Tony Blair yesterday pledged to spend £1m improving the teaching of Islamic studies at universities, as Downing Street said more imams should be trained in Britain to reduce reliance on foreign-trained clerics.
In a speech to a conference of moderate Muslims in London, the prime minister accepted that British politicians should listen more carefully to the views of “the calm voice of moderation and reason” within the community. He insisted that his government’s foreign interventions had not been based on religion.
Mr Blair said: “The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ.”
Among those invited by the Cambridge inter-faith programme were the grand muftis of Egypt and Bosnia, but not representatives of more extreme or politicised lobbying groups. The guest list was criticised by the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, and also by the Labour peer Lord Ahmed, who told the BBC: “The conference is fronted by Cambridge University but organised by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the communities department, who have deliberately chosen to exclude those Muslims who disagree with Government policy ... It’s a colonial style of governing.”
The conference coincides with a government-commissioned report which criticises university courses for concentrating too narrowly on the Middle East and insufficiently on the modern realities of Muslim life in Britain.
The report, published yesterday by the Islamic Foundation-funded Markfield Institute, recommends that universities should recruit traditionally trained scholars, consider the appointment of Muslim chaplains or advisers, change syllabuses to focus on aspects of Islam relevant to the contemporary practice of the faith and provide “add-on” elements to help give students an edge in the jobs market.
The report said: “The study of Islam and its civilisation remains anchored in the colonial legacy and mainly serves the diplomatic and foreign services. Teaching and research programmes need to be reorientated.”
Meanwhile, a poll carried out by Channel 4 News revealed that nearly a quarter of British Muslims believe the four men identified as the July 7 suicide bombers were not responsible for the attacks. The same proportion (24%) thinks the government was involved in the bombings.
