From Islam in England
by Sheikh Mushir Hosain Kidwai of Gadia
Quoted below is an excerpt from pages 2 and 3 of this booklet,
containing mention of the movement of Quilliam in Liverpool. Read
the whole booklet here. We have added a couple of explanatory
footnotes.
“ The first open conversion of an Englishman that took
place in the British Isles was, as far as known to me, that of Mr.
Quilliam of Liverpool. He had the courage and nerves to declare
himself openly and ostentatiously as a convert to Islam. About the
same time a Peer of the realm and a high rank military official
also became converted to Islam, but their conversions, although
extremely sincere and rigidly based upon the intrinsic merits of
that glorious faith, were not demonstrative. Mr. Quilliam was a
man of position in the town, being a solicitor. He was a man of
acknowledged ability, and a very good speaker. When I met him, he
was far from being in the ascendance of his world-fame as a Muslim,
but the impression he made with his long well-trimmed beard and
his Islamic affability and courtesy was by no means ineffective.
Mr. Quilliam and his followers received sympathy and financial help
from Muslims abroad. A magazine was started by the gifted solicitor
and a sum of money was also collected to build a mosque — the
first mosque in the British Isles. Alas ! the enthusiasm of the
Liverpool converts proved ephemeral. Mr. Quilliam himself had to
leave Liverpool and that unfortunately under a shadow. Later on,
about fourteen years ago, when Maulvi Sadr-ud-Din[1] visited Liverpool to find out if there was any trace left of the
result of Mr. Quilliam’s work, he found only one house where
a lady still professed Islam. The family of Mr. Quilliam, who appended
to his name the grand title of Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles,
were no more demonstrative of their faith. No sign of any mosque
could be found. In fact, no mosque, as such, had ever been built
at all. It was a private house where a few Muslim converts and the
family of Mr. Quilliam congregated and said their prayers, and it
was to that house that the name of a mosque was wrongly given and
money was received for that “mosque”. It was a very sad
end to a very glorious endeavour. Such a great regard I have for
the courageous effort made by Mr. Quilliam to further the cause
of Truth in the far-off Island[2] that I deliberately avoid going into details of the downfall and
collapse of that movement… ”
Footnotes
[1] The year was 1914.
See Maulana Sadr-ud-Din’s account of his visit to Liverpool at this link. He was Imam of the Mosque at Woking and Head of the Woking Muslim Mission
during 1914–16, at the time after the departure of Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din from his
first visit to England in August 1914. Maulana Sadr-ud-Din (d. 1981)
later became the Second Head of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement in
1951, following the death of Maulana Muhammad Ali.
[2] Kidwai refers to Britain
as “the far-off Island” presumably because the booklet Islam in England was published in Lucknow, India. |
