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$100 Million Wahhabi Mosque In Kabul Will Undermine Entire War Effort
Comment of Peter Chamberlain
Saudis move to bolster influence in
Afghanistan with hilltop complex due to be completed two years after
Nato withdrawal
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Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
- guardian.co.uk,
The new mosque in Kabul will be similar to the Faisal
mosque (above) in Islamabad that was also built by Saudi Arabia in
1980s. Photograph: Mian Khursheed/Reuters
Saudi Arabia is
funding a $100m mosque and Islamic education centre in Kabul that will
teach thousands of students a year and help bolster Saudi influence in Afghanistan as
the west withdraws.
Work on the sprawling 30-hectare (75-acre) hilltop complex is due to
be completed by early 2016, when Afghan security forces will likely be
trying to hold off the Taliban with little Nato support.
“This Islamic centre has several aims, one is to ensure good
relations between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia,” said the acting Saudi
minister of hajj and Islamic affairs, Dr Dayi al-Haq Abed.
Afghanistan’s neighbours and allies have been jostling for power in
the country for years; spending millions of dollars on aid, education,
TV and radio channels.
Efforts to secure a stake in Afghanistan’s future are intensifying
with the 2014 Nato withdrawal deadline looming, and a presidential
election to chose the first new leader in more than a decade set for
April that year.
But Abed said the centre was a decade-old project conceived by Saudi
Arabia’s late King Fahd, not a hasty effort to bolster the Gulf state’s
role in Afghan affairs.
“It’s not a political centre, its an independent centre,” he told the
Guardian.
“This centre will never try to work against the interests of
Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. It is firstly a place for prayer and
secondly for education.”
A university with a library, lecture halls, gym and dormitories for
5,000 students will sit on a hill overlooking Kabul, next to the tomb of
the last Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. The nearby mosque will hold
up to 15,000 worshippers, making it one of the largest in the country.
Saudi Arabia has been one of the key players in the turbulent decades
since the Soviet invasion at the end of 1979, influencing both religionand politics
in Afghanistan.
The Saudis were a major funder of mujahideen in Afghanistan, sending
millions of dollars to Pakistan-based groups to pay for weapons and
other supplies. When civil war broke out it helped sponsor a peace deal,
even bringing top Afghan commanders to Mecca to swear they would
respect the agreement – although it fell apart almost immediately.
After the rise of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia was one of only three
countries to recognise the hardline regime, but since its fall in 2001
it has remained a generous donor to the western-backed government of
Hamid Karzai. More recently it helped lay the groundwork for efforts to
negotiate an end to the war. Saudi diplomats have kept a lower profile
than others though.
The new centre will likely have a large pool of applicants. Religious
schools mostly funded by private individuals and Saudi institutions
have spread the kingdom’s strict Wahhabi branch of Islam inside
Afghanistan and Pakistan – and all Afghans hope to travel there on the
hajj pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime.
The Afghan government has donated the land, and basic engineering
work is already completed. A joint committee of Saudi diplomats and
Afghan officials from the ministry of Islamic affairs will oversee the
centre once it is up and running.
“Its a big achievement for the Afghanistan government and the
ministry of hajj and Islamic affairs,” Abed said, adding that he hoped
it would pave the way for more Afghan students to further their
education in Saudi Arabia.
Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri
