Royal Charter for Islam centre

A centre for the scholarly study of Islam has become the first Islamic organisation to receive a Royal Charter.

The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies was granted the honour 27 years after it was set up, with the Prince of Wales hosting a reception to celebrate the historic achievement.

Charles, who is patron of the centre, hailed its work to improve understanding of Islamic culture.

He said: “It seems to me absolutely right that here in the Ukwe should do all we can to nurture an institution which not only promotes a better informed understanding of Islamic culture and civilisation and the challenges facing Moslem communities, but which can also remind both the Islamic world and the West of those timeless, universal principles of harmony enshrined within Islam that the world needs so urgently to re-discover.

“Only from such understanding can we increase the dialogue, respect and tolerance which underpin our national values.”

But he admitted “many of the potential problems” he warned of in his speech to the centre in 1993, entitled Islam and the West, had come to pass.

In that speech he cautioned against sliding “into a newera of danger and division because governments and peoples, communities and religions, cannot live together in peace in a shrinking world.”

He was joined by 150 guests at last night’s reception at St James’s Palace in London.