OIC’s stock taking of threats to Muslims

Monday, July 30, 2012 - OIC has taken a very timely action on the initiative of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to convene an extra ordinary two-day summit on the 14th of August in Makkah. The conference will have important issues on its agenda including situation in the Muslim world like the threats of fragmentation and sedition.

The conference should serve as a wake up call to the Muslim Ummah to take serious notice of the issues confronting it. In fact King Abdullah had been paying special attention to issues of the Muslim world and earlier took similar major initiative to promote culture of inter-faith harmony by organising three Mega conferences. According to OIC Secretariat statement, the Saudi King has asked it to organise the special summit to examine the situation in many Islamic countries and to intensify efforts to confront the challenges. After King Abdullah’s initiative, the OIC is actively engaged to prepare the ground for the high profile summit. Pakistan is being represented by President Asif Ali Zardari and he is understood to be busy in necessary preparations and consulting the concerned foreign officials so that Islamabad could contribute in the all important summit. The conference has an agenda of which contours are visible and it is a fact that there is fragmentation in the Muslim world and more than ten countries have been dismembered and others are being badly bruised. In some other countries, the foreign agenda is being unfolded and that is the major source of concern. Therefore it is the right time for the Muslim countries to sit together, setting aside their bilateral differences, and devise a far reaching strategy encompassing all the issues and taking a firm stand that the OIC would not allow others to interfere in the affairs of the Muslims. The event should not turn out to be a customary gathering but some practical measures should come out of it. We are confident that the Secretary General, Ekmeleddin Ýhsanoðlu, a professor of repute and an intellectual of par excellence would devote all his attention for coming out with a productive Declaration at the end of the conference that must give some hope to the Muslims for a better future.