REFLECTING on how a terrorist outrage shattered his own life as a young man, the Prince of Wales spoke last night of his “heavy heart” at the death and destruction he sees in the world as he called for a greater tolerance between faiths.

Arriving in Egypt at the start of only his second official overseas tour with the Duchess of Cornwall, the Prince spoke of how the murder of his mentor Earl Mountbatten, who was blown up while out fishing with his family in Ireland, had given him a personal insight into the impact of terrorism.

“I find my heart is incredibly heavy from all the destruction and death that occurs,” he said. “I know so well from having experienced the horror of terrorism myself, in losing my beloved great-uncle Lord Mountbatten back in 1979 when he was blown up in a terrorist bomb. I do have some understanding I think, a little, of what people go through with these horrors.”

The Prince regarded Mountbatten as his “honorary grandfather” and was very close to him. The Prince was beginning a two-week tour of the Middle East and India during which he will elaborate on a favourite theme: the need for greater tolerance between faiths. He will give a speech today on “unity in faith”, and in an interview with an Egyptian television station last night, he said: “

People who are reasonable and responsible and feel things in the heart need to work even harder, I think, and speak up louder about the vital importance of understanding that, at the end of the day, the three great Abrahamic faiths do share an awful lot more in common than perhaps people realise.”

He added: “It’s tolerance, it’s understanding of what other people hold sacred, which I think is so vital — the old wisdom that is contained within the scriptures of ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’.”

In his speech at al-Azhar University, where he will number among a very few non-Muslims invited to speak, he will emphasise that Christianity, Islam and Judaism have much in common, and will illustrate his point by quoting from the texts of each faith. Last year the Prince allowed his new wife a gentle introduction to the business of royal overseas working visits with a comfortable week-long jaunt to the United States. This tour, which should provide rich material for his diaries, if he is still writing them, is more of a marathon, taking in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India in just under a fortnight, and it has a serious mission. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which conceived the tour, recognises that the Prince’s long track record as an advocate of better dialogue between the West and Muslim countries makes him one of Britain’s most effective ambassadors to the Islamic world. The Prince’s 1993 speech calling on the West to overcome its prejudices about Islam was acclaimed throughout the Arab world.

The Prince suggested that his earlier speech had not been as successful as he would have liked in preventing a spiral of terrorist violence. “I have a dreadful feeling that what I was trying to say then, what I was warning about, seems to have been coming about. The situation does seem to have worsened which is a tragedy. What I was trying to do 12 years ago was remind people of the crucial importance of building bridges and maintaining those bridges. I could see there were real problems building up on the horizon.”

He added that it was “utter lunacy to start killing each other when we should be united in the greatest challenge that has ever faced the world, the environmental challenge”.

The Prince will not enjoy the unanimous good wishes of staff at Al-Azhar university when he receives an honourary degree today. “All the prince did is say that Islam is the most widespread religion in the world and that’s a reality not a discovery by the prince,” said Abdel Azim al-Mataani, a lecturer in Arab literature. “That’s not enough for him to receive such a reward.” As well as this new speech, he will promote British education and Islamic art in the country and visit an oasis town. Last night the couple met the Aga Khan at al-Azhar Park, a lush example of another subject close to the Prince’s heart: urban renewal. The Prince was seen deep in conversation with the Aga Khan. Later the royal couple had a private tour of the Egyptian Museum, which holds treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb.

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