Muslims in Oxford are campaigning for a state-aided Islamic school to be built in the city.

The Iqra School Committee has been set up to lobby Oxfordshire County Council for help in establishing the school which would teach pupils the National Curriculum and aspects of Sharia religious law in an Islamic environment.

Oxford's young, Muslim community currently only receives religious education from small supplementary schools, such as the Al Noor school, in Union Street, which is attended by 120 pupils out of school hours for four hours a week.

The committee has so far collected 500 signatures in support of its campaign.

The need for a specifically Muslim school has become more pressing for the Muslim community since the decision to close the city's only girls school, Milham Ford.

Muslims parents must contemplate sending their daughters to boarding schools as far away as Nottingham, Bradford or Birmingham if they are to be educated without breaking Islamic law.

Hojjat Ramzy, committee campaign leader, said: "There are many CofE schools and a Jewish school, but there's no Muslims school, especially in the city of knowledge.

"This is particularly important for the girls, because from the age of 10 they need to be separated from the boys under the law of Islam.

"The students would follow the National Curriculum in an Islamic environment which caters for their need to pray and eat differently and be inculcated with the ethos of Islam.

"If this doesn't happen we run the risk of our children losing the identity of Islam."

The committee has identified school sites which are due to be sold as part of the re-organisation of education in the city, for the Islamic school.

Possible sites include Windmill First School and Donnington Middle School.

However, the committee's bid to take over the sites has been hampered by the fact that the county council is obliged to sell the land at market value.

Robert Capstick, principal education officer, said: "We've held meetings with the Iqra school group and given them the Government's information and guidance to help them.

"However, we don't have the power to sell the land at a knockdown price."

Mr Capstick added that the Muslims' case would not be helped by the fact that school rolls in east Oxford were falling, as families moved out because of high house prices.

Shereen Karmali, county councillor for Oxford south, said: "We already have a number of Christian schools so I think we should be looking at it in terms of equality."