Ummah in crisis

THESE are indeed turbulent times for the world of Islam. On the one hand, poverty and extremism loom large and on the other, a good part of the Ummah finds itself under invasion and pressure from outside. It was nonetheless a source of satisfaction to see Muslim leaders ponder these issues and a host of others from the platform of the Muslim World League in Makkah on Wednesday. While Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz urged the need for an inter-faith dialogue to remove misconceptions about Islam, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani drove the point home by saying that it was indeed the Western world led by the US that had embarked on a crusade against the followers of Islam. But apart from that, he admitted that the Muslim world was, to a certain extent, responsible for the current situation and therefore must put its own house in order. He hit the nail on the head when he drew attention to several countries, particularly Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine, which were engulfed in the flames of war because of disunity among leaders of these countries.