A proposal, submitted by Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Dukhayil, urged the council to ask the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to unify the prayer calls in neighborhoods so residents would not be confused by calls made at different times. The proposal also included a request for the ministry to look into the voice quality of the muezzin (the man who calls the prayer), noting that the Azan and the good voice of a muezzin often have a positive impact on whether Muslims attend prayers in mosques.
“Some of these muezzins are from foreign countries and cannot even pronounce Arabic sounds correctly,” Al-Dukhayil told the council.
“Unifying the prayer call would also reduce the noise pollution which results from many mosques having the same Azan at different times,” he concluded.
The proposal was dropped when it failed to get a majority vote in favor.
Shubaili Al-Qarni proposed that mosques in areas which no longer have large numbers of residents must be closed down. “In old districts, there are certain mosques where only the imam and muezzin attend prayers and they do so simply to guarantee that they remain on the ministry’s payroll,” he said.
The Islamic Affairs Committee replied to Al-Qarni that the ministry had received directives regarding mosques and preferred not to discuss the matter of closing them down even if only a handful of people attended prayers. “What the ministry can do is transfer the imam and muezzin to other mosques,” the head of the committee, Al-Ibrahim, said.
A second proposal by Al-Qarni urged the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to speed up the identification of the duties of imams of mosques and also increase their qualifications. The committee decided not to discuss the matter, saying that it had been sent to the king and a response was awaited.
Another proposal, submitted by Yousef Al-Maimani, suggested that the endowment accounts of deceased individuals be transferred to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs for investment instead of remaining frozen. The Islamic Committee said the money in such cases belonged to the guardian of the family or the guardian of the children as had been pointed out by the Council of Ministers.
