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  • 2012-12-09 (xsd:date)
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  • Mosque Restoration (fr)
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  • In November 2010, Atlanta television station WSB ran a news segment expressing outrage that U.S. taxpayers were funding the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish mosques in Muslim countries. More than two years later, pointers to that news report continue to circulate on the Internet and prompt inquiries about whether the information contained therein is true: Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2012] The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and operates in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe as an independent agency that provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States by extend[ing] a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country. USAID works in such diverse areas as the promotion and development of agriculture and food security, education, environmental efforts, and safe water and sanitation facilities. USAID efforts also at times include the preservation, restoration, or refurbishment of structures that have a social, cultural, or historical importance in the areas where they are located. The WSB report mentions a 1,300-year-old Egyptian mosque that was almost flooded by contaminated sewer water that is one of many ancient Cairo mosques and churches that were saved from destruction by the U.S. taxpayers. It is true that USAID provided about $2.3 million to help protect the Saleh Talai Mosque in Cairo from rising groundwater contaminated with sewage that had been plaguing the site for decades, making the area safe for tourists and religious visitors. However, that mosque wasn't specifically targeted for preservation due to its religious significance; its restoration was part of a much larger program to revamp flood control and sewage systems throughout Cairo, a project which ran from 1984 to 2006 and encompassed the preservation of many different threatened historical structures, including an ancient Roman Tower, a Greek Orthodox Church, and the Amr Ebn El Aas Mosque (the first mosque in Egypt). The WSB report also states that millions more dollars have been sent to places like Cyprus. USAID did spend about $5 million to preserve the Hala Sultan Tekke mosque in Cyrus, but that amount covered the initial phase of a renovation project which also included the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Apostolos Andreas and was completed back in 2002: As mentioned in the WSB report, USAID has provided computers and Internet access for imams and mosques in countries such as Mali and Tajikistan to assist them in (among other pursuits) championing USAID development activities in their areas. WSB's claim that the State Department is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to save mosques overseas appears to be something of an exaggeration. The costs of all the mosque-related projects listed on the State Department's web site which were ongoing in 2010 don't add up to nearly that much; the hundreds of millions of dollars figure is reachable only if one totals expenditures going back many years and/or includes the full costs of programs which only partially involved the refurbishment of mosques (such as the above-mentioned Cairo sewage project). (en)
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