Cairo: According to the Ministry of Akaf, a record 1,200 new mosques were built in Egypt this year.

According to Ayman Omar, an undersecretary at the ministry, some of the 1,200 new mosques were paid for by the ministry while others were built privately and under government oversight.

According to him, since September 2020, 404 mosques have been renovated in Egypt and 2,712 new ones have been opened. Since the appointment of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in June 2014, a total of 9,600 mosques have been built or renovated at a cost of 10.2 billion. Arab Egyptian pound ($400 million).

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According to Sheikh Rafi al-Sayed, of the 2,451 mosques affiliated with the Ministry of Aqaf, 1,391 are "temporary".

This turns the saying that Cairo is "the city of a thousand minarets" because there are more of them now than before, he continued.

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The ministry oversees the country's mosques in addition to performing charitable work. According to Al-Sayed, it spent more than EGP330 million on community service in 2022 alone.

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According to a recent statement from the ministry, it spent EGP30 million to help 1,000 girls from low-income families and EGP20 million to give fertile cattle to small breeders.