A muslim who fought to try to save single-sex education in Oxford will take up a historic appointment at Eton College.

Monawar Hussain, who runs a garage business in Clifton Hampden, has been appointed to counsel Muslim Etonians. He will be the first imam at the famous public school, in Berkshire.

Mr Hussain, a father of three girls, will begin what is being seen as a ground-breaking job on Sunday. Twenty-four of Eton's 1,200 pupils are Muslims.

Mr Hussain said: "I'm delighted and proud to have been offered this important post. My job as imam will be to give Muslim students counselling and spiritual advice as well as teaching them Islam.

"It's a part-time position. I will be teaching a class of 20 pupils and I hope we will be able to discuss current affairs. I also hope we will be able to interact and work with Jewish students and other members of the Eton community."

Mr Hussain, 34, who lives in Cowley, was educated at a state school in Maidenhead. He went on to read Christian theology at Westminster College, Oxford, and is studying at the Muslim College in London.

His desire to send his children to an all-girls school in Oxford saw him become a prominent figure in the Save Our Schools (SOS) campaign, during the controversial Ox- ford schools' re-organisation.

SOS went to the High Court three years ago in the hope of retaining single-sex education in Oxford, but lost its plea for a judicial review. Mr Hussain contributed £5,000 to the campaign.

Mr Hussain hopes his appointment will encourage other state and public schools to follow Eton's example.

He added: "I will work hard to make it a success. I do believe that this could be replicated.

"What a lot of people need to realise is that extremism or extremist imams are a very small minority. The imams who come from abroad, the only thing they lack - the majority of the time - is they have a problem with language.

"They are not able to fully express the Islamic tradition in the language, so that the younger people don't understand what Islam is about. That's when people who have a political agenda use Islam to further their agenda."

Eton College said it was making the appointment in a bid to help pupils gain an understanding of Islamic culture and thought.