But there is a more subtle and insidious kind of Islamophobia which masquerades as a kind of universalist neutrality among secularists who purport only to be the defenders of the values of the Enlightenment in which European and American freedom, tolerance and democracy are rooted.

In Britain this was first detectable, long before 9/11 or 7/7, in the way in which the political establishment insisted upon defining Muslims by their race and ethnicity, refusing to accept the community’s insistence that religion was a key element in its identity. But it has surfaced more obviously in the way that secularism insists, rather like an aggressive television interviewer, on being the only authority allowed to define the questions that must be answered.

The most obvious flash point has been over the issue of freedom of speech. On a range of issues – from the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, to attacks on Islam by the Pope, or protests about theater productions religious groups view as disrespectful – a largely liberal secularist establishment refuses to acknowledge the important distinction to be made between having a right and choosing to exercise it.

A free society gives us responsibilities as well as rights. Bald statements about freedom of expression miss the point. Of course there has to be a right to free speech. But most difficult decisions are not between right and wrong. They are between competing rights. There is a right to speak without censorship but there is also a right for people to exist in society without feeling as alienated, threatened and routinely derided as many Muslims now do.

To elevate one right above all others is either adolescent or the hallmark of the single-issue fanatic. Secular fundamentalists may purport to be trying to open a dialogue with Muslims about the values of a pluralist society but they are offering a dialogue of the deaf which in practice merely adds additional offense and frustration. It throws gasoline onto the flames.

Here’s another example. Secularists often ask: “Why won’t Muslim leaders speak out unequivocally in condemnation of terrorist violence and suicide bombings?” In many cases they do. After the unsuccessful attack by suicide bombers on a Scottish airport last month local Muslim leaders issued public condemnations within a few hours.

Yet such condemnations are not always unequivocal in that they often attach addenda to their remarks. The most common of these concern their community's profound unease with the foreign policy of the country in which they live; the fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan or Chechnya is perceived by many Muslims, however strongly Washington and London may disagree, as a war on Islam.

But they also have to speak against a background of their communities’ anger at the attitudes of racism or dismissive cultural superiority they feel from the majority population. They object, too, to the undifferentiated way the rest of us lump together all Islamic traditions and expressions – when we would not dream of dismissing all Christianity on the grounds that some bible-belt fundamentalists oppose peace between Israelis and Palestinians because they want to hasten Armageddon and the second coming of Christ.

Reality is more complex. And Muslim leaders know if they do not struggle to express that they will be dismissed as the Islamic equivalent of Uncle Toms.

There are grounds for optimism. An inter-generational shift is taking place in the Muslim community. The first generation immigrants – caught between a nostalgia for the world they have left behind and alienation from the one in which they live – are ceding power in their communities to their children and, now, their grandchildren. Their cultural norm is no longer a land with a Muslim majority but one where they are a minority. Many Muslims are coming to see that they must respect the traditions of the culture into which they and their fathers have immigrated. More than that, educated in the West, they have come to appreciate, not just tolerate, its values – though they do that in parallel with their embrace of their faith.

But, in the minefield in which western and Islamic cultures meet, the rest of us have a responsibility to educate ourselves on how things looks from a Muslim point of view. Instead of insisting they answer our questions, we must answer theirs.

Without that we risk creating a world in which secularists and religious believers alike will force themselves into polarized positions that become so entrenched we can find no peaceful way out.

Paul Vallely is Associate Editor of The Independent, London, UK.