With Islamic countries under foreign occupation or threat and Muslims treated with suspicion in the West, the kings, sheikhs, princes and presidents of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) are confronting a turning point in history.

The summit in Putrajaya, the newly built administrative capital of Malaysia, a half-hour drive south of Kuala Lumpur, will be the biggest meeting of Islamic leaders since their world was shaken by the fallout from the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

OIC secretary general Abdelouahed Belkeziz set the tone for the conference when he opened a preparatory meeting with the warning that the Muslim world faced dangers "probably unequalled in contemporary Islamic history."

Acknowledging the political and economic weakness of the OIC's 57 nations and 1.3 billion people, delegates have called for an Islamic "renaissance".

"Today we have to catch up (with the West)," said host Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

"And we can catch up, because Muslims are just as intelligent as anybody else."

Mahathir, asked at a news conference what the OIC could do about Israel's recent raid into member-state Syria, apart from condemn it, said: "We can go to war but we have no capacity to go to war. That's the problem, because we allow ourselves to become weak, people bully us."

The OIC reflects the wide cultural and demographic range of Islam, bringing the oil-rich Gulf states together with some of the world's poorest nations and the fledgling Islamic republics born from the break-up of the Soviet Union.

It also reflects wide political differences, embracing Iran -- described by US President George W. Bush as part of an "axis of evil" -- along with Pakistan, considered one of Washington's strongest allies in the war on terrorism.