Thailand may set up its first Islamic university by next year, a branch of Egypt's famed Al-Azhar University.
Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said support for the project had come from Egypt, Brunei, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
He said Thailand would provide financial backing but needed the support of Muslim countries in order to design the curriculum.
Work on setting up the university could start as early as September, said the minister, who was quoted by the Thai News Agency while on an official visit to Bahrain.
He said the establishment of an Al-Azhar campus in Thailand would promote the education of Thai Muslims.
Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Nor Matha - who is from southern Thailand - has been tasked to decide on the location of the campus.
Al-Azhar is a premier university offering both religious and secular study, as well as an eclectic blend of both.
A university of Al-Azhar's calibre, say officials, would provide a viable alternative for Muslim Thais who want to study secular subjects as well as their religious and cultural heritage.
Since renewed violence erupted in southern Thailand, schooling for Muslims has come into sharper focus.
The government has clamped down on Muslim ponoh schools in the south, which it sees as stressing religious and cultural differences and breeding militancy.
Thailand has hundreds of Islamic secondary schools but no Islamic university. Thousands of Muslims have gone abroad to study in countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the number of Islamic schools would be curtailed, and any not flying Thailand's flag would be seen as committing treason.
Muslim leaders, however, have denied that the schools encourage radicalism.
The Education Ministry has also directed all ponoh schools to register and teach the official curriculum.
Recently, Education Minister Adisai Bodhiramik complained that a number of children in the poorly-developed south were receiving religious rather than secular schooling.
There are several hundred ponoh schools in southern Thailand. Most of them fill gaps in the secular education system and cater to poor and disadvantaged families.
Some offer only religious teaching, while others incorporate secular teaching and the official curriculum.