Two British muslim peers are due to meet the Sudanese President this morning, raising hopes that the teacher jailed for blasphemy after her class named a teddy bear Mohamed is about to be freed.

Baroness Warsi and Lord Ahmed had been due to fly home this morning but cancelled their flights last night. Mahzoub Faidul, a presidential aide, said: “He will discuss the case and a possible pardon.”

Ms Gibbons’s hopes of an early release rest on the outcome of an audience with President Omar al-Bashir, who is the only person with the power to pardon Ms Gibbons.

She is currently serving a 15-day sentence at a secret government villa in the Sudanese capital. Last night the peers said that they would not discuss the nature of their programme today for fear of risking sensitive negotiations.

Lady Warsi, who met Ms Gibbons yesterday, told The Times: “We had a number of very difficult meetings today, but I think we made quite a lot of progress. As a result of those meetings, and a meeting with Gill today, we have some hope.”

The two peers are seen as the best chance of bringing Ms Gibbons home from a country that has difficult relations with Britain.

Analysts say that President al-Bashir faces opposition within his own Government - from the powerful Ministry of Interior and state security apparatus - if he is seen bending to Western pressure. A deal with two British Muslims who have funded their trip from their own pockets may be more acceptable to his opponents.

Ms Gibbons was arrested last Sunday after a secretary at Unity High School complained that she had named a teddy bear after Islam’s holiest prophet. Teachers said that parents had known about the name since September without anyone taking offence. They insist that it was an innocent mistake being exploited as part of a dispute between the secretary and the school’s director.

Ms Gibbons was convicted of insulting Islam at the end of an eight-hour hearing on Thursday and sentenced to 15 days in detention. She had faced 40 lashes or up to a year in prison.

Rather than the overcrowded conditions of Omdurman Women’s Prison, where her defence lawyers expected her to be sent, Ms Gibbons is held at one of the dozens of anonymous whitewashed bungalows surrounded by high walls in Khartoum’s dusty suburbs. They were once used as “ghost houses”, the sort of places where opponents would disappear, but now they are usually reserved for high-ranking opposition leaders under arrest. She has a bed, which is not normally provided in Sudan’s cockroach-ridden jails, and as much food as she wants, in stark contrast to the rest of the prison system where relatives must bring in food and water every day.

In a statement released through her lawyers at the weekend, Ms Gibbons said: “I want people to know I have been well treated, and especially that I am well fed. I have been given so many apples I feel I could set up my own stall. The guards are constantly asking if I have everything I need.”

Elteyb Hag Ateya, a director of Khartoum University’s peace research institute, said that the Government was keen to limit damage from the affair. “Whenever I speak to anyone in government they say it is a nightmare and they do not want to hear about it again. They do not want any aftermath like the lady going home and holding a press conference complaining about conditions.

The influential Council of Islamic Scholars in Sudan warned the Government not to free Ms Gibbons early, saying that such a move would “wound the sensibilities of Muslims”.

Hundreds of Muslims took to the streets of Khartoum on Friday, some of them calling for Ms Gibbons’ death.

In a further sign of the domestic pressure on the Sudanese Government, scholars said that the sentence was already too light.

“If the Government retracts this judgment . . . this would be a very bad precedent and it would have very bad consequences on the reputation of the state . . . not only in Sudan but also outside Sudan,” said al-Sheikh Mohammad Abdel Karim, a spokesman for the council. “This is not a matter to be settled politically. This is a matter which goes to the very core of Muslims and their sensibilities.”

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