CAIRO — Egyptian Minister of Endowments (Awqaf) Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa inaugurated Jan. 20, on behalf of Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly, the International Awqaf Academy (IAA), a training institute for imams and preachers in 6th of October City in Giza governorate. The event was attended by Egyptian and international figures concerned with renewing Islamic discourse.

Gomaa said in his speech, “The IAA is a starting point toward moving forward with the call to renew Islamic discourse in order to face an intellectual stalemate and extremism.”

The IAA was built on an area of 11,000 square meters (2.7 acres) at a cost of 100 million Egyptian pounds ($5.6 million), funded by the Ministry of Endowments and fitted with modern equipment and foreign language labs, so imams can communicate with those in the West, as well as computer labs.

Among the international figures attending the inauguration was Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs Sheikh Abdul Latif al-Sheikh. Sheikh said during the ceremony that the IAA is a great scientific foundation to establish the correct understanding of religion, and that the Saudi Institute of Imams and Preachers would launch training courses in cooperation with the IAA, although he did not specify whether these courses would be held in Saudi Arabia or Egypt.