Installing a High Sheriff

The office of High Sheriff dates back at least a thousand years in England. It is reputedly the oldest non-religious office in the land. The high sheriffs (shire reeves) of the English counties or shires were responsible, under the Sovereign, for law and order. Even now, although it is a largely ceremonial office, appointed annually by Warrant from the Privy Council, the high sheriff is the Sovereign’s representative in the shire for matters to do with the maintenance of law and order and with the judiciary.

This year, the High Sheriff of the County of Greater London is a Muslim, Dr Khalid Hameed CBE. As a letter I received from the Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey and Rector of St Margaret’s Church (next to the Abbey), Canon Robert Wright, explained:

Dr Khalid Hameed CBE is the new High Sheriff of Greater London and it is customary for the incoming Sheriff to have a service following his commissioning. Dr Hameed, who is himself a Muslim, wishes to have an inter-faith observance along the lines of the Commonwealth Observance that we have every year here at the Abbey.

Dr Hameed has asked that the theme be The Brotherhood of Man: Strangers and Neighbours and that there should be a three-minute reflection on that them from the various faith communities. Would you be prepared to do this from the Baha’i perspective?

Well, one does not turn down an invitation like this, so I was pleased to present myself at St Margaret’s in time for the 6 o’clock service on Wednesday 5 July. I joined the representatives of the nine major faiths in the UK (Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian) in a procession from the vestry to our seats in the nave.

This was not, as this and other press reports have stated, the first multi-faith service in Westminster Abbey. Far from it, in fact. The Abbey has a long history of multi-faith ‘observances’ (as they call them in preference to ’services’), particularly for Commonwealth Day each year, at which Baha’i representatives have read for many years. (Not so long ago I was going through some old copies of the Baha’i Journal and found a report of Baha’i participation in an observance in the Abbey in the early 1970s; the Baha’i concerned read a passage from the Writings of Baha’u'llah. Interestingly, this Baha’i participation predated participation by a number of the other faith communities that now regularly take part.)

Nor was this a service related formally in any way to the anniversary of the 7/7/05 London bombings, as the press reports claimed.

And a final grouse about the press reports: they completely failed to mention participation by Baha’is, Buddhists, Jains or Zoroastrians. This quite often happens. Size of community tends to count in the eyes of the media and the smaller communities are not deemed worthy of mention.

Anyway, enough of the inability of the media to report truthfully.

The theme of the observance was, of course, a gift to a Baha’i speaker. My thoughts went immediately to the first passage in Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. My reflection on the brotherhood of man, delivered from the lectern, was this:

In reflecting on the theme of this Observance, I feel I can do no better than to quote the words of ?Abdu?l-Bah? ? the eldest son of Bah??u?ll?h, founder of the Bah??? Faith. ?Abdu?l-Bah? spent much of his life in exile and as a prisoner of conscience. He knew what it means to be a stranger, but he dedicated his life to teaching and promoting the brotherhood of man. ?Abdu?l-Bah? brought his message to London in 1911. In this passage, he refers to his father as ?the Blessed Beauty?:

?O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath risen to illumine the whole earth, and to spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the holy evidences deriving from this grace. This is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty; it is light for the world and all its peoples; it is harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity; indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end of foreignness; it is the being at one, in complete dignity and freedom, with all on earth.

?The Blessed Beauty saith: ?Ye are all the fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch.? Thus hath He likened this world of being to a single tree, and all its peoples to the leaves thereof, and the blossoms and fruits. It is needful for the bough to blossom, and leaf and fruit to flourish, and upon the interconnection of all parts of the world-tree, dependeth the flourishing of leaf and blossom, and the sweetness of the fruit.

?For this reason must all human beings powerfully sustain one another and seek for everlasting life; and for this reason must the lovers of God in this contingent world become the mercies and the blessings sent forth by that clement King of the seen and unseen realms. Let them purify their sight and behold all humankind as leaves and blossoms and fruits of the tree of being. Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help. Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a companion, staying free of prejudice, drawing no lines.?

In the front row on one side of the church was Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. And on the other side, Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. How wonderful to have the privilege of reading the Word of God, loud and clear, to these and other worthies in St Margaret’s (which is, by the way, the parliamentary church).

The reflections from the other faith representatives resonated well with what ‘Abdu’l-Baha says about human solidarity. And why wouldn’t they? They do come, after all, from the same Divine Source.

The choir for the observance came from the West London Synagogue, and prayers at the end were lead jointly by Revd Graeme Napier, Minor Canon and Succentor of the Abbey, and my very good friend, Imam Abduljalil Sajid. Imam Sajid is outspoken against Islamic and other religious extremism - and has suffered attacks because of this - and is a great friend of the Faith. To hear the Imam chant a chapter of the Qur’an in Arabic while standing next to Graeme Napier in front of the altar in St Margaret’s was eerie, prompting me to think, in this church which was founded in the 12th century, of the Crusades and the ancient enmity between Christians and Muslims - so clearly negated in this remarkable multi-faith observance.

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