About 24,000 ‘madrassas’ in Pakistan are funded by Saudi Arabia which has unleashed a “tsunami of money” to “export intolerance”, a top American senator has said adding that the US needs to end its effective acquiescence to the Saudi sponsorship of radical Islamism. Senator Chris Murphy said Pakistan is the best example of where money coming from Saudi Arabia is funnelled to religious schools that nurture hatred and terrorism.
“In 1956, there were 244 madrassas in Pakistan. Today, there are 24,000. These schools are multiplying all over the globe. These schools, by and large, don’t teach violence. They aren’t the minor leagues for al-Qaeda or ISIS. But they do teach a version of Islam that leads very nicely into an anti-Shia, anti-Western militancy.
“Those 24,000 religious schools in Pakistan — thousands of them are funded with money that originates in Saudi Arabia,” Murphy said in an address yesterday to the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American think-tank.
