Instead of pursuing any political argument, Professor Ahmed chose to tell the Princess one or two stories about the holy Prophet; stories that he hoped would appeal to her on an emotional level, and display Islam in a different light - Photo Views and News

 

Diana Would Have Created a Greater Understanding between Christianity and Islam

 

It was February 1995, and Diana was thirty-four years old. Friendships and relationships had come and gone, and in her relentless search for stability and love, Diana had opened up to friends from many walks of life; she had embraced all sorts of healing and therapy. Her life was a therapeutic treadmill littered with failed love interest.    

With Oliver Hoare, as with many others, Diana had failed to find a future, but the chapter had brought with it an enhanced interest in the mysteries of the East, a part of the world which seemed to hold some deep fascination for Diana.    

Although her interest in religion was almost zero, during the time she knew Oliver Hoare Islam and Islamic philosophy, especially Sufism, had captivated Diana. Sufism is the mystical, inner philosophy of Islam. Its message of ‘peace with all’ has long drawn Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Diana was even photographed in April 1994 reading Discovering Islam, a book by a Cambridge University professor, Akbar Ahmed, on the balcony of a chalet whilst on a skiing holiday at Lech in Austria. 

Her friendship with Oliver Hoare had led her to feed hungrily on the culture of the East. She could not have known then, but her relationship with the East and with Islam was destined to continue. In little more than eight months’ time she would meet and be attracted to another man who was part of the very culture she was now soaking up. A man who would act as a new force in her life, providing a powerful influence that would reshape the Princess, someone who would help her to start breaking the vicious circle of insecurity that had haunted her for so long.

It was a splendid July morning in 1990, nine years after Diana had got married and a year before she was to meet the dealer of Islamic art, Oliver Hoare. Professor Akbar Ahmed, of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, was sitting in his study at Selwyn College in Cambridge when the telephone rang.
Three years earlier Professor Ahmed had been invited by the government of Pakistan and Selwyn College to accept the Iqbal Fellowship in Cambridge, and as a result, he had become involved in the debate on Islam, and in particular the future of Islam in Britain.
His involvement with the debate coincided with a letter dated 27 June 1990 that had just arrived at the London headquarters of the Royal Anthropological Institute. The letter was from Diana’s private secretary at the time, Patrick Jephson. It was addressed to the Institute’s director, Jonathan Benthall, and informed him that the Princess would be pleased to accept an invitation to visit the Institute’s offices in Fitzroy Street and that she would be grateful if this engagement could include a briefing on Pakistan.
Benthall, who was already acquainted with Ahmed, got straight on the phone to the Professor in Cambridge and told him of the request to give a private briefing on Pakistan for the Princess of Wales. He asked whether the Professor would be prepared to speak at such an event. The Professor accepted instantly. Although he had never met the Princess, he felt pleased and excited by the prospect of talking to someone who was so eminent and who had such a high public profile. The two men agreed that an introduction to Islam would be an appropriate topic to be covered at the briefing.
Two months later, on Thursday 13 September 1990, Professor Ahmed made his way to the Royal Anthropological Institute, in Fitzroy Street, London, wearing a traditional shalwar kameez.

Ahmed was extremely curious about Diana. ‘I felt she was an intelligent person, yet the media often gave her a rough time. I felt I could make an impact with her if I could somehow “get through”.’
The lecture on Islam was due to be held in the general office on the ground floor of the Institute. Promptly, at three thirty, Diana arrived and was directed to a seat on the front row, just below the lectern.
Professor Ahmed describes it as an enormously memorable occasion, not least because it was most unusual for a member of the Royal Family to be lectured to in this way – with Diana seated on a chair whilst the speaker stood above her at the lectern.

At the time of the lecture, tensions in the Gulf were at their highest. Only five weeks earlier, on 2 August, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, and there was a lot of anti-Islamic sentiment in the British newspapers. Not knowing the Princess, Ahmed wasn’t sure of the kind of reception he would receive. He needn’t have worried. Although Diana was dressed in her most business-like fashion, in a pin-stripe suit, Ahmed remembers her ability to put everyone at ease. Her body language, and the expression in her eyes, was very attentive, and his own anxiety immediately disappeared.

‘The combination of her tremendous physical presence, her vulnerability and her shyness I found to be quite overwhelming,’ he says.
Ahmed decided to pitch the lecture at a more human level. ‘I began by saying if the Royal Person expected me to whip out a copy of the Satanic Verses from the recesses of my Oriental robes and burn it, then she would be quite disappointed!
‘There was a flicker of a smile on Diana’s face, and this set the tone for the rest of the talk.’

Professor Ahmed challenged the stereotype images of Islam as a religion of book-burners, hostage-takers, and terrorists. Instead of pursuing any political argument, Professor Ahmed chose to tell the Princess one or two stories about the holy Prophet; stories that he hoped would appeal to her on an emotional level, and display Islam in a different light.

'I told her the story of how the holy Prophet was known for his legendary kindness and gentleness, especially towards women and children. However, in the early days of Islam there was great hostility towards him in Mecca. One old woman in particular would wait for him in her room and every time he passed beneath her window as he walked along the street she would pour dirt and garbage down on him.

'One day when he passed there was no response from the old lady. On inquiring about her, the Prophet was told she was seriously ill. He immediately went up to see her and ask about her health, and how he could be of help. The old lady broke down in tears, as no one had been to see her during her illness except the man she had been trying to humiliate.
‘She henceforth became a Muslim.
Ahmed went on to challenge many of the stereotypes associated with the relationship between men and women in Islam.
‘I talked about the great respect men have for women in Islam. In the Western media Islam is depicted as a religion of women-haters, wife-beaters and harems, and so on, but the reality is that Muslim men are very, very considerate to their women. Women are given a very high status, and this remains throughout history, starting from the time of the Prophet.
Women have a respected place, they have a status, and there’s continuity and care. I talked to Diana about the fact that in Islam marriage is taken very seriously; it is seen as the foundation of society, a secure base for children, and a means of ensuring that core family values are carried forward to future generations. Whilst there is divorce in Islam, there is also a great emphasis on stability and coherence and respect for each other and staying together.
Professor Ahmed highlighted several aspects of the religion that would have sent powerful messages to Diana. First of all he had spoken of the compassion of Islam, perhaps a touchy subject given the public feeling at the time. ‘This seemed to generate enormous curiosity in the Royal guest,’ notes Ahmed. Secondly, Islam has at its core a family structure and, says Professor Ahmed, a concern for women, and a respect for the mother figure. Bearing in mind Diana’s own childhood, and the breakdown of her own marriage at this time, what Ahmed was saying undoubtedly had a resonance in her own life.

Ahmed’s own impression was that Diana was not only absorbed with what was going on, and what he was saying, but was seriously prepared to respond to it.

After the lecture it had been made clear to all present that Diana would have to leave straight away for another function. In fact, she found time to have a few minutes’ chat with Professor Ahmed.
‘She moved over to me, indicating to everyone else that this was a private conversation, and she said to me, “What can I do to help? How can I improve the understanding between Islam and the West, and what role can I play?”’
Ahmed was extremely moved by her words and replied, ‘I think you can play a great role, there’s a great deal of misunderstanding and that has to be removed, and only someone like you can do it.

Ahmed admits to being astonished by Diana’s response. ‘Looking at it from the outside, she was the classic British Princess growing up in a certain milieu, totally cut off from the world of Islam. The Royal Family are not generally known to be mystics or scholars interested in Sufism so while there was formal contact with them on the subject of Islam, there was no rapport.

'With Diana, on the other hand, I felt there was a rapport. I think this tremendous respect, love and compassion that is supposed to be shown to women in Islam may have struck some kind of chord in her.'

“The Professor could not know just how perfect and fortuitous a chord he had struck; however he had read enough about her, and was sufficiently perceptive to know that behind the interest lay something personal.
‘Looking back, 1990 was the time when tensions in her own marriage were beginning to surface. There may have been a personal resonance when she was thinking that here’s this civilization where there’s a position for women and women are loved and given the kind of attention and care that they deserve.’ Ahmed goes on to say, ‘I had a feeling that she had responded; that inside her there was a tiny spark, a spark of interest in Islam itself. I think it was forcing Diana to reassess her own life, and it was forcing her to come to the conclusion that perhaps many other values, perhaps many other things that she believed in or respected in the early 1990s, were after all not so important to her.'
It is possible that her interest in the lecture may also have been connected with James Hewitt’s imminent posting to the Gulf. Ever since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait some five weeks earlier, Diana feared that Hewitt’s unit, the Life Guards, might be sent into battle. She had been calling him regularly throughout the autumn whilst he awaited events in Germany, and by January 1991, as the United States, Britain and other allies prepared for war with Iraq, Diana would be tuning into news bulletins on the radio and television whenever she had a chance.
Even if that were so, she took away from the lecture far more than she had bargained for; it had hit all the appropriate buttons concerning love, women, and the family. It was not the last time she was to see Professor Ahmed. Following the lecture, the Professor kept in touch with Patrick Jephson, Diana’s private secretary. They talked on the phone from time to time, and shared lunch together in Cambridge.

When it was announced that Diana was going to Pakistan on a solo state visit, Jephson informed Professor Ahmed that Diana would like him to brief her.
A year after the lecture at the Royal Anthropological Institute in Fitzroy Street, in the middle of September 1991, Akbar Ahmed was to meet the Princess again; this time she was to be the hostess, inviting him to tea at Kensington Palace. The Professor nearly ended up at the wrong place, when a minicab driver who was confident he knew where to find Kensington Palace took him to Buckingham Palace instead. Fearing he would miss his appointment he jumped into a black cab and just made it with a couple of minutes to spare.
Professor Ahmed remembers Diana’s warmth and informality; they met as if they were old friends. ‘She was very informally dressed, just wearing jeans and a shirt,’ he said.
Diana said she wanted Ahmed’s advice as she prepared to go to Pakistan. The trip had actually been planned for the previous year after Diana had accepted an invitation from Benazir Bhutto, but it had to be postponed when Bhutto was deposed as Prime Minister and her twenty-month-old Pakistan People’s Party government dissolved on 6 August 1990 by the country’s President, Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
She was embarking on her visit to Pakistan without Charles, so it was a test of her diplomatic ability. Diana was extremely anxious about the formalities, particularly as it was a largely male-dominated society. She wanted to know what she should wear, how long her dresses should be, how she should speak, what she should say.

The last question was an easy one for the holder of the Iqbal Fellowship. Sir Allama Mohammad Iqbal is the Pakistani national poet, so Ahmed advised Diana that if she had the right opportunity she should quote Iqbal’s poetry. Ahmed gave her one particular quote to remember: ‘There are so many people who wander about in jungles searching for something, but I will become the servant of that person who has got love for humanity.'
[...]

The story of Diana and Hasnat Khan is ultimately tragic because they were so in love, and yet unable through circumstances to be together. Just four weeks after their relationship had ended, Khan’s pain at hearing of Diana’s death is unimaginable.
Had her relationship with Khan recommenced, and had it grown, then it could have had tremendous international significance. Professor Akbar Ahmed of Cambridge University, who has since been appointed Pakistan’s ambassador to London, believes Diana would have created greater understanding between Christianity and Islam, and been a bridge between Europe and Asia, colour and race. ‘Diana was an example of someone prepared to break all the barriers. She had unique qualities that would have equipped her to be an ambassador between the East and the West. Her Royal position gave her a kind of aura, and she had great physical presence, warmth, beauty and charm. She lacked cynicism or suspicion, and had the good faith to become part of a different culture. She was breaking all the barriers and going down to the poorest people. She really captured the imagination as no one else could.

• ( Excerpts from Kate Snell, Diana: Her Last Love (2000): pp. 57-67, 209-210)