Sectarian strife hurting Ummah, says President
By Makhdoom Babar

ISLAMABAD—President General Pervez Musharraf Wednesday called for a strong Muslim voice to effectively deal with internal and external challenges and emphasized the need for the Islamic world to take urgent steps for ending sectarian strife.
Addressing a gathering of eminent scholars and intellectuals from the Muslim world on “Vision of an Islamic, democratic and welfare state in Pakistan” here at Aiwan-e-Sadr, the President warned that sectarian strife, which has the seeds of disaster, if not immediately redressed, could engulf the entire Muslim world.
The President said that socio-economic and political problems within Muslim Ummah needed urgent redressal and stressed upon the resolution of lingering political disputes. He said, “Now is the time to act immediately to resolve long-standing political disputes including Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, in a just manner and with dignity and honour.”
President Musharraf said Islam is not in conflict with democracy and modernization but stressed that a differentiation has to be made between westernization and modernization. He pointed out that there is no consensus about interpretations of Islam among the Muslims and illiteracy has further exasperated the situation. He said the teachings of Islam generally had been left in the hands of semi-literate religious people. He said that extremist and obscurantist elements on the one hand are trying to impose their rigid views on the vast majority, while on the other hand fringe ultra-modern elements are propagating secularism. President Musharraf said both these elements were wrong and there was a need to end the ongoing turmoil between enlightenment and obscurantism. “We need to work for reconciliation with the world at large.”
The President said, “We must achieve peace with honour and dignity and strive for socio-economic emancipation as the Muslim world can not progress with a confrontationist approach.” He said the whole world is in turmoil, but the Muslim world is suffering the most. He called for making concerted efforts to end these sufferings and added that the Muslim world must contribute collectively to this end. The President said there are misperceptions about the great religion of Islam, which stands for peace, tolerance and harmony. Unfortunately these misperceptions are being reinforced by obscurantist and extremist elements, he added. The President said the Ummah despite possessing 70 percent of the energy resources and 60 per cent of all natural resources of the world has collective GDP of less than a single industrialized European state.
He said the Muslim world is suffering from internal strife, which is hampering its economic progress. He said there are retrogressive elements, which are in conflict with those forces that stand for progress and development. The President emphasized that no country could move on the path of socio-economic development while living in a vacuum in this globalized world, and underlined the need for greater interaction with the comity of nations for achieving scientific and economic advancement. President Musharraf, referring to restructuring of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), said that it must be made an effective body not only to deal with the challenges the Muslim world is facing, but to also effectively interact with the world community for the resolution of the political disputes. The President called for establishing a Department of Islamic Thought or Islamic Renaissance for projecting the real essence and true values of Islam and rejecting extremism and terrorism.