Saudi Arabia will build a massive Islamic centre 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 centre on a hilltop in central Kabul will house up to 5,000 students, Dayi-Ul Haq Abed, the acting Haj and religious affairs minister, was quoted as saying in a report in our sister publication, the Gulf Daily News.

It will be named after Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, he added.

The agreement was signed last week in Jeddah. The mosque, similar to the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, that was also built by Saudi Arabia in 1980s, will hold 15,000 worshippers at a time.