MAKKAH, 10 September 2005 — From the Royal Guest Palace overlooking the Holy Kaaba, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) yesterday began a journey to realize a new dream.
The three-day conference, convened at the behest of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, has gathered Islamic intellectuals and scholars from around the globe to examine the issues and challenges facing the Muslim world.
Secretary-General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish national, has energized the OIC, and with the call from King Abdullah, delegates are hopeful that the organization will be resurrected to have a positive impact on the current challenges the Muslim world faces.
“It is a crucial turning point in Muslim leaders’ quest for solutions to the problems facing them,” said Professor Ihsanoglu. “It is a laudable initiative, which, we hope, will mark today’s political thinking.”
He noted that King Abdullah had asked the Ummah to hold a meeting of leaders to discuss the issues of unity and joint action, and to put an end to the state of disunity and disintegration of the Muslim world.
Perhaps the most notable change at the OIC meeting is its enlistment of the Muslim intelligentsia to formulate a response to the critics from the Western world in a language they can understand.
The religious leadership has been unable to respond convincingly, which has led to great frustration in the ranks of the Ummah.
The delegates, who come from Turkey, Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan and India, bring a new perspective and contemporary approach to the issues.
The delegates meet today and tomorrow. After the deliberations, their recommendations will be drafted into a final document, including a workable plan of action for the coming decade, which will be submitted to the leaders of the Muslim world at the extraordinary summit meeting to be held by year’s end.
“It is important for us to know that this feeling is not a sealed fate that cannot be overcome,” Ihsanoglu said. “Rather, we should see in it a mere psychological state from which we should set ourselves free and return to a state of mutual confidence.
“We should bring back to life the sense of duty toward Islamic solidarity that has protected Islam and Muslims over the ages,” said Ihsanoglu.
He warned that to disregard the challenges facing the Muslim world today or to keep quiet about them in the hope that they would disappear by themselves was wishful thinking.
Noted Indian scholar and prominent journalist M.J. Akbar also issued a caution. “To blame the American neocons isn’t enough. The Muslim world will have to come up with convincing answers,” Akbar said. “The OIC must have two sets of priorities — tactical and strategic, but the immediate priority is to establish a common voice to win the battle for the mind.”
The secretary-general said that the recent manifestations of extremism that have begun to plague the Muslim world were a result of “backwardness, diseases as well as of economic and social crises that have taken root in our societies.” They were also a sign of displeasure with governance, exploitation and political injustices in some countries along with frustration over the Muslim world’s diminished position in the international balance of power.
“The political aggregates of Islamic issues, such as the Palestinian cause and the continuous interference by advanced countries in the internal affairs of our nations under the guise of reforms and of attempts to foist particular values on us, are other causes of the manifestation of extremism,” Ihsanoglu added.
He said these situations have been hijacked by some extremists in order to spread destruction across the land, to undermine Islam and Muslims, to spread hatred of Islam all over the world and to embark on acts at variance with the teachings of the religion and condemned by international law. “Therefore, the issue of combating extremism has come to assume priority, especially in our quest to correct the ideological defects plaguing the Muslim world today,” Ihsanoglu said.
“This imposes on us the need to find solutions, since there are multiple sources of religious rulings and authorities that the extremists have exploited to disseminate their misleading ideologies, and to consider establishing a supreme authority for Islamic rulings (fatawa) that would be the decision-making body in unadjudicated matters (nawazil),” the secretary-general added.
