The main reason for the failure to solve problems such as war, conflict turmoil, poverty, hunger and economic and political instability that exist in every corner of the Islamic world is that Muslims are not united and in mutual solidarity. The fact is, however, that it is exceedingly important for people who share the same basic values, speak the same language of the heart, believe in the same Allah and have the same kiblah, holy book and prophet to engage in mutual aid, and this is the best form of behavior that can be exhibited on the subject. While that is the stated aim of the 57 member countries of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, founded in 1969, the organization is still far from attaining the desired warm and sincere power of solidarity.
Everyone knows that strength will come from unity, and that division will lead only to weariness, collapse and weakness. Thinking of the effect on the world of the capitalists; loveless, imperialist, colonialist and devilish violence-based policies that seek to crush the week, it is clear that no country can withstand that sinister system on its own.
For the same reason, various human communities with differing views have agreed to and come together around the common values to which they attach importance in order to be strong and survive. Socialists have united around the Internationale, nature-lovers around Green parties and organizations, the oil producing countries among themselves, professional groups in private unions and people of various races among themselves. There are powerful alliances between the European countries, and between Arab and Latin countries that have combined their economic, military and technological resources.
The situation facing Muslims, who have thus far failed to unite under the same circumstances despite all these other powerful unions, represents a grave danger to the health and order of the Islamic world.
Muslims today are falling into the error of seeking a solution elsewhere, rather than in unity and solidarity. Indeed, on many points they have become dependent on countries with regimes known to be opposed to Islam. The Western world and Western civil society organizations are both unwilling and inadequate when it comes to extending a helping hand to the events taking place in Islamic countries.
Hunger, poverty, backwardness, terror, wars, inhumane policies, torture and epidemics in numerous Islamic countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are making life extremely difficult for Muslims.
For example, a brief look at how the African continent arrived where it is today will show that Africans were exposed to the most terrible mistreatment and suffered very badly under the colonialist system. African countries possessing rich natural resources and fertile lands were literally plundered under occupation by imperialist states, while the peoples of the continent were subjected to hunger and grinding poverty. Countries needing help were actually those who had brought colonialism to the history of the continent in the first place.
Even Muslims living in Europe were slaughtered before the eyes of organizations such as the U.N. and the E.U, in Bosnia and Kosovo. Reports of death, pain and tragedy are coming in from Middle East and Asia every day, and are now regarded as largely unimportant by the world media. The Islamic community is literally writhing in its backwardness.
When we look at history, however, we encounter an Islamic world that shaped the world with its quality, culture, technology, art and learning. Muslims acted as a role model for mankind with their civilization, justice and superior moral virtues.
At a time when people were being killed in Europe because of arguments over whether the world was round or flat, Islamic scholars were building delicate measuring instruments to test the speed of the rotation of the Earth by measuring longitude and latitude. When the Western world was going through the Dark Ages after the collapse of Rome, Muslim scholars were making miraculous medical discoveries. At that time, Avicenna produced a medical encyclopedia of some one million words containing absolute laws on subjects from anatomy to physiology, from pharmacology to the pathology of organic diseases, and from treatments to surgical techniques.
Muslims were then leaders of mankind thanks to these characteristics, but now, frankly speaking, every Muslim must feel ashamed about the current state of the Islamic world caused by lovelessness, insensitivity and division.
Muslims, who ignore what befalls a Muslim brother so long as no trouble or tragedy strikes them, must not forget that the same disaster may well afflict them tomorrow. The way that until only ten or twenty years ago, countries such as Syria and Iraq were far removed from the problems they are facing today but are now on the brink of war, civil conflict and partition is but one example of this.
However, it is by no means impossible or even difficult to escape this state of affairs and build peace, harmony and prosperity in Muslim lands. If the Islamic world joins forces, nobody, by Allah’s leave, will be able to bully or oppress Muslims. If a union of Muslim countries is established today, the result will be a powerful structure, an architect of peace and tranquility. If Muslim countries act as one, the result will be magnificent economic wealth and prosperity, and it is clear how far trade will expand.
It is obvious how urgent it is for this union to be built right away. If Muslims sincerely desire to be united and sincerely strive to that end, then by Allah’s leave, it will soon come about. We must be aware that the only way out of the situation in which the Muslim world finds itself is the formation of a union.
The writer has authored more than 300 books translated in 73 languages on politics, religion and science.
