The Centre For Social Cohesion

Eventually, this Ed saw the error of his ways. He has recently published a book explaining how he became led astray and what his kingdom must do to make it less easy in future for other young lads like him to be similarly misled. He writes:

‘I was part of a generation of young British Muslim teenagers who were raised in mono-cultural ghettoes disconnected from mainstream Britain and receptive to messages of separatism… Britain, France, America and Russia were enemies and the army of the Islamist state would “march on Downing Street and raise the Islamist flag above Westminster”… The mindset and ideology that spouts this worldview – Islamism – is entrenched in certain sections of the Muslim community in Britain.’

The other Ed was originally named 'Edward'. He grew up far less alienated with his country than his Muslim namesake. Indeed, he went on there to become a Very Important Person, initially advising its Chancellor of the Exchequer and later becoming a Treasury Minister himself responsible for City affairs.

In that ministerial capacity, this second Ed decided that it would only be right and proper that, just like all their fellow citizens, his Muslim compatriots be able to enjoy the benefits of being able to acquire gilts without any guilt. So he decided to initiate a National Savings’ Review to consider how all government bonds can be made Sharia-compliant.

It remains to be seen how successful this second Ed is in being able to modify Premium Bonds so that their purchasers can win without benefiting from having earned interest or taken part in any form of gambling, both of which activities are proscribed by Islam.

One cautionary tale recently reported in the media of that kingdom should give the minister cause to doubt whether he will be. It concerns an unfinished Muslim community centre in Blackburn that has reportedly become a rat-infested eyesore after it became impossible to raise money to finish the project. Apparently, building work on the project had began after an initial £300,000 to cover the costs of constructing the skeletal framework for the centre was donated by a local Muslim there after he won nearly £18 million on the National Lottery in 1994.

A further £400,000 is needed for completion of the building-work, but local Muslims have shunned the project and refused to make any donations towards its completion, because the initial money for its construction had come out of the proceeds of gambling!

Concerning the local mosque that had initially backed the project and accepted money for the centre’s construction, the Secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques is quoted as having said:

‘They are unable to get the [remaining] money from Muslim communities, which is why it is at a standstill… As Muslims we are not allowed to accept money from gambling…. The management committee [of the local mosque that backed the project] at the time decided to take the money but the consequences were that everybody in the UK got to find out about it. Because they accepted the money it looked very, very bad throughout the UK and also in the Muslim world.’

Our Ed at the Treasury might think he is doing his Muslim compatriots – and, perhaps even more importantly I suspect, his non-Muslim compatriots -- a favour by making it possible for Muslims to purchase government bonds without their suffering any religious scruples. But, as anyone who has ever ventured into the fraught area of any form of religious jurisprudence could have told him, in this region it is simply impossible for secular authorities to trump or resolve what will always remain essentially theological matters that cannot be neutrally or uncontroversially decided by any authorities, secular or otherwise.

Far better all round I say that Britain not even try to make its public finances Sharia complaint. No one knows what religious trouble the country is liable to be storing up for itself by even embarking down this road, not to mention how dangerous a precedent it is setting by allowing the religious beliefs of one of its minorities to exert such a sway in the secular public domain.

One of our two Eds started out foolish, but ended up talking sense. The other started out seemingly very wise, but has ended up talking otherwise. Can you, gentle reader, tell which Ed is which?