Ag APPMAKKAH: Prime Minister Imran Khan has termed Islamophobia the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) collective failure and lamented the Western world’s equating Islam with terrorism — which has done a “tremendous disservice” to the Muslim community.“Religion has nothing to do with terrorism,” the Prime Minister said in his address at the 14th Islamic Summit of the OIC here. “No religion allows the killing of innocent human beings… This has led to Islamophobia.”Saudi Arabia’s King Salman chaired the session themed “Hand in Hand toward the Future”, which brought together the leaders of OIC member states to evolve a unified stance on the ongoing issues and events in the Muslim world. On their arrival at the venue, King Salman received the guests, including Prime Minister Khan.Khan said: “The moment that is referred to define terrorism, the people in the West cannot distinguish between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim.” He added: “Suspicions have been raised against the whole Muslim world.”The shooting of 50 Muslims in two New Zealand mosques happened because they could not understand that “Islam has nothing to do with terrorism”, he said. Khan added: “Before 9/11, around 80 per cent of suicide attacks were carried out by the Tamil Tigers but no one blamed Hinduism for that.”Religion had nothing to do with that because it was a political struggle, he said. In the Second World War, when the Japanese kamikaze pilots blew themselves up on American ships, no one had blamed their religion for it.Besides Islamophobia, he said, the OIC’s inability also led to delegitimising the Muslim political freedom struggles which were termed “Islamic radicalism”.He also decried the blasphemous acts against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the Western world, “which is the failure of the OIC for not being able to explain to them the love and affection the Muslims have for the Holy Prophet”. He said: “How he (PBUH) lives in our heart. It is up to us to explain to the Western people the amount of pain they cause us when they ridicule or mock our Holy Prophet [PBUH].”He added: “In the West, the people do not treat religion like the Muslims treat Islam. They have a totally different attitude to the religion. I would like to say from this platform that in the forums like the United Nations and the forums like the European Union, we must explain to them that they cannot hurt the sentiments of 1.3 billion people under the garb of freedom of expression.”Khan said the Western world dealt with the issue of Holocaust sensitively as the Jewish community had successfully explained to them that any misinterpretation of the Holocaust gave them pain. But they lack that sensitivity when they talked about the Holy Quran and the Holy Prophet (PBUH).The people of Kashmir, he said, had been carrying out their political struggle for freedom but after 9/11, it was also dubbed “Islamic radicalism and terrorism”. Similarly, he added, Israel started oppressing Palestinians, calling their freedom movement as “Islamic terrorism”. “Therefore, the Muslim world must use the OIC platform to delink terrorism with Islam,” he stressed.The Prime Minister said the Muslim world was not paying much attention to science and technology despite being on the verge of another industrial revolution with new technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain coming in. “We must not be left behind again… We as a Muslim world must spend more of our resources in strengthening ourselves in this field. We must pay more attention to quality education in universities.”Khan said the OIC, which was also observing its 50 years of establishment, came into being when the Palestinian Muslims were deprived of their homes, and human and democratic rights. He reiterated there was no solution to the Palestine issue except for the two-state solution. East Jerusalem must become the capital for the Palestinian people and Golan Heights must be returned as per the 1976 borders as agreed by the international community, he said. Similarly, he added, the people of Kashmir had not been given their right to self-determination as had been guaranteed by the UN Security Council’s resolutions.The people of Kashmir, he said, had recently suffered a lot of oppression and urged the Muslim world to stand against the ongoing oppression in the Muslim world.Later on Saturday, Prime Minister Khan returned to Pakistan. On the sidelines of the summit, the Prime Minister held meetings with King Salman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah El-Sisi and Bosnian President Sefik Dzaferovic. The Prime Minister also performed Umrah in Makkah and paid respects at the Roza-e-Rasool (PBUH) in Medina.
06-02-2019, 08:34 PM
Islamophobia, blasphemy OIC?s failure: Imran
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