Islam in England
Encyclopedia
Islam
in England
is the largest non-Christian religion, with most Muslim
s being immigrants from South Asia
(in particular Pakistan
, Bangladesh
and India
) or descendants of immigrants from that region. Many others are from Muslim-dominated regions such as the Middle East
, Afghanistan
, Malaysia and Somalia
, while fewer come from Equatorial Africa
n countries such as Nigeria
, Uganda
and Sierra Leone
.
According to the 2001 census, 1.54 million Muslims live in England and Wales
, where they form 3.3% of the population. According to research by The Times, there were 2.4 million Muslims in the United Kingdom
in 2009. In 2010, a study by the Pew Research Center
argued that there were 2.869 million Muslims in Britain as a whole.
Although Islam
is generally thought of as being a recent arrival in England
, there has been minor contact between the English and Muslims for many centuries. An early example would be the decision of Offa
, the eighth-century King of Mercia
(one of the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms existing at that time), to have a coin minted with an Islamic inscription - largely a copy of coins issued by the contemporary Muslim ruler, Caliph
Al-Mansur
. It is thought that they may have been minted simply for prestige or to facilitate trade with the expanding Islamic empire in Spain
, as Islamic gold dinars were the most important coinage in the Mediterranean at the time. Offa's coin looked enough like the original that it would be readily accepted in southern Europe, while at the same time his own name was clearly visible. References to Britain are also found in early Islamic geographical literature, such as the 9th century work of Ahmad ibn Rustah
(d. 910) which describes the islands of "Bratiniya".
Muslim scholarship
, especially early Islamic philosophy
and Islamic science, was well-known through Latin translation among the learned in England
by 1386, when Geoffrey Chaucer
was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Rhazes (Al-Razi), Avicenna
(Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes
(Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). In the Pardoner's Tale, Chaucer mentions part Avicenna's work concerning poisons. Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine
(1025), in Latin translation, was a standard text for medical students up until the 18th century. Roger Bacon
, one of the earliest Europe
an advocates of the scientific method
, is known to have studied the works of several early Muslim philosophers. In particular, his work on optics
in the 13th century was influenced by the Book of Optics
(1021) by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen).
Professor John Makdisi's "The Islamic Origins of the Common Law" in the North Carolina Law Review
, curiously suggested that English
common law
was inspired by medieval Islamic law
. Makdisi drew comparisons between the "royal English contract
protected by the action of debt
" and the "Islamic Aqd", the "English assize of novel disseisin
" (a petty assize adopted in the 1166 at the Assizes of Clarendon) and the "Islamic Istihqaq", and the "English jury
" and the "Islamic Lafif" in the classical Maliki
school of Islamic jurisprudence
, and argued that these institutions were transmitted to England by the Normans
, "through the close connection between the Norman kingdoms of Roger II in Sicily
— ruling over a conquered Islamic administration — and Henry II in England
." Makdisi also argued that the "law school
s known as Inns of Court
" in England (which he asserts are parallel to Madrasah
s) may have also originated from Islamic law, although they bear more similarity to the much closer-to-home Oxbridge Colleges (at which most students would have previously studied) and arose in concentration in Holborn after the clergy were forbidden to teach common law by the Pope, and law schools were banished from the City of London (their current location being between the old City and the courts at Westminster). He states that the methodology of legal precedent
and reasoning by analogy
(Qiyas
) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems, although the English practice arises from the methodology of Bracton, resulting in the subsequent publication of law reports. Other legal scholars such as Monica Gaudiosi, Gamal Moursi Badr and A. Hudson have argued that the English trust
and agency
institutions, which were introduced by Crusaders
, may have been adapted from the Islamic Waqf
and Hawala
institutions they came across in the Middle East. Paul Brand also notes parallels between the Waqf and the trusts used to establish Merton College by Walter de Merton
, who had connections with the Knights Templar
, but Brand also points out that the Knights Templar were primarily concerned with fighting the Muslims rather than learning from them, making it less likely that they would imitate Muslim legal institutions. Moreover, the "waqf" concept refers to a charitable designation of property whereas the introduction of trust law was a reaction to the failure of persons to whom crusaders conveyed their lands whilst on crusade to return the lands when the crusaders returned (as opposed to the charitable trust which would be used to found an academic institution and has its origin in Roman law
). The conventional accepted view is that English law is a continuation of Anglo-Saxon law
centuries earlier.
. 16th century writer Richard Hakluyt
claimed he was forced to convert, though he mentions in the same story other Englishmen who had converted willingly.
Captain John Ward
of Kent
was one of a number of British sailors who became pirates based in the Maghreb
who also converted to Islam (see also Barbary pirates). Later, some Unitarians
became interested in the faith, and Henry Stubbes
wrote so favourably about Islam that it is thought he too had converted to the faith.
From 1609 to 1616, England
lost 466 ships to Barbary pirates, who sold the passengers into slavery in North Africa
. In 1625, it was reported that Lundy
, an island in the Bristol Channel
which had been a pirate lair for much of the previous half century, had been occupied by three Ottoman pirates who were threatening to burn Ilfracombe
; Algerine rovers were using the island as a base in 1635, although the island had itself been attacked and plundered by a Spanish raid in 1633. In 1627, Barbary pirates under command of the Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon
operating from the Moroccon port of Salé
occupied Lundy, before they were expelled by Sir John Pennington. During this time there were reports of captured slaves being sent to Algiers
and of the Islamic flag flying over Lundy.
The Muslim Moors
had a noticeable influence on the works of George Peele
and William Shakespeare
. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele's The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
, Titus Andronicus
and Othello
, which featured a Moorish Othello
as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish delegation
s from Morocco
to Elizabethan England around 1600. A portrait was painted of one of the Moorish ambassadors, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun
, who had come to promote an Anglo-Moroccan alliance
.
Turban
s can be found in Renaissance England. While friendly relations were formed between England and the Islamic civilization of the Middle East in the early sixteenth century, Persian and Turkish style fashions were sometimes worn by the higher classes as a form of party or fancy dress. During times of interaction with Istanbul
, Queen Elizabeth I of England
wore Turkish clothing styles. It was believed that she favoured working with the Islamic sultans of Istanbul rather than the Roman Catholic leaders of Europe. These suspicions were heightened when she asked Sultan Murad III
and his son Mohammad III
for military assistance. Although she never did receive any assistance from the sultans, her relations with the Sultan and his son did not waver.
In 17th-century England, there was a 'second wave' of interest in the study of Arabic science and Islamic philosophy
. Arabic manuscripts were considered the key to a 'treasure house' of ancient knowledge, which led to the founding of Arabic chairs
at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where Arabic
was taught. A large collection of Arabic manuscripts were acquired, collected in places such as the Bodleian Library
at Oxford. These Arabic manuscripts were sought after by natural philosophers
for their research in subjects such as observational astronomy or mathematics, and also encompassed subjects ranging from science, religion, and medicine, to typography and garden plants
.
Besides scientific and philosophical literature, works of Arabic fictional literature
were also translated into Latin
and English
during the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famous of these was the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was first translated into English in 1706 and has since then had a profound influence on English literature
. Another famous work was Ibn Tufail
's philosophical novel
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
, which was translated into Latin as Philosophus Autodidactus by Edward Pococke
the Younger in 1671 and then into English by Simon Ockley
in 1708. The English translation of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, set on a desert island
, may have inspired Daniel Defoe
to write Robinson Crusoe
, considered the first novel in English
, in 1719. Later translated literary works include Layla and Majnun
and Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus
.
By the time of Union with Scotland
in 1707, only small numbers of Muslims were living in England
. The first large group of Muslims to arrive, in the 18th century, were lascars (sailors) recruited from the Indian subcontinent
(largely from the Bengal
region) to work for the British East India Company
, most of whom settled down and took local wives. Due to the majority being lascars, the earliest Muslim communities were found in port towns. Naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division
of what is now Bangladesh
. One of the most famous early Bengali
Muslim immigrants to England was Sake Dean Mahomet
, a captain of the British East India Company who in 1810 founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House. He is also reputed for introducing shampoo
and therapeutic massage to the United Kingdom. The practice of Islam in the United Kingdom was legalized by the Trinitarian Act 1812.
s live in England
and Wales
, where they then formed 3.3% of the population (although this figure does not include unregistered, or 'illegal' immigrants). According to The Times, there were 2.4 million Muslims in Britain as a whole as of January 2009.
In England, 40 percent of Muslims live in London
, where 607,083 identified as Muslim in 2001, out of a population of 7,172,091. There are also large numbers of Muslims in Birmingham
, Manchester
, Bradford
, Luton
, High Wycombe
, Slough
, Leicester
and the mill town
s of Northern England.
The local authorities with a Muslim population greater than 10 percent were:
Most large cities have one area that is a majority Muslim even if the rest of the city has a fairly small Muslims population; see, for example, Harehills
in Leeds
. In addition, it is possible to find small areas that are almost entirely Muslim: for example, Savile Town
in Dewsbury
.
In September 2009, the ONS published information showing that Mohammed (or variations of it) was the third most popular boys' name in England and Wales.
People of Bangladeshi descent are one of the largest Muslim communities (after Pakistanis), 16.8% of Muslims in England and Wales are of Bangladeshi descent, the ethnic group in the UK with the largest proportion of people following a single religion, being 92% Muslim
. Majority of these Muslim come from the Sylhet region
of Bangladesh
, mainly concentrated in Tower Hamlets, and Newham
, in London, as well as in Luton
, Birmingham
and Oldham
. The Bangladeshi Muslim community in London form 24% of the Muslim population, larger than any other ethnic group.
Initial limited mosque availability meant that prayers were conducted in small rooms of council flats
until the 1980s
when more and larger facilities became available. Some synagogues and community buildings were turned into mosques and existing mosques began to expand their buildings. This process has continued down to the present day with the East London Mosque recently expanding into a large former car park where the London Muslim Centre is now used for prayers, recreational facilities and housing. Most people regard themselves as part of the ummah
, and their identity based on their religion rather than their ethnic group
. Cultural
aspects of a 'Bengali Islam' are seen as superstition and as un-Islamic. The identity is far stronger in comparison to the native land. Younger Bangladeshis are more involved in Islamist activities and movement groups, whereas the older generation practice with Islamic rituals mixed with the Bengali culture. Many Bangladeshi women wear the burqa
and many young women or girls also wear the headscarf
.
There are groups which are active throughout Bangladeshi communities such as The Young Muslim Organization. It is connected to the Islamic Forum Europe
, associated with the East London Mosque
and the London Muslim Centre – all of which have connections with the Bangladesh Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (linked with some community mosques, which also linked with the Dawat-e-Islami
). Other groups also attract a few people, the Hizb ut-Tahrir
– which calls for the Khilafah (caliphate) and influences by publishing annual magazines, and lectures through mainly political concepts, and the other which is a movement within Sunni Islam
is the Salafi
– who view the teachings of the first generations as the correct one, and appeals to younger Muslims as a way to differentiate themselves towards their elders. Other large groups include another Sunni movement, the Barelwi
– mainly of a Fultoli movement (led by Abdul Latif Chowdhury in Bangladesh), and the Tablighi Jamaat
– which is a missionary
and revival movement, and avoids political attention. All these groups work to stimulate Islamic identity among local Bengalis or Muslims and particularly focus on the younger members of the communities.
and Bharuch
districts in India started to arrive from the 1930s, settling in the towns of Dewsbury and Batley in Yorkshire and parts of Lancashire. There are large numbers of Gujarati Muslims in Dewsbury, Blackburn, Bolton, Preston and in the London Boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney. Immigration of Muslims into UK, was primarily started off by Indians during the colonial rule.
. Nigerian Muslims in the UK are represented by several community organizations, including the Nigeria Muslim forum, which is affiliated with the Council of Nigerian Muslim Organisations in UK and Ireland (CNMO) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
are of Pakistan
i descent. Pakistanis from Mirpur District
were one of the first South Asian Muslim communities to permanently settle in the United Kingdom
, arriving in Birmingham
and Bradford
in the late 1930s. Immigration from Mirpur grew from the late 1950s, accompanied by immigration from other parts of Pakistan especially from Punjab which included cities like Sialkot
, Jhelum
, Gujar Khan
and Gujrat
and also from the north-west Punjab including the chhachh
i pathan
s from Attock District
, and some from villages of Ghazi, Nowshera and Peshwar. People of Pakistani extraction are particularly notable in West Midlands
, West Yorkshire
, Lancashire
/Greater Manchester
, and industrial towns in South East England
like Luton, Slough, High Wycombe
and Oxford
.
, with 43,532 Somali-born residents in 2001, and an estimated 101,000 in 2008, is home to the largest Somali
community in Europe
. A 2009 estimate by Somali community organisations puts the Somali population figure at 90,000 residents. Although most Somalis in the UK are recent arrivals, the first Somali immigrants were seamen and traders who arrived and settled in port cities in the late 19th century. Established Somali communities are found in London
, Liverpool (estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 to 9,000), Cardiff
and Bristol
, and newer ones have formed in Manchester
, Sheffield
and Leicester
. The Somali community has set up many mosques in the UK and especially London, where it has built large masjids in Hayes
and Southall
.
, Kosovo
, and Turkey
. There are almost 200,000 Muslims who described themselves as 'white' in the 2001 census.
was pronounced by a leading scholar in London.
.
's European Muslim Research Centre noted that the number of anti-Muslim hate crime
s has increased, ranging from "death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling," for which the media and politicians have been blamed with fueling anti-Muslim hatred.
The British media
has been criticised for propagating negative stereotypes of Muslims
and fueling anti-Muslim
prejudice. In 2006, British cabinet
ministers were criticised for helping to "unleash a public anti-Muslim backlash" by blaming the Muslim community over issues of integration despite a study commissioned by the Home Office
on white and Asian-Muslim youths demonstrating otherwise: that Asian-Muslim youths "are in fact the most tolerant of all" and that white British
youths "have far more intolerant attitudes," concluding that intolerance from the white British community was a greater "barrier to integration." Another survey by Gallup in 2009 also found that the Muslim community claimed to feel more patriotic about Britain than the general British population, while another survey found that Muslims assert that they support the role of Christianity in British life more so than Christians themselves. In January 2010, the British Social Attitudes Survey
found that the general British public "is far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than of any other religious group," with "just one in four" feeling "positively about Islam," and a "majority of the country would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area, while only 15 per cent expressed similar qualms about the opening of a church." The "scapegoating" of Muslims by the media and politicians in the 21st century has been compared in the media to the rise of antisemitism in the early 20th century.
(EDL) formed a street protest movement which opposes the alleged spread of Islamism
, Sharia
law and Islamic extremism
in England
, and also opposes immigration. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism. At many of their gatherings, EDL members have clashed with counter-demonstrators, including supporters of Unite Against Fascism
(UAF).
organises an annual programme to attract people to its services which include ICT training, English classes, a Junior Muslim Circle, Saturday Halaqa (Islamic talks) and Madrasahs. According to the mosque, involvement in its activities has increased and it notes that: the five daily prayers have increased. Especially during Friday Jummah prayers, where it was difficult to accommodate the increasing number of people. During Ramadan
, the prayer facilities attracted between 4,000 to 5,000 people every day. Much of these works by the people, show Islamic identity among the Muslims is increasingly rising due to many Islamic groups and facilities available throughout the communities in the UK.
The Baitul Futuh
Mosque organises several events to serve Muslims and the wider community. Other than holding regular prayers, its services to the wider community include annual Peace Conferences, School tours and community events such as hosting the BBC Radio 4
Any Questions?
and the 'Merton Youth Partnership Annual Conference.'
The Baitul Futuh Mosque has also been acting as the centre for the 'Loyalty, Freedom and Peace Campaign' in order for the west to recognize Islam as a peaceful religion and to improve the Integration of Muslims and Non-Muslims.
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
is the largest non-Christian religion, with most Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s being immigrants from South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
(in particular Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
) or descendants of immigrants from that region. Many others are from Muslim-dominated regions such as the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Malaysia and Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
, while fewer come from Equatorial Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
n countries such as Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
and Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
.
According to the 2001 census, 1.54 million Muslims live in England and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, where they form 3.3% of the population. According to research by The Times, there were 2.4 million Muslims in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 2009. In 2010, a study by the Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
argued that there were 2.869 million Muslims in Britain as a whole.
Middle Ages
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
is generally thought of as being a recent arrival in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, there has been minor contact between the English and Muslims for many centuries. An early example would be the decision of Offa
Offa of Mercia
Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely...
, the eighth-century King of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
(one of the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
kingdoms existing at that time), to have a coin minted with an Islamic inscription - largely a copy of coins issued by the contemporary Muslim ruler, Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Al-Mansur
Al-Mansur
Al-Mansur, Almanzor or Abu Ja'far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur was the second Abbasid Caliph from 136 AH to 158 AH .-Biography:...
. It is thought that they may have been minted simply for prestige or to facilitate trade with the expanding Islamic empire in Spain
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
, as Islamic gold dinars were the most important coinage in the Mediterranean at the time. Offa's coin looked enough like the original that it would be readily accepted in southern Europe, while at the same time his own name was clearly visible. References to Britain are also found in early Islamic geographical literature, such as the 9th century work of Ahmad ibn Rustah
Ahmad ibn Rustah
Ibn Rustah was a 10th century Persian explorer and geographer born in Rosta district, Isfahan, Persia....
(d. 910) which describes the islands of "Bratiniya".
Muslim scholarship
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
, especially early Islamic philosophy
Early Islamic philosophy
Early Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...
and Islamic science, was well-known through Latin translation among the learned in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
by 1386, when Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Rhazes (Al-Razi), Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
(Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes
Averroes
' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...
(Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). In the Pardoner's Tale, Chaucer mentions part Avicenna's work concerning poisons. Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine is an encyclopedia of Galenic medicine in five books compiled by Ibn Sīnā and completed in 1025. It presents a clear and organized summary of all the medical knowledge of the time...
(1025), in Latin translation, was a standard text for medical students up until the 18th century. Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...
, one of the earliest Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an advocates of the scientific method
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
, is known to have studied the works of several early Muslim philosophers. In particular, his work on optics
Optics
Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...
in the 13th century was influenced by the Book of Optics
Book of Optics
The Book of Optics ; ; Latin: De Aspectibus or Opticae Thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis; Italian: Deli Aspecti) is a seven-volume treatise on optics and other fields of study composed by the medieval Muslim scholar Alhazen .-See also:* Science in medieval Islam...
(1021) by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen).
Professor John Makdisi's "The Islamic Origins of the Common Law" in the North Carolina Law Review
North Carolina Law Review
The North Carolina Law Review is the law journal of the University of North Carolina School of Law. It was established in 1922 and is published in six issues each year, with issue 5 devoted to its annual symposium and issue 6 designated as a special review of North Carolina and Fourth Circuit law...
, curiously suggested that English
English law
English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...
common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
was inspired by medieval Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
. Makdisi drew comparisons between the "royal English contract
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
protected by the action of debt
Debt
A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...
" and the "Islamic Aqd", the "English assize of novel disseisin
Assize of novel disseisin
In English law, the Assize of novel disseisin was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been disseised, or dispossessed. The action became extremely popular due to its expediency...
" (a petty assize adopted in the 1166 at the Assizes of Clarendon) and the "Islamic Istihqaq", and the "English jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
" and the "Islamic Lafif" in the classical Maliki
Maliki
The ' madhhab is one of the schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. It is the second-largest of the four schools, followed by approximately 25% of Muslims, mostly in North Africa, West Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and in some parts of Saudi Arabia...
school of Islamic jurisprudence
Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....
, and argued that these institutions were transmitted to England by the Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
, "through the close connection between the Norman kingdoms of Roger II in Sicily
Roger II of Sicily
Roger II was King of Sicily, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, later became Duke of Apulia and Calabria , then King of Sicily...
— ruling over a conquered Islamic administration — and Henry II in England
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
." Makdisi also argued that the "law school
Law school
A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...
s known as Inns of Court
Inns of Court
The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. All such barristers must belong to one such association. They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional...
" in England (which he asserts are parallel to Madrasah
Madrasah
Madrasah is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious...
s) may have also originated from Islamic law, although they bear more similarity to the much closer-to-home Oxbridge Colleges (at which most students would have previously studied) and arose in concentration in Holborn after the clergy were forbidden to teach common law by the Pope, and law schools were banished from the City of London (their current location being between the old City and the courts at Westminster). He states that the methodology of legal precedent
Precedent
In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a legal case that a court or other judicial body may apply when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts...
and reasoning by analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
(Qiyas
Qiyas
In Islamic jurisprudence, qiyās is the process of deductive analogy in which the teachings of the Hadith are compared and contrasted with those of the Qur'an, in order to apply a known injunction to a new circumstance and create a new injunction...
) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems, although the English practice arises from the methodology of Bracton, resulting in the subsequent publication of law reports. Other legal scholars such as Monica Gaudiosi, Gamal Moursi Badr and A. Hudson have argued that the English trust
Trust law
In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship whereby property is held by one party for the benefit of another...
and agency
Agency (law)
The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a contractual or quasi-contractual, or non-contractual set of relationships when a person, called the agent, is authorized to act on behalf of another to create a legal relationship with a third party...
institutions, which were introduced by Crusaders
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, may have been adapted from the Islamic Waqf
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...
and Hawala
Hawala
Hawala is an informal value transfer system based on the performance and honor of a huge network of money brokers, which are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia...
institutions they came across in the Middle East. Paul Brand also notes parallels between the Waqf and the trusts used to establish Merton College by Walter de Merton
Walter de Merton
Walter de Merton was Bishop of Rochester and founder of Merton College, Oxford.-Life:Walter was born probably at Merton in Surrey or educated there; hence the surname. He came of a land-owning family at Basingstoke; beyond that there is no definite information as to the date or place of birth...
, who had connections with the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
, but Brand also points out that the Knights Templar were primarily concerned with fighting the Muslims rather than learning from them, making it less likely that they would imitate Muslim legal institutions. Moreover, the "waqf" concept refers to a charitable designation of property whereas the introduction of trust law was a reaction to the failure of persons to whom crusaders conveyed their lands whilst on crusade to return the lands when the crusaders returned (as opposed to the charitable trust which would be used to found an academic institution and has its origin in Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
). The conventional accepted view is that English law is a continuation of Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon law
Anglo-Saxon law is a body of written rules and customs that were in place during the Anglo-Saxon period in England, before the Norman conquest. This body of law, along with early Scandinavian law and continental Germanic law, descended from a family of ancient Germanic custom and legal thought...
centuries earlier.
Early modern period
The first English convert to Islam mentioned by name is John NelsonJohn Nelson (convert)
John Nelson was the earliest known Englishman to convert to Islam in the 16th century. He is mentioned by the 16th century writer Richard Hakluyt in his book Voyager's Tales....
. 16th century writer Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt was an English writer. He is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and...
claimed he was forced to convert, though he mentions in the same story other Englishmen who had converted willingly.
- This king had a son which was a ruler in an island called Gerbi, whereunto arrived an English ship called the Green Dragon, of the which was master one M. Blonket, who, having a very unhappy boy on that ship, and understanding that whosoever would turn Turk should be well entertained of the a yeoman of our Queen's guard, whom the king's son had enforced to turn Turk; his name was John Nelson.
John Ward (pirate)
John Ward or Birdy , also known as Jack Ward and under his Muslim name Yusuf Reis, was a notorious English pirate around the turn of the 17th century who later became a Barbary Corsair operating out of Tunis during the early 17th century.-Early life:Little is known about Ward's early life...
of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
was one of a number of British sailors who became pirates based in the Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
who also converted to Islam (see also Barbary pirates). Later, some Unitarians
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
became interested in the faith, and Henry Stubbes
Henry Stubbes
-Life:He was born in Partney, Lincolnshire, and educated at Westminster School. Given patronage as a child by the Puritan, Henry Vane the Younger, he obtained a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1653...
wrote so favourably about Islam that it is thought he too had converted to the faith.
From 1609 to 1616, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
lost 466 ships to Barbary pirates, who sold the passengers into slavery in North Africa
Arab slave trade
The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab World, mainly Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa and certain parts of Europe during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of the Middle East and North Africa...
. In 1625, it was reported that Lundy
Lundy
Lundy is the largest island in the Bristol Channel, lying off the coast of Devon, England, approximately one third of the distance across the channel between England and Wales. It measures about at its widest. Lundy gives its name to a British sea area and is one of the islands of England.As of...
, an island in the Bristol Channel
Bristol Channel
The Bristol Channel is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Severn to the North Atlantic Ocean...
which had been a pirate lair for much of the previous half century, had been occupied by three Ottoman pirates who were threatening to burn Ilfracombe
Ilfracombe
Ilfracombe is a seaside resort and civil parish on the North Devon coast, England with a small harbour, surrounded by cliffs.The parish stretches along the coast from 'The Coastguard Cottages' in Hele Bay toward the east and 4 miles along The Torrs to Lee Bay toward the west...
; Algerine rovers were using the island as a base in 1635, although the island had itself been attacked and plundered by a Spanish raid in 1633. In 1627, Barbary pirates under command of the Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon
Jan Janszoon
Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Murat Reis the younger was the first President and Grand Admiral of the Corsair Republic of Salé, Governor of Oualidia, and a Dutch pirate, one of the most notorious of the Barbary pirates from the 17th century; the most famous of the "Salé...
operating from the Moroccon port of Salé
Salé
Salé is a city in north-western Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town...
occupied Lundy, before they were expelled by Sir John Pennington. During this time there were reports of captured slaves being sent to Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
and of the Islamic flag flying over Lundy.
The Muslim Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
had a noticeable influence on the works of George Peele
George Peele
George Peele , was an English dramatist.-Life:Peele was christened on 25 July 1556. His father, who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, and wrote two treatises on bookkeeping...
and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele's The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
, Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus
Titus Andronicus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, and possibly George Peele, believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy, and is often seen as his attempt to emulate the violent and bloody revenge plays of his contemporaries, which were...
and Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, which featured a Moorish Othello
Othello (character)
Othello is a character in Shakespeare's Othello . The character's origin is traced to the tale, "Un Capitano Moro" in Gli Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio. There, he is simply referred to as the Moor....
as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish delegation
Delegation
Delegation is the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person to carry out specific activities. However the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated work. Delegation empowers a subordinate to make decisions, i.e...
s from Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
to Elizabethan England around 1600. A portrait was painted of one of the Moorish ambassadors, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud
Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun was principal secretary to the Moroccan ruler "Muly Hamet" , and ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600, to promote the establishment of an Anglo-Moroccan alliance....
, who had come to promote an Anglo-Moroccan alliance
Anglo-Moroccan alliance
The Anglo-Moroccan alliance was established at the end of the 16th century and the early 17th century between the kingdoms of England and Morocco. Commercial agreements had been reached by Queen Elizabeth I of England and the Moroccan leader Ahmad al-Mansur on the basis of a mutual enmity to the...
.
Turban
Turban
In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...
s can be found in Renaissance England. While friendly relations were formed between England and the Islamic civilization of the Middle East in the early sixteenth century, Persian and Turkish style fashions were sometimes worn by the higher classes as a form of party or fancy dress. During times of interaction with Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Queen Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
wore Turkish clothing styles. It was believed that she favoured working with the Islamic sultans of Istanbul rather than the Roman Catholic leaders of Europe. These suspicions were heightened when she asked Sultan Murad III
Murad III
Murad III was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1574 until his death.-Biography:...
and his son Mohammad III
Mehmed III
Mehmed III Adli was sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 until his death.-Biography:...
for military assistance. Although she never did receive any assistance from the sultans, her relations with the Sultan and his son did not waver.
In 17th-century England, there was a 'second wave' of interest in the study of Arabic science and Islamic philosophy
Islamic philosophy
Islamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies. It is the continuous search for Hekma in the light of Islamic view of life, universe, ethics, society, and so on...
. Arabic manuscripts were considered the key to a 'treasure house' of ancient knowledge, which led to the founding of Arabic chairs
Laudian Professor of Arabic
The position of Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford was established in 1636 by William Laud, who at the time was Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury. The first professor was Edward Pococke, who was working as a chaplain in Aleppo in what is now...
at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
was taught. A large collection of Arabic manuscripts were acquired, collected in places such as the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
at Oxford. These Arabic manuscripts were sought after by natural philosophers
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
for their research in subjects such as observational astronomy or mathematics, and also encompassed subjects ranging from science, religion, and medicine, to typography and garden plants
Muslim Agricultural Revolution
The Arab Agricultural Revolution is a term coined by the historian Andrew Watson in his influential 1974 paper postulating a fundamental transformation in agriculture from the 8th century to the 13th century in the Muslim...
.
Besides scientific and philosophical literature, works of Arabic fictional literature
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
were also translated into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
during the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famous of these was the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was first translated into English in 1706 and has since then had a profound influence on English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. Another famous work was Ibn Tufail
Ibn Tufail
Ibn Tufail was an Andalusian Muslim polymath: an Arabic writer, novelist, Islamic philosopher, Islamic theologian, physician, vizier,...
's philosophical novel
Philosophical novel
Philosophical fiction refers to works of fiction in which a significant proportion of the work is devoted to a discussion of the sort of questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of...
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān is an Arabic philosophical novel and allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail in the early 12th century.- Translations :* from Wikisource* English translations of Hayy bin Yaqzan...
, which was translated into Latin as Philosophus Autodidactus by Edward Pococke
Edward Pococke
Edward Pococke was an English Orientalist and biblical scholar.-Early life:He was the son of clergyman from Chieveley in Berkshire, and was educated at Lord Williams's School of Thame in Oxfordshire and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford...
the Younger in 1671 and then into English by Simon Ockley
Simon Ockley
Simon Ockley was a British Orientalist.-Biography:Ockley was born at Exeter. He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1697, MA. in 1701, and B.D. in 1710. He became fellow of Jesus College and vicar of Swavesey, and in 1711 was chosen Adams Professor of Arabic in the...
in 1708. The English translation of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, set on a desert island
Desert island
A desert island or uninhabited island is an island that has yet to be populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often used in movies or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves and...
, may have inspired Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
to write Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
, considered the first novel in English
First novel in English
The following works of literature have each been claimed as the first novel in English.* Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, * William Baldwin, Beware the Cat,...
, in 1719. Later translated literary works include Layla and Majnun
Layla and Majnun
Layla and Majnun, also known as The Madman and Layla – in Arabic مجنون ليلى or قيس وليلى , in , Leyli və Məcnun in Azeri, Leyla ile Mecnun in Turkish, in Urdu and Hindi – is a classical Arab story, popularized by Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi's...
and Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus
Theologus Autodidactus
Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah , also known as Risālat Fād il ibn Nātiq , was the first theological novel, written by Ibn al-Nafis and later translated in the West as Theologus Autodidactus...
.
By the time of Union with Scotland
Acts of Union 1707
The Acts of Union were two Parliamentary Acts - the Union with Scotland Act passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland - which put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706,...
in 1707, only small numbers of Muslims were living in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The first large group of Muslims to arrive, in the 18th century, were lascars (sailors) recruited from the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
(largely from the Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
region) to work for the British East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, most of whom settled down and took local wives. Due to the majority being lascars, the earliest Muslim communities were found in port towns. Naval cooks also came, many of them from the Sylhet Division
Sylhet Division
Sylhet Division , also known as Greater Sylhet or Sylhet region, is the northeastern division of Bangladesh, named after its main city, Sylhet...
of what is now Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
. One of the most famous early Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
Muslim immigrants to England was Sake Dean Mahomet
Sake Dean Mahomet
Sake Dean Mahomed was a Bengali traveler, surgeon and entrepreneur who introduced the Indian curry house restaurant in Britain, and was the first Indian to have written a book in English. He also established "shampooing" baths in Great Britain, where he offered therapeutic massage,The word...
, a captain of the British East India Company who in 1810 founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostane Coffee House. He is also reputed for introducing shampoo
Shampoo
Shampoo is a hair care product used for the removal of oils, dirt, skin particles, dandruff, environmental pollutants and other contaminant particles that gradually build up in hair...
and therapeutic massage to the United Kingdom. The practice of Islam in the United Kingdom was legalized by the Trinitarian Act 1812.
Demography and ethnic background
According to the 2001 census, 1,546,626 MuslimMuslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s live in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, where they then formed 3.3% of the population (although this figure does not include unregistered, or 'illegal' immigrants). According to The Times, there were 2.4 million Muslims in Britain as a whole as of January 2009.
| Number of Muslims | Muslims as % of ethnic group | Ethnic group as % of Muslims | |
|---|---|---|---|
| White | 179,733 | 0.4 | 11.6 |
| White British White British White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White... |
63,042 | 0.1 | 4.1 |
| White Irish | 890 | 0.1 | <0.1 |
| Other White | 115,841 | 8.6 | 7.5 |
| Mixed British Mixed-Race Mixed is an ethnicity category that has been used by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics since the 1991 Census. Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds... |
64,262 | 9.7 | 4.2 |
| White & Black Caribbean | 1,385 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| White & Black African | 10,523 | 13.3 | 0.7 |
| White & Asian Anglo-Indian Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent... |
30,397 | 16.1 | 2.0 |
| Other Mixed | 21,957 | 14.1 | 1.4 |
| Asian or Asian British | 1,139,065 | 50.1 | 73.7 |
| Indian British Indian The term British Indian refers to citizens of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian descent, and Indian-born people who have migrated to the UK... |
131,662 | 12.7 | 8.5 |
| Pakistani | 657,680 | 92.0 | 42.5 |
| Bangladeshi British Bangladeshi A British Bangladeshi is a person of Bangladeshi origin who resides in the United Kingdom having emigrated to the UK and attained citizenship through naturalisation or whose parents did so; they are also known as British Bengalis... |
261,776 | 92.5 | 16.8 |
| Other Asian | 90,013 | 37.3 | 5.8 |
| Black or Black British Black British Black British is a term used to describe British people of Black African descent, especially those of Afro-Caribbean background. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and... |
106,345 | 9.3 | 6.9 |
| Black Caribbean British African-Caribbean community The British African Caribbean communities are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily indigenous to Africa... |
4,477 | 0.8 | 0.3 |
| Black African | 96,136 | 20.0 | 6.2 |
| Other Black | 5,732 | 6.0 | 0.4 |
| Chinese British Chinese British Chinese , including British-born Chinese are people of Chinese ancestry who were born in, or have migrated to, the United Kingdom. They are part of the Chinese diaspora, or overseas Chinese... |
752 | 0.3 | <0.1 |
| Other Ethnic Group | 56,429 | 25.7 | 3.7 |
| Total | 1,546,626 | 3.0 | 100 |
In England, 40 percent of Muslims live in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where 607,083 identified as Muslim in 2001, out of a population of 7,172,091. There are also large numbers of Muslims in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
, Luton
Luton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
, High Wycombe
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...
, Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
, Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
and the mill town
Mill town
A mill town, also known as factory town or mill village, is typically a settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories .- United Kingdom:...
s of Northern England.
- London Borough of Tower HamletsLondon Borough of Tower HamletsThe London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...
36.4% 71,389 - London Borough of NewhamLondon Borough of NewhamThe London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the...
24.3% 59,293 - Blackburn with DarwenBlackburn with DarwenBlackburn with Darwen is a unitary authority area in Lancashire, North West England. It consists of Blackburn, the small town of Darwen to the south of it, and the surrounding countryside.-Formation:...
19.4% 26,674 - City of BradfordCity of BradfordThe City of Bradford is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England with the status of a city and metropolitan borough. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, Haworth, Silsden and...
16.1% 75,188 - London Borough of Waltham ForestLondon Borough of Waltham ForestThe London Borough of Waltham Forest is in northeast London, England. Officially, it forms part of Outer London as it borders Essex. However, it can be seen that the NE London boundary does not extend far compared to elsewhere in the city...
15.1% 32,902 - LutonLutonLuton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
14.6% 26,963 - BirminghamBirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
14.3% 139,771 - High WycombeHigh WycombeHigh Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...
14.1%, 9,708 - London Borough of HackneyLondon Borough of HackneyThe London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
13.8% 27,908 - London Borough of EnfieldLondon Borough of EnfieldThe London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...
13.5% 37,388 - PendlePendlePendle is a local government district and borough of Lancashire, England. It adjoins the Lancashire boroughs of Burnley and Ribble Valley, the North Yorkshire district of Craven and the West Yorkshire districts of Calderdale and the City of Bradford...
13.4% 11,988 - SloughSloughSlough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
13.4% 15,897 - London Borough of BrentLondon Borough of BrentIn 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough had a total population of 2,022. This rose slowly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 5,646 in the middle of the century. When the railways arrived the rate of population growth increased...
12.3% 32,290 - London Borough of RedbridgeLondon Borough of RedbridgeThe London Borough of Redbridge is a London borough in outer north-east London. Its administrative headquarters is at Redbridge Town Hall in Ilford. The local authority is Redbridge London Borough Council.-Etymology:...
11.9% 28,487 - City of WestminsterCity of WestminsterThe City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
11.8% 21,346 - London Borough of CamdenLondon Borough of CamdenIn 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...
11.6% 22,906 - London Borough of HaringeyLondon Borough of HaringeyThe London Borough of Haringey is a London borough, in North London, classified by some definitions as part of Inner London, and by others as part of Outer London. It was created in 1965 by the amalgamation of three former boroughs. It shares borders with six other London boroughs...
11.3% 24,371 - Metropolitan Borough of OldhamMetropolitan Borough of OldhamThe Metropolitan Borough of Oldham is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It has a population of 219,600, and spans . The borough is named after its largest town, Oldham, but also includes the outlying towns of Chadderton, Failsworth, Royton and Shaw and Crompton, the village of...
11.1% 24,039 - LeicesterLeicesterLeicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
11.0% 30,885 - London Borough of EalingLondon Borough of EalingThe London Borough of Ealing is a borough in west London.-Location:The London Borough of Ealing borders the London Borough of Hillingdon to the west, the London Borough of Harrow and the London Borough of Brent to the north, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to the east and the London...
10.3% 31,033 - KirkleesKirkleesThe Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It has a population of 401,000 and includes the settlements of Batley, Birstall, Cleckheaton, Denby Dale, Dewsbury, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Kirkburton, Marsden, Meltham, Mirfield and Slaithwaite...
10.1% 39,312
Most large cities have one area that is a majority Muslim even if the rest of the city has a fairly small Muslims population; see, for example, Harehills
Harehills
Harehills is an inner-city area of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is approximately north east of Leeds city centre. Harehills is situated between the A58 and the A64 .- Overview :...
in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. In addition, it is possible to find small areas that are almost entirely Muslim: for example, Savile Town
Savile Town
Savile Town is a small area of Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, England. It lies just to the south of the River Calder and just north of a railway line. It consists of late Victorian housing, which varies between long terraces, semi-detached and detached housing...
in Dewsbury
Dewsbury
Dewsbury is a minster town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Huddersfield and south of Leeds...
.
In September 2009, the ONS published information showing that Mohammed (or variations of it) was the third most popular boys' name in England and Wales.
Bangladeshis
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
. Majority of these Muslim come from the Sylhet region
Sylhet Division
Sylhet Division , also known as Greater Sylhet or Sylhet region, is the northeastern division of Bangladesh, named after its main city, Sylhet...
of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, mainly concentrated in Tower Hamlets, and Newham
London Borough of Newham
The London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the...
, in London, as well as in Luton
Luton
Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and Oldham
Oldham
Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amid the Pennines on elevated ground between the rivers Irk and Medlock, south-southeast of Rochdale, and northeast of the city of Manchester...
. The Bangladeshi Muslim community in London form 24% of the Muslim population, larger than any other ethnic group.
Council house
A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...
until the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
when more and larger facilities became available. Some synagogues and community buildings were turned into mosques and existing mosques began to expand their buildings. This process has continued down to the present day with the East London Mosque recently expanding into a large former car park where the London Muslim Centre is now used for prayers, recreational facilities and housing. Most people regard themselves as part of the ummah
Ummah
Ummah is an Arabic word meaning "community" or "nation." It is commonly used to mean either the collective nation of states, or the whole Arab world...
, and their identity based on their religion rather than their ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
. Cultural
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
aspects of a 'Bengali Islam' are seen as superstition and as un-Islamic. The identity is far stronger in comparison to the native land. Younger Bangladeshis are more involved in Islamist activities and movement groups, whereas the older generation practice with Islamic rituals mixed with the Bengali culture. Many Bangladeshi women wear the burqa
Burqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
and many young women or girls also wear the headscarf
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
.
There are groups which are active throughout Bangladeshi communities such as The Young Muslim Organization. It is connected to the Islamic Forum Europe
Islamic Forum Europe
The Islamic Forum of Europe is an Islamic organisation based in London with branches throughout the United Kingdom. Its website states it has branches in "most of the European countries including: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden...
, associated with the East London Mosque
East London Mosque
The East London Mosque, situated in the inner London Borough of Tower Hamlets between Whitechapel and Aldgate, serves one of the UK's largest Muslim communities. It lies near the edge of the City of London, the capital's busy business area, and just a couple of miles from the fast-expanding London...
and the London Muslim Centre – all of which have connections with the Bangladesh Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (linked with some community mosques, which also linked with the Dawat-e-Islami
Dawat-e-Islami
Dawat-e-Islami is an Islamic evangelical movement.-History:Dawat-e-Islami was founded in 1981 A.D at Babul Madina Karachi, Pakistan, by Muhammad Ilyas Qadri...
). Other groups also attract a few people, the Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
– which calls for the Khilafah (caliphate) and influences by publishing annual magazines, and lectures through mainly political concepts, and the other which is a movement within Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam. Sunni Muslims are referred to in Arabic as ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah wa āl-Ǧamāʿah or ʾAhl ūs-Sunnah for short; in English, they are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis or Sunnites....
is the Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
– who view the teachings of the first generations as the correct one, and appeals to younger Muslims as a way to differentiate themselves towards their elders. Other large groups include another Sunni movement, the Barelwi
Barelwi
Barelvi is a term used for the movement of Sufi , Sunni Islam originating in the Indian subcontinent.The Movement is known as Ahle Sunnat movement to its followers....
– mainly of a Fultoli movement (led by Abdul Latif Chowdhury in Bangladesh), and the Tablighi Jamaat
Tablighi Jamaat
Tablighi Jamaat is a religious movement which was founded in 1926 by Muhammad Ilyas al-Kandhlawi in India. The movement primarily aims at Tablighi spiritual reformation by working at the grass roots level, reaching out to Muslims across all social and economic spectra to bring them closer to...
– which is a missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
and revival movement, and avoids political attention. All these groups work to stimulate Islamic identity among local Bengalis or Muslims and particularly focus on the younger members of the communities.
Indians
8% of Muslims in England and Wales are of Indian descent, especially those who are from Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The Gujarati Muslims from SuratSurat
Surat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...
and Bharuch
Bharuch
Bharuch , also known as Broach, is the oldest city in Gujarat, situated at the mouth of the holy river Narmada. Bharuch is the administrative headquarters of Bharuch District and a municipality of more than 1,50,000 inhabitants. As Bharuch is a major seaport city, a number of trade activities have...
districts in India started to arrive from the 1930s, settling in the towns of Dewsbury and Batley in Yorkshire and parts of Lancashire. There are large numbers of Gujarati Muslims in Dewsbury, Blackburn, Bolton, Preston and in the London Boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney. Immigration of Muslims into UK, was primarily started off by Indians during the colonial rule.
Nigerians
There are also a number of Muslim immigrants in England that arrived from NigeriaNigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
. Nigerian Muslims in the UK are represented by several community organizations, including the Nigeria Muslim forum, which is affiliated with the Council of Nigerian Muslim Organisations in UK and Ireland (CNMO) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
Pakistanis
The single largest group of Muslims in England and WalesEngland and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
are of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i descent. Pakistanis from Mirpur District
Mirpur District
Mirpur District is a district in the disputed and divided state of [Jammu and Kashmir]. The district is named after the main city, Mirpur. The District of Mirpur has a population of 371,000 and covers an area of . The district is mainly mountainous with some plains...
were one of the first South Asian Muslim communities to permanently settle in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, arriving in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
and Bradford
Bradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
in the late 1930s. Immigration from Mirpur grew from the late 1950s, accompanied by immigration from other parts of Pakistan especially from Punjab which included cities like Sialkot
Sialkot
Sialkot is a city in Pakistan situated in the north-east of the Punjab province at the foothills of snow-covered peaks of Kashmir near the Chenab river. It is the capital of Sialkot District. The city is about north-west of Lahore and only a few kilometers from Indian-controlled Jammu.The...
, Jhelum
Jhelum
Jhelum or Jehlum may refer to:* Jhelum, a city in Pakistan on the banks of the Jhelum River* Jhelum District, an administrative division in Punjab, Pakistan surrounding the city of Jhelum...
, Gujar Khan
Gujar Khan
Gujar Khan is a city in Rawalpindi District, Punjab, Pakistan. It is the headquarters of Gujar Khan Tehsil, the largest tehsil of Punjab. It is approximately 55 kilometres southeast of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and 220 km to the north west of Lahore, capital of Punjab...
and Gujrat
Gujrat
Gujrat is a city in Pakistan. It is the capital of Gujrat District and the Gujrat Tehsil subdivision in the Punjab Province. People living in Gujrat refer to themselves as Gujratis, which sometimes leads to confusion with people from the Indian state of Gujarat which adjoins Pakistan...
and also from the north-west Punjab including the chhachh
Chhachh
Chhachh is a region consisting of an alluvial plain extending from Attock District of Punjab, Pakistan, south-west to Topi - Swabi. The word Chhachh is derived from the Pashto word Chaj. It is bounded on the north and west by the river Indus, and is about long from east to west, and broad...
i pathan
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
s from Attock District
Attock District
Attock District is a district in the north-west Punjab Province of Pakistan.The district was created in April 1904 by the merger of Talagang Tehsil in the Jhelum District with the Pindigheb, Fatehjang and Attock tehsils from Rawalpindi District of the Punjab province of British India.Attock...
, and some from villages of Ghazi, Nowshera and Peshwar. People of Pakistani extraction are particularly notable in West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
/Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
, and industrial towns in South East England
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...
like Luton, Slough, High Wycombe
High Wycombe
High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...
and Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
.
Somalis
The United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, with 43,532 Somali-born residents in 2001, and an estimated 101,000 in 2008, is home to the largest Somali
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...
community in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. A 2009 estimate by Somali community organisations puts the Somali population figure at 90,000 residents. Although most Somalis in the UK are recent arrivals, the first Somali immigrants were seamen and traders who arrived and settled in port cities in the late 19th century. Established Somali communities are found in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Liverpool (estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 to 9,000), Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
and Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, and newer ones have formed in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
and Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
. The Somali community has set up many mosques in the UK and especially London, where it has built large masjids in Hayes
Hayes, Hillingdon
Hayes is a town in the London Borough of Hillingdon, West London. It is a suburban development situated west of Charing Cross. Hayes was developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries as an industrial locality to which residential districts were later added in order to house factory workers...
and Southall
Southall
Southall is a large suburban district of west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Yeading, Hayes, Hanwell, Heston, Hounslow, Greenford and Northolt...
.
White (European)
In addition, there are groups of Muslims from Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
, and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. There are almost 200,000 Muslims who described themselves as 'white' in the 2001 census.
Views on Terrorism
In March 2010, a historic Fatwa against terrorismFatwa on Terrorism
Fatwa on Terrorism is a 600-page , 512-page Islamic decree by scholar Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri which demonstrates from the Quran and Sunnah that terrorism and suicide bombings are so unjust that their evil is un-Islamic. The English edition was published in the UK by Minhaj-ul-Quran Publications....
was pronounced by a leading scholar in London.
Poverty
According to analysis based on the 2001 census, Muslims in England face poor standards of housing, poorer levels of education and are more vulnerable to long-term illness, and that Muslims in the UK had the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications among religious groups. The figures were, to some extent, explained by the fact that Muslims were the least well-established group, having the youngest age profile. There is also a growing substantial British Muslim business community, led by multi-millionaires such as Sir Anwar PervezAnwar Pervez
Sir Anwar Pervez , OBE, Hilal-i-Pakistan, is a businessman in the United Kingdom. He is the founder and Chairman of Bestway Group.-Career:...
.
Discrimination
There have been cases of threats, one alleged fatal attack, and non-fatal attacks on Muslims and on Muslim targets, including attacks on Muslim graves and mosques. In January 2010, a report from the University of ExeterUniversity of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
's European Muslim Research Centre noted that the number of anti-Muslim hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
s has increased, ranging from "death threats and murder to persistent low-level assaults, such as spitting and name-calling," for which the media and politicians have been blamed with fueling anti-Muslim hatred.
The British media
Media of the United Kingdom
Media of the United Kingdom consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. The UK also has a strong music industry. The UK has a diverse range of providers, the most prominent being principle public service...
has been criticised for propagating negative stereotypes of Muslims
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims
Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims have been presented in various forms by the mass media in Western culture and American culture. Stereotypical representations of Arabs are often manifested in a society's media, literature, theater and other creative expressions...
and fueling anti-Muslim
Islamophobia
Islamophobia describes prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or MuslimsThe term dates back to the late 1980s or early 1990s, but came into common usage after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States....
prejudice. In 2006, British cabinet
Cabinet of the United Kingdom
The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the collective decision-making body of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, composed of the Prime Minister and some 22 Cabinet Ministers, the most senior of the government ministers....
ministers were criticised for helping to "unleash a public anti-Muslim backlash" by blaming the Muslim community over issues of integration despite a study commissioned by the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
on white and Asian-Muslim youths demonstrating otherwise: that Asian-Muslim youths "are in fact the most tolerant of all" and that white British
White British
White British was an ethnicity classification used in the 2001 United Kingdom Census. As a result of the census, 50,366,497 people in the United Kingdom were classified as White British. In Scotland the classification was broken down into two different categories: White Scottish and Other White...
youths "have far more intolerant attitudes," concluding that intolerance from the white British community was a greater "barrier to integration." Another survey by Gallup in 2009 also found that the Muslim community claimed to feel more patriotic about Britain than the general British population, while another survey found that Muslims assert that they support the role of Christianity in British life more so than Christians themselves. In January 2010, the British Social Attitudes Survey
British Social Attitudes Survey
The British Social Attitudes Survey is an annual statistical survey conducted in Great Britain by the since 1983. The BSA involves in-depth interviews with over 3,000 respondents, selected using random probability sampling, focused on topics including newspaper readership, political parties and...
found that the general British public "is far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than of any other religious group," with "just one in four" feeling "positively about Islam," and a "majority of the country would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area, while only 15 per cent expressed similar qualms about the opening of a church." The "scapegoating" of Muslims by the media and politicians in the 21st century has been compared in the media to the rise of antisemitism in the early 20th century.
English Defence League (EDL)
In the year 2009, a far-right and anti-Muslim group called the English Defence LeagueEnglish Defence League
The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...
(EDL) formed a street protest movement which opposes the alleged spread of Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
, Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
law and Islamic extremism
Islamic extremism
Islamic extremism refers to two related and partially overlapping but also distinct aspects of extremist interpretations and pursuits of Islamic ideology:...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and also opposes immigration. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism. At many of their gatherings, EDL members have clashed with counter-demonstrators, including supporters of Unite Against Fascism
Unite Against Fascism
Unite Against Fascism is an anti-fascist pressure group in the United Kingdom, with support from politicians of all mainstream UK political parties...
(UAF).
Mosques
- Shah Jahan MosqueShah Jahan MosqueThe Shah Jahan Mosque is the first purpose-built mosque in Britain built 1889 in Woking, 30 miles south-west of London in Oriental Road.-Construction:...
in WokingWokingWoking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
, SurreySurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
was the first purpose built mosque in Britain - Baitul FutuhBaitul FutuhThe Baitul Futuh Mosque in London has been deemed the second largest mosque complex in Western Europe, behind the Mosque of Rome. Completed in 2003 at a cost of approximately £5.5 million, entirely from donations of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the mosque covers an area of and the full complex...
Mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMJ), London - Fazl Mosque The first mosque in London, built in 1926 - AMJ
- Markazi mosqueMarkazi mosqueThe Markazi Masjid , also known as the Dewsbury Markaz or Dar ul Ulum , is a mosque in the Savile Town area of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Accommodating up to 4,000 worshippers, it is one of the largest mosques in the United Kingdom and among the biggest purpose-built mosques in Europe...
in DewsburyDewsburyDewsbury is a minster town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Huddersfield and south of Leeds... - Manchester Central Mosque
- Al-Rahma mosqueAl-Rahma mosqueThe Al-Rahma Mosque is a Mosque located on Hatherley Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, England, and can accommodate between 2,000 and 2,500 people and serves as the main place of worship and focus point for Liverpool's 25,000 strong Muslim community...
in LiverpoolLiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880... - Birmingham Central MosqueBirmingham Central MosqueBirmingham Central Mosque, is a mosque in the Highgate area of Birmingham, England, run by the Birmingham Mosque Trust. It is one of the largest Muslim centres in Europe....
- East London MosqueEast London MosqueThe East London Mosque, situated in the inner London Borough of Tower Hamlets between Whitechapel and Aldgate, serves one of the UK's largest Muslim communities. It lies near the edge of the City of London, the capital's busy business area, and just a couple of miles from the fast-expanding London...
- Leeds Grand MosqueLeeds Grand MosqueLeeds Grand Mosque is the largest mosque in Leeds with a Friday congregation of 500–600. It is located at 9 Woodsley Road, Hyde Park, Leeds, LS6 1SN West Yorkshire, England....
- Finsbury Park MosqueFinsbury Park MosqueNorth London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, London was built in the 1990s to serve the large Muslim population in the area. It has a capacity of 1,800 people....
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its... - London Central MosqueLondon Central MosqueThe London Central Mosque is a mosque in North London, England. It was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, completed in 1978, and has a prominent golden dome. The main hall can hold over five thousand worshippers, with women praying on a balcony overlooking the hall...
- London Markaz
- Medina Mosque in SheffieldSheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
- Darul Barakaat MosqueDarul Barakaat MosqueThe Darul Barakaat Mosque is one of the largest mosques in the city of Birmingham, England. It is run by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and was inaugurated by Mirza Masroor Ahmad in 2004. It is located in the area of Bordesley Green....
in BirminghamBirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
- AMJ - Al Mahdi MosqueAl Mahdi MosqueAl Mahdi Mosque is run by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and was inaugurated by Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, on the 7th of November 2008. It is located in Rees Way, Bradford. The inaugration was attended by many Ahmadi Muslims and over 300 guests. Due...
in BradfordBradfordBradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
- AMJ
Activities
The East London MosqueEast London Mosque
The East London Mosque, situated in the inner London Borough of Tower Hamlets between Whitechapel and Aldgate, serves one of the UK's largest Muslim communities. It lies near the edge of the City of London, the capital's busy business area, and just a couple of miles from the fast-expanding London...
organises an annual programme to attract people to its services which include ICT training, English classes, a Junior Muslim Circle, Saturday Halaqa (Islamic talks) and Madrasahs. According to the mosque, involvement in its activities has increased and it notes that: the five daily prayers have increased. Especially during Friday Jummah prayers, where it was difficult to accommodate the increasing number of people. During Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
, the prayer facilities attracted between 4,000 to 5,000 people every day. Much of these works by the people, show Islamic identity among the Muslims is increasingly rising due to many Islamic groups and facilities available throughout the communities in the UK.
The Baitul Futuh
Baitul Futuh
The Baitul Futuh Mosque in London has been deemed the second largest mosque complex in Western Europe, behind the Mosque of Rome. Completed in 2003 at a cost of approximately £5.5 million, entirely from donations of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the mosque covers an area of and the full complex...
Mosque organises several events to serve Muslims and the wider community. Other than holding regular prayers, its services to the wider community include annual Peace Conferences, School tours and community events such as hosting the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
Any Questions?
Any Questions?
Any Questions? is a topical debate radio programme in the United Kingdom.-Format:It is broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on Friday evenings and repeated on Saturday afternoons, when it is followed by a phone-in response programme, Any Answers?, previously a postal response slot...
and the 'Merton Youth Partnership Annual Conference.'
The Baitul Futuh Mosque has also been acting as the centre for the 'Loyalty, Freedom and Peace Campaign' in order for the west to recognize Islam as a peaceful religion and to improve the Integration of Muslims and Non-Muslims.
Notable English muslims
- Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron HeadleyRowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headleythumb|Lord Headley with [[Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din]]Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley , also known as Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq, was an Irish peer and a prominent convert to Islam, who was also one of the leading members of the Woking Muslim Mission alongside Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din...
- Sir Charles Edward Archibald Watkin Hamilton, 5th Baronet
- Faris GlubbFaris GlubbFaris Glubb born was a British writer, journalist, translator and publisher.-Family and childhood conversion to Islam:...
- Abdul-Aziz ibn MyattAbdul-Aziz ibn MyattDavid Myatt, - also known as David Wulstan Myatt and formerly known as Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt - is the founder of The Numinous Way, a former British Muslim, and a former neo-nazi....
- Marmaduke PickthallMarmaduke PickthallMarmaduke Pickthall was a Western Islamic scholar, noted as an English translator of the Qur'an into English. A convert from Christianity, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as a journalist, headmaster, and political and religious leader...
- William Abdullah QuilliamWilliam Abdullah QuilliamWilliam Henry Quilliam , who changed his name to Abdullah Quilliam and later Henri Marcel Leon or Haroun Mustapha Leon, was a 19th century convert from Christianity to Islam, noted for founding England's first mosque and Islamic centre.-Background:William Quilliam was born in Liverpool to a...
- Henry Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of AlderleyHenry Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of AlderleyHenry Edward John Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley and 2nd Baron Eddisbury was a historian who translated The first voyage round the world by Magellan and other works from the Age of Discovery...
- Ahmad ThomsonAhmad ThomsonAhmad Thomson is a British barrister and writer and a member of the Murabitun movement.-Career:He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1979. He was a co-founder of the Association of Muslim Lawyers in 1993. He has been the head of Wynne Chambers since 1994...
- Timothy WinterTimothy WinterTimothy John "Tim" Winter , also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, is a British Sufi Muslim researcher, writer and teacher. His profile and work have attracted media coverage both in the Muslim World and the West...
See also
- Protestantism and IslamProtestantism and IslamProtestantism and Islam entered into contact during the 16th century, at a time when Protestant movements in northern Europe coincided with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in southern Europe...
- Islam in Northern IrelandIslam in Northern IrelandIslam in Northern Ireland details Islam in Northern Ireland since its creation as a separate country within the United Kingdom on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920....
- Islam in ScotlandIslam in ScotlandThe larger immigration of Muslims to Scotland is relatively recent. The bulk of Muslims in Scotland come from families who immigrated during the late 20th century. In Scotland Muslims represent 0.9% of the population , with 30,000 in Glasgow...
- Islam in WalesIslam in WalesIslam is the largest non-Christian faith in Wales, with 22,000 members recorded in the country at the 2001 Census. The earliest recorded connections between Wales and the ‘Muslim world’ dates back to the early 12th Century...
- Islam by countryIslam by countryIslam is the world's second largest religion after Christianity. According to a 2009 demographic study, Islam has 1.57 billion adherents, making up 23% of the world population....
- Muslims in Western Europe
- Religion in the United KingdomReligion in the United KingdomReligion in the United Kingdom and the states that pre-dated the UK, was dominated by forms of Christianity for over 1,400 years. Although a majority of citizens still identify with Christianity in many surveys, regular church attendance has fallen dramatically since the middle of the 20th century,...
- The Muslim WeeklyThe Muslim WeeklyThe Muslim Weekly is a national British Muslim newspaper, and is the first weekly newspaper for Muslims in the UK. Published by SNS Media Ltd, it is the brainchild of Ahmed Abdul Malik and Mohammed Shahed Alam...
- British Muslims
- British Bangladeshi Muslims
- Islam in LondonIslam in LondonIslam is London's largest and most significant minority religion. There were 607,083 Muslims reported in the 2001 census in the Greater London area. Most Muslims are concentrated in the east London boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest...
- English Defence LeagueEnglish Defence LeagueThe English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it considers to be a spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in the UK. The EDL uses street marches to protest against Islamic extremism...
Literature
- Lewis, Philip: Islamic Britain: religion, politics and identity among British Muslims; Bradford in the 1990s, London: Tauris, 1994. ISBN 1-85043-861-7
- Matar, Nabil Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery, Columbia University PressColumbia University PressColumbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by James D. Jordan and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fields of literary and cultural studies, history, social work, sociology,...
, 2000. ISBN 0-231-11015-4
External links
- Ranking of Local Authorities in England and Wales according to percentage of Muslim population in the 2001 census
- Reassessing what we collect website – Muslim London History of Muslim London with objects and images
- Private Arrangements: Recognizing sharia in Britain - anthropologist John R. Bowen explores Islamic courts in England