U.K.: PRINCE CHARLES TO VISIT A MADRASSA

Prince to visit Islamic school
By Zahid Hussain

The Prince of Wales will visit a madrassa, an Islamic school, when he visits Pakistan next week.

The stop was included in his itinerary because of the Prince’s strong interest in understanding Islam and interfaith harmony.

The visit comes as the Pakistani authorities are facing renewed criticism from India and Afghanistan for not doing enough to stop the schools becoming breeding grounds for terrorists. The authorities say that the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall will see the inside of a “new model madrassa” operating under the Government’s patronage, where smartly dressed pupils learn computing alongside the Koran.

There are scores more in the city where the royal couple would not be welcome, and which have attracted young Britons for terror training. Two of the July 7 bombers spent time at madrassas in Lahore.

Does the Prince only want an understanding of Islam or is he a moslem convert as the grand mufti of Cyprus claims?!?

Prince Charles of Arabia

Prince Charles of Arabia
by Ronni L. Gordon and David M. Stillman
Middle East QuarterlySeptember 1997

[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 Wisdom 1

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.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Prince to visit Islamic school

2) Prince Charles of Arabia

3) Is Prince Charles a Convert to Islam? Daniel Pipes blog (review all the updates, but the last one is very interesting indeed)

Mar. 25, 2006 update: As the first Westerner ever to address the Al Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Charles (as was the case in December 2004 – see the update above) chose to give Muslims some advice about modernizing their religion. Note the "we" in the following quote: "I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages." He also said Jews and Christians should learn from Islamic teachings:

What is so distinctive of the great ages of faith surely was that they understood, as well as sacred texts ... the meaning of God's word for all time and its meaning for this time. … it was Islam's greatness to understand this in its full depth and challenge. This is what you ... can give not only to Islam but by example to all the other children of Abraham.

4) Prince Charles Promotes Islam to President Bush