The attack on the US forces Muslims all over the world to finally own up to the fact that religious perversions, wrongly dubbed 'fundamentalism', is a thorn on the side that they could hardly get rid off.

Nationalism, racism and extreme fanaticism have no place in Islam, but unhappily, some who, for some warped reasons identify themselves with Islam and Muslims, chose to be nationalistic, racist and fanatical, to justify their socio-political agendas. And this was done on the expense of other Muslims and, most unfortunately, non-Muslims as well.

Of course, we hear snide remarks about America's comeuppance, the oppression on Palestine... Yes, those are sound counter-arguments, but why not contemplate on the state of the human soul rather than pointing the finger and saying "I told you so"?

Religious perversion isn't exclusive to Islam: Other religions have to deal with the same social disease. "Jews and Christians know about the damage done to their good names by fanatics", wrote Rabbi Tony Bayfield in the Guardian . And he adds: "Few things could be more tragic than the damage done to the good name of the third Abrahamic faith (Islam) by extremists and fanatics."

Have we somehow neglected the Palestinians in other ways? I know lots of people who fund their causes - I even helped their cause when I was at university by organising conferences, etc - but perhaps we have shown them the wrong kind of support. Perhaps all we've done so far was re-affirm their prejudices towards Jews. Perhaps all we did was egg them on to hate, hate, hate.

I know the British media, not long ago so sympathetic towards Palestinians, kept portraying the stone-throwing kids as some sort of Biblical David. Maybe that gave them ideas. We didn't tell them enough that to err is human, to forgive divine. We said we felt sorry and yet we closed our doors to them.

To many Muslims who try to set record straight, it is too late. In the West, and the United Kingdom, many innocent Muslims have already begun to bear the brunt of their brothers' foolish action. What happened in the US may be a convenient moral victory to the Arabs. Well, that's not the way it is for their brethren in Europe. On Monday they were free people, on Tuesday they become the persecuted people.

Carpet-bombing Afghanistan won't stop the problem. If anything, it will bring out more fanatics out of the closet.

What shall we do to root out the problems? Would Muslim countries resort to what the Western European countries have done?

Many western European countries, long caught between the wars of Christian sectarianism, have resorted to what I'd call 'extreme secularism'.

I now live in a sad 'modern' culture where religion, any religion, is sneered upon. Here, religion is more than an opium; it's treated like a disease.

Nonetheless, with the exception of Northern Ireland, you hardly have any problems with religious perversions. But you pay in other ways.