Dhaka, Sep 19 (IANS) Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has exhorted the Muslim world to integrate into "the mainstream of knowledge and science" to survive and advance in the fast-changing and highly competitive world.

She pointed to "backwardness in all fields" but singled out military technology during her address to the 20th convocation of the Islamic University of Technology (IUT) here.

The Muslim world should give "a fitting reply to untrue and misleading campaigns in certain mass media against Islam and Muslims" through democratic advancement, socio-economic progress and supremacy in knowledge and science, she said Monday.

Zia was ostensibly referring to the campaign in the Western media that highlights growing suspicion of Muslims across the world in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks five years ago.

She said she was fighting Islamist militancy at home, citing the recent conviction of militants who had killed two judges last year and a campaign against militant organisations.

The prime minister is, however, also accused of fomenting this militancy through her political allies, the Jamaat-e-Islami and three other parties that are part of the ruling coalition.

The Islamist militants convicted for killing the judges have named key functionaries of Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Zia noted that "untrue and misleading campaigns" were being carried out against Islam and Muslims, and, "at some places, the struggles for establishing freedom and self-determination are being branded as religious terrorism".

She did not elaborate.

"Sustainable technologies will have to be devised and applied for socio-economic prosperity and development. Backwardness in all fields, particularly military technology, will have to be overcome. This has become essential now to build up a rightful and balanced world order," she told the audience, who comprised Islamic academia in the technological field, UNB news agency reported.

A message of the secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), who is the university's chancellor, was read out.

Zia awarded degrees and certificates to students of Bangladesh and many other Muslim countries, including Pakistan, the Maldives, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sudan and Jordan.