Blair announces plan to tighten scrutiny of university courses in Islamic studies

Tony Blair insisted that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan should not be viewed as anti-Muslim yesterday as he appealed to the "true voice of Islam" to make itself heard.

The Prime Minister announced that more imams would be trained in British universities in an attempt to combat extremism and unveiled a £1m programme to reform Islamic studies after a government-ordered inquiry by the leading scholar Dr Ataullah Siddiqui found that they focused too narrowly on the Middle East and failed to reflect the reality of modern life in multicultural Britain.

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Islamic studies will be designated "strategically important" to Britain's national interests, allowing tighter official scrutiny of university courses.

Addressing a conference on Islam in London, Mr Blair said many Christians had disagreed with the action he took in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Leave aside for a moment whether they were the right or wrong decisions. What is damaging is if they are seen in the context of religious decisions," he said. "The religious faith of either country was as irrelevant to the decision as was the fact that the Kosovo Albanians we rescued were Muslims, suffering under a Serbian dictatorship, whose religion happened to be Christian Orthodox; or in helping the people of Sierra Leone, 70 per cent of whom are Muslim."

When he met groups of Muslims, he conceded that concerns about his foreign policies were raised but insisted that their main complaint was their faith was "constantly hijacked and subverted by small, unrepresentative groups who get disproportionately large amounts of publicity". He said that British Muslims "overwhelmingly" wanted to be "loyal citizens".

Mr Blair, who hopes to promote inter-faith dialogue after he stands down as prime minister this month, said: "The great religions of the world most continue the dialogue between them, and help inter-faith work to grow."

But critics said the conference, organised by Cambridge University, had excluded groups which opposed government policies. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, a Labour peer, said Mr Blair was engaging in "divide and rule" tactics and was more interested in making a "legacy" speech. "It's a colonial style of governing," he added.

Ahmed Versi, the editor of Muslim News, said Mr Blair's language was "quite welcoming" but that he did not properly address the most important issue to Muslims - the "double standards" of foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. "These are the issues that are radicalising young people and he did not talk about that," he said.

A poll for Channel 4 News found that almost a quarter of Britain's Muslims believe that the four men identified as the July 7 suicide bombers were not responsible for the attacks. The same proportion (24 per cent) think the British Government or security services were in some way involved in the bombings.

According to the survey of 500 Muslim adults by GfK NOP, some 59 per cent believe the Government has not told the public the whole truth about the 2005 attacks, while more than half think the security services made up evidence to convict terror suspects.

Nearly seven out of 10 believe the Muslim community bears no responsibility for the emergence of extremists willing to attack UK targets - although 58 per cent feel the community should be doing more.