“I am talking rather about a sharp ideological tension that separates the West from another world, that we call Islamic,” he said. This Islamic world, he went on to argue, “does not reflect the true values of Islam”.

Calling for more elasticity between doctrine and science, he said: “The challenge to Muslim countries, it seems to me, is to create environments where learning — religious and theological, scientific, artistic and literary — can flower unrestricted and be open to women as well as to men.” Lord Carey, in the seventh annual Sternberg lecture to an audience of academics and students at Leicester University, said that there was a failure of understanding between the West and Islam.

The lecture, the fourth in a series on Islam by Lord Carey, was endowed by Sir Sigmund Sternberg, the philanthropist who helped to found the International Council of Christians and Jews.

In the third lecture in the series, at the Gregorian University in Rome in March, Lord Carey provoked anger in the Muslim community for his accusation that Islamic societies had become authoritarian and committed to power and privilege.

The former Archbishop declined to apologise and raised similar concerns as he did in March.

He said that his fears arose “from deep appreciation of Islam and indeed of all mainstream religions and, yet, from an increasing frustration that we have not yet managed to achieve a real and fruitful dialogue based upon understanding and truth.” He challenged the association of the West with decadence in the Muslim mind and of Islam with terrorism in the Western mind.

He had become aware of deep-rooted Islamaphobia in Britain. He said that it was not effective to dismiss such worries as nonsense.

Lord Carey also voiced disquiet about America’s policy in Iraq and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. He described the decapitation in Iraq of Nick Berg as barbaric but added: “In our disgust the West must resist the temptation to take the moral high ground.”

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary- general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The real problem is that he fails to recognise the sovereignty of Muslim countries and their right to govern their affairs according to their own genius, their own culture and their own faith.”

Dr Zaki Badawi, principal of the Muslim College, said: “I feel his diagnosis is not totally correct. George is a great friend of mine. I am going to send him a library on Islam dealing with the areas where he thinks there is a conflict.”

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