"GREAT "SPEECHES ON RELIGION.
Prince Charles' Speech on Islam
On Friday, December 13th, at Wilton Park, the Prince of Wales explained how the Muslim critique of materialism helped him to rediscover the sacred spirituality of Islam and explain the decline of the West.
"I start from the belief that Islamic civilization at its best... has an important message for the West in the way it has retained an integrated and integral view of the sanctity of the world around us. I feel that we in the West could be helped to rediscover the roots of our own understanding by an appreciation of the Islamic tradition's deep respect for the timeless traditions of the natural order.
HRH Prince Charles was photographed some time ago at the Grand Opening of a new Ahl as-Sunna masjid in London. Here accompanied by two shaikhs wearing traditional Sunni turbans he waters a newly planted-tree symbolizing the spread of Islam in England.
I believe that process could help in the task of bringing our two faiths closer together. It could also help us in the West to rethink, and for the better, our practical stewardship of man and his environment in fields such as health-care, the natural environment and agriculture, as well as in architecture and urban planning.
Modern materialism is unbalanced and increasingly damaging in its long-term consequences. Yet nearly all the great religions of the world have held an integral view of the sanctity of the world. The Christian message with, for example, its deeply mystical and symbolic doctrine of the Incarnation, has been traditionally a message of the unity of the worlds of spirit and matter, and of God's manifestation in this world and in mankind.
But during the past three centuries, in the Western world at least, a dangerous division has occurred in the way we perceive the world around us. Science has tried to assume a monopoly even a tyranny over our understanding. Religion and science have become separated, so that now, as Wordsworth said, "Little we see in nature that is ours". Science has attempted to take over the natural world from God; it has fragmented the cosmos and relegated the sacred to a separate and secondary compartment of our understanding, divorced from practical, day to day existence.
We are only now beginning to gauge the disastrous results. We in the Western world seem to have lost a sense of the wholeness of our environment, and of our immense and inalienable responsibility to the whole of creation. This has led to an increasing failure to appreciate or understand tradition and the wisdom of our forebears, accumulated over the centuries. Indeed, tradition is positively discriminated against us if it were some socially unacceptable disease.
In my view, a more holistic approach is needed now. Science has done the inestimable service of showing us a world much more complex than we ever imagined. But in its modern, materialist, one-dimensional form, it cannot explain everything. God is not merely the ultimate Newtonian mathematician or the mechanistic clockmaker. As science and technology have become increasingly separated from ethical, moral and sacred considerations, so the implications of such a separation have become more sombre and horrifying we see in genetic manipulation or in the consequences of the kind of scientific arrogance so blatant in the scandal of BSE.
I have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives, but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms, of the fundamental harmony that emerges from the union of the paradoxical opposites that exist in every aspect of nature.... That is why I believe Man is so much more than just a biological phenomenon resting on what we now seem to define as "the bottom line" of the great balance sheet of life, according to which art and culture are seen increasingly as optional extras in life.
This view is quite contrary, for example, to the outlook of the Muslim craftsman or artist, who is never concerned with display for its own sake, nor with progressing ever forward in his own ingenuity, but is content to submit a man's craft to God. That outlook reflects, I believe, the memorable passage in the Koran, "whithersoever you turn there is the face of God and God is all-Embracing, all-Knowing". While appreciating that this essential innocence has been destroyed, and destroyed everywhere, I nevertheless believe that the survival of civilized values, as we have inherited them from our ancestors, depends on the corresponding survival in our hearts of that profound sense of the sacred and the spiritual.
Traditional religions, with their integral view of the universe, can help us to rediscover the importance of the integration of the secular and the sacred. The danger of ignoring this essential aspect of our existence is not just spiritual or intellectual. It also lies at the heart of that great divide between the Islamic and Western worlds over the place of materialism in our lives. In those instances where Islam chooses to reject Western materialism, this is not, in my view, a political affectation or the result of envy or a sense of inferiority. Quite the opposite. And the danger that the gulf between the worlds of Islam and the other Eastern religions on the one hand and the West on the other will grow ever wider and more unbridgeable is real, unless we can explore together practical ways of integrating the sacred and the secular in both our cultures in order to provide a true inspiration for the next century.
Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated, spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West. There is much we can learn from that Islamic world view in this respect.
There are many ways in which mutual understanding and appreciation can be built. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people want to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as our heads. The approaching millennium may be the ideal catalyst for helping to explore and stimulate these links, and I hope we shall not ignore the opportunity this gives us to rediscover the spiritual underpinning of our entire existence.
We are only now beginning to gauge the disastrous results. We in the Western world seem to have lost a sense of the wholeness of our environment, and of our immense and inalienable responsibility to the whole of creation. This has led to an increasing failure to appreciate or understand tradition and the wisdom of our forebears, accumulated over the centuries. Indeed, tradition is positively discriminated against as if it were some socially unacceptable disease.
In my view, a more holistic approach is needed now. Science has done the inestimable service of showing us a world much more complex than we ever imagined. But in its modern, materialist, one-dimensional form, it cannot explain everything. God is not merely the ultimate Newtonian mathematician or the mechanistic clockmaker. As science and technology have become increasingly separated from ethical, moral and sacred considerations, so the implications of such a separation have become more sombre and horrifying as we see in genetic manipulation or in the consequences of the kind of scientific arrogance so blatant in the scandal of BSE.
I have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives, but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms, of the fundamental harmony that emerges from the union of the paradoxical opposites that exist in every aspect of nature.... That is why I believe Man is so much more than just a biological phenomenon resting on what we now seem to define as "the bottom line" of the great balance sheet of life, according to which art and culture are seen increasingly as optional extras in life.
This view is quite contrary, for example, to the outlook of the Muslim craftsman or artist, who is never concerned with display for its own sake, nor with progressing ever forward in his own ingenuity, but is content to submit a man’s craft to God. That outlook reflects, I believe, the memorable passage in the Koran, "whithersoever you turn there is the face of God and God is all-Embracing, all-Knowing". While appreciating that this essential innocence has been destroyed, and destroyed everywhere, I nevertheless believe that the survival of civilized values, as we have inherited them from our ancestors, depends on the corresponding survival in our hearts of that profound sense of the sacred and the spiritual.
... In those instances where Islam chooses to reject Western materialism, this is not, in my view, a political affectation or the result of envy or a sense of inferiority. Quite the opposite. And the danger that the gulf between the worlds of Islam ...on the one hand and the West on the other will grow ever wider and more unbridgeable is real, unless we can explore together practical ways of integrating the sacred and the secular in both our cultures in order to provide a true inspiration for the next century.
Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated, spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West. There is much we can learn from that Islamic world view in this respect.
There are many ways in which mutual understanding and appreciation can be built. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. ...But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as our heads. ...I hope we shall not ignore the opportunity this gives us to rediscover the spiritual underpinning of our entire existence. "
SPEECH GIVEN BY CHARLES ON ISLAM.
Charles certainly says "GREAT" THINGS DOESNT HE...............................?
(Dan 7:8 KJV) I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
'ISLAM AND THE WEST'
Speech by HRH The Prince of Wales, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on the occasion of his visit to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies: Wednesday 27 October 1993
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Ladies and gentlemen, it was suggested to me when I first began to consider the subject of this lecture, that I should take comfort from the Arab proverb, 'In every head there is some wisdom'. I confess that I have few qualifications as a scholar to justify my presence here, in this theatre, where so many people much more learned than I have preached and generally advanced the sum of human knowledge. I might feel more prepared if I were an offspring of your distinguished University, rather than a product of that 'Technical College of the Fens' - though I hope you will bear in mind that a chair of Arabic was established in 17th century Cambridge a full four years before your first chair of Arabic at Oxford. Unlike many of you, I am not an expert on Islam - though I am delighted, for reasons which I hope will become clear, to be a Vice Patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. The Centre has the potential to be an important and exciting vehicle for promoting and improving understanding of the Islamic world in Britain, and one which I hope will earn its place alongside other centres of Islamic study in Oxford, like the Oriental Institute and the Middle East Centre, as an institution of which the University, and scholars more widely, will become justly proud.
Given all the reservations I have about venturing into a complex and controversial field, you may well ask why I am here in this marvellous Wren building talking to you on the subject of Islam and the West. The reason is, ladies and gentlemen, that I believe wholeheartedly that the links between these two worlds matter more today than ever before, because the degree of misunderstanding between the Islamic and Western worlds remains dangerously high, and because the need for the two to live and work together in our increasingly interdependent world has never been greater. At the same time I am only too well aware of the minefields which lie across the path of the inexpert traveller who is bent on exploring this difficult route. Some of what I shall say will undoubtedly provoke disagreement, criticism, misunderstanding and probably worse. But perhaps, when all is said and done, it is worth recalling another Arab proverb: 'What comes from the lips reaches the ears. What comes from the heart reaches the heart.'
The depressing fact is that, despite the advances in technology and mass communications of the second half of the 20th Century, despite mass travel, the intermingling of races, the ever growing reduction - or so we believe - of the mysteries of our world, misunderstandings between Islam and the West continue. Indeed, they may be growing. As far as the West is concerned, this cannot be because of ignorance. There are one billion Muslims worldwide. Many millions of them live in countries of the Commonwealth. Ten million or more live in the West, and around one million in Britain. Our own Islamic community has been growing and flourishing for decades. There are nearly 500 mosques in Britain. Popular interest in Islamic culture in Britain is growing fast. Many of you will recall - and I think some of you took part in - the wonderful Festival of Islam which Her Majesty The Queen opened in 1976. Islam is all around us. And yet distrust, even fear, persist. In the post-Cold War world of the 1990s, the prospects for peace should be greater than at any time in this century. In the Middle East, the remarkable and encouraging events of recent weeks have created new hope for an end to an issue which has divided the world and been so dramatic a source of violence and hatred. But the dangers have not disappeared. In the Muslim world, we are seeing the unique way of life of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq, thousands of years old, being systematically devastated and destroyed. I confess that for a whole year I have wanted to find a suitable opportunity to express my despair and outrage at the unmentionable horrors being perpetrated in Southern Iraq. To me, the supreme and tragic irony of what has been happening to the Shia population of Iraq - especially in the ancient city and holy shrine of Kerbala - is that after the Western allies took immense care to avoid bombing such holy places (and I remember begging General Schwarzkopf when I met him in Riyadh in December 1990 to do his best to protect such shrines during any conflict) it was Saddam Hussein himself, and his terrifying regime, who caused the destruction of some of Islam's holiest sites. And now we have had to witness the deliberate draining of the marshes and the near total destruction of a unique habitat, together with an entire population that has depended upon it since the dawn of human civilization. The international community has been told the draining of the marshes is for agricultural purposes. How many more obscene lies do we have to be told before action is taken? Even at the eleventh hour it is still not too late to prevent a total cataclysm. I pray that this might at least be a cause in which Islam and the West could join forces for the sake of our common humanity. I have highlighted this particular example because it is so avoidable. Elsewhere, the violence and hatred are more intractable and deep-seated, as we go on seeing every day to our horror in the wretched suffering of peoples across the world - in the former Yugoslavia, in Somalia, Angola, Sudan, in so many of the former Soviet Republics. In Yugoslavia the terrible sufferings of the Bosnian Muslims, alongside that of other communities in that cruel war, help keep alive many of the fears and prejudices which our two worlds retain of each other. Conflict, of course, comes about because of the misuse of power and the clash of ideals, not to mention the inflammatory activities of unscrupulous and bigoted leaders. But it also arises, tragically, from an inability to understand, and from the powerful emotions which out of misunderstanding lead to distrust and fear. Ladies and gentlemen, we must not slide into a new era of danger and division because governments and peoples, communities and religions, cannot live together in peace in a shrinking world.
It is odd, in many ways, that misunderstandings between Islam and the West should persist. For that which binds our two worlds together is so much more powerful than that which divides us. Muslims, Christians - and Jews - are all 'peoples of the Book'. Islam and Christianity share a common monotheistic vision: a belief in one divine God, in the transience of our earthly life, in our accountability for our actions, and in the assurance of life to come. We share many key values in common: respect for knowledge, for justice, compassion towards the poor and underprivileged, the importance of family life, respect for parents. 'Honour thy father and thy mother' is a Quranic precept too. Our history has been closely bound up together. There, however, is one root of the problem. For much of that history has been one of conflict: fourteen centuries too often marked by mutual hostility. That has given rise to an enduring tradition of fear and distrust, because our two worlds have so often seen that past in contradictory ways. To Western school children, the two hundred years of Crusades are traditionally seen as a series of heroic, chivalrous exploits in which the kings, knights, princes - and children - of Europe tried to wrest Jerusalem from the wicked Muslim infidel. To Muslims, the Crusades were an episode of great cruelty and terrible plunder, of Western infidel soldiers of fortune and horrific atrocities, perhaps exemplified best by the massacres committed by the Crusaders when, in 1099, they took back Jerusalem, the third holiest city in Islam. For us in the West, 1492 speaks of human endeavour and new horizons, of Columbus and the discovery of the Americas. To Muslims, 1492 is a year of tragedy - the year Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella, signifying the end of eight centuries of Muslim civilisation in Europe. The point, I think, is not that one or other picture is more true, or has a monopoly of truth. It is that misunderstandings arise when we fail to appreciate how others look at the world, its history, and our respective roles in it.
The corollary of how we in the West see our history has so often been to regard Islam as a threat - in mediaeval times as a military conqueror, and in more modern times as a source of intolerance, extremism and terrorism. One can understand how the taking of Constantinople, when it fell to Sultan Mehmet in 1453, and the close-run defeats of the Turks outside Vienna in 1529 and 1683, should have sent shivers of fear through Europe's rulers. The history of the Balkans under Ottoman rule provided examples of cruelty which sank deep into Western feelings. But the threat has not been one way. With Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, followed by the invasions and conquests of the 19th century, the pendulum swung, and almost all the Arab world became occupied by the Western powers. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Europe's triumph over Islam seemed complete. Those days of conquest are over. But even now our common attitude to Islam suffers because the way we understand it has been hijacked by the extreme and the superficial. To many of us in the West, Islam is seen in terms of the tragic civil war in Lebanon, the killings and bombings perpetrated by extremist groups in the Middle East, and by what is commonly referred to as 'Islamic fundamentalism'. Our judgement of Islam has been grossly distorted by taking the extremes to be the norm. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious mistake. It is like judging the quality of life in Britain by the existence of murder and rape, child abuse and drug addition. The extremes exist, and they must be dealt with. But when used as a basis to judge a society, they lead to distortion and unfairness.
For example, people in this country frequently argue that the Sharia law of the Islamic world is cruel, barbaric and unjust. Our newspapers, above all, love to peddle those unthinking prejudices. The truth is, of course, different and always more complex(no its not ck15. My own understanding is that extremes, like the cutting off of hands, are rarely practised. -(oh thats ok then it must be good .ck15)
The guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law, taken straight from the Qur'an, should be those of equity and compassion.-(yeh and cut off a few heads though?.ck15) We need to study its actual application before we make judgements. We must distinguish between systems of justice administered with integrity, and systems of justice as we may see them practised which have been deformed for political reasons into something no longer Islamic. (clever clever .ck15)
We must bear in mind the sharp debate taking place in the Islamic world itself about the extent of the universality or timelessness of Sharia law, and the degree to which the application of that law is continually changing and evolving.
(if it was puke why make a soup of it? ck15)
We should also distinguish Islam from the customs of some Islamic states. Another obvious Western prejudice is to judge the position of women in Islamic society by the extreme cases. Yet Islam is not a monolith and the picture is not simple. Remember, if you will, that Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria gave women the vote as early as Europe did its women - and much earlier than in Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the opportunity to play a full working role in their societies. The rights of Muslim women to property and inheritance, to some protection if divorced, and to the conducting of business, were rights prescribed by the Qur'an twelve hundred years ago,(try to convince us charles whats your purpose want to get england islamic laws passed??? ck 15 ) even if they were not everywhere translated into practice. In Britain at least, some of these rights were novel even to my grandmother's generation! Benazir Bhutto and Begum Khaleda Zia became prime ministers in their own traditional societies when Britain had for the first time ever in its history elected a female prime minister. That, I think, does not smack of a mediaeval society. Women are not automatically second-class citizens because they live in Islamic countries. We cannot judge the position of women in Islam aright if we take the most conservative Islamic states as representative of the whole. For example, the veiling of women is not at all universal across the Islamic world. Indeed, I was intrigued to learn that the custom of wearing the veil owed much to Byzantine and Sassanian traditions, nothing to the Prophet of Islam. Some Muslim women never adopted the veil, others have discarded it, others - particularly the younger generation - have more recently chosen to wear the veil or the headscarf as a personal statement of their Muslim identity. But we should not confuse the modesty of dress prescribed by the Qur'an for men as well as women with the outward forms of secular custom or social status which have their origins elsewhere.
(And we are expected to believe prince charles is a commited member of the church of england , a christian ? and isnt muslim and a follower of islam?ck15)
tell us another one.
We in the West need also to understand the Islamic world's view of us. There is nothing to be gained, and much harm to be done, by refusing to comprehend the extent to which many people in the Islamic world genuinely fear our own Western materialism and mass culture as a deadly challenge to their Islamic culture and way of life. Some of us may think the material trappings of Western society which we have exported to the Islamic world - television, fast-food, and the electronic gadgets of our everyday lifes - are a modernising, self-evidently good, influence. But we fall into the trap of dreadful arrogance if we confuse 'modernity' in other countries with their becoming more like us. The fact is that our form of materialism can be offensive to devout Muslims - and I do not just mean the extremists among them. We must understand that reaction, just as the West's attitude to some of the more rigorous aspects of Islamic life needs to be understood in the Islamic world. This, I believe, would help us understand what we have commonly come to see as the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. We need to be careful of that emotive label, 'fundamentalism', and distinguish, as Muslims do, between revivalists, who choose to take the practice of their religion most devoutly, and fanatics or extremists who use this devotion for political ends. Among the many religious, social and political causes of what we might more accurately call the Islamic revival is a powerful feeling of disenchantment, of the realisation that Western technology and material things are insufficient, and that a deeper meaning to life lies elsewhere in the essence of Islamic belief.
At the same time, we must not be tempted to believe that extremism is in some way the hallmark and essence of the Muslim. Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other religions, including Christianity. The vast majority of Muslims, though personally pious, are moderate in their politics. Theirs is the 'religion of the middle way'. The Prophet himself always disliked and feared extremism. Perhaps the fear of Islamic revivalism which coloured the 1980's is now beginning to give way in the West to an understanding of the genuine spiritual forces behind this groundswell. But if we are to understand this important movement, we must learn to distinguish clearly between what the vast majority of Muslims believe and the terrible violence of a small minority among them which civilized people everywhere must condemn.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history which we have inherited. The mediaeval Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history. For example, we have underestimated the importance of 800 years of Islamic society and culture in Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. The contribution of Muslim Spain to the preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and to the first flowerings of the Renaissance, has long been recognised. But Islamic Spain was much more than a mere larder where Hellenistic knowledge was kept for later consumption by the emerging modern Western world. Not only did Muslim Spain gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, it also interpreted and expanded upon that civilisation, and made a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of human endeavour - in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic word), law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture, theology, music. Averroes and Avenzoor, like their counterparts Avicenna and Rhazes in the East, contributed to the study and practice of medicine in ways from which Europe benefited for centuries afterwards.
Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for learning. In the words of the tradition, 'the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr'. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilised city of Europe. We know of lending libraries in Spain at the time King Alfred was making terrible blunders with the culinary arts in this country. It is said that the 400,000 volumes in its ruler's library amounted to more books than all the libraries of the rest of Europe put together. That was made possible because the Muslim world acquired from China the skill of making paper more than four hundred years before the rest of non-Muslim Europe. Many of the traits on which modern Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities. Mediaeval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing Jews and Christians the right to practise their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West. The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent to which Islam has been a part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans, and the extent to which it has contributed so much towards the civilisation which we all too often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart.
More than this, Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam - like Buddhism and Hinduism - refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. At the core of Christianity there still lies an integral view of the sanctity of the world, and a clear sense of the trusteeship and responsibility given to us for our natural surroundings. In the words of that marvellous seventeenth century poet and hymn writer, George Herbert: 'A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye, Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, and then the heaven espy.'
But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our everyday beliefs. I cannot help feeling that, if we could now only rediscover that earlier, all-embracing approach to the world around us, to see and understand its deeper meaning, we could begin to get away from the increasing tendency in the West to live on the surface of our surroundings, where we study our world in order to manipulate and dominate it, turning harmony and beauty into disequilibrium and chaos. It is a sad fact, I believe, that in so many ways the external world we have created in the last few hundred years has come to reflect our own divided and confused inner state. Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities. This crucial sense of oneness and trusteeship of the vital sacramental and spiritual character of the world about us is surely something important we can relearn from Islam. I am quite sure some will instantly accuse me, as they usually do, of living in the past, of refusing to come to terms with reality and modern life. On the contrary, ladies and gentlemen, what I am appealing for is a wider, deeper, more careful understanding of our world: for a metaphysical as well as material dimension to our lives, in order to recover the balance we have abandoned, the absence of which, I believe, will prove disastrous in the long term. If the ways of thought in Islam and other religions can help us in that search, then there are things for us to learn in this system of belief which I suggest we ignore at our peril.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live today in one world, forged by instant communications, by television, by the exchange of information on a scale undreamed of by our grandparents. The world economy functions as an inter-dependant entity. Problems of society, the quality of life and the environment, are global in their causes and effects, and none of us any longer has the luxury of being able to solve them on our own. The Islamic and Western worlds share problems common to us all: how we adapt to change in our societies, how we help young people who feel alienated from their parents or society's values, how we deal with Aids, drugs, and the disintegration of the family. Of course, these problems vary in nature and intensity between societies. But the similarity of human experience is considerable. The international trade in hard drugs is one example, the damage we are collectively doing to our environment is another. We have to solve these threats to our communities and our lives together. Simply getting to know each other can achieve wonders. I remember vividly, for example, taking a group of Muslims and non-Muslims some years ago to see the work of the Marylebone Health Centre in London, of which I am patron. The enthusiasm and common determination that shared experience generated was immensely heart-warming. Ladies and gentleman, somehow we have to learn to understand each other, and to educate our children - a new generation - whose attitudes and cultural outlook may be different from ours so that they understand too. We have to show trust, mutual respect and tolerance, if we are to find the common ground between us and work together to find solutions. The community enterprise approach of my own Trust, and the very successful Volunteers Scheme it has run for some years, show how much can be achieved by a common effort which spans the classes, cultures and religions. The Islamic and Western world can no longer afford to stand apart from a common effort to solve their common problems. We cannot afford to revive the territorial and political confrontations of the past. We have to share experiences, to explain ourselves to each other, to understand and tolerate, and build on the positive principles our cultures have in common. That trade has to be two-way. Each of us needs to understand the importance of conciliation, of reflection - TADABBUR - to open our minds and unlock our hearts to each other. I am utterly convinced that the Islamic and Western worlds have much to learn from each other. Just as the oil engineer in the Gulf may be European, so the heart transplant surgeon in Britain may be Egyptian.
If this need for tolerance and exchange is true internationally, it applies with special force within Britain itself. Britain is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. I have already mentioned the size of our own Muslim communities who live throughout Britain, both in large towns like Bradford and in tiny communities in places as remote as Stornaway in Western Scotland. These people, ladies and gentlemen, are an asset to Britain. They contribute to all parts of our economy - to industry, the public services, the professions and the private sector. We find them as teachers, doctors, engineers and scientists. They contribute to our economic well-being as a country, and add to the cultural richness of our nation. Of course, tolerance and understanding must be two-way. for those of us who are not Muslim, that may mean respect for the daily practice of the Islamic faith and a decent care to avoid actions which are likely to cause deep offence. For the Muslims in our society, there is a need to respect the history, culture and way of life of our country, and to balance their vital liberty to be themselves with an appreciation of the importance of integration in our society. Where there are failings of understanding and tolerance, we have a need, on our own doorstep, for greater reconciliation among our own citizens. I can only admire, and applaud, those men and women of so many denominations who work tirelessly, in London, South Wales, the Midlands and elsewhere, to promote good community relations. The Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations in Birmingham is one especially notable and successful example. We should be grateful for the dedication and example of all those who have devoted themselves to the cause of promoting understanding.
Ladies and gentlemen, if, in the last half hour, your eyes have wandered up to the marvellous allegory of Truth descending on the arts and sciences in Sir Robert Streeter's ceiling above you, I am sure you will have noticed Ignorance being violently banished from the arena - just there in front of the organ casing. I feel some sympathy for Ignorance, and hope I may be able to vacate this theatre in somewhat better condition. Before I go, I cannot put to you strongly enough the importance of the issues which I have tried to touch on so imperfectly. These two worlds, the Islamic and the Western, are at something of a crossroads in their relations. We must not let them stand apart. I do not accept the argument that they are on a course to clash in a new era of antagonism. I am utterly convinced that our two worlds have much to offer each other. We have much to do together. I am delighted that the dialogue has begun, both in Britain and elsewhere. But we shall need to work harder to understand each other, to drain out any poison between us, and to lay the ghost of suspicion and fear. The further down that road we can travel, the better the world that we shall create for our children and for future generations.
Prince Charles.
"The best of Princes is one who visits the wise." - The Prophet.
For many years there have been whisperings and rumours within the Naqshbandi Sufi Order and in the world of Islam on the whole regarding the connection between the Royal Family of Britain and Islam. Sheikh Nazim al Haqqani has often mentioned the sincere, Islamic qualities of our Royals and even that they may one day be the Islamic Sultanate. It is of course common knowledge that Prince Charles is more than just interested in spiritual knowledge. An early biography described an enormous breadth to the Prince's knowledge and wisdom to be found in the world's religious and spiritual traditions. He is a man of principle with deeply held convictions. His success at turning Highgrove into a fully functioning organic farm bears witness to this. Not many know he has an Islamic Art School in London as part of the Institute for Architecture. Moreover, his ground breaking speech at Oxford about Islam left many reeling.
Here for another of Prince Charles' talks on Islam
Here for the Prince's 'Reith Lecture' on Sustainability.
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Prince Charles of Arabia
by Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman
Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman are associate scholars of the Middle East Forum
[T]he effort for these years to live in the dress of Arabs, and to imitate their mental foundation, quitted me of my English self, and let me look at the West and its conventions with new eyes: they destroyed it all for me.
- T.E.Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom1
Prince Charles has often surprised his future subjects, but few shocks match the allegations of a newspaper article that appeared in October 1996:2
The idea of the Prince of Wales lugging around a prayer mat and turning to face Mecca five times a day sounds a tad unlikely - but, then again, so did confessing to adultery on prime-time television a couple of years ago. So perhaps no one should be shocked by the suggestion in a forthcoming book that Prince Charles has converted to Islam.
This claim was put forward by no less a personage than the grand mufti of Cyprus: "Did you know that Prince Charles has converted to Islam. Yes, yes. He is a Muslim. I can't say more. But it happened in Turkey. Oh, yes, he converted all right. When you get home check on how often he travels to Turkey. You'll find that your future king is a Muslim."3 "Nonsense," replied a Buckingham Palace spokesman, denying Charles's supposed conversion. Lord St. John of Fawsley, a constitutional expert, is no less dubious, commenting that "The Prince of Wales is a loyal member of the Church of England."4 Some time later, a leak to the press told of Charles's "desire to play a greater role in the Church of England," an apparent attempt to reinforce the prince's Anglican credentials.5
Rumors about the Prince of Wales's conversion to Islam may well be inaccurate; even so, the fact that spokesmen official and unofficial felt compelled to deny this fact results from persistent speculation about Charles's religious loyalties that arises out of his statements and actions of recent years. And these, in turn, reflect a larger trend in Western society.
CHARLES'S PUBLIC STATEMENTS ABOUT ISLAM
The future Charles III has made several strong public statements endorsing Islam as the solution to the spiritual and cultural ills of Britain and the West. His public advocacy of Islam appears to go back to 1989, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued an edict (fatwa) against Salman Rushdie, a British citizen, for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses.6 Rather than defend Rushdie's freedom of speech, Charles reacted to the death decree by reflecting on the positive features that Islam has to offer the spiritually empty lives of his countrymen.
Charles first delivered a major address on Islam on October 27, 1993, at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford where he is a vice patron of the Centre for Islamic Studies.7 He declared that the usual attitude to Islam
suffers because the way we understand it has been hijacked by the extreme and the superficial. To many of us in the West, Islam is seen in terms of the tragic civil war in Lebanon, the killings and bombings perpetrated by extremist groups in the Middle East, and by what is commonly referred to as "Islamic fundamentalism."
The Prince of Wales then explained the causes for this distorted understanding:
Our judgement of Islam has been grossly distorted by taking the extremes to the norm. . . . For example, people in this country frequently argue that the Sharia law of the Islamic world is cruel, barbaric and unjust. Our newspapers, above all, love to peddle those unthinking prejudices. The truth is, of course, different and always more complex. My own understanding is that extremes, like the cutting off of hands, are rarely practised. The guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law, taken straight from the Qur'an, should be those of equity and compassion.
Charles suggests that European women may even find something to envy in the situation of their Muslim sisters:
Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria gave women the vote as early as Europe did its women-and much earlier than in Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the opportunity to play a full working role in their societies.
Charles considers Christianity inadequate to the task of spiritual restoration and denigrates science for having caused the West to lose its spiritual moorings. Echoing a common Muslim theme, he declares that "Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities." Instead, he praises the "Islamic revival" of the 1980s and portrays Islam as Britain's salvation:
Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam-like Buddhism and Hinduism-refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. . . . But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.
He concludes by suggesting that "there are things for us to learn in this system of belief which I suggest we ignore at our peril."
Among the many titles borne by the British sovereign is "Defender of the Faith," a reference to the fact that the monarch heads not only the government but also the Church of England. But the prince has reservations about this title. In a June 1994 television documentary he declared his preference to be known as "Defender of Faith" rather than "Defender of the Faith,"8 leading to a rash of speculation that he favors the disestablishment of the Church of England.9
Charles has continued to discuss the role of Islam in the United Kingdom. In a speech at the Foreign Office Conference Centre at Wilton Park in Sussex on December 13, 1996, he called on Islamic pedagogy and philosophy to help young Britons develop a healthier view of the world.10 Praising Islamic culture in its traditional form for trying to preserve an "integrated, spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West," he went on to say:
There is much we can learn from that Islamic world view in this respect. There are many ways in which mutual understanding and appreciation can be built. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people want to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as our heads.
The results of this study will help Westerners
to rethink, and for the better, our practical stewardship of man and his environment-in fields such as health-care, the natural environment and agriculture, as well as in architecture and urban planning.
In addition to these comments on Islam, Charles has taken steps to give that religion a special status. For example, he set up a panel of twelve "wise men" (in fact, eleven men and one woman) to advise him on Islamic religion and culture.11 This caused much talk, especially as the group was reported to have met in secret. Some noted that no comparable body exists to inform the crown prince about other faiths practiced in his future realm.
REACTIONS
Muslim world. Charles has traveled extensively in the Muslim world, with recent visits to Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Bangladesh. He has visited Turkey so often that some observers believe that to be the country where his rumored conversion to Islam took place. In addition, he has visited mosques in the United Kingdom, for example, dropping in on one at the end of Ramadan in April 1996.
Some offices of the British government have found a practical use for the prince's affection for Islam. In particular, the Foreign Office uses him as a point man for British business interests in Muslim countries, leading one journalist to comment that "the Charles of Arabia phenomenon is here to stay," for it helps assure British commerce with the Muslim world.12
Although some Britons may be bewildered at Prince Charles's infatuation with Islam, he has become a hero among Muslims. His February 1997 visit to Saudi Arabia
got moderate coverage in the British press-but it was huge news in the host country. In Saudi Arabia, the overwhelming theme of the welcoming addresses was of the Prince as candid friend of the Islamic world. The warmth of his welcome was extraordinary.
The writer of this account, John Casey of Cambridge University, warns that the British public lacks a clear understanding of Charles's standing in the Muslim world:
The extent to which the Prince is admired by Muslims-even to the point of hero-worship-has not yet sunk into the consciousness of the British public. When it does, that public may or may not be pleased.
Casey concludes that the prince of Wales's "hero status" in the Arab world is permanent. "No other Western figure commands this sort of admiration."13
Charles's Muslim admirers can be generous in their gratitude. At a private dinner with prince Charles in May 1997, Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia announced a donation by King Fahd of $33 million to Oxford University to construct a new Centre for Islamic Studies at Oxford, a gift designed "to establish Islamic studies at the heart of the British education system."14
Great Britain. Charles's speeches provoked a flurry of comments in England. In the popular perception, he is a spiritual dilettante, something of a religious butterfly, flitting from faith to faith and veering, increasingly, towards Islam. . . . The sight of the Prince in yet another prayer shawl only compounds the image of a well-intentioned eccentric seeking divine inspiration.15
Others wonder if Charles is aware of the punishments Islamic law metes out to adulterers-and whether he "exacted some sort of guarantee" before traveling to the Muslim world that he would not be "stoned or beaten by devout Saudi or Bangladeshi natives."16
Some Englishmen took their prince's statements more seriously. Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, raised questions about the coherence of Charles's approach to Islam, commenting that "It is not fair to compare the best ideals of the Islamic faith with the worst of Western cultural decadence." Sookhdeo also reminded Charles that many Muslims see in Western traditions the solution to their own problems:
What do Muslims living in a Muslim context feel? Are they content to continue submitting to authority in every detail of their lives? Many are not. We hear much about radical Islamists seeking an even closer adherence to the original teachings of Islam. But we hear little about the opposite phenomenon: the Muslims who are attracted by democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, respect for the rights and worth of the individual and other characteristics of Western society.17
Another commentator reversed Charles's argument and held that some of Britain's million and a half Muslims need instruction in British values:
it would be interesting to know who they [the Muslim leaders with whom Charles associates] are. Do they include Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, who supports Hamas, agitates for an Islamic state, and recently called for homosexuals to fling themselves off Big Ben? Or the dissident Dr. al-Mas'ari, who has used the new freedom of speech which we in this country have given him to call for the extermination of the Jews?18
Prime Minister John Major reacted to Charles's sentiment about wanting to be known as "Defender of Faith" with the understated comment that "it would be a little odd if Prince Charles was defender of faiths of which he was not a member."19
The conflict between Charles's enthusiasm for Islam and his subjects' leeriness played itself out recently at Oxford, where the reaction to King Fahd's huge gift to the Islamic center met with little enthusiasm. Oxford faculty oppose the gift, claiming its proposed location-on a greenfield site near the heart of the city-would constitute "overdevelopment."20 Presumably their ecological opposition hides other motives as well.
Interestingly, Charles himself has mildly experienced the wrath of fundamentalist Islam. Just after Ayatollah Khomeini issued his death decree against Salman Rushdie, Charles was in the Persian Gulf and Tehran radio denounced his presence there "as a snub to Islam."21 Because of "heightened security concerns in the wake of Muslim furor over The Satanic Verses,"22 the prince was forced to withdraw from a polo match in Dubai. But this brush with Muslim extremists has not dissuaded Charles from reassuring others that Islam's problem is only one of image.
It bears noting that Charles is not the royal family's only link to the Muslim world, for Princess Diana, Charles's ex-wife, has often been linked to Hasnat Khan, a London-based cardiac surgeon. Just as Charles donned a Muslim prayer shawl, Di wore a traditional shalwar kameez during her visit to Khan's family in Pakistan. London's Sunday Mirror23 reports that Khan's family has approved a possible marriage of the divorced 35-year-old princess and their son, then quoted the princess (via a "friend") to the effect that she hoped Khan would father a half-sister to her two sons, princes William and Harry. While Diana's divorce from the heir to the British throne removes her personally from the royal family, her sons could be the first heirs to the British throne with a Muslim stepfather.
CONCLUSION
The denigration of the West at the expense of a foreign tradition that Charles engages in occurs quite commonly among the West's intellectual elite. For some it is Islam, for others Tibetan Buddhism, Maoist thought, or American Indian spirituality. In all cases, the alien is assumed superior to the familiar. Arthur Schlesinger replies to this that there remains
a crucial difference between the Western tradition and the others. The crimes of the West have produced their own antidotes. They have provoked great movements to end slavery, to raise the status of women, to abolish torture, to combat racism, to defend freedom of inquiry and expression, to advance personal liberty and human rights.24
Should Charles persist in his admiration of Islam and defamation of his own culture, it could be, as The Independent puts it, that his accession to the throne will indeed usher in a "different kind of monarchy."
1 New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1991, pp. 31-2.
2 Evening Standard, Oct. 15, 1996.
3 Quoted in Giles Milton, The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville (London: Allison & Busby, 1996), p. 78.
4 Evening Standard, Oct. 15, 1996.
5 Richard Kay and Nick Craven, "Why Charles Is Driven to Build a Bridge to the East," Daily Mail, Jan. 6, 1997.
6 Ibid.
7 "Islam and the West," text of Charles's 1993 speech, MSANEWS of Ohio State University.
8 The Independent, July 1, 1994.
9 For example, Sunday Times, May 26, 1996.
10 The Times, Dec. 14, 1996.
11 Richard Kay, "Charles and the 'Wise Men' of Islam," Daily Mail, Jan. 6, 1997.
12 John Casey, "Friend of Islam Given a Hero's Welcome," The Daily Telegraph, Mar. 8, 1997.
13 Ibid.
14 Richard Wollffe and Simon Targett, "$33m gift toOxford Islamic centre." Financial Times, May 30, 1997.
15 Robert Hardman, "Search for the Spiritual Helps to Restore Faith," The Daily Telegraph, Dec. 28, 1996.
16 Catherine Bennett, "What on Earth is Prince Charles up To?" The Guardian, Dec. 18, 1996.
17 Patrick Sookhdeo, "Prince Charles is Wrong: Islam Does Menace the West," The Daily Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1996.
18 Bennett, "What on Earth?" The Guardian, Dec. 18, 1996.
19 Sunday Times, May 26, 1996.
20 Wollffe and Targett, "$33m gift to Oxford Islamic centre."
21 Reuters, Mar. 17, 1989.
22 United Press International, Mar. 17, 1989.
23 As quoted in The Boston Herald, Nov. 4, 1996.
24 Arthur M. Schelsinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. New York: W. W. Norton, p. 127.
25 July 1, 1994.
British crown prince meets with Arab, Muslim community in Britain
Regional-UK, Politics, 10/30/2001
The British crown prince Charles has started a series of meetings with the representatives of the Arab and Muslim community in Britain in an attempt to convince them that the war launched by Britain and the US against Afghanistan does not mean an attack against Islam.
A source at the British royal Palace at Buckingham Palace on Monday said that activities of prince Charles started following a long meeting with the prime minister Tony Blair who ( Blair) strongly encouraged him in his efforts to win the support of the Arabs and Muslims in Britain for the international alliance against terrorism.
The source indicated that Blair expressed his strong support for the efforts made by the crown prince Charles to build firm ties between the British government and the Arab and Muslim community in Britain with the aim to expand the volume of support for the alliance against international terrorism.
The source added that prince Charles received at his palace ( Saint James) prominent Arab and Islamic figures, mainly the chairman of the Islamic relief society, the head of Bulham mosque to the south of London and member of parliament at the British labor party for Burngham area.
During their meeting with prince Charles those Arab and Muslim Figures urged the West on the need to pursue legal and diplomatic methods to settle the question of terrorism instead of resorting to military acts.
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/011030/2001103007.html
The Muslim news
September 26, 2001
Prince Charles to visit mosque
Prince Charles will visit a mosque this Friday, reports The Muslim News. "The visit is to reach out to the British Muslims at the time when the Muslim community is facing a backlash in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York," says Editor of The Muslim News.
The Prince of Wales will visit Suleymaniye Mosque on Kingsland Road in East London at 4.30 pm on Friday.
Last week Lib Deb Leader Charles Kennedy and SNP Leader John Sweeney visited mosques in support of the Muslim community.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister has invited a fifteen person Muslim delegation to Downing Street on Thursday afternoon to discuss the latest developments regarding the crisis. The Muslim leaders will brief Tony Blair about the backlash against the Muslim community and will tell the Prime Minister about their concerns about the bombing of Afghanistan without concrete proof.
The meeting was first believed to have been with interfaith leaders but this has been postponed for next week.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey postponed his visit to London's Central Mosque on Thursday to next week after the interfaith meeting with the Prime Minister was postponed, reports The Muslim News.
For further information contact us on 020 7608 2822 or 077 68 241 325. Please acknowledge The Muslim News when using the press release
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/index/press.php?pr=133
PRINCE CHARLES OPENS MUSLIM CENTRE 23 November 2001
LONDON
BSN: 0148A
STORY: PRINCE CHARLES VISITS MOSQUE
LOCATION: LONDON, UK
DATE SHOT: NOVEMBER 23, 2001
TXN DATE: NOVEMBER 26, 2001
AUDIO: ENGLISH SPEECH AND NATURAL SOUND
DURATION: 1.15
SHOT LIST:
(London, November 26)
1. Prince Charles arrives at mosque
2. Various of Prince Charles greeting people at mosque
3. Various of Prince Charles inside mosque
4. SOT (English speech) super details: Prince Charles
Prince Charles has joined London Muslims in opening a new centre in the east of the city.
He participated in the evening breaking of fast for Ramadan; and met and talked with worshippers before sharing a meal with them.
The Prince of Wales was greeted warmly in East London, at one of the city?s oldest mosques.
During his visit the Prince officially launched the £10 million London Muslim Centre Project, which will be built on land next to the mosque. The multi-purpose centre will promote a greater understanding between ethnic groups.
Prince Charles spoke of the importance of religious tolerance.
"At a time when traditional values and institutions, above all the family, are under threat from a range of different outside pressures, a place where we can come together and share ideas, aspirations and feelings is incredibly important."
The Prince then shared traditional Muslim food. He sipped faluda, a drink made of milk and rose-petal syrup, before eating dates and figs.
BOARD WHERE TRUE MUSLIMS DISCUSS CHARLES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO HIM .
It isnt in english but this shows the amount of stir he's raising in the world of Islam.
http://www.isnet.org/archive-milis/archive98/jul98/0190.html
PRINCE CHARLES GIVEN TITLE PATRON OF ISLAM
Saturday, January 18, 2002
IN DEFENSE OF BONNIE PRINCE CHARLES
By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®
Special to ASSIST News Service
HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- Those of us who love Jesus Christ, His church and our neighbor as ourselves, are rightfully concerned about the state of the church in the United States and the reported rapid decline of the church in Europe, especially in England which has sent so many missionaries out into the world. Since we believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ, we are deeply concerned that all might be saved through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, the increase in those who do not know Jesus Christ and who will, therefore, die in their sins, is of great concern.
This decline mirrors a much steeper decline throughout the 20th Century in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe. Having studied at Cambridge University and spoken at Parliament, I am an Anglophile within reason, and as such, I am concerned about the decline of the church in England. One indicator of this decline is the drop in the number of children in Sunday School from 55% in 1900 to 4% in 1989 - a 94% decrease.
Recently, I wrote an article entitled, "Prince Puts Foot in Mouth," about Prince Charles being honored as the patron of Islam by the Muslim community in the United Kingdom when, as the heir to the Throne of England, he is supposed to be the defender of the Christian faith and the titular head of the Church of England. I quoted an article in the Los Angeles Times wherein Prince Charles said, "Nobody has a monopoly on the truth. To recognize that is, I believe, a first-step to real wisdom . . . ." Furthermore, I noted that this muddle-headed statement contradicts the Gospel, which says quite clearly that Jesus is the Truth, the Life and the Way, and no one comes to the father except through Jesus Christ.
Then, I noted that as the great Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis pointed out, watered down Christianity is nothing, and as a result of years of being watered down, Christianity in the U.K. was declining precipitously while Islam was growing. Another Los Angeles Times article pointed out that there may soon be more Muslims worshipping in their Mosques in the U.K. every week than there are Christians going to church.
A clear thinking editor in England called this projection into question. He pointed out that:
"...simple comparisons of numbers of worshipping Anglicans on any one Sunday with those going to mosques is simplistic. Churchgoing patterns in the UK have changed so much that someone going to church on Sunday once a month, and maybe once or twice midweek would consider themselves as much a part of the Church as someone who is there every Sunday, and may well be a genuine, born-again, believing Christian. Statistics tend to miss these people."
"Also, it's difficult to fairly compare Muslim worshippers whose religious identity is more cultural and racial than a specific chosen spiritual conviction, with those who worship at Church of England churches. Religious decline has cut the number of 'nominal' churchgoers, such that those who do go are genuinely committed. Certainly, numbers of mosque attenders are closing on numbers of Anglicans in church on any one Sunday, but this does not give the whole picture - and also ignores the REST of the UK Church, which in some areas is growing significantly."
Of course, he is correct, statistics can be interpreted in different ways. George Gallup has always looked at the positive in terms of church attendance and has usually asked questions in his surveys that strengthen the position of the church and encourage Christians. His positive outlook was one influence that led me to investigate the claims of Jesus Christ, and when he was on the board of an organization of which I was the president, I told him that he was an evangelist in his use of surveys.
Other well-known demographers and researchers ask tougher questions which give a bleaker picture. One is my friend George Barna. I have suggested that he is a prophet calling Christians back to basics, revival and renewal.
Thus, surveys can be conducted in ways that encourage and in ways that help point out areas of improvement. Neither approach is wrong, but both lead to different conclusions.
Clearly, there are other Christians besides Anglicans in England, but the question is what kind of Christians they are, especially whether they hold to the essential doctrines of the faith, such as the physical resurrection of Christ, Christ's vicarious atonement for our sins and the Virgin Birth of Jesus, without which there would be no Divine Incarnation and, hence, no real Christianity. Only a detailed survey or poll can determine the real truth.
Therefore, the argument is not whether England has gone Muslim, but the consequence of years of unbiblical and effectively anti-Christian thinking among some of the leaders of the church. I went to Anglican Seminary and was taught by many who denied the essential tenets of the faith in their attempt to be ecumenical, modern or liberal. Many had become Christophobic (irrationally afraid of being Christian), others avoided the mention of Jesus Christ, and a few were anti-Jesus Christ.
Prince Charles' statement may fall into any of these watered-down and toxic categories, but whatever category it falls into, it will undermine the truth that Jesus Christ as the only Way.
Furthermore, the clear thinking editor in England pointed out that no city in the United Kingdom is under a Taliban form of Islamic Law:
"Inner-city or suburbs aren't really the issue. There are a number of major cities in the UK that have significant Muslim communities: Bradford, Leeds, Birmingham, London among them. Whatever lifestyles and personal beliefs and choices these communities observe, they have to comply with UK law. They will observe religious festivals, prayers and certain cultural practices that are particular to Islam, but they have to comply with UK law. If I understand you correctly, city limits refers to the inner city area, and metropolitan boundaries means the outer suburbs and outlying areas - we use different terms over here!"
However, he goes on to note that "Clearly Muslims will feel they must uphold the will of Allah over and above the law of man, as Christians would feel they must obey God before men. But how it's worked out in practice is the issue."
The difference here is that the Kingdom of God is composed of people who have been born again by the Holy Spirit and who are instructed to obey the law of the land in which they live. On the other hand, Muslims are instructed that when they make up the majority, then Islamic Law is predominant although the form that it takes may be more or less benign.
Thus, Islam is spread in part by demographic power, in contrast to Christianity, which is spread by God's Gracious love transforming lives in a redemptive manner that strengthens the believers relationship with his country.
Of course, not all self-described Muslims hold to the essential doctrines of Islam. Although there are no cutting off of hands for stealing in Bradford, that does not mean that Islamic Law is not in power there. In fact, the cutting off of hands for stealing does not appear to be an essential part of Islamic Law since it is only practiced in a few Muslim countries. Thus, not all Muslims view certain alleged Islamic Laws as essential to a properly run Muslim government.
Furthermore, the fact remains that, apparently, Muslims are bound to apply the laws of the Koran, although perhaps in a more "liberal" fashion than their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia or the late and not so great Taliban government in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the danger remains that, as more Muslims become more radicalized over the events occurring in Israel and elsewhere, the great legal and moral traditions of England and Great Britain will come under increasing Islamic attack, until the Christian foundations of Great Britain crumble completely.
The Christian editor does offer this hope: "Church leaders in the UK are [trying] to build bridges to the Muslim community in the UK. Not because they've fallen prey to syncretism, but because they recognize that on some issues - family breakdown, the advance of secularism, religious freedom - we can work together. That doesn't mean the Gospel isn't being presented to them - it is, and the Church is having to work very hard to help those who come to faith and are excluded from their communities..."
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr. Ted Baehr is founder and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission and publisher and editor-in-chief of MOVIEGUIDE®: A Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment. Now in its 17th year of publication, MOVIEGUIDE® is published every two weeks throughout the year (sometimes once a month) and is available by subscription at our toll-free line, 1-800-899-6684, or by writing to us at movieguide@compuserve.com or at 2510-G Las Posas Road, #502, Camarillo, CA 93010. Every year, MOVIEGUIDE® publishes a video guide to the previous year's movies. MOVIEGUIDE® also broadcasts weekly and daily programs on radio and television. Dr. Tom Snyder is editor of MOVIEGUIDE® and author of MYTH CONCEPTIONS: JOSEPH CAMPBELL AND THE NEW AGE (Baker Books, 1995) and has a doctorate in film studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. outside of Chicago.
MOVIEGUIDE® and the Christian Film & Television Commission are non-profit organizations dedicated to redeeming the values of the entertainment media according to biblical principles by influencing industry executives and by equipping the public to be active, media-wise consumers. Donations to MOVIEGUIDE® and the Christian Film & Television Commission are tax deductible to the extent of the law.
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s02010048.htm
PRINCE CHARLES' FAITH
[ Deception in the Church ]
Prince Charles has launched an initiative called Respect, which seeks to promote greater tolerance between faiths. He called for all religions to unite in ‘faith in the integrity of life itself.’ His move was fully supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Zaki Badawi, principal of the Muslim College, described him as ‘the most popular world leader in the Muslim community throughout the world.’
The prince said, ‘It is a tragedy that when various faith communities have so much in common, its members should so often be divided by different ways we have of interpreting the inner meaning of our existence.’
Commenting on this, Indarjit Singh, chairman of the Sikh Network, said, ‘God is not the least bit interested in our different religious stables. He is interested in our contribution to society.’
Such sentiments have now become virtually the official religion of our country, endorsed by the Queen as she visits a mosque in the course of the Jubilee celebrations. To question them is to be considered a bigot, a reactionary and the enemy of peace and tolerance.
On this theme we are in favour of people making a positive contribution to society and showing love and concern for others whatever their racial or religious background. However the fact is that we are called to have faith in God, not in the ‘integrity of life’ whatever that means. Life is passing away and fashions change with every generation.
God does not change and He is concerned with bringing us eternal salvation, not in how we ‘interpret the inner meaning of our existence’. God is interested in which ‘religious stable’ we are in. In Isaiah He laments over the tragedy of those who ‘pray to a god that cannot save.’ Prince Charles and those like him are encouraging millions to pray to gods who have no power to save us from our sins. The prophecy goes on to say, ‘There is no other God beside me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look to Me and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God and there is no other’ (see Isaiah 45.18-23).
The New Testament reveals the Saviour as the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’ (John 14.6). Peter said of Jesus: ‘Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4.12). The reason for this is that Jesus alone has paid the price of our sins, through His sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection from the dead.
Prince Charles’ views on this and other issues (including the use of alternative healing methods) are fitting him well for a position of leadership in the coming globalist system. Some in the press have speculated on his suitability to become King and therefore head of the Church of England. As a representative of the spirit of the age he would seem to be ideally suited, but as a representative of the King of kings not at all suited! (A copy of our previous article ‘Prince Charles and Alternative Medicine’ is available on request).
http://www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk/docs/deception_church/prince_charles_faith.html
The Leaders O f This World are terrified of Islam.
Ever since 911, the leaders of the western world have scrambled to make nervous speeches in defence of Islam,President Bush , a supposedly born again christian, defended islam , as did Tony blair , priminster of the uk.
In a nervous press coference , Mr blair , surrounded by the leaders of the Muslim/ islamic council/league of the uk,
told reporters nervously, THAT ISLAM WAS ONE OF THE GREAT FAITHS
AND WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM.
So , in these terrible terrorist events and times, we see Prince Charles "THE NEW LAURANCE OF ARABIA TO THE ENTIRE ISLAMIC WORLD"
HAS HIS PERFECT OPPERTUNITY TO COURT,-
AND PROMOTE THE ISLAMIC WORLD/FAITH,
PLUS INFLUENCE BOTH THE LEADERS OF THE WEST
AND THE LEADERS OF THE FAR AND MIDDLE EAST
AT THE SAME TIME.!
Prince Charles' connection to all that is Islamic , is no brief encounter , he has been having a serious and intense love affair with islam for many many years.
It is remarkable how these unprecidented world events have turned to his favour.
the great monarch of europe will be instrumental in quitening a islamic/ muslim threat from the east.
Prince charles is a man equal for such a task as this .
he has the ear of the leaders of the west,
who know about his great respect and so influence over the islamic world.
he has the ear and respect of the islamic worl itself,
and has the respect of the seriously liberal christians who are supttorting his RESPECT campaign , plus all the other relgiou leaders of the various world faiths, who also support and agree to his respect intiative.
not to mention the chief rabbi Jonathan sachs , who even is said to have influenced Prince Charles and spearheaded the drive for the RESPECT PROGRAMME.
What the world was trying to achieve before 911 was PEACE AND SECURITY
something disturbed that apple cart.
not they will stp at nothing to carry on their work
and it involves a one world religious church
and a very clear link between this and world peace and security, like never before.
His influence and respect within the islamic world is not equalled by even fully OUT, TOP muslim clerics! to speak.
Click here for an overall summary of the person and work of the great monarch of europe
and go to the bottom section of this page for more on him.
plus go here to the charles and catholicism link
equally important where the prophecies of the great monarch of europe are concerned.
