A Meeting with Her Majesty the Queen

By Zahrah Sajid

My father, Dr. Imam Abduljalil Sajid, was asked to attend a Christmas reception at Buckingham Palace , with a guest on 7th December 2004 .  As mother was away he took me as his guest. This reception was in recognition of the work that he, along with other community workers and the government , had done on behalf of the Muslims as a peace-maker, bridging the gap between faiths. Their meeting was shown as part of the Queen's speech broadcast on Christmas Day on BBC 1.

At the Buckingham Palace gathering of 500 people, my father and I were approached on our arrival by the Head of the Household to follow him and were led to another room where the Press Secretary told us that the Queen had requested a private meeting with us and a few others. It was a very exciting and memorable experience but thoroughly enjoyable. I was nervous beforehand but Her Majesty was warm and put me at ease by asking me about my father's work with the local community, about my job and about living in Brighton .

Her Majesty the Queen had had a good briefing about my father's national and international work in bridge building and peace making. She showed most interest in my father's work in the  interfaith area, as well as community work locally, nationally, in Europe and internationally. Her Majesty the Queen asked about my father's work in connections with bridge building and peace making in Geneva , at the Centre for Reconciliation at Caux , Switzerland and in the World Congress of Faiths and Religions for Peace in UK and Europe .

Her Majesty the Queen knew my father's work with Ethnic Communities such as the Ethnic Minorities Representatives Council (EMRC) and our interfaith work through Interfaith Network UK and the Brighton & Hove Inter-Faith Contact Group (IFCG). I gave her the Muslim Council of Britain ( MCB ) Rights and Responsibilities document. Her Majesty the Queen was fully aware of the good work of the MCB .  In the Buckingham Palace brochure, distributed on that day, against my father's name was written "Service to Community Relations" to describe the kind of work he does.

31 December 2004