How to Learn with Our Hearts

By Michael Binyon, "A God-fearing man with a taste for tradition" - Times Online - UK
Friday, November 7, 2008

He has, famously, declared that he wants to be “Defender of Faith”, rather than defender simply of the established Christian faith. His interest in other religions and denominations is unparalleled in a man born to be king, and his knowledge is extensive. No other heir to the throne has been awarded one of Islam’s highest accolades, spent nights in a Greek Orthodox monk’s cell or insisted that Roman Catholics, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians and Sikhs are as important subjects of the sovereign as Protestants.

When the Prince of Wales celebrates his 60th birthday next week he can therefore expect warm tributes from religious leaders across the country as well as from those overseas. They know that when he is crowned king, he will insist — as he has on other state occasions — that all the faith groups now living in Britain are represented in the abbey to accord him the blessings of all his subjects in today’s multicultural Britain.

An interest in religion is almost a prerequisite for the job of king. The British sovereign is, after all, the head of the Church of England and for almost 500 years this has been a defining constitutional function. But no monarch since the Stuarts has taken an intellectual interest in religion, and none has devoted time and respect to other faiths. The Prince, however, counts bishops and moral philosophers, rabbis, priests and Islamic scholars among those whom he regularly meets and with whom he discusses the spiritual dimensions of life in Britain today.

For him, the concept of faith — any faith — is important in the crusade against the rising tide of secular materialism and scientific reductionism, both of which he detests. As Ian Bradley, reader in practical theology and church history at the University of St Andrews, has written: “Prince Charles harks back to a primal understanding of the monarch, as representing order and taking on the forces of chaos, and to the sacrifical dimension of royalty found in primal religion and the Bible. A major theme of speeches and conversation by this ‘heir of sorrows’ is the disintegration of the modern world and the need for it to be rebalanced and reordered”.

The religion that has probably engaged him most is Islam. He has long admired the art and architecture of the golden age of Islam; he has also been fascinated by the totality of Muslim belief — the way it permeates all aspects of life — and has contrasted this with what he sees as the regrettable materialism of Western life that compartmentalises faith and excludes it from the mainstream of daily life. As he said in 1996: “In my view a more holistic approach is needed now.”

As Islam has grown in Britain with the influx of Muslims from the subcontinent, so too has the Prince’s interest. He was an early supporter of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, a new centre that funds scholars to research into Islam. He has spoken of Islam’s respect for the natural order, insisting that: “We need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as with our head.” And he has made a point, during tours of the Middle East, of meeting Muslims scholars and clerics.

They, in turn, have been flattered and fascinated by his attention. Two years ago he and the Duchess of Cornwall visited the ancient al-Azhar mosque in Cairo and received an honorary doctorate. That was partly in gratitude for his conciliatory message about Islam, especially after 9/11, and partly “to encourage him to befriend Muslims in Great Britain and to support Islam against the obstacles it faces in Europe”.

The Prince’s vision of Islam is one of tolerance and learning. That is not how many Britons see Islam as practised in Saudi Arabia and by many of the more extremist sects. He has been criticised for what some Christians call his misty-eyed view of the religion, and as a result he has repeatedly called on Muslims to promote interfaith tolerance.

It is clear, however, that it is the mystical elements of all religions that attract him. In Islam, he is drawn to Sufism.

In Christianity, he is drawn by an almost medieval conception of ritual and sacrament. Greek Orthodoxy especially has fascinated him. Soon after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, he visited visited Mount Athos, the cluster of ancient monasteries on a peninsula in northern Greece, and has returned frequently. In 2004 he made the trip there three times, cutting himself off from the outside world for up to a week each time, and using the spartan monastery as a retreat. He was, as his spokesmen have said, deeply moved by the experience.

It is not simply the conservatism of Orthodoxy that appeals to him; it is the unchanging ritual, the long services and the close indentification of religion with music and art. This is why he cleaves also to those once fixed elements in his own Church of England: the Book of Common Prayer and the language of the Authorised Version of the Bible.

The rituals of Hinduism have also caught his eye and interest, even if it has meant donning unfamiliar attire and allowing himself to be garlanded while visiting temples in India and in Britain.

And although there was an embarrassing spat last year over a leaked e-mail that suggested there was “no chance ever” that the Prince would make an official visit to Israel — which the Queen has also avoided — Jewish leaders in Britain insist that the Prince is “a great friend to the Jewish community”.

In any case, he feels at home in ecumenical surroundings. It was fitting that when St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace opened a genuine Beduin tent, woven in Saudi Arabia and anonymously presented to the little London church as a centre for interfaith meetings, discussion and meditation, the Prince was happy to attend the formal opening in 2006 with leaders of seven other faiths in Britain.

As he said at the time: “We are all trying to explain the nature of mystery and, in a sense, it is almost impossible to explain. If only we could understand each other’s gropings to understand the mystery, not to overdo the way in which we decide that we know everything, we might, perhaps, reduce the level of conflict and violence and misunderstanding.”

[Picture: the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Visit OCIS http://www.oxcis.ac.uk/].