Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; ; ), formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1969, consisting of 57 member states, with 48 being Muslim-majority countries. The organisation states that it is "the collective voice of the Muslim world" and works to "safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony". The OIC has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union. The official languages of the OIC are Arabic, English, and French. It maintains various affiliated, specialized, and subsidiary organs within the framework of OIC Charter. The member states had a collective population of over 1.8 billion as of 2015, accounting for just under a quarter of the world's population. The collective area is 31.66 m km2. History On 21 August 1969, a fire was started in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Amin al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, called the arson a "Jewish crime" and called for all Muslim heads of state to convene a summit. The fire, which "destroyed part of the old wooden roof and an 800-year-old pulpit" was blamed on the mental illness of the perpetrator—Australian Christian fundamentalist Denis Michael Rohan—by Israel, and on Zionists and Zionism in general by the Islamic conference. On 25 September 1969, an Islamic Conference, a summit of representatives of 24 Muslim majority countries (most of the representatives being heads of state), was held in Rabat, Morocco. A resolution was passed stating that