The United Kingdom's Crown Prince Charles compared the plight of Jesus family to that of the Prophet Muhammad's Hijrah in his Christmas address this week.
Aired on BBC Radio 4, the British crown prince reminded listeners that the Holy family's fleeing from persecution is central to the Nativity story. Prince Charles then compared it to the Hijra, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar in the same way that the anniversary of Jesus's birth marks the start of the Gregorian calendar.
Prince Charles said that the Prophet Muhammad was "seeking the freedom for himself and his followers to worship" when he journeyed from Mecca to Medina.
The prince cited statistics from the United Nations about refugees saying "5.8 million more people abandoned their homes in 2015 than the year before."
This brings the "annual total to a staggering 65.3 million," nearly equal to the "entire population of the United Kingdom," he said.
"The suffering doesn’t end when they arrive," he said.
He pointed to the rise in of populist movements in the west as leading to religious persecution of "those who adhere to a minority faith."
"All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s," he said, not so subtly associating modern-day right-wing movements to the rise of fascism and Naziism before World War II.
Muslims make up about 4.5 percent of the UK's population, according to a 2011 census. Along with many other European countries and the United States, the UK has seen a rise in popular support for far-right political movements that regularly spew Islamophboic and anti-refugee rhetoric.
Many point to the influx of refugees into Europe as a key factor behind many British citizens' decision to support leaving the European Union – known as "Brexit" – earlier this year.
But, at the same time, London, the largest city and capital of the UK, elected its first Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, in May.