Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday, while terming the phenomena of blasphemy and Islamophobia the OIC’s failure, urged the Muslim world body to play an effective role in safeguarding the rights of Muslims and their religious sentiments.
Addressing the 14th Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Makkah, the prime minister said that blasphemous acts against Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the Western world was the failure of the OIC for not being able to explain to them the love and affection the Muslims had for the prophet (PBUH).
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud chaired the session themed “Hand in Hand Toward the Future” (sic), which brought together the leaders of OIC member states to evolve a unified stance on the ongoing issues and events in the Muslim world.
Upon their arrival at the venue, King Salman received the guests, including Prime Minister Imran Khan who was attired in white shalwar kameez with a black waistcoat.
Speaking on the occasion, Imran saidProphet Muhammad (PBUH)lives in the hearts of all Muslims, so it was the duty of the OIC members to explain to the Western people the amount of pain they causedto Muslims when they ridiculed or mockedthe holy prophet (PBUH).
He said that in the West, the people did not treat religion like the Muslims treated Islam. They had a totally different attitude towards the religion, he added.
“I would like to say from this platform that at 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,” he said.
He 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 that sensitivity lacked when they talked about the Holy Quran and the holy prophet (PBUH).”
Moreover, he said, the Western world had equated Islam with terrorism, which had done tremendous disservice to the Muslim community.
“Religion has nothing to do with terrorism. No religion allows the killing of innocent human beings… This has led to Islamophobia,” he said, adding that the people in the West could not distinguish between a moderate Muslim and a radical Muslim.
Suspicions, he said, had been raised against the whole Muslim world. The shooting of 50 Muslims in two New Zealand’s mosques happened because they could not understand that Islam had nothing to do with terrorism, he added. The prime minister said that before 9/11, around 80 percent of the suicide attacks were carried out by the Tamil Tigers, but no one had blamed Hinduism for that. The religion had nothing to do with that, and it was a political struggle, he said.
He said that in the World War II, when the Japanese pilots blew themselves up on American ships, no one had blamed their religion for it. Besides causing Islamophobia, he said the OIC’s inability also led to delegitimising the Muslim political freedom struggles, which were termed ‘Islamic radicalism’.
The people of Kashmir, he said, had been carrying out their political struggle for freedom, but after the 9/11 attacks, it was also dubbed as ‘Islamic radicalism and terrorism’. Similarly, he said, Israel started oppressing the Palestinians, calling their freedom movement ‘Islamic terrorism’. Therefore, the Muslim world must use the OIC platform to delink terrorism from Islam, he stressed.
