IF THE past year saw new hopes of, peace for Bosnia's Muslims - Europe's largest and longest surviving ethnic Muslim population - it, was also a year that opened and closed with graphic illustrations of a kind that serve to strengthen prejudices in the west about the Islamic world.
European fears about the Islamic world are built on centuries of prejudice and mutual antagonism, and present fears about developments in Bosnia, Turkey, Chechnya or the Middle East have more to do with those prejudices than with current, developments and future prospects. In France, the hijacking of an airliner by Algerian militants fuelled fears that the political crisis and killings in Algeria would spread to Europe.
In France, where there are three to four million Muslims, Islam is now the second religion, a statistic that is becoming commonplace in other European countries too. The Algerian hijacking underlined a common prejudice that all practising Muslims are fundamentalists, and there were bitter episodes to reinforce the prejudices on both sides: the persistence of the row over the ban on headscarves being worn by Muslim schoolgirls, the raids on "Islamist networks" ordered by the Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, and sensationalist reports on the execution of two young men who had returned to Morocco and taken part in the murder of a Spanish tourist.
In Chechnya, armed mujahideen, veterans of the war in Afghanistan, were seen swathed in green headbands and dressed in flowing white robes providing cliche-laden images for western photographers as they drove into battle with tanks flying the Green Flag of Islam and proclaiming their readiness to die in a jihad against Russia.
The sight of well-armed, white-robed Muslim warriors in Bosnia had echoes of the former militancy in Hizbullah in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, in Iran, and in parts of Egypt, the Gaza Strip and Algeria. As the finishing touches were being put to the Bosnian accords in Dayton and Paris early last month, the same images of well-armed warriors were seen in Zenica in Bosnia when members of the elite 7th Muslim Brigade paraded in flowing white robes and green headbands, armed with anti-armour rockets
Ironically, at the same time Hizbullah was entering a new phase in Lebanon, reaching a new maturity as it entered the political fray in a country that is beginning to return to pluralism. And Hamas was trying to reach an accommodation with the PLO that would allow it to stand as a credible political party in this month's elections for a Palestinian Authority.
Even in Iran there were indications of a desire for a more accommodating approach to relations with the west, despite an abrupt message to the EU that Tehran was note willing to give written guarantees about the safety of Salman Rushdie, and despite a US decision to ban trade with Iran.
On the sidelines of the Euro-Islam conference in Stockholm, a senior Iranian politician and theologian, Muhammad Larijani, assured journalists that Iran's government "would not allow itself to be mixed up in any open or clandestine attempt to harm Rushdie." And he sharply distinguished Ayatollah Khomeini's legitimate religious view from any legally binding decree or sentence imposed by the government.
However, as Israelis and Palestinians moved closer to an accord with one another, Islamists throughout the Middle East had increasing fears that the moves indicated Israel and Zionism were threatening to dominate the region.
Less attention was paid to a new militancy emerging in those countries where Islamic values were traditionally enshrined in legislation and in social taboos. Despite the general suppression of political activism in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, the strength of the Islamists came to the fore in November, when a bomb in Riyadh killed six people, including five Americans, at a National Guard training centre. It was the most deadly attack on Americans since a suicide bombing on a Beirut barracks in 1983.
Saudi Islamists have been increasingly vocal in their criticism of the government since the 1991 Gulf War. Although Saudi Arabia has traditionally been perceived in, the west as one of the most conservative Arab countries, the Islamists do not believe it is sufficiently Islamic for the Saudi king to serve as Guardian of Mecca of Medina. An exiled Islamic intellectual leader of the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights spoke after the bombing of "pulling the regime out by the roots." His remarks echoed the comments by the Egyptian fundamentalist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman who once said: "I wish Hosni Mubarak the same fate as Sadat."
The exiled, blind sheikh was jailed for his role in the bombing of the New York Trade Centre. His militant but small Muslim group continued its campaign of violence in Minya and other southern provinces, attacking policemen, local Christians and warning tourists to stay away from Egypt. But with a clampdown at home, Egyptian Islamists shifted their focus to targets abroad, attempting to assassinate President Mubarak in Addis Ababa, bombing the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, and killing an Egyptian diplomat in Geneva.
President Mubarak had a resounding victory in the Egyptian elections in December, but only after 54 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most influential and largest Islamist grouping, were jailed by a military court.
WITH the end of the Cold War, Islamic fundamentalists were thrown up as the new perceived threat to the West, and rightwing commentators rushed to try to link the Oklahoma bombing in April with Islamic militants.
But the end of the Cold War also coincided with the collapse of many of the traditional socialist, Arab nationalist regimes in the Middle East, and a loss of direction or sense of, defeat in Egypt, Algeria, Syria and Iraq. The gap that has opened for young idealists and political activists is being filled by a new generation who are highly-skilled and technically well-educated, and who find a new bond between the Qu'ran and the sciences.
However, in recent weeks, the Islamists in Algeria have seen much of their support wane, and the tone of their comments on the regime has become more conciliatory in the wake of President Zeroual's resounding victory. It may be that the Palestinian talks, the prospect of negotiations in Algeria, and the indications of a softening of attitudes in Iran may point to a new willingness among Islamists to reach political accommodations.
Throughout the war in Bosnia, Islamic countries repeatedly chided the west for its failure to respond to the plight of Bosnia's Muslims, accusing the west of having a blind spot. Iran routinely offered to supply the Bosnian army with 10,000 troops, an offer just as routinely rejected.
The Islamic world's fears of western intentions must have strengthened the vote for the Islamist Welfare Party in last month's election in Turkey. And yet, when it came to allaying the fears of the Muslim world about European intentions, there was a certain irony in the Bosnian treaty being signed at the Elysee Palace. Days before, the leaders of the eight-state Islamic contact group on Bosnia hammered their role in talks at Riyaumont, a Cistercian abbey 50 km north of Paris. France, where the year began with a dramatic encounter between militant Islam and the west, saw the year end with a practical example of the importance of Muslim-Christian dialogue.