Islam in the United Kingdom

Based on Wikipedia: Islam in the United Kingdom

In 1889, a terrace house in Liverpool became something unexpected: a mosque. William Henry Quilliam, a solicitor who had converted to Islam after travels in Morocco, transformed the building into the Liverpool Muslim Institute—one of Britain's first purpose-built places of Islamic worship. That same year, across the country in the leafy Surrey town of Woking, a more elaborate structure rose: the Shah Jahan Mosque, with its green dome and minarets, named after the Begum of Bhopal who helped fund its construction. These two buildings, appearing simultaneously in Victorian England, marked a turning point in a relationship between Britain and Islam that stretches back more than a thousand years.

The Coin That Started It All

The earliest evidence of Islamic influence in England predates the Norman Conquest by three centuries. Around 774 CE, Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia—one of the most powerful rulers in pre-unified England—minted a gold coin bearing an Arabic inscription. The coin was largely a copy of dinars issued by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur in Baghdad.

Why would an English king stamp Arabic on his currency?

The likely answer is trade. The Islamic dinar was the dominant international currency of the era, much as the American dollar serves today. By imitating it, Offa could facilitate commerce with the wealthy Mediterranean markets where Arabic-speaking merchants held sway. Whether Offa understood what the inscription said—a declaration of Islamic faith—remains a historical mystery.

Tudor Diplomacy and Elizabethan Alliances

For most of the medieval period, England's relationship with Islam was distant, filtered through Crusader chronicles and occasional travelers' tales. A few Crusaders did convert in the East—Robert of St. Albans among them—but Muslims themselves were essentially absent from the British Isles.

This changed during the reign of Elizabeth I.

The Protestant queen found herself in a precarious position. Catholic Habsburg Spain, the superpower of the age, threatened England's existence. Elizabeth's solution was characteristically pragmatic: she sought alliances with the enemies of her enemies, including the Ottoman Empire. By the 1580s, English merchants were trading extensively with the Ottoman Turks, and diplomatic exchanges flowed between London and Constantinople.

Muslims from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia began appearing in London. They worked as diplomats and translators, merchants and musicians. Some came as ambassadors; others as traders seeking English wool and tin. The city was, for the first time, becoming acquainted with Islamic culture in person rather than through rumor and legend.

The Lundy Island Episode

Not all encounters were diplomatic. In 1627, the Salé Rovers—Barbary pirates operating from the Republic of Salé in what is now Morocco—occupied the English island of Lundy in the Bristol Channel. For five years, an Ottoman flag flew over English territory.

The pirates, commanded by a Dutch convert to Islam named Jan Janszoon, used Lundy as a base for slaving raids along the English coast. Captured Europeans were held on the island before being shipped to Algiers and sold into slavery. The episode, largely forgotten today, offers a reminder of how fluid and violent the Mediterranean world of the seventeenth century could be—and how Islam's presence in English history includes chapters that complicate any simple narrative.

The Lascars: Britain's First Muslim Community

The first substantial Muslim population in Britain arrived not as diplomats or conquerors, but as sailors.

They were called lascars—a term derived from the Persian word for "army" that came to mean Asian sailors employed on European ships. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, the East India Company recruited men from the Indian subcontinent, particularly from the Bengal region, to work on British vessels. Many came from the Sylhet district of what is now Bangladesh. Some worked as naval cooks. All were essential to the functioning of Britain's maritime trade.

The numbers grew steadily. Between 1803 and 1813, more than 10,000 lascars visited British port towns. By 1855, 12,000 were arriving annually. Some settled permanently, marrying local women and establishing families. Because they were sailors, the earliest Muslim communities naturally clustered in port cities—London, Liverpool, Cardiff, and the towns along the Thames estuary.

One of the most famous early Asian immigrants to England was Sake Dean Mahomet, a Bengali Muslim who had served as a captain in the East India Company's army. In 1810, he opened the Hindoostanee Coffee House in London—the city's first Indian restaurant. The venture combined curry with British dining conventions, offering what Mahomet advertised as "Indian dishes of the highest perfection." Though the restaurant eventually failed, Mahomet reinvented himself as a "shampooing surgeon" in Brighton, offering therapeutic massage to the fashionable classes and eventually becoming shampooing surgeon to both George IV and William IV.

The Empire's Muslim Subjects

The lascars were a symptom of a larger transformation. As the British Empire expanded, it came to rule over one of the largest Muslim populations in the world.

The turning point was the Battle of Plassey in 1757, when the East India Company defeated the forces of the Nawab of Bengal and effectively annexed that wealthy region. Bengal was not just any conquest—it was the source of fine textiles that would help fuel the Industrial Revolution. The manufactured goods produced there, particularly cloth, fed directly into British industries.

By the time the Crown took direct control of India after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Britain governed tens of millions of Muslims. By 1911, the Empire's Muslim population had reached 94 million—far exceeding its 58 million Christians. In the 1920s, the British Empire encompassed roughly half of the world's Muslims.

This created a peculiar situation. Britain, a Protestant Christian nation, had become what David Lloyd George called "the greatest Mahomedan power in the world." Winston Churchill, facing the crisis of World War II in 1942, stated bluntly: "We must not on any account break with the Moslems, who represent a hundred million people, and the main army elements on which we must rely for the immediate fighting."

How Colonial Categories Created Muslim Identity

The colonial encounter transformed not just Britain but Islam itself—or at least how Muslims in South Asia understood themselves.

British historians, attempting to make sense of the subcontinent's complex past, divided its history into three periods: an "ancient" Hindu era, a "medieval" Muslim era, and a "modern" colonial era. These labels, borrowed from European historiography, were problematic from the start. The term "medieval" itself carried connotations of backwardness and barbarism. And applying it to Muslim rulers who built architectural wonders like the Taj Mahal seemed almost designed to diminish their achievements.

More significantly, this periodization encouraged Muslims to see themselves as a unified religious community in ways they previously had not. In the eighteenth century, a Muslim of Afghan heritage and one of Bengali descent might have little in common beyond their faith. Mughal courts divided not along Hindu-Muslim lines but between Persian and Turkish factions. Converts to Islam across the subcontinent—the majority of its Muslim population—identified primarily with their regional cultures: Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati.

But the British system of classification, repeated and reinforced over generations, helped forge a more cohesive Muslim identity. This would have profound consequences during the partition of India in 1947, when the British departed and left behind not one nation but two—one for Hindus, one for Muslims.

Victorian Converts and Aristocratic Muslims

While lascars formed the working-class foundation of British Islam, a very different phenomenon emerged among the upper classes during the Victorian era.

Orientalism—the European fascination with the "exotic" East—was at its height. Some Victorians went beyond armchair fascination to actual conversion. Henry Stanley, the 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley, became a Muslim in 1862, making him one of the first British aristocrats to embrace Islam. Sir Archibald Hamilton, 5th Baronet, followed. So did Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley, who would become one of the most prominent advocates for Islam in early twentieth-century Britain.

Then there was Zainab Cobbold, born Evelyn Murray into the Scottish aristocracy. She converted to Islam after travels in Egypt and became the first Muslim woman born in Britain to perform the hajj—the pilgrimage to Mecca that every able Muslim is expected to undertake at least once.

Perhaps the most influential convert was Marmaduke Pickthall, a novelist and journalist who embraced Islam in 1917. In 1930, he published "The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation"—the first English translation of the Quran by a British Muslim. Pickthall insisted that his work was a translation of the meaning rather than the text itself, since many Muslims believe the Quran cannot truly be translated from its original Arabic.

These aristocratic converts occupied a curious position. Their social standing lent Islam respectability in Edwardian society, yet they remained outliers. The real growth of British Islam would come from elsewhere.

World War Soldiers and the Seeds of Mass Migration

More than 400,000 Muslim soldiers of the British Indian Army fought for Britain in World War I. Over 62,000 were killed in action. They fought at Gallipoli, in Mesopotamia, in Palestine, on the Western Front. Their loyalty to the Empire in its "hour of trial," as Lloyd George put it, was frequently remarked upon.

In World War II, Muslim soldiers may have constituted up to 40 percent of the 2.5 million troops serving in the British Indian Army. They fought against the Nazis in North Africa and Italy, against the Japanese in Burma. Some were awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military honor.

These sacrifices created a moral claim. When the war ended and Britain faced the mammoth task of reconstruction, it turned to its former colonial subjects for labor. The country was shattered—cities bombed, infrastructure destroyed, manpower depleted. Muslim migrants from India, Pakistan, and what would become Bangladesh were recruited in large numbers by government and businesses to rebuild.

Doctors from India and Pakistan played a particularly crucial role in establishing the National Health Service, which was founded in 1948. To this day, the NHS relies heavily on doctors from the subcontinent.

Rivers of Blood and the Fight Against Racism

The post-war migration transformed Britain—and provoked a vicious backlash.

In April 1968, Enoch Powell, a Conservative Member of Parliament, delivered what became known as the "Rivers of Blood" speech. Powell warned that continued immigration would lead to civil strife, invoking the Roman poet Virgil: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood.'" The speech was condemned by mainstream politicians of both parties, and Powell was dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet. But it struck a chord with many white Britons.

In the years that followed, British Asians—both Muslim and non-Muslim—faced escalating discrimination. The term "Paki-bashing" entered the language, describing violent attacks by white power skinheads, the National Front, and the British National Party. The violence was not abstract. Altab Ali, a Bangladeshi clothing worker, was murdered in East London in 1978. Akhtar Ali Baig was killed in Newham in 1980.

The Asian community organized in response. Drawing inspiration from the American civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the anti-apartheid struggle, young British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis formed anti-racist youth movements. The Bradford Youth Movement emerged in 1977. The Bangladeshi Youth Movement followed Ali's murder. The Newham Youth Movement formed after Baig's death.

These movements represented a new generation—born in Britain, unwilling to accept the discrimination their parents had endured, and increasingly confident in asserting both their British identity and their Muslim faith.

The Satanic Verses and the Question of Blasphemy

In September 1988, Salman Rushdie, a British-Indian novelist who had won the Booker Prize for "Midnight's Children," published "The Satanic Verses." The novel, a dense work of magical realism, included dream sequences depicting a character based on the Prophet Muhammad in ways many Muslims considered blasphemous.

The reaction was unlike anything Britain had seen. On December 2, 1988, the book was publicly burned at a demonstration in Bolton attended by 7,000 Muslims. On January 14, 1989, another book-burning took place in Bradford. The images of burning books evoked uncomfortable historical parallels—not least Nazi book burnings—and shocked many non-Muslims who saw it as an attack on free expression.

Then, in February 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death. The author went into hiding under police protection for nearly a decade.

The affair marked a turning point in how Britain thought about its Muslim population. For the first time, questions of Islamic belief and practice became front-page news. The debate over blasphemy, free speech, and the limits of multiculturalism had begun—and has never really ended.

Wars, Refugees, and the Twenty-First Century

While post-colonial migration from South Asia formed the foundation of British Islam, later waves came from very different circumstances.

In 1992, the Bosnian War erupted in the former Yugoslavia. Bosniaks—Bosnian Muslims—faced ethnic cleansing and genocide. Between 10,000 and 15,000 fled to Britain, where they and their descendants remain today. The Kosovo War later in the decade brought 29,000 Kosovo Albanians to British shores.

Then came the Arab Spring of 2011, which rapidly became the Arab Winter. Civil war in Syria, renewed violence in Iraq, the collapse of Libya, war in Yemen—each conflict sent waves of refugees toward Europe. Britain accepted 20,000 Syrian refugees and nearly 12,000 from Iraq.

Each new community brought its own traditions, its own relationship with Islam. The Bosniaks and Albanians came from a European, relatively secular Muslim culture. The Syrians and Iraqis brought the traditions of the Arab heartlands. British Islam, already diverse, became more so.

The Mosques: A Map of Islamic Diversity

By 2007, more than 1,500 mosques operated in Britain. Their theological orientations offer a map of Islamic diversity.

The majority reflect the major strands of Sunni Islam predominant in South Asia. Many are Deobandi, associated with a reformist movement founded in 1866 at a seminary in the Indian town of Deoband. Deobandi Islam emphasizes strict adherence to scripture and traditional jurisprudence. Others are Barelvi, a more Sufi-oriented tradition that emerged as a counter-movement to Deobandism, emphasizing the veneration of the Prophet and popular devotional practices.

A smaller number of mosques are Salafi-oriented, inspired by thinkers like Abul A'la Maududi and his movement Jamaat-e-Islami. Some are associated with the UK Turkish Islamic Trust, serving the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot communities. There are Twelver Shia mosques, serving communities from Iran, Iraq, and parts of South Asia.

Then there are the more esoteric movements. The Murabitun World Movement, founded in 1968 by a Scottish convert born Ian Dallas (who took the name Abdalqadir as-Sufi), is a branch of a Sufi order with roots in North Africa. For years, it operated from a base in the Scottish Highlands—an improbable headquarters for an Islamic spiritual movement.

The Numbers: From Minority to Presence

The 2021 census counted just under four million Muslims in the United Kingdom—6 percent of the total population. In England and Wales specifically, the figure was 3,868,133, or 6.5 percent. London, unsurprisingly, has the largest concentration, with Muslims making up 15 percent of the city's population.

Scotland recorded 119,872 Muslims (2.2 percent), with nearly half living in Glasgow. Northern Ireland, with a very different history, counted just 10,870 (0.6 percent).

The demographics are striking. Just over half of British Muslims—51 percent—were born in the United Kingdom. The rest came from elsewhere: about a quarter from South Asia (Pakistan, Bangladesh, India), nearly 10 percent from Africa, 7 percent from elsewhere in Europe, 6 percent from the Middle East. The top countries of origin outside the UK read like a map of the world's conflicts and migrations: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Somalia, India, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria.

Ethnically, British Muslims are predominantly South Asian: nearly 60 percent identify as Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Indian. About 11 percent are Black, 7 percent Arab, 6 percent White, 4 percent mixed heritage. This diversity means that British Islam encompasses communities with vastly different histories, languages, and cultural practices—united by faith but divided by much else.

The Fastest-Growing Faith

Between 2001 and 2009, the Muslim population of Britain increased almost ten times faster than the non-Muslim population. Several factors drive this growth.

First, immigration continues, both from traditional sources like South Asia and from newer ones like the Middle East and East Africa. Second, British Muslims have a higher birth rate than the general population. Third, and often overlooked, conversion plays a role. Reports suggest approximately 6,000 Britons convert to Islam each year—and the majority are women.

British Muslims also have the youngest average age of any major religious group. This demographic youth has cultural implications: British Islam is, to a significant degree, a religion of young people discovering what it means to be both Muslim and British.

The Pew Research Center projected in 2017 that the Muslim population of the United Kingdom could reach 6.56 million by 2050—nearly 13 percent of the population. Whether that projection proves accurate depends on factors that are impossible to predict: future migration patterns, birth rates, the course of conversion and religious disaffiliation.

Islam and British Identity

What does it mean to be British and Muslim? The question has no single answer.

For some British Muslims, particularly among the younger generation, there is no tension. They are British by birth, Muslim by faith—as naturally English as their neighbors, except that they pray facing Mecca and observe Ramadan. For others, particularly those who immigrated as adults, British and Muslim identities exist in more complex relationship, with the culture of origin remaining primary.

Martin Lings, an English convert who became one of the twentieth century's most respected Islamic scholars, published a biography of the Prophet Muhammad in 1983 that remains widely read in both Muslim and non-Muslim circles. His life suggested one model: full embrace of Islamic faith combined with continued engagement with British intellectual and cultural life.

The thousands of British Muslims who serve in the NHS, the military, the police, and every other institution of national life suggest another model: quiet integration, unremarkable and unremarked. The activists who have organized against discrimination suggest yet another: engagement with British traditions of protest and political mobilization.

From Offa's mysterious Arabic coin to the mosques of Birmingham and Bradford, from lascar sailors to lords who took the shahada, from colonial subjects who served the Empire to refugees who fled the wars it left behind—the history of Islam in Britain is a history of the unexpected. It defies simple narratives of clash or harmony, of assimilation or separation. It is, like all living histories, ongoing.