CAIRO: A record 1,200 new mosques opened across Egypt this year, according to the Ministry of Awqaf.

Ayman Omar, an undersecretary at the ministry, told Arab News that some of the 1,200 new mosques were financed by the ministry, while others were privately built under government supervision.

He added that since September 2020 2,712 new mosques have been opened in Egypt, while a further 404 have been refurbished. A total of 9,600 mosques have now been built or renovated at a cost of 10.2 billion Egyptian pounds ($400 million) since President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi assumed office in June 2014.  

Sheikh Rafi Al-Sayed, a ministry official, said 2,451 mosques are now affiliated with the Awqaf Ministry — 1,391 of which are “makeshift.”

“This changes the famous saying that Cairo is ‘the city of a thousand minarets,’ as we now have more than that,” he added.

Apart from overseeing the nation’s mosques, the ministry also carries out charitable work. It spent more than EGP330 million on community service in 2022 alone, Al-Sayed claimed.

A recent statement from the ministry said that it had spent EGP30 million on assisting 1,000 girls from poor families and EGP20 million on providing fertile cattle to small breeders.