As many as 81,559 mosques, representing about 82 percent of all mosques in the Kingdom, are without any maintenance or cleaning contracts, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs said.

According to a report in Al-Madina daily on Sunday, the ministry said of a total of 98,704 mosques in the Kingdom, only 17,145 are covered with repair and cleaning contracts.

It did not, however, make it clear if the mosques that do not have maintenance or cleaning contracts belong to the ministry or if it has any plans to sign such contracts for them in the future.

The Shoura (Consultative) Council, in a recent debate, asked the ministry to activate the endowment fund set up for the purpose by a decision of the Council of Ministers about 13 years ago.

The Cabinet asked the ministry to spend on the repair and cleaning of the mosques from this fund whose resources will come from donations of philanthropists and income from endowments.

Many mosques were built by philanthropists who would later hand them over to the endowments authority to operate and maintain.

The Kingdom is replete with mosques with many of them are so close to each other that some of them have just a handful of congregates.

The Shoura Council asked for regulating the construction of mosques according to the density of population in each residential district.

SOURCE : SAUDIGAZETTE