A letter uncovered during research into the life of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reveals that members of his family feared his fascination with Islam would lead him to convert, British media reported.

The letter was discovered at the University of Cambridge by Dr. Warren Dockter, a historian researching Churchill’s life. Sent by Churchill’s sister-in-law-to-be, Lady Gwendoline Bertie, it reads, “Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise, Pasha-like tendencies, I really have.”

“If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it,” Bertie, who later married Chuchill’s brother, Jack, urged.

Dockter was conducting research for his upcoming book, Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East, when he came across the letter. Despite Bertie’s anxiety, however, he believes the influential World War II leader would not really have converted.

“[Lady Gwendoline Bertie] would have been worried because Churchill  was leaving for an African tour and she would have known Churchill  had been seeing his friend, Wilfrid S. Blunt, who was a renowned  Arabist, anti-imperialist  and poet. Though he and Churchill  were friends and dressed in Arabian dress at times for Blunt’s eccentric parties, they rarely agreed,” Dockter told The Independent.

Churchill expressed certain admiration for Islamic culture, following his service in Sudan as a member of the British army. “Churchill had fought in Sudan and on the North West frontier of India so had much experience on being in ‘Islamic areas’,” Dockter said. He even told Lady Lytton in a letter that he wished he were a “Pasha”, a title of high rank in the Ottoman empire. However, Dockter maintains, he “never seriously considered converting.”

“He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway. He did however have a fascination with Islamic culture which was common among Victorians.”

In 1940, Churchill approved a plan for a mosque in Regent’s Park, earmarking £100,000 for the purpose, in the hopes of winning support from Muslim countries during World War II. He told the House of Commons later, “many of our friends in Muslim countries” had expressed appreciation for this “gift”.

However, despite his general appreciation, he was very critical of certain aspects of Islam. In his 1899 book The River War, recounting his experiences in Sudan, he wrote, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.”

“A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion  paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”