by Marcus Walker, The Critic
A bizarre conspiracy theory says that Charles III is a Muslim
Something deranged seems to be happening on the Right. I mean that in the literal sense of the term: “completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way” is the Cambridge Dictionary definition, followed by the words, “especially because of mental illness”.
Whilst I have no intention of diagnosing anyone with a psychotic disorder, to claim that King Charles III is a Muslim is almost the dictionary definition of deranged.
You might not have heard this theory yet, but it is increasingly being made across social media and, to my shock, has started appearing at polite dinner parties and on the fringes of academic conferences. “A lie will go round the world whilst the truth is putting its boots on,” as Edmund Burke almost certainly didn’t say. Ironically.
So let’s hear the claim. It is, in short, that King Charles III has secretly converted to Islam and is operating as a “stealth” Muslim monarch who intends to dismantle the traditional Anglican and Christian identity of the British state from within.
Core to this thesis are two events from the 1990s. First, a casual conversation with Paddy Ashdown on the way back from Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral when he mused on whether he should be known as “Defender of Faith” rather than of “the Faith”.
Second, a speech in 1993 called “Islam and the West”, given at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, where he praised classical Islam and noted some of its moral and cultural strengths.
This, apparently, was a public declaration of his true allegiance and his various state and official visits to the Middle East involved secret conversion rites — including (bizarrely) one at St Catherine’s monastery.
On top of this, he is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, courtesy of the Kings of Seville and John of Gaunt, which is proof of his “rightful” place in the Islamic world. His public Christian worship is merely a necessary facade of taqiyya, or strategic dissimulation which is permitted by the Koran, in order to maintain his hold on the throne.
So there we have it: a secret Muslim sitting on the throne of Edward the Confessor. And so, since nobody else is doing it, please allow me to knock this nonsense on the head (although as Jonathan Swift said, “it is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into”, so this is probably a vain effort.)