Islamic History in the UK

[Abdul Rafiq]

Islam in the British Isles ? Some Key Events and Dates


There are between 1.5 million to 2 million Muslims in Britain today, mainly in the large metropolitan conurbations of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. The majority are British-born with family origins in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. There are significant numbers of Cypriot, Turkish and Yemeni Muslims, together with more recently settled refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia and Albania. There are also a growing number of Muslims of Afro-Caribbean and European origin.



The mercantile and commercial links between Britain and the Muslim world stretch back a very long time. The first records of Muslims from Britain commence in the Sixteenth Century. By the Nineteenth Century there were Muslim seamen?s settlements in most of the ports of England and Scotland. There was also a transitory Muslim student population from the Colonies. However a significant British Muslim presence is comparatively recent, with its roots in the immigration of Muslims particularly from the Indian sub-continent since the 1950s.



The First Contacts

Eighth Century

Offa of Mercia (died 796) was a powerful Anglo-Saxon King who had coins minted with the inscription of the kalimah in Arabic, indicating commercial ties with Muslims in Spain, France and North Africa.



Sixteenth & Seventeenth Century

The first British Muslim whose name survives in an English source, The voyage made to Tripolis (1583) was "a son of a yeoman of our Queen?s Guard?his name was John Nelson". The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge established Chairs of Arabic in the 1630s, and scholars in Britain relied heavily on translations from the Arabic in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and medicine throughout the medieval period and the Renaissance. A rendering of the Qur?an in English was produced by Alexander Ross in 1649, and this edition had two imprints ? attesting to its wide circulation.

(Source: Islam in Britain 1558-1685, N. Matar, Cambridge University Press, 1998)

[Jamil]

Fascinating reading brother Abdul. I am very much interested in the history and hope you can add to this thread.

[nizamuddin]

The first british Muslims arrived in the early nineteenth century in the ports of Cardiif and Liverpool. Its funny you dont see or hear of any masjids or community events in these cities ?

[Salman]

nizamuddin said:

The first british Muslims arrived in the early nineteenth century in the ports of Cardiif and Liverpool. Its funny you dont see or hear of any masjids or community events in these cities ?

I dont know much about Liverpool but Cardiff has a thriving old Muslim community for over 100 years. Somalian and Yemen muslims arrived through the port many years ago. Its only recently 30years since the asian/pakistani muslims settled in the region.

[Sohail]

nizamuddin said:

The first british Muslims arrived in the early nineteenth century in the ports of Cardiif and Liverpool. Its funny you dont see or hear of any masjids or community events in these cities ?

There are two mosques in Liverpool a freind of mine went to uni there. But they are both multicultural, with all nationalities, like arabs, turks, pakistani etc. The other mosque is mainly somalian.