Grants for mullahs

Baku / 18.12.17 / Turan: Starting from 2018, priests at mosques will receive official salaries through the new Foundation for Propagation of Spiritual Values, Mubariz Gurbanli, chairman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations, told journalists today. At present, the issue of the circle of persons to whom wages and salaries will be paid is being discussed.

Salaries will be paid by the appointed Office of Muslims of the Caucasus to imams of mosques, their deputies and assistants. The submission on the payment of salaries to these persons will be made by the CMB itself. The Foundation for Propagation of Spiritual Values ​​was established this year by order of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

According to Gurbanli, the Fund will operate from January 2018 and salaries will be paid from February. In the near future, the head of the Fund and a member of the Board of Trustees will be announced. The CMB appoints priests in about 500 of the country's 2000 mosques.

According to the idea of ​​the authors of the idea of ​​financing clergy at the expense of public funds, this will stimulate them to educate themselves, to fight against obscurantism.

However, independent observers see this as another motive - the establishment of financial dependence of priests on the state and thus ensuring their loyalty to the authorities. -06C--