Muslim leaders from around the world met in the Iranian capital Tehran for an Islamic summit this week. It was the eighth summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a body set up in the early seventies to promote solidarity and co-operation between Muslim states. This was the first time Iran had hosted an OIC summit and -- as our Middle East and Islamic affairs analyst, Roger Hardy, explains -- the Iranian authorities worked round the clock to make the event a success.

Ever since the Iranian revolution in the late 70s, the Islamic republic of Iran has seen itself as the natural leader of the Muslim world. But its relations with many of the most important Muslim states have ranged from the lukewarm to the outright hostile.

Pro-Western states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey have been wary of Iran's brand of revolutionary Islam. And Muslim leaders from the majority Sunni branch of Islam have tended to resist the idea that predominantly Shi'ite Iran should dominate the Umma -- the worldwide community of the faithful. So, while the Iranian revolution has been a source of inspiration for Islamic opposition groups in many parts of the world, Iran's state-to-state relations have been much less successful -- and its leadership ambitions have accordingly been stunted.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

But the ayatollahs of Tehran hope that this could be about to change. First and foremost, they stand to capitalise on the anti-American mood in much of the Muslim world, particularly in the Middle East. It's a hostility that stems largely from America's special relationship with Israel -- which in turn is held to be responsible for the virtual breakdown of the Middle East peace process. Criticism of US policy was also evident in last month's stand-off between Iraq and the United Nations, when Arab reluctance to support US military action against Iraq helped to limit Washington's room for manoeuvre.

A second factor is that Iran has a new -- and relatively moderate -- president, Mohammed Khatami, who was elected with a landslide majority in May. Iran's Arab neighbours see this as a hopeful sign that the Islamic republic may be entering a new and less threatening phase. At the very least, they feel it's worth exploring the chances of building better relations.

Hence the novel spectacle of Arab heads of state and government flocking to a capital they normally shun. Particularly striking was the presence of senior princes from Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf sheikhdoms -- close allies of Washington who are normally rather suspicious of Iranian intentions. What is particularly galling for the Americans is that several of the important Arab states that attended the Tehran summit stayed away from last month's Middle East economic conference in Qatar -- an event Washington had been energetically promoting.
 

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