The fund, which has been given the name ‘Iman’, meaning ‘Faith’, is part of a plan that will run until the year 2017 to help the development of religious culture in the central Asian country through the education system.

The head of Kyrgyzstan’s religious affairs department, Orozbek Moldaliyev, stated that the quality of religious education in the country needed to be improved, adding that no religion teaches terrorism or separatism.

Kyrgyz theologian Kadir Malikov also stated that the fund will play a role to help raise Muslim scholars to counter the propaganda of ill-informed preachers.

The vast majority of people in Kyrgyzstan are Muslims, as 86.3% of the country's population are followers of Islam.

Source: World Bulletin