OXFORD: His Majesty the King has visited the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies to celebrate the naming of the King Charles III Wing and the launch of the King Charles III Programme.

The King, who has served as Patron of the Oxford Centre since 1993, joined distinguished guests including Lord Hague, the new Chancellor of Oxford University, and Professor Irene Tracey, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, and His Royal Higjness Sultan Nazrin Shah, the Deputy Agong, for the anniversary celebrations.

Established in 1985, the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies serves as a bridge between Western and Islamic scholarship, contributing to the multi-disciplinary study of the Islamic world.

The centre was granted a Royal Charter by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.

The Oxford Centre continues to welcome leading global figures through its Distinguished Lecture Series, which has hosted Heads of State and Government, such as Nelson Mandela, alongside renowned scholars since its inception three decades ago.

As a Malaysian, I am so proud that Malaysia has been a great friend of the Islamic Centre, showcasing not only the Malaysia Auditorium, where King Charles made his historic speech, but through the Merdeka Scholarships, offering opportunities for Malaysians, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, to read for degrees at the University of Oxford.

In fact, almost all of Malaysia’s prime ministers, from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Tun Abdullah Badawi, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak, and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin, have been given the honour to speak in the Centre’s Distinguished Lecture Series, which King Charles, at that time as The Prince of Wales, inaugurated in 1993, with his landmark lecture on “Islam and the West”.

(Dato’ Dr Afifi al-Akiti is the Kuwait Fellow in Islamic Studies and Islamic Centre Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, as well as College Lecturer in World Religions at Worcester College.)