On Wednesday 9th November 2022, HM King Charles III, accompanied by the Queen Consort, visited Doncaster where he formally conferred city status to Doncaster as part of his two-day visit to Yorkshire. Doncaster, which is just over twenty miles from Retford, was granted city status as part of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
At the reception held at Mansion House to mark the conferral of city status, King Charles met representatives of local organisations and various charity volunteers. Here, graduate of Jamia Al-Karam and Imam at the Doncaster Jamia Masjid Sultania, Imam Amar Hafiz, met the King and conversed with him regarding Britain and its faith communities.
Imam Amar introduced and gifted King Charles a copy of the book ‘I am a British Muslim’, written by his teacher, the founder of Jamia Al-Karam, Shaykh Muhammad Imdad Hussain Pirzada, highlighting the chapter on Muslim Spain, which extensively references the words of the then Prince Charles which he stated in his ‘Islam and the West’ lecture delivered at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies back in 1993. Intrigued by the book and the discussion, King Charles warmly accepted the gift.