LETTER | The Kuala Lumpur Summit 2019 needs to address deep-rooted problems facing the Muslim community worldwide. Presently, Islamic nations are facing various challenges that affect their political stability and socio-economic progress.The summit, attended by renowned leaders and participants from more than 50 countries, needs to come up with solutions and a plan of action and not be a replica of the OIC. Some viable solutions are as follows.

Establish an International Islamic Court of Justice to handle the various political and legal problems and issues facing Islamic countries. Functioning very much like the ICJ and the European Court, problems facing individuals, minorities, groups and nations can be brought to the attention of the IICJ to resolve. This is important as many issues that remain unresolved snowball leading to infighting, militancy and factionalism that destabilises the Islamic nations.

The IICJ could be an impartial, free and fair court to address and resolve these issues. In the absence of the IICJ various fatwa, decrees and pronouncements are made that confuse the Muslim communities. The IICJ can settle a host of issues ranging from the religions to political to the socio-economic. It can play a part in helping to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Kashmir issues and others.

Islamic leaders, intellectuals, academics and thinkers and researchers need to address the divisive issues that are breaking up the community and they need to formulate a new ideology to bind the community into a cohesive front. Different Islamic countries have different political systems which are a legacy of colonisation and military and economic domination by the West.

Islamic leaders need to consider the tumultous last 100 years since the Caliphate was abolished by Mustapha Kemal to forge a new ideology that can be accepted by the majority of Muslims. This new ideology needs to take into consideration the unique features of Islam and also incorporate international best practices such as human rights, freedom for women, treatment of minorities, peaceful co- existence and others. It can serve as a guideline like the Medina Constitution for political and government administration and can reduce friction within Islamic countries that lead to insurgencies, unrest if not civil wars. This is perhaps the most important issue facing Muslims today.

So far no common political ground has been sought that can unite Muslims to accept an ideology specially formulated for their society. Political problems and instability have prevented progress in Islamic nations. Oil and turmoil have been inseparable twins in many an Islamic country. It has also led to extremism, fundamentalism, corruption, militancy, revolution terrorism, sectarian strife, military rule and authoritarianism which are the result of irreconciliable political perspectives from Algeria to Yemen. This has spawned groups like AL Shabab, Boko Haram, Islamic State, Al Qaeda etc.

The Islamic world has been in search for a panacea for its problems. In the last 15 years, the Islamic state (IS) sought to unite the Muslim world. Initially, its ideas were novel and noble but its violent, cruel and destructive ways elicited a strong regional and international reaction which hopefully has finished off the group for good.

Establish an International Islamic Bank (ISB) for socio-economic development. It is a well-known fact that some Islamic countries are wealthy and have large funds and reserves that are kept in Western banks.The majority of Islamic countries are, however, poor. Many are not able to get loans from the IMF or the World Bank due to their strict criteria. The ISB can lend to these nations based on Islamic principles. Many poor countries lack infrastructure, educational institutions, industries etc. Investors are slow to come in because of instability.

The ISB will look less negatively at these countries and help them. Although Islamic banking has mushroomed since the 1980s the poorer countries and people have not benefited from this. The world is at the threshold of the 4.0 industrial era but many Islamic countries are backward and may not gain from new developments that can transform their economies.

Create an interfaith entity to convene annually/biennially for better understanding and goodwill between Muslims (the Sunnis and Shiites) as well as the other major religions like Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and others.

A stable, progress and peaceful global Islamic community is essential for word peace, prosperity and security.

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