History
Islam has a history with Britain dating to the 8th century. King Offa (757-796) minted an Arabic gold coin bearing the Islamic declaration of faith (shahadah). This history spans the hostilities of medieval Crusades to the British imperial era which brought the first Muslim communities to Britain. In the 19th century civil servants and intellectuals from colonial India came to Britain. Yemeni and Indian sailors also made their passage here. These ‘Lascars’ formed small transient communities around the docklands of Cardiff, Liverpool, London, and South Shields. Simultaneously, indigenous convert Muslims began to appear as small ‘Islamic’ communities in Liverpool, Woking and London. Many converts were from the British elite and ruling classes. They included Lord Headly Farooq (1855-1935) a distinguished statesman, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (1865-1936) translator of the Qur’an into English and Imam of the Woking Mosque, and Abdullah William Henry Quilliam (1856-1932) the ‘Shaykh ul-Islam’ for Great Britain