KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — The federal government should consider building an Al Quran theme park that could potentially make Malaysia the centre for learning the holy book, a lawmaker with Islamist opposition party PAS said today.

Bachok MP Ahmad Marzuk Shaary said Putrajaya should consider investing the RM30 million set aside to establish an Al Quran printing centre in a theme park, which would serve the dual purpose of drawing tourists and spreading the teachings of Islam.

“In Malaysia, we already have Legoland, water theme parks like Sunway and Tambun. The time has come for us to bring the world’s population to Malaysia to learn the Al Quran in the form of an Al Quran Theme Park Malaysia,” he said in Parliament when debating the 2015 Budget.

“I propose that this Al Quran theme park be divided into 114 parts just like the surah in the Al Quran. It will become the largest tourism and Al Quran learning destination in the world,” the PAS lawmaker added.

When tabling the 2015 Budget earlier, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced a RM30 million allocation to build the world’s second-largest Al Quran printing centre in Putrajaya.

The allocation will be disbursed over three years, and the centre — which will be second in size to a similar centre in Saudi Arabia — is projected to print up to a million copies of the holy scripture for global distribution annually.