It's a gesture that should have been made several years ago, soon after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks began reflecting a negative image of Muslims as a result of the actions of a few fanatics.

But instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and face the harsh reality that something was fundamentally wrong with a society that could produce such hatred, much of the Muslim world, particularly the Saudis, opted instead to act as though everything was normal, when in fact it was anything but that.

It was only when the same fanatics who attacked the West began going after targets in the desert kingdom did the Saudi leadership wake up to the dangers these groups represented, and began taking appropriate measures.

Now, the Saudi Arabian monarch is reaching out to other faiths in an effort to lessen tension that has developed between Islam and primarily the other two Abrahamic religions – Christianity and Judaism. In the first ever meeting of its kind, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is organizing a conference in Madrid with the aim of improving interfaith relations.

During the three-day conference to be held in the Spanish capital starting July 16, Saudi clerics will convene with representatives of the Christian, Jewish and Eastern religions. The idea for this forum originated when King Abdullah met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in November.

Interfaith meetings have been taking place every so often since the Sept. 11 attacks changed the way the West began to look at the Muslim world. However, this conference is a first, given that it was organized and the direct request of the Saudi king. Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two holiest sites – Mecca and Medina –and the king is considered to be the guardian of those two places.

The choice of Madrid as the site for the meeting is also quite symbolic, given that Spain was where Islam flourished and coexisted peacefully – for the most part – with other religions for the good part of 500 years.