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TRH visit a women's university in Islamabad, Pakistan

31st October 2006

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall toured a women's university in Pakistan today after changes to their programme were made for security reasons.

Their Royal Highnesses were shown around the Fatima Jinnah college in Rawalpindi instead of travelling to the North West Frontier city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, where there was the possibility of unrest and demonstrations.

The Prince and The Duchess were shown around the women-only university as chattering groups of girls in brightly-coloured shalwar kameez looked on.

The inpromptu visit, which had to be put in place at the last minute, saw The Prince and The Duchess being taken to various classrooms before sitting in an open-air cafeteria with some of the young women.

The Prince delivered the keynote speech of the tour to the female students, talking of his respect for Islam and saying it was a human misinterpretation of sacred texts that can lead to "appalling misunderstanding and hatred".

His interfaith speech had been intended for the young men of a madrasa – an Islamic school – on the day’s original programme, but instead was delivered to a room filled almost entirely with young women at a female-only university.

The Prince said: "Now looking about me I have a feeling that you, all very high-powered and intellectually-gifted ladies, will have an important role to play in Pakistan's future."

The students greeted this comment with a round of applause.

The Prince continued: "The world is in desperate need of people who have moral courage, who are not afraid of standing up for truth and fairness and civilised values - especially at a time in the world's history when ignorance and prejudice are so prevalent and so dangerous.

"Religion has once again become a source of conflict and intolerance. One of the tasks of education must surely be to engender the acquisition of wisdom."

The women clapped when The Prince told them he had the greatest respect for the inner meaning of Islam and other great religions.

The Prince added: "In a secular age you hear again and again the accusation that religion is the cause of so much misery and strife in the world.

"However, religion itself is not the problem. It is surely human misinterpretation of the sacred texts handed down to us that can lead to such appalling misunderstanding and hatred."

The Prince went on: "Will you, for instance, have the moral courage to stand up against the kind of mistaken and misguided leadership that can so easily set one community against another?"

Vice Chancellor of the institution Najma Majan introduced The Prince before his speech by revealing that the visit had only been arranged this morning.

"This is a wonderful day for us and an unexpected pleasure for the women of Fatima Jinnah University," she said.

"I got a call this morning from a very important security agency and I said what did we do wrong?

"They said this was a surprise visit by a VIP and as soon as they named you, sir, I said yes. It's going to be a very historic day."

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall later visited ancient Buddhist ruins at an archaeological site at Taxila, outside Islamabad.

They climbed up 247 steep steps to the excavations on the hillside, where they were shown around by the director of the site.