By NNN-Bernama
Kuala Krai, Kelantan (Malaysia) : The Malaysian federal government has promised to make opposition-held state of Kelantan an Islamic civilisation centre of distinction if the Barisan Nasional (BN) is returned to power in the state in the next general election.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said on Friday the first step towards empowering Islam was to build mosques because mosques were centres for developing Islam.
He said that although the BN had yet to govern Kelantan, the construction of mosques would continue to be given priority even if the coalition lost in the general election but if it won, the project to empower mosques would gather momentum.
“We hope to win because it would speed up the process of building mosques and the Islamic civilisation centre in Kelantan,” he said at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new mosque in An-Nur, Guchil.
He said that unlike the BN, PAS had ruled for 18 years in Kelantan, which is dubbed the Corridor of Mecca, and yet had not built a single mosque.
“There was an attempt to build a mosque in Rantau Panjang during the silver jubilee celebration last year but until now, the project has yet to be completed and is still abandoned. Where’s the Islam propagated by PAS if it can’t even build one mosque?” he said.
He likened Umno’s efforts to empower Islam to Prophet Muhammad’s struggle to develop the religion by building mosques before setting up an Islamic administration in Medina.
Najib was specially touched by the construction of the new An-Nur mosque because 40 years ago, the original mosque was built with an allocation approved by his father, Razak Hussein, who was then the deputy prime minister.
“I’m touched that 40 years after my father came to open the mosque, which at that time cost RM35,000 (US$10,654), what I (federal government) approve now is RM2.1 million (US$639,269) and I’m also the deputy prime minister now,” he said.