There are currently a good number of voices insisting that Charles III may well be the first Muslim monarch of the United Kingdom. Enough voices that it bears addressing, including the former Mayor of New York and sometime Trump fanboy, Rudi Giuliani. Interestingly, this isn’t a new claim either. Back in 1996, the Grand Mufti of Cyprus – Nazim Al-Haqqani – also insisted Charles had become a Muslim and did so in Turkey. The palace rebuffed those claims very quickly back then but it appears some continue to insist it is true.

Those making the claims will cite certain lines of evidence. There is the well-known desire of Charles to be crowned ‘defender of faith’, rather than the specifically Anglican ‘defender of the [Anglican] faith’. Beyond this, Charles specifically studied Arabic so he could better understand the Qur’an and has often been quick to defend Islam and reluctant to denounce Islamism. He has also been Patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) since 1993 and has a wing named in his honour.

Now, it is certainly true that Charles is something of an Islamophile. He certainly has a great respect for Islam and a genuine interest in it. Nevertheless, if you happen to think the title of this post is stupid, let me say before going any further that you have good reason to be sceptical. If you really can’t be bothered to read any further, the answer is clearly no. Charles III is not the first Muslim monarch of the UK because he self-evidently is not a Muslim.

Let’s just state the bleeding obvious: Charles does not think there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger. He has never formally stated the shahada, does not do the five daily prayers of salat and does not regularly attend mosque. By anybody’s reckoning, Charles is not credibly Muslim. He does not affirm or practice the core tenets of Islam. By definition, he is not Muslim.

But even if we look at the above cited evidence, Charles’ public declaration to be ‘defender of faith’ extends to all faiths (a point we will return to shortly). Whatever else we make of that, it is very un-Islamic! Islam would not respect the defence of Christianity and Hinduism on equal terms, but that is precisely what Charles wants to do. As much as it may be an affront to his position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Anglican and/or Christian faith as traditionally understood, it would equally be an affront to Islam. It isn’t a very Muslim thing to say or do.

The rest cited is evidence – as I note above – that Charles has a longstanding interest in Islam. But I know lots of Christians, who are definitively not Muslims but actively want to convert Muslims to Christianity, who nevertheless have a longstanding interest in Islam. They learn Arabic so they can better engage with Muslim people and understand the Qur’an on its own terms. Whilst I have not learnt Arabic (at least, not much), I have read the Qur’an and am keen to best understand it. I can even affirm there are things in Muslim thought that are laudable. Clearly, as a Christian pastor who wishes to reach Muslims with the gospel of Jesus Christ, I am neither a Muslim nor think everything in Islamic thought is laudable. Charles may find more therein to like than me perhaps, but that doesn’t make him a Muslim. The suggestion is specious at best.

But if not a Muslim, then what is Charles? I am going to posit that Charles is exactly what we would expect: a middle-of-the-road Anglican who essentially thinks God is a Lib Dem and wishes everybody else would be one because he is essentially one too. The question is, which best accounts for Charles’ behaviour? Does he act more like a Muslim or more like a very typical Anglican liberal? I don’t think we need to do too much digging to see.

Would a liberal Anglican wish to see all faiths as essentially equal? Of course. This fits entirely with ‘defender of faith’. Would an Anglican liberal be keen to find the good in every other religious expression under the sun? Of course. Would a devout Muslim be similarly keen to find this equality and expression of goodness across the religious spectrum? I suspect not. Would a devout Muslim nevertheless be happy to be associated as Supreme Governor of the Church of England? To be honest, I doubt it. It just isn’t credible.

So where does that put us? For a nonconformist like me, nowhere particularly troubling. Charles remains Supreme Governor of the Church of England which has historically not been bastion of rights and freedoms for such as us. But fortunately, Charles is a liberal who wishes to effectively promote tolerance of all religions, which is ironically not very Anglican but very much more in line with nonconformist thought, so something of a boon. He stands in the mainline Anglican liberal tradition – a tradition that hasn’t entirely made its mind up on God at all – but that nevertheless isn’t anything close to making him a Muslim.