Address to the Muslim Association of Salisbury, 9 November 2018

Asalaam alaikum [peace be with you].

Greetings. I am honoured to have been invited to the Muslim Association here in Salisbury, and am very glad to come in, having gone past so often, and to come into this prayer room to be with you in the mosque. It is a great honour.

I bring with me colleagues: Craig Ryalls, who is the parish priest here, at St Paul’s the church on the roundabout, Guy Wilkinson, Bill Cave and Michael Ford, and we’re very glad to be here.

The Muslim Association has been in Salisbury for quite a long time. Not as long as the Cathedral, but this is a cathedral city and this is a city that knows about faith - is founded on faith. We’re learning together what it is to be people of faith in world which does not find faith easy, and where faiths do not always find each other easy.

How important that we are able to meet as brothers, and to be together, and that you are able to make that great contribution to the civic and the business life here in Salisbury: the contributions you make in the various things that you do in the community where we live, because together we have to build a peaceful community, working together as brothers in God’s world.

I’m grateful to be here with you, am glad to come to prayers, to sit at the back, and I’m grateful for your hospitality and for the presence and contribution of the Muslim Association in this city.

Thank you.