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Musharraf for Islamic renaissance

* Urges Muslim countries to ban groups preaching violence
* Says each OIC member should commit 0.01% of GDP to science fund
* Supports new charter, name for OIC
* Muslim world needs to spend more on education
* Saudi king calls for moderation

MECCA: President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday urged Muslim leaders to work out a strategy for an Islamic renaissance, recommended mandatory contributions by each member state for a common science and technology fund and asked extremists to shun violence.

“From this holy city of peace and tolerance, I appeal to all extremists in our society to see reason, and shun the path of violence,” Gen Musharraf said in his speech at the Third Extraordinary Summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

“Senseless acts of terrorism committed by a handful of misguided individuals while claiming to act in the name of Islam have maligned our noble faith of peace, tolerance and compassion … We must condemn and reject all forces of terrorism and extremism, banning organisations which preach hate and violence. We must promote the Islamic values of tolerance and moderation,” he said. The president said most Islamic societies remained far removed from the expanding frontiers of knowledge, education, science and technology. Any dreams of progress on these fronts would remain unfulfilled if not fully backed by collective will and adequate financial resources, he said.

“We must commit to subscribe 0.01 per cent of our GDP which will amount to around $180 million or at least 0.005 per cent of our GDP, which works out to be $90 million.”

He suggested the Islamic Development Bank link up with the OIC secretariat to manage such a fund.

Gen Musharraf urged Muslim leaders to pursue transparent and accountable governance, develop human resources by investing more in education, and promote full respect of human rights as enjoined by Islam, especially the rights of women and children.

The Muslim world needed quickly to break out from its “stagnation of centuries”. The OIC summit at Putrajaya was “a summit of reflection; Mecca must be a summit of decision and action,” Gen Musharraf said.

He said the OIC should adopt the new charter, new OIC name and secretariat restructuring recommended by the Commission of Eminent Persons at its next summit.

Gen Musharraf said the OIC’s secretary general should be given more powers to implement decisions made at OIC meetings and new departments should be made to deal with peace and security, trade and investment within the Ummah, economic and technical assistance, science and technology, inter-faith dialogue and Islamic thought.

Gen Musharraf emphasised that Muslim countries need to improve their education systems if they want to reclaim the glories of the Islamic world when it was the “fountainhead of knowledge” and had celebrated philosophers and scientists such as Al Ghazali, Ibne Rushd and Ibne Seena. “Even today the libraries in the west are filled with books written by these famous Muslim scholars, who were products of madrassas. It is unfortunate that most madrassas of today insist on restricting education to religion alone,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah appealed to Muslim leaders to unite and tackle extremists make greater educational efforts to promote tolerance. “We do not have the luxury of blaming others for our own problems. It is high time we addressed our national and regional problems with courage, sincerity and openness,” said Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Turkish secretary general of the OIC.

Musharraf met with King Abdullah, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, Iranian President Ahmedinijad, Afghan President Hamid Karazai, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei and Sudanese President Ahmed Umar Bashir on the sidelines of the summit. agencies

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