KUALA LUMPUR, February 23 (IslamOnline.net) - International Conference for Islamic Scholars (ICIS) opened in Jakarta on Monday, February 23, with the need to boost respect for Islamic principles highlighted.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri said in the opening ceremony that Muslims needed to adopt a more Islamic peaceful approach to problems that affect them instead of the usual angry protests that many have adopted.

Megawati said that the super powers in the world were getting unfair on Islam and the Muslims, saying that such an attitude was in contradiction to the big powers defense of human rights.

"Big countries should treat Muslim states fairly," Megawati said before 300 participants from around the world, including representatives from some Western nations.

Megawati expressed what many Muslims felt about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying that such actions prove that big countries have acted unfairly against the Muslim community.

The U.S. war on Iraq was launched under the false pretext of alleged weapons of mass destruction, she criticized.

"Whether or not big countries realize it, their discriminative attitudes are a big challenge to their sincerity in defending human rights," the president said.

Several Islamic academicians and noted Muslim scholars from 89 countries including Russia, Pakistan, Vatican, Britain, India, Australia and East Timor attended the conference, Antara news agency reported.

A hundred more members of the local religious scholars were present at a conference that has been deemed salient for the future of the Muslim nation following the deadly 9/11 events against Washington and New York.

The conference is organized by the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board (PBNU), the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, a group that claims more than 40 million members across the largest Muslim nation on earth.

Indonesia was one of the foremost critics of the U.S. war against Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Indonesian government has however been blamed by the Muslim population of Indonesia for being too latent in its criticism of Washington and the speech of Megawati this Monday is bound to rectify these claims.

The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) leader Hasyim Muzadi, who is currently a potential candidate to the post of President of Indonesia, said the conference was to find solutions to the problems that have plagued the Muslim community across the world.

He said during the conference that he hoped the discussion will give birth to ideas that will be used by the leaders of the Islamic community to find ways to extract the Islamic world out of this difficult situation.

Muzadi said the conference, that will end on Wednesday, February 25, was planned to be a forum of discussion for Muslims and between Muslims, a platform to find solutions.

"This conference will mean nothing if we do not attempt to find ways and means which are appropriate to Islam and using Islamic methods, to solve the problems that has plagued the nation," he said.

He added that the problems that have affected the Islamic world has also had a global impact and has affected everybody, though he said it was yet to be seen if the main problem was a “religious” one.

The NU leader added that this crisis that has engulfed the world does not benefit anyone and instead was a cataclysm to destruction, though some parties hopes to make gains.

The NU leader said that the Muslim leaders who were present at the conference in Jakarta had the responsibility to find the proper solutions to the problems that has affected the nation.