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Neuchâtel’s Mohamed Karmous (centre) receives a check from former Kuwaiti Ambassador to the UN Jamal Al-Ghunaim. In the background is the picture of the Emir.
Fabian Eberhardchief research
Mohammed, the prophet revered by Muslims, is said to have said: “Whoever builds a mosque for Allah’s sake, Allah will build him a house in paradise.”
The rulers of Kuwait can therefore look forward to a particularly large number of houses. Because the Emir and his followers have mosques built all over the world – including here. SonntagsBlick research shows how the small, rich Gulf state pays for Islamic centers in Switzerland.
At the center of the flow of money is a religious foundation based in Prilly VD. Her name: Wakef. Its purpose: construction, acquisition and renovation of Muslim places of worship in Switzerland. Arabic-language documents from Wakef describe several of the foundation’s projects in detail. These are major expansion measures for mosques in Biel BE, Le Locle NE and Freiburg.
Expensive renovation work on the Al-Badr Mosque in Le Locle is listed, for example. The Kuwaiti Awqaf Foundation, which is headed by the Minister for Religious Affairs in Kuwait, acts as the donor. Awqaf pays for mosques in many countries. According to the documents, the Kuwaiti Zakat House, the “house of alms”, is responsible for supervising the financing of the mosque in Le Locle.
In addition to the mosque in Le Locle, those in Biel and Freiburg probably also benefit from money from Kuwait. When asked about the support by SonntagsBlick, a spokesman for the Kuwaiti embassy in Bern explained: “The embassy confirms that the mosque projects are being financed by Kuwait’s state-related organizations.” The state of Kuwait and its affiliated organizations are actively involved in financing “humanitarian projects” worldwide.
It’s millions
It remains unclear how much money flows from Kuwait to Swiss mosques. Those responsible for Wakef did not want to comment on the Sunday view. The foundation still collects donations for the projects on its website. This, although some have probably already been completed. For example, the conversion of the Salah Eddine Mosque in Biel, for which Wakef is asking online for CHF 500,000.
The mosque project in Freiburg, a large mosque and a Koran school for children, is significantly more expensive. It will cost four million. According to the project description, one of the aims is to convince non-Muslims to convert to the Islamic faith.
The expansion of the Al-Badr Mosque in Le Locle is estimated at 1.5 million. The documents do not indicate whether the project has already been completed. According to the city, the last building application dates from 2019. It is not clear whether the Islamic Wakef Foundation is planning further work. A fundraiser for the expansion is still online.
The money from Kuwait may have been raised personally by the President of the Waadtländer Wakef Foundation: Mohamed Karmous, a busy Franco-Tunisian from Neuchâtel who is close to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. In 2007, the French secret service classified him as a “militant Islamist”.
Together with his wife Nadia, Karmous runs several associations and foundations in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. In 2019, the book “Qatar Papers” revealed how the two are supported by Qatar.
Based on confidential documents, two French journalists documented how Qatar co-financed the Islam Museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds NE with CHF 1.4 million. Nadia Karmous is the director of the museum.
The museum also benefited from funds from Kuwait. Photos available to SonntagsBlick show Mohamed Karmous receiving a check for CHF 140,000 from Kuwait’s then Ambassador to the UN, Jamal Al-Ghunaim, back in 2014. In the background is a picture of the authoritarian Emir of Kuwait.
There is no trace of transparency
Qatar also has a hand in Biel’s Salah Eddine Mosque. The building was bought with the support of the sheikhs. In a letter to a Qatari government-affiliated foundation, Mohamed Karmous thanked Wakef for the financial help. “Thanks to the generosity of the State of Qatar, we were able to buy the Salah Eddine Mosque.”
In the same letter, Karmous asks the Qataris for additional funds. The purchased building needs to be totally renovated. Apparently, Kuwait has now assumed the costs for this.
The financing of mosques by foreign actors is systematic. Because the Islamic associations in Switzerland often don’t raise the money for such buildings themselves, others step in. In addition to Qatar – and now Kuwait – there has also been evidence of money flows from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey for some time.
The Saudi royal family financed the Geneva mosque Petit-Saconnex with millions. Turkey pays dozens of imams in mosques across Switzerland.
However, the true extent of external financing remains mostly in the dark, despite a few well-known examples. Many mosque associations resist transparency. This also applies to the Wakef Foundation, which did not want to comment on the transfers from Kuwait to SonntagsBlick.
Islam critic Saïda Keller-Messahli has long warned that Kuwait is also pumping money into Islamic centers in Switzerland. She has sometimes been criticized for this by Islamic scholars, claiming that there is a lack of reliable evidence. Now the Kuwaiti embassy even officially confirms the money flows.
“Kuwait’s influence is at least as great as that of Qatar,” says Keller-Messahli. It’s about millions of francs for both of them, which benefit mosque associations, their Koran schools and their “so-called cultural activities”.
Keller-Messahli finds the support from the Persian Gulf highly problematic: “Who pays commands.” Since the 1960s, Islamists have repeatedly been involved in political power in Kuwait – both Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. The two Islamist groups hold power in Kuwait’s so-called “Islam sector,” which also includes the Awqaf Foundation, Zakat House and the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The institutions that are behind the expansion of the mosques in Switzerland.
The Islam critic: “By financially supporting mosques in Europe, they aim to Islamize society from below. They want to anchor political Islam in Switzerland, which is incompatible with democratic values.”
Keller-Messahli is not surprised that Mohamed Karmous from Neuchâtel is pulling the strings: “He is a key player in the Muslim Brotherhood in Switzerland.” Karmous has established a large network in this country that pretends to speak for the Muslim population of Switzerland. This network has close ties to the “pan-European organizational architecture” of the Muslim Brotherhood.