The Kuwaiti News Agency has reported that a new Islamic organization affiliated with the Muslim World League (MWL) and called “The supreme authority for coordination of Islamic organizations” was to hold it first session in Mecca yesterday. The intent behind the organization was described as focusing on “Islamic presentation plans and preserving the Islamic identity.” The MWL website has posted an Arabic language report on the meeting, presided over by MWL Secretary-General Dr. Abdullah bin Abdul Mohsen Turki, who reportedly described the work of the organization as integrating and coordinating the work of Islamic organizations around the world, preserving Islamic identity and defending Muslims, adopting common positions and joint actions on important issues, and highlighting Islamic values. Dr. Turki also took the opportunity to blame the problems of the Islamic world on “anti-Islamic campaigns” originating in the West:
He explained that his Islamic nation today is going through a difficult phase because of the challenges they face and of frenzied campaigns against Islam and Muslims and values of civilization and especially after the events of September 2001, which exploited negatively against Islam and some Islamic countries, creating dissension in some Islamic countries, and the depth of the gap between Islam and the West , and between Muslim peoples and some political and intellectual leaders in Western countries, and this has led to the idea of the clash of civilizations that came by Samuel Huntington and his ilk who paved the problem is ailing and ideas hostile to many rifts and wars.
The report also adds that the meeting was attended by an individual identified as Sheikh Dr. Tuhami Briz, chairman of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in France who was said to have thanked the MWL for establishing the new body. The reference is most probably to Lhaj Thami Breze, head of the Union des Organisations Islamiques de France (UOIF), the French member of the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella group in Europe known as the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), a group which itself has numerous ties to the MWL. The presence of Breze at the MWL meeting is an indication that the new Saudi body will include members of the global Muslim Brotherhood who frequently and ironically deny that they are affiliated with or in any way tied to Saudi Arabia. Previous posts have reported on the visit to Saudi Arabia by NIhad Awad, a leader of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the appearance on Saudi TV of the Executive Director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). Both organizations are important members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood The Muslim World League was established in 1962 as a means for the propagation of Saudi “Wahabbi” Islam.