THE head of Britain’s race watchdog urged Muslim leaders yesterday to speak out more against terrorism and called on them to do more to support the rights of Muslim women.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that Muslim protestations that Islam is opposed to the crimes carried out in its name could be taken seriously only if those assertions were acted on in Britain.

His remarks aroused immediate protests from Muslim leaders, who said that they had been assiduous in condemning terrorism. A senior insider said that Mr Phillips’s remarks on this issue could be interpreted as Islamophobic, although he said that there was much else in the speech that was good.

Speaking to an audience of Muslim academics at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Mr Phillips said: “Though I know it is irritating to many of you, and feels unjust that you have to do this time and time again, it remains important for mainstream Muslim leaders to point out that British Muslims have no time for terrorism, and call on anyone who practises it in the name of Islam to cease.”

He praised the work of the Muslim Council of Britain in combating terrorism. This year the council took the unprecedented step of writing to every mosque urging worshippers to exercise vigilance against terrorism. However, Mr Phillips went on to speak out about the issue of women in Islam. “It remains crucial for Muslim leaders to remind the rest of us that true Islam does not compel young women to travel thousands of miles to be given away by their families to men they do not know and to whom they do not want to be married. It remains vital for Muslim leadership to denounce those who claim that they have a cultural right to impose circumcision on young women.”

He added: “Muslim protestations that the faith is opposed to the depredations and crimes carried out in its name . . . and that it regards equality of women as intrinsic to Islam can only be taken seriously if we see those assertions being made flesh here in our communities.”

His wide address covered the long history of Britain’s relationship with Islam, including 8th-century coins minted by King Offa of Mercia on display in the British Museum and bearing the inscription: “There is no God but Allah.” He referred to the “huge possibilities and the risks” from the renewed encounter between Islam and the West today.

Noting that of 1.8 million Muslims in the UK, more than half were aged less than 25, he said that the country was on the cusp of change, with enormous potential benefits arising from migration. “We can already anticipate that, given the preponderance of Polish nannies in London, (we can) expect many of the capital’s children to arrive at their nursery schools with Warsaw-accented English. And with the growing numbers of Muslims in our cities, we can expect some of the billions being spent on inner-city regeneration to add some graceful and inspiring minarets to the urban skyline.”

He said that faith need not mean repression and speculated that, together with Roman Catholic Poles and evangelical Africans, Muslims could be the catalyst for a moral revival similar to the 19th-century evangelical revival that gave rise to universal education, trade unions and compassion for the poor.

WHAT LEADERS SAID AFTER 9/11

The Muslim Council of Britain: “Whoever is responsible for these dreadful, wanton attacks, we condemn them.”

The Union of Muslim Organisations sent condolences to the families of the victims and said Islam “does not condone indiscriminate acts of violence.”

The Imams and Mosques Council: “Such evil deeds have no place in the world we seek to build and share.”

The Islamic Mission: “Even in war, Islam stands for peace and mercy and does not allow killing of children, women or old men.”

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