After growing criticism that Gulf countries have not received any Syrian refugees or helped with the ongoing humanitarian crisis – criticism that is somewhat oversimplified – there is a new uproar over a supposed Saudi offer to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees that the country has agreed to resettle.
Famed Western atheist activist Richard Dawkins even weighed in on the reports Thursday, calling the offer "sick."
While the Saudi offer has been widely reported in Western media, the vast majority of the reports cite a single source, the German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . And FAZ itself doesn't cite any Saudi or German officials, but merely noted that Lebanese paper Ad-Diyar reported the news last week.
Ad-Diyar reported that Saudi Arabia would build 200 mosques and donate $200 million, though not making it clear if the $200 million was for the mosques or additional aid. However, the paper merely cited an unspecified "Committee of Muslim Scholars" as saying that the Emir of Mecca had made the pledge.
Oddly enough, this pledge to build 200 mosques doesn't appear in any Arabic-language media other than Ad-Diyar.
Just for reference, Ad-Diyar is run by Charles Ayoub, who is known for his support for the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad, whose overthrowal the Saudi government has advocated for since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War.