2012 Annual General Meeting of the IARF British Chapter
19 May 2012, Unitarian Church Croydon, London

“Challenges to Civil & Religious Liberty Today”
(350th Anniversary of the Great Ejection of 1662)

Rev. Andrew Hill spoke on The Great Ejection in 1662, of two thousand Puritan clergymen from Church of England, which eventually led to the foundation of religious communities dissenting from the established church.

Sheikh Muhammad Amin-Evans spoke on The Mihnah, an inquisition instituted by the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun in 218 AH/833 AD against religious scholars who opposed the doctrine of the created nature of the Qur’an. Like the 1662 Great Ejection, the Mihnah occurred after a period of revolution, at a time of counter-revolution when people were trying to establish or re-establish states, authority and the identity of the ‘good’ citizen.

Rev Andrew Hill, ‘2012 – 350 = 1662’ (PDF, 6 pages)

Sheikh Muhammad Amin Evans, ‘The Mihnah (833 to 848) & encouraging inclusive Islam in Birmingham today’ (PDF, 8 pages)

Note: A Service of Reconciliation was held at Westminster Abbey on 7 February 2012 to mark the 350th anniversary of the Great Ejection. Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached at the service which was attended by clergy and laity of the Church of England and the United Reformed Church.