Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks said that Muslims need to learn to separate religion from power, in a major lecture in London this week.

“One of the great advantages of being Jewish, is you know how to sing in a minor key,” The Times reported him saying. “We have had 26 centuries of experience, ever since the Babylonian exile, of living as a minority in the midst of a culture that does not share our views.”

He added: “I have no doubt that Islam will work its way through to the essential situation that Judaism arrived at and Christianity, namely the substantive separation of religion from power. But there’s no quick way of getting there. It’s quite a difficult and painful process.

“Only Muslims can do it. I do see some wonderful Muslims in this country and elsewhere going through that process. Some of the Muslim thinkers today are some of the most courageous thinkers I have come across and it is very striking how many of them are women.”