Amis in row after calling for Muslims to suffer

London: British writer Martin Amis who called for Muslim community to suffer until its gets its house in order, has come under scathing attack from Marxist literary critic Terry Eagleton, who has accused him of being Islamophobic.

Amis published his essay "The Age of Horrorism" in the Guardian in September 2006, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade center in New York.

The controversial essay, in which Amis concluded that fundamentalists have won the battle between Islam and Islamism, included statements that people who "look like they're from the Middle East" should be strip-searched.

"The idea was that by hounding and humiliating them as a whole, they would return home and teach their children to be obedient to the White Man's law," Eagleton wrote in The Guardian on Wednesday.

"There seems something mildly defective about this logic," he added ironically, calling Amis' view "vile" and obnoxious.