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Muslim leaders gather in Malaysia for Islamic summit: Mahathir denies talk of new Islamic bloc

SHAFAQNA- The Kuala Lumpur 2019 Summit started work on Thursday morning with the participation of heads of the states of the Islamic countries as well as a large number of Muslim elites and figures. Mahathir Mohamad in his opening address tried to defuse speculation that the meeting aims to build a new Islamic bloc.

The leaders of several countries in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia, are not attending the four-day meeting which Mahathir insisted was an attempt to understand why Islam, the Muslims and their countries were in a state of crisis, straitstimes mentioned.

Muslims should find ways to counter dollar dominance

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during his speech at the KL Summit 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, called on the World of Islam to find a solution to be emancipated from the US financial system and the dollar dominance.

The Iranian president called for interaction and cooperation among the Islamic countries to turn the World of Islam into a great powerful bloc in the international arena as the newly-emerged challenges have been presented internationally to the World of Islam. To achieve this end, the president proposed three executive plans to the KL Summit.

At the summit, President Rouhani mentioned the most important emerging challenges of the Muslims world at national and international levels, cooperation and interaction among Islamic countries for turning the World of Islam into a powerful bloc in international relation, Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

KL Summit a small start in addressing Muslim issues

The Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 is not meant to discriminate or isolate any countries but only attempts to come up with proposals and solutions that are acceptable and workable for the Muslim world, says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the summit chairman.

Mahathir said that the objectives of the summit were not to discuss religion but instead the state of affairs in the Muslim world, which he described as in “a state of crisis”.

“Everywhere we see Muslim countries being destroyed, their citizens forced to flee their countries, forced to seek refuge in non-Muslim countries.Many thousands die during their fight and many more were refused asylum”.

“On the other hand, we see Muslims perpetrating violent acts, killing innocent victims, men, women, children, the sick and the incapacitated,” he added.

Mahathir explained the summit needed to discuss how Islamophobia is generated.

“We may even find solutions, if not to end these catastrophes at least to awaken the Islamic world, the ummah of the need to recognise the problems and their causes,” he said.

He said that the Muslim world also had to deal with fratricidal wars, civil wars, failed governments and many other catastrophes that have plagued the Muslim ummah and Islam without any serious effort being made to end or reduce them and to rehabilitate the religion.

“We have seen other countries devastated by the Second World War not only recovering quickly but growing strongly to become developed. But a few Muslim countries seem unable even to be governed well, much less to be developed and prosper”.

“Is it our religion that is in the way? Is it that Islam is against worldly success and becoming a developed country? Or is it the Muslims themselves who prevent their countries from being governed well, from being developed,” he asked.

“Understanding the problems and their causes may enlighten us on the way to overcome or mitigate the disasters that have befallen the ummah,” explained Dr Mahathir.

The event was also attended by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The four-day summit themed ‘The Role of Development in Achieving National Sovereignty’, aims to, among others, discuss and find new solutions to problems facing the Muslim world as well as to improve the wellbeing of Muslims and Muslim countries in general.

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