British Islam from humanistic perspectives

——————————————————-

Programme Outline

Islam in Britain: Bob White has developed this course on British Islam from research articles in sociological and anthropological journals. The course will take place on three Saturday mornings. It will offer insights into the reality of Islam in Britain; the history of the coming of Islam and its development; what it means to be Muslim; the course presupposes some understanding and tolerance of the beliefs, rituals and symbols of the religion.

The course is ideal for anyone wanting to understand how Islam came about in the UK, in an informal, relaxed environment.

1. Victorian Converts: William Henry Quilliam (10 April 1856 Liverpool – 23 April 1932 London), converted from Christianity to Islam in the 19th-century. He changed his name to Abdullah Quilliam and later Henri Marcel Leon or Haroun Mustafa Leon. He is noted for founding England’s first mosque in 1889 in a terrace in Liverpool which later became the Liverpool Muslim Institute.

2. Lascars: Muslims arrived from the Indian subcontinent and Yemen, initially through the steamships and transport systems of the British Empire. The first group of Muslims to migrate to the UK in significant numbers, in the 18th century, were lascars (sailors). The British East India Company recruited them from the Indian subcontinent (largely from the Bengal region). 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 British India (now in Bangladesh). In 1932, the Indian National Congress survey of ‘all Indians outside India’ (which included modern Pakistani and Bangladeshi territories) estimated that there were 7,128 Indians living in the United Kingdom. One of the most famous early Asian Muslim immigrants to England was the Bengali Sake Dean Mahomet, a captain of the British East India Company who in 1810 founded London’s first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostanee Coffee House. He is also reputed for introducing shampoo and therapeutic massage to the United Kingdom.^[16]

3. The Contemporary Dynamics of the Muslim community in Britain: How Islamic practices, traditions and law are derived.

Dates:  4 & 18 March 2017

SATURDAYS: 

Course Fee:  £60  

Contact us by email: info AT benedictine-institute DOT org

OR contact us
by post:  74, Castlebar Road, Ealing, London W5 2DD
by telephone:  +44 (0) 20 8862 2156

© Ealing Abbey, page updated 14 November 2016