The Generalitat subsidized a congress in Arabic and Spanish on miracles of the Quran as a promotion of Catalan
The Catalan Sharia bank (CoopHalal) organized the religious meeting at a mosque with public money to promote Catalan.
Advertising in Catalan for the justification of the grant.
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The Generalitat granted a subsidy of 2025. 5,686 euros to Centre for Studies and Research in Islamic Economics and Finance (CEIEFI) linked to Najia Lotfi of the Islamic banking CoopHalal. The grant was part of the Language Policy call aimed at promoting the use of Catalan, and was justified by a project of “strategic Catalanisation” of the entity and with the presence of the Catalan in a supposed International Congress on Islamic Finance.
But the public record of the activity shows a very different reality. Islamic finance does not appear as an autonomous congress, but as a session within the II Congress of Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an and Sunnah, an event centred on the relationship between the Qur'an, science and Islamic law. In addition, the Islamic economics session was explicitly announced. in Arabic and Spanish, although the grant had been awarded to promote the use of Catalan.
The curious thing is that The Generalitat logo only appears in the Catalan-language advertising included in the grant justification documentation.. In contrast, in the local outreach materials in Spanish, the institutional backing of Language Policy is not visible. This reinforces the impression that Catalan served primarily as a justificatory veneer before the administration, rather than as the actual language for the public presentation of the activity.
A finance conference that doesn't appear to be a conference
On paper, the project had considerable ambition. The CEIEFI claimed that the 6th International Congress of Islamic Finance 2025 would be one of the main platforms for applying the grant and that Catalan would have a prominent presence “in all areas of activity”: presentations, documentation, signage, digital communications, welcome materials and interactions between participants.. It also committed to publishing and distributing the programme in Catalan, preparing dossiers, credentials and visual materials in Catalan, and using it as the language for reception and outreach. And all this at a congress described as ’international«, where people from all over the world are expected to attend.
The project envisaged creating new training materials in Catalan, a bilingual Catalan–Spanish glossary of around 150 terms on Islamic finance, educational videos on ethical Islamic banking and halal contracts, and between six and ten videos for Instagram, YouTube or other channels. It also announced a Active campaign on the CEIEFI social media with posts in Catalan. Throughout the entire project implementation period, with a minimum of two intensive weeks before and after the congress.
But the localised public trace does not show this deployment. What appears is not an autonomous congress on Islamic finance, but the II Congress of Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an and Sunnah, where Islamic economics is presented as just one session within a much broader religious programme. And this session, far from being presented as an activity to promote Catalan, was advertised as an activity “in Arabic and Spanish”. And, indeed, the video published of the session was in Spanish and Arabic.
Catalan for justification, Arabic and Spanish for dissemination.
The call's terms and conditions were not intended to fund religious conferences or confessional activities. The purpose of the line was to promote specific measures to encourage the use of the Catalan language in Catalonia. In fact, The official procedure requires that the subsidised activities be carried out in Catalan., as well as the communications linked to its realisation.
Furthermore, the general terms and conditions of the OSIC state that beneficiary entities must respect equal treatment and the dignity of the individual in the development of the subsidised activity, and that An activity that discriminates on the grounds of sex cannot be the subject of assistance.. They also require that they have not exercised or tolerated discriminatory practices on the grounds of sex or gender and to comply with the Law on the Effective Equality of Women and Men. The family photo of the congress celebrated at a mosque in Cornellà It does not exactly reflect a normal coexistence between men and women:
The CEIEFI application documentation — to which the percepcions.cat team has had access — states that the project was intended to reinforce the presence of Catalan in materials, spaces and content linked to the congress. But the public trace found shows, above all, a layer of communication in Catalan about a religious event. with primary distribution in Spanish and Arabic. And in this context, the presence of images showing a separation between men and women adds another element of contradiction between the grant's administrative language and the actual nature of the activity.
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