Farid El Diwany

I watched 'Victoria and Abdul' last night (11 April 2020) on BBC2 and was heartened by the fact that Islam was greatly admired by Queen Victoria who wanted to learn about the Quran. Indeed, the late Sir Zaki Badawi, former imam at the Central London Mosque in Regent's Park, gave a lecture once in which he remarked that one day Queen Victoria saw two Bengalis from her Buckingham Palace window and asked them in for a chat. She was so taken by their grace that she expressed her love for Islam. After all, it is a religion with the same roots as Judiasm and Christianity. Muslims revere Moses and Jesus. They just do not believe Jesus is God incarnate. Dr Badawi was a personal friend of Prince Charles and I would put HRH in the same bracket as Queen Victoria: both were open minded souls who could see the righteousness of Islam. In 1903 the Reverend Isaac Taylor from Brighton wanted Christianity to combine with Islam. He accepted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad as genuine manifestations of the Divine will. So it can be done. There were several British Victorians who converted to Islam and good for them. The trouble today is the misinterpretations of the religion that certain Islamic scholars give out. It puts non-Muslims off. Sir Zaki Badawi tried hard to correct this imbalance. That is why he is my hero. In the face of great adversity and opposition he defined a "British Islam": tolerance personified.

This film was perfect in its presentation of the Islamic ideal. I curse the Saudi zealots for trying to stop the film. I curse the Egyptian authorities for banning the film. What is more I can see no good reason for not showing the Prophet Muhammad. Nobody would have idolised the actor who portrayed him. They have a picture of Muhammad in the Great Hall in London's Lincoln's Inn and Al Azhar asked the Inn to remove it! But my late boss, the barrister Dr Jamal Nasir who was King Hussein's legal advisor, advised the Inn that there was nothing in the Quran that forbade the image of Muhammad being shown. The Muslim 'scholars' are devils for their misinterpretation of scripture: whether it is the complete myth that Muslim women must cover their hair or that music is a sin or that celebrating birthdays is forbidden. No wonder God, it seems, has abandoned the Muslims. Whether it is Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, China, Myanmar, Afghanistan etc it is all the same: the Muslims are crushed, slaughtered and oppressed. God does not answer their prayers in the least. Carry on with your prayers and fasting and haj to Mecca and the lunacy of hijab and niqab; it will not improve anything for you. For the moment God has forgotten about you. You Muslims, as Muhamad Asad once said, don't deserve your religion.