By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, October 1 (IslamOnline.net) - A conference on Muslim unity organized by the International Institute for Muslim Unity (IIMU) in Kuala Lumpur opened Wednesday, October 01, with international participants from various Muslim countries scrutinizing the causes of ills affecting the Islamic world of today.

The conference, entitled "International Conference on Muslim Unity in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges", attracted a host of participants from Egypt, Sudan, Bosnia, Somalia, Malaysia and many other Arab speaking nations.

During the conference, Muslim countries came under fire for their ‘oppressive’ attitudes and their practice of ‘ethnocentrism’.

Professor Dr. Malik Badri, well known for his contribution to the advancement of Islamic brotherhood and for his work in the Islamic world, centered his intervention on the role of tribalism and ethnicity among Muslims, dismissing these two elements a divisive force in the Islamic world.

He attributed the obvious economic progress in Malaysia, compared to the lagging economic situation in other Muslim countries, to the absence of tribalism in the country.

Professor Badri stressed that only Islam can end ethnocentrism if it was practiced properly.

"Ethnocentrism, one of the acute problems in the ummah today, can be eliminated by Islam," he added.

Several highly respected professors from different institutions of learning around the world also turned the heat on the leaders and the people of the Islamic world.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) too came under fire from some distinguished professors who claimed it was not working towards Islamic unity.

"The OIC’s aims and objectives are proponents to disunity, as well as the role of Muslim scholars who have adopted the wrong analytical approach to the problems among the Ummah," insisted associate Professor Muhammad Mumtaz Ali, from India.

Some of speakers at the conference openly criticized Saudi Arabia for imposing visa and all sorts of barriers against Muslims who wishes to visit the kingdom, saying this was part of a non-Muslim agenda.

The kingdom and other Muslim countries were severely criticized for not doing enough to unite the Ummah.

The treatment meted to Muslims of different nationalities working or visiting the kingdom was the focal point of Professor Shaukat Mahmood’s address.

Touching on the issue of terrorism, Professor Shaukat, who holds "Al-Bukhari" chair in "Islamic Architecture" at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), said the Bali bombing of October 2002 and other bombings in the South East Asian region had nothing to do with Muslims.

"Bali and the bombings in countries like the Philippines is not the work of Muslims. There is a third force behind that, a force that is aimed at destroying Islam," he told the applauding participants.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Ibrahim Zidan, a representative of the Cairo-based IslamOnline.net, will present a paper Thursday, October 2, on the role of media in uniting the Muslim Ummah.

The conference wraps up Thursday and is expected to find solutions to the problems facing the Ummah.