Dr. Abdullah Omar Nasseef, the President of the World Muslim Congress (WMC), attended many conferences and meetings during the months of August and September 2012, which took him to London and Oxford of the United Kingdom and also to Cairo, in Egypt. He also gave lectures at an annual Dawah conference in London. I had the opportunity to meet and interview him partly at his office in Jeddah after Ramadan and partly in London in September.

Dr. Nasseef lectures on Prophet's Leadership
The Annual Islamic da'wah Conference, organised by Forum for Social Studies (FFSS), was held in London between 25 & 26 of August 2012. Dr. Abdullah Nasseef gave a lecture on Prophet's leadership. It was videoed in Jeddah before the conference held in London. Dr. Nasseef was not in a position to attend the conference in August due to his preoccupation with other pre-arranged schedule; I took the opportunity to request him to talk about his lecture to be shown at the conference in London.

Speaking about Prophet's (peace be upon him) life, Dr. Nasseef said, religion, code of life includes all aspects of life, personal, individuality, nation-wide, everything included. Since Islam is religion; its most perfect leader Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the leader of the nation. His actions and reactions, his behaviour is recorded with details without any question of doubt. So if any one wants to know about Islam and Qur'an; it speaks of his actions and reactions.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is a historical man, a man about whom history has recorded everything. Dr. Nasseef mentioned that everything is recorded of his life so that he gave the solutions of many things, many practical solutions. "His orders, commandments, all those things are recorded very well. But if you want to go to the details of every aspect of his life, such as family life, his behaviour with his wife, with his daughters and all the ladies attending in the mosque, all these are recorded and it will not be difficult for anyone to find that," said Dr. Nasseef.

Speaking about how people should behave with their wives, Dr. Nasseef mentioned, "The Prophet (peace be upon him) insisted more than two times that people should be good to their wives, especially to the women." Dr. Nasseef lamented, "Unfortunately, nowadays women have been mistreated wrongly or rightly. When we go to the Prophet's Seerah, to the biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) we will find that he gave all the respects, all the admiration. The Prophet (peace be upon him) also told us what are needed to do." Dr. Nasseef also said, "If you go to his life and his dealing with his companions, you will find he was giving them the role of the leader."

"The Prophet (peace be upon him) was very modest; he was also giving an example because being a leader you don't leave all the zones. He gives the actions, the practical way of doing things, patient with the people. So whatever way you think, whichever way you go to our Islamic history, the Prophet (peace be upon him) as a leader; he was the practical leader," said Dr. Nasseef.

Speaking about how to follow the leadership of Prophet (peace be upon him), Dr. Nasseef mentioned, "Islam is so great, so comprehensive. We cannot ignore the companions of the Prophet and the companions of the companions of the Prophet. They gave all the things of the Prophet (pbuh) and they were very much aware that they are taking the commandments from the Prophet (peace be upon him). All these things are already recorded and reported."

"Our leaders are requested to be more devoted, to be more practical with the life of today, not necessarily to be the same we know," advised Dr. Nasseef. This is essentially what Dr. Nasseef wanted to say about leadership.

International Islamic Council for Daw'ah and Relief (IICDR)
International Islamic Council for Daw'ah and Relief (IICDR) held a two-day annual conference in Cairo, Egypt between 12 and 13th of September 2012 to discuss about things that have been done during the previous year and to take decision about the budget. About this conference, I had the opportunity to interview him and enquire about the conference.

Dr. Nasseef mentioned there were four main issues which were discussed in that meeting. One of the issues discussed in the meeting was "the case of Jerusalem, the Bait al-Maqdis where the Jews have been continuously changing the scenario of the occupying land and kicking out the people from their homes, destroying houses to make it totally look like a Jewish city. And this campaign is going on continuously for long and nobody is challenging. So we requested our members to be aware of and to tell the people what is happening. We invite donations for the poor families, for houses and schools and also for the teachers and so on. This is one of the main issues," said Dr. Nasseef.

Speaking about the item two, which is Syria, discussed in the meeting, Dr. Nasseef said, "The situation in Syria is going very bad. Although we concentrate on health and asking for relief and help; but financing the education of the children is essential. There are hundreds and thousands of children who went out from their schools and sitting and living in the camps and went out to the surrounding and neighbouring countries, such as Turkey, Jordan and other places. We are also asking for help for training the teachers and finance their salaries and other school needs. Of course, the relief should be concentrated on the people where they were really in need. We pray to Allah something will happen to change the government to the best, Insha Allah. Having a new leader and so on."

The third issue which was discussed in the meeting, said Dr. Nasseef, was the Myanmar problem. Dr. Nasseef said, "Myanmar problem has been hanging for many years but it is now a new phenomenon that the Buddhist monks and priests went out to kill the people for the first time; these Rohingya have been living there for centuries. Buddhist religion is very peaceful but this time I don't know what happened. The Buddhist people are attacking people and villages and so on. We requested the OIC who has sent a mission there to give us a report what is happening there. So money has been allocated but how to get the money in there and how to make it productive, this has been discussed and Insha Allah, things will happen very positive."

The fourth matter, which was discussed in the meeting, was the matter of Somalia, Sudan and Mali. About this, Dr. Nasseef said, "We also recommended that relief organisations should go there and concentrated on those places; because the people have been deprived from the help of the basic needs."

Dr. Nasseef also mentioned another issue which is related to the visit of Pope to Lebanon. Dr. Nasseef said, "The Pope is already there. He sent his message before his visit; it was not very good. He mentioned that he went to condone the Christian to have solidarity and to get together for all factions of Christians but he said that he is going there to make sure that the Muslims should accept Christians there and they should be more tolerant and so on."

"This is un-Islamic. Muslims have been always hosting their Christian brethren; they gave them the whole good life; they were living together without any problem. After one thousand five hundred years somebody comes and said and gave that advice. That was very bad. So we said that the Pope is not very good in achieving solidarity and dialogue. He should establish a real dialogue between Muslims and others and encourage them to do so. This visit of the Pope was condemned by the people who were in the meeting. If he has not sent the message before that; it could have been normal. The people in the meeting quoted the saying of the last Coptic Pope of Egypt, Pope Baba Shenouda III. He sent a message to the Pope that "although your predecessors were very good in establishing relations but you are very good in breaking them. Those were the issues discussed in the Cairo meeting," Dr. Nasseef said.

On Anti-Islam Movie
Speaking about anti-Islam movie, Dr. Nasseef told me in an interview, "Nothing new. When there is something among the Muslims to work hard and to cooperate with others; they create this type of film to create confusion and to agitate the people. The response was very bad also. The movie is very bad, very dirty, very filthy but the response was not good; it is not the Islamic way to respond, to attack the embassies, to kill people and so on. This is not Islamic. There must be some conspiracies; conspiracy by some other elements from outside to create confusion and to give bad name to the Muslims."

"The advisable way to convey the message is through media and try to tell the people how bad it was and how Islam gives full respect to the Prophet (Peace be upon him); because we are following him day and night. And we also respect other prophets (peace be upon them all). If this film was against the Jesus Christ Muslim will protest in the same way, the strong way; if it was against the Moses, Muslims will do the same thing," said Dr. Nasseef.

Dr. Nasseef advised Muslims "to be more careful and understand the conspiracy." He maintained, "Islam does not allow killing anybody. Killing people, destroying property and attacking embassies are not the Islamic way. To my mind, there are some elements which agitated the people. Some people took advantage of the situation. For example, in Egypt, the people are against the government, some elements took advantage of the situation to create this confusion; in other places, in Tunisia, the same thing happened. In Libya too. It does not represent the feeling of the society. Some elements took advantage of the situation."

Meeting at Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS)
Dr. Nasseef, who is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford, was very happy when he heard the news of the Centre being awarded and honoured with the Royal Charter. Dr. Nasseef said, "It was a high spot because we are now a British organisation; may be the first Islamic organisation to be given that charter."

Dr. Nasseef came to attend the Board of Trustees meeting of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. After the meeting, I met him and enquired about the meeting. Speaking about the new member of the Board of Trustees of the Oxford Centre, Dr. Nasseef said, "We added a new member to the Board of Trustees, His Royal Highness Prince Raja Nazrin Shah, the Crown Prince of the State of Perak of Malaysia. We introduced some changes. The present vice chairman is Pehin Orang Kaya Laila Wijaya Dato Seri Setia (Dr) Ustaz Haji Abdul Aziz Umar, the former Minister of Higher Education, Kingdom of Brunei; he is the vice chairman now, but he is a little bit unhealthy. So he nominated someone as second vice chairman. Now the second vice chairman is selected. So we added Sir John Griffin as new second vice chairman. Sir John Griffin was the Master of Magdalene College of Oxford. He was member of the Board of Oxford Centre (OCIS) from the beginning. Now he became the second deputy chairman."

As regards funds, Dr. Nasseef said, "We are collecting funds to finish the works of the new building of the Centre. We hope it would be opened after one year. But we need three million pounds for the furniture, equipment and other things. Campaign will take place as usual. The delegation went to see the Sultan of Brunei and promised. From the beginning he promised 20 million and now we hope it will come through. We have Prize of the Sultan of Brunei. But we have not given the Prize for three years now. We are waiting for his suggestion, suggestion for what subject will be. But he is very sympathetic to the Centre. His son is also studying; he is attached to the Centre somehow."

---