01-Contents Page.indd - The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre

• Cut the funding power of the morality police.
© Hassan Ammar / AP
• Convened a global interfaith summit in 2008 and subsequently issued the Madrid Declaration,
which calls for tolerance between religions and a culture of peace.
• The first Saudi monarch in 51 years to address the UN General Assembly and the first
reigning Saudi monarch to have met with a pope, Pope Benedict XVI in November 2007.
• Donates to all poor in the world. He donated $50 million in cash and $10 million-worth
of relief materials for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China and pledged a $1 billion
donation towards the reconstruction of the Palestinian coastal territory during the Israeli
war on Gaza.
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