A trainee Church of England priest at Oxford University has accused it of discrimination and bias after he says he was told he could not ask a lecturer critical questions about Islam.
The student has filed a formal complaint to the university’s proctors’ office in which he claims the lecturer pointed at him in a seminar and said: “Everybody can ask a question except you.”
The student, Shahriar Ashrafkhorasani, 33, is an Iranian-born convert from Islam who is set to become a Church of England priest in July, while the lecturer, Minlib Dallh, is a research fellow at Regent’s Park College in Oxford on a project about love in religion part-sponsored by the King of Jordan.
Ashrafkhorasani, a master’s student in applied theology at Wycliffe Hall, claims the lecturer refused to let him ask critical questions about his description of Islam as a religion of peace and love, after Dallh discovered in a coffee break that he was a convert from Islam who had been persecuted in Iran. Three fellow students wrote to the proctors to confirm his version of events.
Ashrafkhorasani said: “The lecture was at best a very poor Islamic apologetic, and at worst academically dishonest and misleading. While the government is rightly concerned about Islamophobia, there is no concern whatsoever for Christianophobia.”
Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester and until last year a senior fellow at Wycliffe Hall, said: “There is an atmosphere of wanting to be politically correct. It is very widespread in the university as a whole.
“If people are taking money from these sources, that can limit the critical approach to the study of Islam and Muslim civilisation generally.”
Robert Ellis, the principal of Regent’s Park College, said: “The college strongly rejects any assertion that donors have any influence over the quality of scholarship and direction of research at the centre, or that philanthropic funding in any way compromises academic discussion and argument.”
Oxford University said: “All complaints made to the proctors’ office are treated with the utmost seriousness and with the interests of the student paramount.”
The British Pakistani Christian Association, which is advising the student, said: “Universities should be places for open debate without restraint.”