KUALA LUMPUR, May 28: Malaysia, Indonesia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan challenged Islamic countries on Monday to work together to create a new ‘golden age’ to liberate Muslims from poverty, conflict and extremism.

The five nations told an Islamic conference that many of the 1.6 billion Muslims globally rank among the world's poorest people with an international reputation that has been tarnished by false perceptions that most support terrorism.

“We are now at a crossroads in our history as an Ummah. Never in the history of the Ummah ... have we faced such great odds,” Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told government officials, corporate executives and analysts attending the World Islamic Economic Forum.

“While the nations of the West basked in the glory of their global ascendancy, Muslim nations were largely consigned to what people term ‘the Third World,’ ” Abdullah said.

He noted that the 57 members of the OIC accounted for only 5 per cent of world’s gross domestic product in 2005 despite comprising 21 per cent of the global population.—AP