Othaimeen, Secretary-General of the King Faisal International Prize, cited Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali, president of the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank, and the Al-Hariri Foundation of Lebanon as the joint winners of the 2005 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam. He said Dr. Ali was awarded the prize in recognition of his achievements in the field of Islamic banking. As president of the IDB, he had not only consolidated the conformity of banking transactions with Islamic laws but also set an example of successful and modern Islamic banking. He also established a comprehensive infrastructure within the bank, including the Islamic bank portfolio, investment shares, Islamic investment institution, Islamic research and training institute, prize for Islamic economics and many others. In his acceptance speech, the IDB chief referred to the challenges facing the Islamic Ummah, both from within and outside. He said two of the major challenges were the attempt to misrepresent Islam as a "kernel of terrorism." "Another very important challenge is poverty and illiteracy that prevail in most Islamic countries, and the backwardness in different fields of science and technology, as revealed by current international and local economic statistics," he said. --MORE 1005 Local Time 0705 GMT
