1 billion Iraqi dinars to reconstruct Sulaimaniya’s mosques

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: A total of one billion Iraqi dinars have been spent for reconstructing the mosques in Sulaimaniya in 2008, the general director of the Awqaf (Religious Affairs) Ministry in Kurdistan said on Thursday. “Around 25 mosques in Sulaimaniya province benefited from the amounts,” the ministry said in a statement quoting Jamal Khedr as saying. There are around 500 mosques in Sulaimaniya mosques. The modern city of Sulaimaniya, 364 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, was founded in 1748 by a Kurdish prince known as Ibrahim Pasha Baban who named it for his father Sulaiman Pasha. Since being founded as the capital of a powerful Kurdish principality it has grown to about 1,800,000 people. Sulaimaniya, known as Zamwa prior to its founding, is the cultural center of the Sorani-speaking Kurds and an important economic centre for Iraqi Kurdistan. SH (P) 1