The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; Arabic: منظمة التعاون الاسلامي‎; French: Organisation de la Coopération Islamique (OCI)) is an international organisation consisting of 57 member states. The organisation attempts to be the collective voice of the Muslim world (Ummah) and attempts to safeguard the interests and ensure the progress and well-being of Muslims.

The OIC has a permanent delegation to the United Nations, and is the largest international organisation outside of the United Nations. The official languages of the OIC are Arabic, English, and French. It changed its name on 28 June 2011 from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (Arabic: منظمة المؤتمر الإسلامي‎; French: Organisation de la Conférence Islamique) to its current name.

Since the 19th century, some Muslims had aspired to ummah to serve their common political, economic, and social interests. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate after World War I left a vacuum for a pan-Islamic institution. Losing the Arab-Israeli War provided the incentive needed in 1967. Leaders of Muslim nations met in Rabat to establish the OIC on September 25, 1969.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.