ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday highlighted growing Islamophobia in the western world and called on Islamic heads of state to do more to prevent racism against Muslims in his maiden speech at the 14th summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Makkah.

The OIC is the world’s largest intergovernmental body after the United Nations, with a collective population reaching 1.8 billion people. 

Saturday’s summit was chaired by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz as leaders from across the Islamic world brought wide ranging issues to the forefront, from rising tensions in the Arabian Gulf to the plight of Kashmiris, Palestinians and Rohingya refugees as well as the growing threat of Islamophobia and its ramifications.

The OIC summit is taking place amid rising US-Iran tensions, and followed two emergency Arab meetings in Makkah a night earlier which heavily criticized Iran’s “escalations” in the region following attacks on oil assets in the Gulf as well as Tehran’s growing influence in countries like Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. 

“The OIC owes a responsibility...to the Muslim world. When anyone in the western world blasphemes our Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), it is a failure of the OIC that we have not been able to explain to the western countries the love and affection we feel for our Holy Prophet,” Khan said.

He stressed the importance of bringing up the issues of blasphemy and racism at forums like the United Nations and the European Union.

“We must explain to them that they cannot hurt the sentiments of 1.3 billion people under the garb of freedom of expression,” he said, and added that “through ignorance partly and wilfully,” the western world had equated Islam with terrorism and done a disservice to Muslim communities.

“We, the heads of Muslim states, have not been able to explain to the west, not powerfully enough, that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism,” he said.

Speaking on the disputed regions of Kashmir and Palestine, Khan also said that Islamophobia had delegitimized Muslims’ political freedom struggles because they were linked to terrorism and radicalism.

“I feel that from this forum we must take a stand, we must delink terrorism with Islam,” he said.

He expressed support for a two-state solution in the Middle East that recognized East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. On Indian-controlled Kashmir, he said the people had not been given “their right to self-determination.”

The Prime Minister also said the globe was on the verge of another industrial revolution with artificial intelligence and new technology making its mark. He expressed concern that the Muslim world was not giving enough attention to science and technology.

“We must not be left behind again and this is the best forum to raise this concern in,” he said.

Earlier, on the sidelines of the summit, Khan met with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and discussed current bilateral political, economic and trade relations.

He also thanked the government of Saudi Arabia for extending oil facility to Pakistan against deferred payments, “at a crucial juncture.”