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Sensing the opportunity, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia joined hands with
King Hasan V of Morocco and organized the first Islamic conference in
Rabat during 22–24 September 1969. While the controversy surrounding
India’s participation is discussed in a later chapter, it is essential to notice
two closely linked developments. The Rabat conference laid the founda-
tion for the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which came into
being in 1971 and was renamed as Organization of Islamic Cooperation
in June 2011. This is the largest international political group after the
NAM and from 30 members in 1971 it transformed into a 57-member
body with five countries, including Russia, as ‘observers’ (Baba 1994 ;
Ihsanoglu 2010 ). The OIC transformed the nature of international
politics, and as one observer maintained, “Without Islam the Afro-Asian
movement would probably have aborted. And without the Afro-Asian
movement there would have been no ‘non-aligned’ group of nations, and
without that group there would not have been the economic Group of
Seventy-Seven, the underdeveloped South in the current North-South
dialogue” (Jansen 1980 , 96).
The ascendance of Saudi influence was accompanied by a greater influ-
ence of Pakistan upon Riyadh and its approach towards India. Amidst the
power struggle within the family, in 1962 Faisal established the World
Muslim League with Mecca as its headquarters and this was a decade
before the OIC. Though a Saudi-backed body, it had Islamic scholars
from different countries, including India, as members. However, the
fateful moment came as Saudi Arabia came under Pakistan’s spell during
the latter’s conflict with India. While Riyadh took a neutral position dur-
ing the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965, it whole-heartedly supported Pakistan
during the 1971 Bangladesh War. India’s effort for a political conversation
with the Saudi leadership before the War did not materialize and the
Indian delegation had to content itself with meeting ministry officials and
not any political leaders (Jha 1992 ).
The second development was the October War of 1973 which trans-
formed the international discourse on the Arab-Israeli conflict. President
Anwar Sadat’s decision to launch a surprise military attack on Yom Kippur
Day—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar—led to the critical oil-pro-
ducing countries, especially Republican Iraq and monarchical Saudi
Arabia, to launch an oil embargo on countries that were sympathetic
towards the Jewish State (Ahrari 1986 ). They were joined by the Shah of
Iran, who initiated a price hike. These resulted in a sudden escalation of oil
price which went up from US$3 per barrel to US$12 in 1974. The oil
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR