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Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West.

The truth is that just as the 'West' is not a homogenous entity with one view on foreign and domestic policy, nor are Muslims.

In spite of this fact, the Western powers have never given sufficient importance to the Muslim world. They have always been inclined to treat it as a big backward and lethargic child.

Being Muslim has become synonymous with pointed questions, with tension and mistrust, even with conflict. It has become a global phenomenon with profound consequences for inter-communal relations, political rhetoric and policies at the local, regional, national and international level.

The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong.

In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.

Where I work, in the Arab region, people are busy taking up Western innovations and changing them into things which are neither conventionally Western, nor are they traditionally Islamic.

The goal of isolating extremists and making them unwelcome in Muslim communities has been abandoned.

I think there has been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community.