Muslim presence in the British Isles is better known at the end of the Middle Ages when the British and the Ottomans began cultivating relations. Problems between the two worlds arose during the Crusades and the exploits of corsairs of the Mediterranean. As Britain's involvement with India increased, many Indian Muslims came to the islands. With the height of British colonialism during the Victorian Era, Muslims of all nations came to the isles. By the beginning of the 20th century, quite an established Muslim community formed.
| 774 | Anglo-Saxon ruler King Offa Rex mints coins imitating that of Arab currency. Ironically, inscribed in Arabic on the coins is the Muslim profession of faith (shahada) with "Offa Rex" inscribed upside down. |
| 1504 | Two "blackamoor" girls are brought to the Royal Court in Scotland where they are baptized, given the names Elen and Margaret, and educated. |
| 1509-1547 | Tudor King of England Henry VIII reigns. In addition to Scots, Spaniards, Italians, and many other European races, Turks and Tartars are counted among his mercenary troops. The Tudor monarch was known to make heavy use of foreign troops. |
| 1579 | Via negotiations with William Harborne, the Ottomans open correspondence with Queen Elizabeth. |
| 1581 | England's Sir Francis Drake releases 100 Ottoman men from Spanish captivity. |
| 1583 | England begins its diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire by dispatching William Harborne as ambassador to Istanbul. |
| 1584 | A money collection is taken in London to free sixty Englishmen held in Muslim captivity. |
| 1586 | The first record of a Muslim convert to Christianity in England takes place: Chinano (who adopts the name William), a man from an island bordering Greece. Chinano had spent 25 years in Spanish captivity before his release by Sir Francis Drake. Men like Chinano are believed to have been galley slaves to the Spanish, freed by the English, and brought to the Isles until they could be returned to Ottoman lands. During this period, the English government heavily pushes for an Anglo-Turkish alliance against Catholic nations. |
| 1600 | Queen Elizabeth receives a sixteen-member Moroccan embassy. |
| 1605 | An allowance is paid to a Turkish captive who embraced Christianity in England and assumed the name John Baptista. |
| 1607 | Mustapha, an Ottoman official known as a chiaus, seeks audience with King James to discuss exploits of English sea captains in the Mediterranean Sea. The King was very reluctant to receive him and some English treated him with suspicion. Soon, the word chiaus entered English colloquialism as a synonym for swindler. |
| 1613 | In a parish register, an entry includes the marriage of a Samuel Munsur (Mansur?), a Blackamore, to a Jane Johnson at St. Nicholas's Deptford. |
| 1617 | A Turkish ship is captured on the Thames. |
| 1624 | In England, a general collection is taken to ransom 1500 Englishmen enslaved in North Africa. |
| 1625 | North African corsairs seize captives from Plymouth, England. About 60 men, women, and children are taken from Church of 'Munnigesca' in Mounts' Bay (Cornwall) by the corsairs |
| 1626 | 2,000 wives petition the King, the Duke of Buckingham and Parliament for aid in ransoming their husbands from Muslim detention. The Spainish capture two renegade captains: a Francis Barney, pilot of a Tunisian ship, and a Robin Locar of Plymouth, who adopted the name Ibrahim. |
| 1631 | Murad Reis sacks Baltimore, County Cork, Ireland. A suggestion exists that a Catholic named Hackett –who may have purposely allowed himself to be captured by the corsairs– guided Murad to the capture of Baltimore in order to weaken English influence there. Other evidence points to conspiracy: Murad's release of the Celtic prisoners, not the English ones; Hackett's hanging for treason against interests of the English, not the Irish, on the island. |
| 1634 | North African corsairs continue to invade the British Isles. They capture two barks from Minehead sailing to Ireland. |
| 1635 | Corsairs from Salé capture a ship off Scilly (British Isles). |
| 1636 | Three fishing boats with fifty men are captured by the "Turks" near Black Head, between Falmouth and the Lizard. The British coasts are said to be teeming with the North African corsairs. |
| 1637 | London receives an ambassador from the Moorish Corsair Republic of Salé. The ambassador, a Portuguese convert, impresses the English with his character and culture. |
| 1640 | The families of 3,000 English captives in Algeria petition the King for their ransom. The British Parliament establishes a Committee for Algiers whose main task is to ensure the ransoming of English captives. |
| 1645 | Seven Barbary ships land in Cornwall. |
| 1654 | William Erbery, the Welsh millenarian, born 1604 is accused of preaching Islam; he denies all allegations. |
| 1658 | John Durie praises a Muslim convert to Protestantism in London. Efforts are made to try and get Muslims to accept Christianity, but lack of appeal, both theologically and culturally, ensures little success to this. |
| 1659 | Yusuf, an Ottoman administrator from Negropont, is baptized in England and takes the name Richard Christophilus.With the influx of Muslim merchants and diplomats into England due to improved Anglo-Ottoman relations, a race for Muslim converts begins between the Cromwellian party and the Anglicans. |
| 1668 | A patent in England authorizes the collection of money in all churches and chapels for two years for the ransoming of English captives in the Ottoman dominions. |
| 1714 | George I becomes King of England taking with him from Hanover his two protégés, Mustafa and Mehemet. Mehemt's mother and Mustafa's son will also reside in England. Due to their prominence in the court, Mustafa and Mehemet are depicted in the murals of Kensington Palace. |
| 1716 | King George I ennobles Mehemet, who adopts the surname von Königstreu (true to the king). |
| 1721 | Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1717-1718, actively promotes smallpox inoculation (called variolation) as done by the Turks. After the two daughters of the Prince of Wales were variolated, the practices would spread more. Edward Jenners' vaccination would not come until 1796. The practice of inoculation was known since ancient times in various parts of the world including China, India, and Africa. |
| 1726 | Ludwig von Königstreu, formerly Mehemet, a servant of King George I, dies. Mustafa takes over his duties. |
| 1733 | Ayyub ibn Suleiman and Thomas Bluett set sail for England. Ayyub (Job), an African Muslim from a respectable family, was captured and enslaved in Africa. He was sent to Maryland but escaped to Pennsylvania where he was arrested. Upon hearing his plight, Thomas Bluett and some other gentlemen took up his cause and helped him try to win his freedom. In more than a year in England, Ayyub impresses noblemen and the wealthy with his civilized decorum, religious debates, and writing of three copies of the Quran from memory. The Spalding Gentlemen's Society even inducts Ayyub as a member before his return to Africa. |
| 1765 | Mirza Itesa Modeen (I'tisam ud Din), an emissary of the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam, travels to Britain. |
| 1768 | Dr. Alexander Russell sends a letter to Earl of Morton, President of the Royal Society of London, recounting a letter from his brother Patrick, a physician at Aleppo concerning smallpox inoculation practices in the Middle East. |
| 1772 | Claud Russel, employee of the East India Company, brings Munshi Ismail to England to be his personal Munshi (teacher). |
| 1776 | Muhammad Husain comes to Britain to study astronomy and anatomy. |
| 1777 | Munshi Mahomet (Muhammad) Saeed puts out an advert in a London newspaper as a teacher of Arabic and Persian. |
| 1784 | Dean Mahomed (1759-1851), member of the Bengal Army of the English East India Company, emigrates from his native India to Cork in colonial Ireland with Captain Baker, an Irish officer in the Army. Mahomed, a native of Patna and descendent from Shiite immigrants to India, belonged to a family of Muslim service elite (his father achieved the second highest rank that an Indian could get in the Company's army). |
| 1786 | In Cork, Dean Mahomed elopes with a young student named Jane Daly. |
| 1793 | Ottoman Sultan Selim III sends an emissary to London in an attempt to improve contacts with Western Powers. Ambassadorial missions to Berlin, Paris, and Vienna will soon follow. |
| 1794 | Dean Mahomed publishes The Travels of Dean Mahomet becoming the first English book written and published by an Indian author. |
| 1799 | Mirza Abu Talib Khan, a native of Lucknow, tours England and Ireland (also Asia and Africa) until 1803. He spends time with the aristocracy of the Isles including a visit to the Baker household where he meets Dean Mahomed. He applauds many aspects of English society including division of labor between genders; however, he feels that Muslim women in India held more rights, despite not being as active in the community. Muslim women in India could have property while English women had to wait until the Married Women's Property Act in 1882 |
| 1807 | Dean Mahomed moves to London. |
| 1808 | Dean Mahomed's daughter Amelia is born. Mahomed finds employment in a vapour bath establishment offering "shampooing" or therapeutic massage. |
| 1810 | Dean Mahomed establishes his Hindoostanee Coffee-House at 34 George Street, Portman Square in London offering Indian foods and an Indian atmosphere. |
| 1812 | Due to the high expenses of his Coffee-House, Dean Mahomed declares bankruptcy. |
| 1814 | Dean Mahomed settles in Brighton, a resort town on the southern coast of England, where he becomes a shampoo surgeon at the Devonshire Place bath-house. He will establish another Indian- themed business with his Indian Vapor Baths and Shampooing Establishment. |
| 1822 | Dean Mahomed first publishes his Shampooing, or, Benefits Resulting From the Use of The IndianMedicated Vapor Bath, as Introduced Into This Country, by S.D. Mahomed (A Native of India). |
| 1824 | In an Anglo-Netherlands treaty, Malay goes to the British. |
| 1825 | Dean Mahomed, reaching the pinnacle of his success by becoming the Shampooing Surgeon to King George IV and then William IV, installs an Indian vapor bath at the Pavilion. |
| 1834 | Mahomed Ebrahim Palowkar (b. 1811 in Bombay) comes to Britain with his father Abu Syed to petition the East India Company concerning their lands. |
| 1835 | Palowkar marries an Irish woman named Eleanor Deegan. |
| 1838 | Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II sends an envoy to London to court an alliance through trade concessions. It is unsuccessful. |
| 1839 | The Ottoman Tanzimat (Reorganization) reform movement begins. This period will see rapid changes in Ottoman administration including numerous high ranking officials receiving their higher education and postings in the Western nations. Rashid Pasha (1800-1858) serves as Ottoman ambassador to Paris and London in the 1930s. One of his disciples and future grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Ali Pasha (1815-1871), will also serve as ambassador to London in the 1840s. Fuad Pasha (1815-1869), a very well educated student of the former and associate of the latter personality, will also received appointment at the Ottoman London embassy before rising in public office in his own nation. |
| 1842 | James Abdoolah (Abdullah), a native of Bombay, comes to Britain as a servant to a Bombay Artillery Major. |
| 1850 | For the first time in Britain, an attorney swears on the Quran on his admission. |
| 1851 | Dean Mahomed dies. |
| 1854 | Muhammad Ali ben Said, an African slave, enters the service of Russian aristocrat Nicholas Trubetzkoy. With his master, Muhammad (also known as Nicholas Said) will tour Germany, London, Paris, and Italy. In Germany, Said attends a conference with many European leaders leading him to ponder about the plight of his people back in Africa. In 1860, he will set sail for America where he will eventually join the Union army in the Civil War. |
| 1855 | Mahomed Ebrahim Palowkar dies a respected tobacconist in Bishopsgate at age 44. Because of the belief during World War I that Palowkar is a German name, Mahomed's descendents changed their name to Wilson. |
| 1859 | Imam Shamil, leader of a resistance movement in the Caucasus region against Russian imperialism, surrenders to the Czar's forces. Throughout his struggle against the Russians, Shamil became a popular figure among the English public. Newspapers covered his exploits and Caucasus affairs became commonplace in English politics. Shamil's significance to the English was due to the assumption that his war impeded Russian designs on British India. Shamil even made appeals to Queen Victoria for aide. |
| 1861 | Indian Muslim Mir Aulad Ali, who married an English woman, becomes Professor of Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit at Trinity College in Dublin. His tenure ended in 1898. |
| 1869 | The opening of the Suez Canal sees many Muslims find employment with the British. Syed Ameer Ali –activist, scholar, and jurist from Cuttack, Orissa– comes to England on a government scholarship. He will go on to devote most of his work to the betterment of Muslims. |
| 1877 | Queen Victoria is proclaimed Queen-Empress of India. |
| 1882 | The Islamic reformer and revivalist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani leaves Calcutta for a short stay in England. While there, he publishes many newspaper articles such as "English policy in Eastern countries" and "The Reasons for the war in Egypt." Al-Afghani stands at the forefront of intellectual Muslim resistance against imperialism during this period. He considers nationalism –as well as other ideals such as communism and nihilism– to be evils that divide people and contradict their nature. Al-Afghani preaches a unity amongst Muslims that supersedes the limitations of national or cultural lines. |
| 1884 | Syed Ameer Ali marries Isabella H. Konstam, sister of the actress Gertrude Kingston, in Little Portland Street. Frederick Akbar Mahomed (b.1849), grandson of Dean Mahomed, dies in England. He was an acclaimed physician earning numerous prestigious awards and positions as well as contributing to the study of hypertension. |
| 1885 | Al-Afghani visits England in July and meets with Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff. Their discussions for joint Anglo-Islamic settlements and efforts against Russian encroachment on Muslims of Central Asia bear no fruit. During this period, al-Afghani establishes contacts with Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Ultimately, he leaves England this year for Persia. |
| 1887 | Queen Victoria receives several Indian servants including Muhammad Bux and Abdul Karim. |
| 1888 | Frederick Mahomed (b. 1818), son of Dean Mahomed, dies. He opened up a successful fencing academy and gymnasium in Brighton. Of his eight children, his five sons each had an Arabic name in addition to their Anglo-Saxon ones. One of the sons explained that the family was proud of their descent from the Prophet Muhammad. |
| 1889 | In England, building of the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking commences with the sponsorship of Hungarian Orientalist Dr. Leitner. Queen Victoria promotes Abdul Karim to the position of munshi (teacher) and begins learning about Indian culture including language and religion. |
| 1891 | After being exiled from Persia for his revolutionary ideas, al-Afghani makes his way to London where he continues his struggle for Muslim unity and reform. Again he writes several newspaper articles; however, this time he also attacks the corruption of the Persian administration. He leaves London the following summer for the Ottoman court. |
| 1894 | Abdul Karim receives the title of Hafiz rising to the position of Queen Victoria's Indian Secretary and earning the award of the Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. Despite winning the Queen's favor, Abdul Karim meets prejudices among many of the members of the English nobility. |
| 1897 | Aziz Ahmad, from Lucknow, founds an Indian Mission at his home in Glasgow. The mission focuses more on educating incoming lascars rather than preaching to them.Aziz Ahmad, a convert to Christianity, came to Glasgow sometime around 1883 (dates for his conversion and settlement are sketchy). He lived with his Scottish wife and three children lecturing on Islamic studies. He contributed many articles to Indian newspapers criticizing the Christian missionaries in India and British colonial rule. The articles spark an investigation by the police at the behest of the Indian Criminal Investigation Bureau; police found Ahmad to be harmless. He disappears from the Glasgow directory around 1925. |
| 1899 | Dr. Leitner dies and the Woking mosque becomes property of his heirs. |
| 1901 | After Queen Victoria dies, Abdul Karim returns home to Agra. |
| 1905 | Reverend E.B. Bhose, a Bengali chaplain at St. Luke's Lascar Mission in Victoria Docks, dies. In his reports for the Lascar Mission, he reports the celebration of Muslim holidays by the lascars while in port. |
| 1908 | Syed Ameer Ali becomes the first president of the London branch of the All-India Muslim League. Dr. Nazim and Ahmed Riza, two leading the Committtee of Union and Progress (the Young Turk's political front), travel to London to seek an Anglo-Ottoman alliance. Their goals are not met. |
| 1911 | The British Red Crescent Society, a Muslim version of the Red Cross, forms. |
| 1913 | Under the sponsorship of British Muslim Lord Headley, Khwaja Kamaluddin buys the Shah Jahan Mosque and establishes a center for Muslim missionary work. |
| 1914 | Indian lascars make up 17.5% of the total seamen employed on British ships. Muslims comprise a large portion of these lascars. Many Muslims, part of the eventual 1 million total Indian soldiers, fight on the side of the British in the Great War. |
| 1925 | M.A. Khan, R.E. Franklin, and South-Africa-born Indian Muslim Sulaiman Katwaroon begin the Indian Freedom Association, later the Indian Freedom League, in England. |
| 1926 | Mehmet VI, the last Ottoman Sultan (r. 1918-1922) dies in exile in San Remo. During his exile, he became the only Ottoman Sultan to make the hajj to Mecca (Jem Sultan also made the hajj, but he was not considered Sultan of the entire Ottoman Empire). |
| 1928 | Lord Headley, with the Nizam of Hyderabad, opens the London Nizamiah Mosque Trust. Syed Ameer Ali dies at age 79 in Sussex. |
| 1934 | The Jamiat ul-Muslimin is established in east London. |
| 1943 | Shah Abdul Majib Qureshi and Ayub Ali establish the Indian Seamen's Welfare League in London. |
| 1944 | Many Muslims come to the British Isles following World War II as labor migrants. |
| 1970 | The Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Eire is established. |
| 1974 | A Muslim father founds the Muslim Parents Association (MPA) in Bradford. |
| 1978 | Union of Muslim Organizations establishes the National Muslim Education Council for the United Kingdom. |
| 1981 | The Bradford Council for Mosques is established. |
| 1990s | Muslims figure prominently various facets of western life as activists and scholars such as Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Martin Lings, Jamil Sherif, Gai Eaton, Zaki Badawi, Rana Kabbani, Tariq Ali, Ziauddin Sardar, Akbar S. Ahmed, Ayyub Khan Din, Shabbir Akhtar, Hanif Kureishi, and more. |
| 1994 | The London borough of Waltham Forest produces the first Muslim woman to be elected mayor. |
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