KUALA LUMPUR, May 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is mulling sweeping changes that would include a new name and charter as well as a major restructure, the OIC Malaysian presidency said on Tuesday, May 31.

"We propose a change to the OIC name as well as the contents of its charter. Now we want to take a global context," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He told reporters that the OIC's 16-member Commission of Eminent Persons (CEP), which met last week in Pakistan, came up with a plan to give the pan-Muslim body a completely new look.

"The agreement was that first of all we must improve our image. We must project Muslim nations to be seen as moderate countries and be mainstream players in international politics," he told reporters.

"To achieve this we must undertake some programs, we must have better media interaction and more interaction with people of different religions and cultures."

Other proposals include strengthening the position of the OIC secretary-general as well as the OIC secretariat in Jeddah and the creation of an education consortium to facilitate higher education and academic research.

Also on the table is the creation of new departments on conflict resolution, strategic planning, NGOs and minorities, Islamophobia, and women’s development.

OIC foreign ministers will meet in Yemen next month to finalize the recommendations which will later be put before the special OIC summit in hosted Makkah, Saudi Arabia, later this year.

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Malaysia's top diplomat said the CEP meeting, held on May 28-29, focused on the challenges facing Muslims in the 21st century and how to make the world's biggest grouping of Muslim nations more relevant.

"It is important for us to use approaches that will be acceptable based on faith, mastery of knowledge, upholding of justice and good governance," he said.

"Definitely we agreed to undertake all of these things and we cannot do it without re-organizing the OIC structure."

The two-day meeting was part of the OIC plan to implement a Pakistan-sponsored resolution entitled “Islam and the Muslim World in the 21st Century – The Path of Enlightened Moderation,” The Pakistani paper The Dawn said on Monday, May 30.

Addressing the CEP, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the Muslim world should go for socio-economic development and the Western powers should help resolve political disputes affecting the Muslims.

Ahmad Daud Oglo, a CEP member and special advisor of the Turkish premier on foreign affairs, said a revision of the OIC charter is a must in view of the changed global realities.

“We have suggested that the name of OIC be changed because its objective is not to have just conferences and summits,” he added.

Daud said the 16-member CEP also discussed the possible inclusion of non-Islamic countries with large Muslim populations in the OIC.

He added that they agreed that “the membership criteria will continue to preserve the Muslim character of the OIC.”

However, he said the question of attaining an observer status was a different matter.

In March 1970, the first meeting of the OIC foreign ministers was held in the Saudi city of Jeddah and a permanent General Secretariat was set up to ensure a liaison among member states.

In the meeting, the top diplomats appointed a secretary general and chose Jeddah as the headquarters of the OIC, pending the liberation of Al-Quds, which would be the permanent host.