Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 19/11/2013
Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) laid stressed on the need to face up to the attempts made by some to capitalize on their sectarian affiliations to achieve political goals and to transform their sectarian beliefs into an ideology, which thus creates sectarian strife occasioning a dangerous rift between Muslims and undermining their unity. In a statement, delivered on his behalf by Amb. Habib Kabachi, OIC director of political affairs, at the twenty-first session of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy’s Conference, held in Riyadh on 18 November, 2013, the Secretary General said that on account of these reasons, it is incumbent upon us today to put in greater efforts to combat the phenomenon of sectarian strife through a better defined relation between politics and sectarian affiliation, and not to utilize the latter as an ideological excuse for political control. On another hand, Ihsanoglu said that the International Islamic Fiqh Academy has made a substantial contribution, as it still does, towards enlightening Muslims about the need to shun bigotism and extremism and rather to spread moderation in accordance with the resolutions issued by the Third Extraordinary Summit which was held in Makkah Al Mukarramah in 2005 and which mandated the Secretary General to restructure the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in such a way that it may be apt to properly interact with the new international conditions and the great challenges facing the Islamic world. The Secretary General added that the Ten-Year Program of Action as adopted by the Extraordinary Summit included the principles and the targeted reforms sought by the Academy, and pointed out that the OIC Secretary General had set up a committee of Muslim jurisprudents which saw to the development and restructuring of the Academy and which endeavoured to affect a rapprochement between the different Islamic doctrines in their constructive and beneficial richness. Ihsanoglu also laid particular stress in his statement on the imperative need to highlight the necessity of facing up to the phenomenon of internecine killings among Muslims in the name of Jihad and the need for the International Islamic Fiqh Academy’s meeting to put in a dedicated effort to enlighten the Muslim public opinion on the dangers of such a destructive drift given the permission which it gives to shed the blood of fellow Muslims and to violate their honours, based on a total misunderstanding of the concept of jihad.
