Islamic countries should boost unity based on economic coop

Muhammad Azmi Abdulhamid, president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations (MAPIM), made the remarks while addressing an online seminar on “Unassailable Quran” with the participation of academic figures from different countries held by Iran’s Qur’an News Agency, IQNA.

He said some people in the West have “misunderstood” Islam due to how the religion is being portrayed by Western media, he said, adding that the media try to imply that the Holy Quran is “against what they call human rights”.

The Muslim world is not yet “strong enough” to respond economically to the acts of desecration and has so far failed to unite as far as economics is concerned, he regretted, adding that Muslim countries are dependent on the Western economy, technology, and trade.

He pointed to three approaches that can be used to make the Muslim Ummah stronger economically.

First of all, he continued, “We need to study the potentials of the economics of the Muslim nations … we have a lot of resources, we have two billion human resources with us. We have also a lot of resources within the countries. We have minerals, we have oil.” Acknowledging and working on these will make Muslims able to respond to any attack against Islam, he added.

Pointing to the consumption of Western products in Muslim states, the scholar said “We can launch an economic boycott” to send a “strong message to the Western powers.”

And lastly, he pointed to the need to “understand major economic tools that we have among the Muslims … We are not capitalizing on our system that is powerful enough to have a kind of an alternate route.”

“We are mismanaging our wealth,” he said, adding that the great wealth of Muslim nations is not helping issues such as Palestine and is instead “benefiting the enemies of Islam and they have the power to suppress us using economy.”