Never in a million years would you believe it possible...Westminster Cathedral hosting a concert where the names of Allah were sung

But it did happen. The Beautiful Names, Sir John Tavener’s setting of the 99 names of Allah - an orchestral commission from the Prince of Wales, (who was in attendance), attracted demonstrators wishing to show their outrage at the apparent desecration of their church by, as an antagonist put it, "the sound of heathen hyms in a Cathedral made Sacred by Christ's Presence." They were however supporting a lost cause. Although unusual that a contemporary composer who has done so much to champion Christian spirituality in his work, for John Tavener, music is faith.

With the Cathedral’s decision to welcome Tavener’s piece, both Tavener and the Cathedral should be commended for showing such signs of tolerance and understanding of diversity.

Despite the anticipation, the world premiere of Tavener's The Beautiful Names in July mesmerised the audience into an almost meditative state as the 99 names of Allah was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and sung in impeccable Arabic by the BBC Symphony Chorus with tenor John Mark Ainsley.

With the complex system of American Indian drums, Tibetan temple bowls and elaborately constructed musical symmetries. The Beautiful Names was a testament to Tavener's confident spiritual universalism, and expressed his own willingness to have his faith enriched by other traditions. In interviews that followed the premiere, Tavener said he hoped the piece would, "contribute a little to an inward healing of the appalling strife that permeates the modern world."

For Tavener this was an act of devotion, of unashamedly drawing close to God, of turning to another religious tradition for solace. Inspired by a Sufi sage, Tavener said;

"The Beautiful Names came to me as a vision. I contemplated the meaning of each of the names as well as the sacred sound of the Arabic, and the music appeared to me spontaneously, neither chaotic nor random,"

It was an immense task to have composed and injected all that energy into capturing this sacred poetry of spiritual reflection and musical imagination but The Beautiful Names has entered the history books with its timeless plea for tolerance and it is hoped that future generations will remember this work and see it not just as a piece of music bound by the current debates over the presence of Muslims in Europe, but as a testament to religious devotion that transcends the discrete bounds of any single faith.

The Beautiful Names will now be taken to Turkey to be performed at an ancient Eastern Orthodox Church situated on the grounds of the Ottoman Topkapi Palace. There is no doubting the positive reception it will receive in Turkey, a country well know for its large sufi population will be almost divine in comparison to that of the UK.