A trainee Church of England priest at Oxford University, an Iranian-born convert from Islam, claimed he wasn’t allowed to ask critical questions about Islam during a seminar and has accused the university of discrimination and bias and made a formal complaint.
The student, Shahriar Ashrafkhorasani, 33, will become a Church of England priest in July. In his official complaint, he said a lecturer pointed at him during the seminar and said: “Everybody can ask a question except you.”
Ashrafkhorasani, a master’s student in applied theology at Wycliffe Hall, claims the lecturer refused to let him ask critical questions about his description of Islam as a religion of peace and love after he discovered in a mid-seminar coffee break that Ashrafkhorasani was a convert from Islam who had been persecuted in Iran.