KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) -Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged Muslim countries on Thursday, July 10, to equip themselves with modern knowledge and weapons to fight oppression by world powers and restore their civilization to its former glory.

Muslims were once a global force in fields as diverse as military conquest, scholarship and architecture, but they failed to keep up with the development of Europeans, Mahathir said in a speech opening an international conference of Islamic scholars.

Muslims "have not tried to catch up and surpass their detractors in knowledge … , to have disciplined and well-trained forces for their defense," Mahathir told some 800 delegates from 33 countries are attending the three-day conference in Malaysia's administrative capital, Putrajaya.

He added that Muslims “will never be able to bring back the honor and the respect for Islam ... unless they become capable again of defending themselves."

And while attacking the West's linking of Islam and terrorism, Mahathir said, "Our salvation will not be achieved by blindly killing innocent people”.

“Rather we should plan and execute a long term development plan to excel in all fields.”

A number of Muslim countries have long called for an internationally-coined definition of terrorism in an effort to avoid any confusion of it with legitimate resistance to occupation.

Mahathir is said to be behind the event itself since he wanted a specific program to educate Muslims on the real meaning of Islam so that they will not be confused by the views of irresponsible parties, Islamonline.net correspondent in Malaysia said.

It is also hoped that this meeting of Islamic scholars will bring forth resourceful ideas so that the Muslims can be the driver and catalyst of their own success.

Mahathir, 77, who is due to retire in October 2003, urged Muslims to "balance religious knowledge with worldly knowledge (so) they would be strong enough to defend themselves and their religion."

The past glories of Islamic civilization in which there was major progress in the sciences had been lost because Muslim leaders "began to preach against this liberal attitude towards the study of non-religious subjects," he said.

"The only subjects that should be studied were those related to the religion of Islam."

The conference is to consider such issues facing Muslim nations as economic development and misconceptions about Islam and terrorism.

Now, Mahathir said, far from being a world power, we, the one billion Muslims, are easily oppressed by the non-Muslims, easily defeated in war and are forced to accept foreign rule and foreign hegemony," he said.

"The only conclusion that we can make for the sad fate of the Muslims is that they are not plasticizing the true teachings of Islam, that the Islam that they now practice is wrongly interpreted."

Although Muslims suffer much more from terror, only Muslims and Islam are linked to terrorism," Mahathir said.

"We must ask ourselves why the Muslims have to endure this humiliation presently," he said. "We know that the Muslims have not really tried to change their fate, their weakness and backwardness."

He said when U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq, Muslims "all over the world prayed for Allah to save the Iraqi Muslims and their country. But their prayers have not been answered."

This was not because Allah had abandoned the Muslims, but because they had not caught up with the developed world "in knowledge and the capacity to produce arms, to have disciplined and well-trained forces for their defense," Mahathir said.

"We must have the capability to put fear in the hearts of our enemies to defend ourselves, not as aggressors but to defend ourselves.