Datuk Prof Osman Bakar, Malaysian chair of Islam In Southeast Asia at Georgetown University, Washington DC, said there were also certain people in the American media and think tanks who believed that Malaysia was witholding information about the al-Qaeda network.

In my conversations with some officials in the State Department and in US think tanks, they think that Malaysia knows more about the al-Qaeda network than it is revealing, he said.

Osman said such a perception did not represent the view of the Bush Administration towards Malaysia or the policies of the State Department.

He added that the perception gained currency in their view after the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) arrests in Singapore and the pressure by the US on Indonesia to act on Abu Bakar Bashir who allegedly is a key leader of the JI.

It was reported on Sept 17 that Singapore had arrested 21 suspected terrorists, of which 19 of them were said to be members of the JI, with the remaining two, linked to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

South-East Asia was designated as the second front in the war against terrorism. This label has not been retracted even after the United States pulled out of the Philippines last July, Osman said in a public lecture at the Centre for postgraduate studies, Universiti Malaya, here.

His lecture was entitled The West's perception towards Islam after Sept 11.

In his 1 hour lecture, Osman said it was important not to view all Americans as being hostile to Islam and Muslims or that they all wanted to go to war against Iraq.

The debates about the West and Islam have to also be relooked at. Its not accurate to conceptualise the debate about Islam and the West because there are 30 million Muslims living Western countries. A lot of the Muslim intellectuals whose work which we read are also writing from Western countries.

He when the Muslim community in America was threatened with harassment after the Sept 11 attacks, many Americans from all walks of life helped to keep vigil on mosques and community centres.

Osman said the effect of Sept 11 on Islam was also diverse as while certain sectors on the American public continued to villify Islam, interest in the faith had tremedously increased.

The Quran topped the bestsellers list in the US after Sept 11. Mosques and Islamic centres are reporting an increase in new converts to Islam. For the first time in history, there are native Americans who are joining Islam.

He added that another trend in the relationship between Islam and the West was the debate about moderate and extreme brands of Islam.

But in the final analysis, what is important is that we cannot make the West monolithic, just like we don't want to make Islam monolithic.