A good Muslim is a good citizen of any country. Muslims are everywhere, there is not a single country where there is no Muslim. If they are real Muslims, following their religion properly and fearing their God, they will be citizens of the first class type; not second class or third class. This is what we have to emphasize to our young generations, young people and young leaders. They have to be more understanding about the wisdom behind their creation. They are not created for bad things; they are created for good things. So to be a good citizen means you are adhering to your religion, following the orders of Allah the Almighty and His Prophet (peace be upon him)”, said Dr. Abdullah Omar Nasseef, former deputy Chairman of the Shoura Council of Saudi Arabia and the present President of the World Muslim Congress WMC), in an interview to this correspondent on 10 July 2007 in London.

Dr. Nasseef also said, "There are bad people in every society. Some young people have been misrepresenting their religion; they are unaware of what are the consequences; they want to be heroes. If some people are unemployed or some injustice has been done to them, they have to go through the legal channels; they will achieve better solutions. To go for wild demonstrations or violation of law, will not help them at all. It will add to their problems rather than solving them. There is the law, there is the constitution and the parliament; the Muslims in this country must be law-abiding British citizens".

Dr. Nasseef advised the young Muslims living in UK: "There are ways and means by which they can prove themselves; stand up for their demands, ask for their rights. You have to go follow legal and legitimate methods."

80th Anniversary of the World Muslim Congress
Dr. Nasseef visited to the United Kingdom in July this year after attending the General Assembly of the World Muslim Congress (Motamar AI-Alam Al-lslami) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in June 2007. The World Muslim Congress (WMC) General Assembly meets every five years. It was WMC's 80th anniversary. At the moment, the Congress has 20 chapters or branches all over the world. "We celebrated the 80th birthday of the Congress at the same time and appreciated what has been done during those eighty long years," said Dr. Nasseef, President of the WMC.

More than one thousand people attended the conference. 45 executive and other members of the Congress were also present. Dr. Nasseef said, "We evaluated what has been done during all these years specially in the field of dialogue, because Motamar AI-Alam Al-Islami was a pioneer among Muslim organizations in the field of dialogue. We invited leaders of all Churches and Temples and Buddhists, Hindus and Christians. They all attended and spoke very well. They appreciated what has been done. It was a very well-attended (Conference). There were at least eight ministers from the Government of Sri Lanka; some Muslim and non-Muslims as well. They spoke very well. That was very successful."

"The world today is witnessing a lot of turmoil, problems, conspiracies, terrorism and so on. This is the time we should emphasize dialogue with all religious groups so that we can protect the human community from bad effects of the turmoil. We don't want people to lose hope," Dr. Nasseef said and added, "This world is becoming very unbearable. The problem is so acute that people are very much upset and frustrated. We want to tell them that problems have been there throughout human history. It is a cycle of problems after one hundred years, after fifty years and even sometimes after twenty five years. That is one part."

Speaking about the second part of the conference, Dr. Nasseef said, "In the other part, we spoke and discussed about the current affairs of the Muslim world. The current issues like Iraq , Palestine , Afghanistan and so on. We stressed our concern about what has been happening. Something should be done to overcome these individualistic approaches and groupings. The Secretary General of the Congress has been given the authority to contact people, organizations, ambassadors and others to show our concern and to advise what should be done, to seek peaceful solutions of all our problems through dialogue, personal contact and public relations. Because violence does not bring any hope for anything. Not even one single case has been solved through violence and terrorism. It has to be through reasoning, respect to others and recognition of other school of thought and culture and through continuous dialogue, contact and public relations. I think we emphasized this very well."

Speaking about the third part of the conference, Dr. Nasseef said, "The third part was elections of the President, Secretary General and other Office-Bearers. We added new members in the Executive Committee and the General Assemblies. The Congress has 20 executive members and five office bearers: two Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, and two assistant secretary generals. The new members will join very soon to give new blood and energy to the organization. They are from different countries."

Explaining about the membership of the Congress, WMC President said, "According to our Constitution, we have three categories of members: i) members who are representing branches and chapters of the Congress, they are ex-officio members. They are elected as heads of those chapters in different countries, ii) The second category is the representatives of the big organizations, such as Muslim World League (Rabita al-Alam al-lslami] and other organizations of the Muslim world, iii) The third category is individuals who are willing to serve the cause and to get involved in the message of presenting peace, dialogue and all those messages the organizations is carrying on.'

Then the conference discussed about the budget, administrative, financial and other reports.

Establishment of Islamic Museum of Instruments
An Islamic Museum for the Instruments which were invented by the Muslims throughout history, has been established in Istanbul, Turkey on 9th of July, 2007. Dr. Nasseef, who attended the function of the foundation of the Islamic Museum, said, "The Director and Chairman of the Frankfurt-based Institute for the History of Islamic-Arabic Science, Professor Dr. Fuat Sezgin, was approached by the Turkish government to establish Islamic Museum for the Instruments invented by the Muslims in past in various fields of sciences and technology in Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicines and other branches of science. The Institute made replicas of the equipments and instruments, would be displayed at the museum. Everything has been explained in four languages - Arabic, English, French and Turkish."

Speaking about the public interest in the event, Dr. Nasseef said, "People were very happy. Crews of all the televisions came and interviewed Professor Fuat Sezgin who said that this opening of an Islamic Museum for Instruments was to give the people the information that Muslims had achieved a great deal of the advancement in science and technology and they were the links between the Greek and the present civilizations. Muslims were there for one thousand years. It is not fair to neglect their role."

The meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Frankfurt-based Institute was held this year in Turkey on 9th of July, 2007. Dr. Nasseef, who is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute, said, "We had the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Institute. As usual, we discussed the budget and other academic and research activities and took decisions on academic, cultural and research projects."

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