In recent years, much attention has been given to the topic of Islam and Muslims in England.  However, almost all of the scholarship that deals with this issue focuses on the 20th century when significant numbers of people from the colonies and former colonies began to settle permanently in that country.  Muslims prior to this period tend to be overlooked by historians because many of them resided in imperial spaces such as dockyards, seaport towns, and areas inhabited by the migratory, laboring poor considered outside the English nation.  In this paper I will examine how during the late 19^th century, these spaces, characterized by a close association with the shipping industry and maritime world, provided opportunities for Muslim lascar sailors and a community of English converts to Islam to create a place for their faith in England, while simultaneously containing its influence in that country.

            African or Asian seamen called lascars, the overwhelming majority of whom were Muslims, worked on East India Company ships.¹  They came to England primarily from India, especially the areas of Bengal, Gujarat, Punjab, but also from the Middle East and North Africa as well.  So many were employed that the British government actually required the company to hire at least one English seaman for every three lascars.²  Between the years 1794-1814  2,500 lascar sailors had visited England,³ and by the late 19^th century between 10,000 and 12,000 came to the country annually.⁴  

            The welfare of lascar immigrants was both a domestic and imperial concern, and in 1857 a number of individuals and organizations from England and abroad established a "Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders," so that these sailors would not be condemned to a life of poverty during periods when work was unavailable.⁵  The Home could accommodate roughly 200 people at a time, and between 1857-1877 5,709 individuals passed through it. ⁶   One lascar described the institution as "a home for Mohammedans in the Christian capital," and a copy of the Koran as well as sketches of Mecca and Medina were kept there.⁷

            The commonly-accepted border separating Islam and Englishness maintained through the dominant imperialist ideologies meant little to Muslim immigrants, who saw their faith as universal and made it conspicuous in English society.  As early as 1805 the Gentleman's Magazine reported a "Mahommedan Jubilee" in which "the lascars of the Mahommedan persuasion at the East end of town had a grand religious festival."  They marched through the streets with drums and tambourines.  Some performed pantomimic dances, and at every turn of the street a group would lift their heads and hands "to the canopy of heaven" and chant passages from the Qur'an.  The procession was repeated for three days and was conducted with "great propriety, although a multitude of people followed them."  The "jubilee" was described as being held in honour of Muhammad's ascension into paradise.⁸  The London City Mission Magazine gives more detailed, although less sympathetic, descriptions of the Muharram commemorating the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali.  In one account the author notes that about four hundred men took part in the activities.⁹  Burials could also command attention.  One lascar burial procession attracted "an immense concourse of persons" despite bad weather.¹⁰  A sketch of another shows a crowd of attendees.¹¹        

            Lascars attempted to teach English people about their faith and convert them to Islam. Christian missionaries describe listening to Muslim prayers and beliefs and engaging in Muslim-Christian theological discussions.  One London missionary referred to the man who taught him Hindustani, or Urdū, and had written a book sympathetic to Islam as one of the many "pseudo-reformers" from the East who tried to convert English people.  He called their doctrine "Islamo-Christianity" presumably because Muslim missionaries appealed to English-Christians by stressing the similarities between the two religions and the idea that Islam is an extension of Christianity with Muhammad as the last of the prophets bringing divine revelation to mankind.¹²

            The lascars and their religion may have been tolerated, but the missionaries and other middle-class Victorians who came into contact with them did not consider them to be English, not only because they had been born outside of the country, but ironically because their circumstances and lifestyles resembled those of other English people who seemed to threaten the social order and were, therefore, considered outsiders existing beyond the pale of the true English nation.  Lascars were a part of the migratory, laboring poor who had not embraced Christianity.  For contemporary reformers these people were an "alien nation" living in the heart of the city in areas that were "unexplored, uncivilized" and even "colonial."  Similarly, missionaries described a "heathenism" in their midst "as dense as any in Polynesia or Central Africa."  Like a tent community of Arabs to which John Ruskin compared them, the urban poor presented the "threat of nomadism," a disruptive element that undermined the stability of society.¹³

            Like the underclass in general, lascars were thought to inhabit spaces that existed in England physically, but were removed from it culturally.  LCM missionaries described "oriental" enclaves of poverty and despair where vice of various types provided the only relief or temporary escape.   For example, one contempory book entitled The East in the West by the LCM missionary Joseph Salter includes chapter titles such as "Plague Spots of Oriental Vice," "Chinese Opium Dens," and "Heathenism in the Inner Radius."  He even refers to "colonies" within London and other cities.  Thus while the presence of Muslim immigrants in England could present, in theory, a challenge to the idea of an English culture that did not include Islam, they instead came to symbolize the alterity imposed upon the urban poor.

            How lascars were perceived in England had much to do with class tensions and conflict.  By labeling the unChristainized poor as no better and often as even worse than the 'uncivilized heathens' of the empire, middle-class reformers and missionaries avoided the possibility of a cross-class alliance.   They divested charity work of its radical potential and instead turned it into a means of reinforcing social divisions and the status quo.  Working-class radicals, on the other hand, rejected this discourse sometimes by advocating universal equality, but often by expressing outrage that they as English people were being compared to foreign races.¹⁴  They promoted a definition of Englishness, which included laborers of all types but excluded those from elsewhere in the empire on the basis of race.  This political strategy did not challenge the importance of hierarchy and English superiority, ideas central to the British imperial system both at home and abroad, but shifted the dividing line which separated the nation from the rest of the world.

            Lascars often found themselves caught between reformers who wanted to change their lifestyles and beliefs and English workers who considered them outsiders and feared that associating with them would undermine their own claims to Englishness and their position within the nation-state.  Because competing class-based constructions of the English nation, which informed individual identities and aspirations, were defined through or in contrast to imperial subjects and spaces, they rested upon the assumption that these immigrants could not be a part of it.  Lascars were understood in terms of empire not only because of their origins, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because of the role of imperial politics within the metropole.  As a result of their precarious circumstances, any given situation, even a verbal exchange on the street, could define them through signifiers of difference, so that similarities and common interests between these Muslims and non-Muslims would seem less important than ideas about what separated them. Thus to be a Muslim lascar in England during the late 19^th century was to occupy the uncertain position of sometimes being regarded a part of society and other times being excluded from it or encountering hostility.¹⁵

             Because the concept of English national identity created through these competing class interests was intimately linked with contemporary gender politics, a lascar could not become English by living with or even marrying an English woman.¹⁶   For the women with whom they associated were already a part of the social fabric in the 'uncivilized' or poor areas of the city and were, therefore, considered by the majority not to be truly English.  In addition, generally it was assumed that a female's position in society was determined by the men in her life, so that while the women could be 'Orientalized' by lascars, lascars could not be Anglicized by their new companions. Their names reflect this idea. For example, Sarah Graham became "Lascar Sally" because of her association with lascars "whose language and habits she acquired."  Similarly, others were given names such as "Canton Kitty," "Chinese Emma," and "Calcutta Louisa."¹⁷

             Because Muslims found themselves excluded from the English nation, their position can best be understood through the concept of ethnicity.  I use this term not to describe a unified, self-conscious political position.¹⁸  Rather in this case it refers to the marginalization experienced by diverse individuals with unique histories and identities.  Such was the situation for Muslims living in England during this period when area of origin, language, and even particular version or understanding of Islam all divided them.  For example, Ahmadi Muslims, such as Kwaja Kamel-ud-Din, a missionary who established a base outside of London in the early 20^th century, were rejected by many Sunni Muslims because of their belief in prophets after Muhammad.¹⁹  Ethnicity is, therefore, necessarily multifaceted and multidimensional, and should be understood in a way that engages rather than suppresses difference.  For the myth of a unified immigrant population only reinforces the equally erroneous belief in a unified English nation, and these types of collective identities developed not only despite but through internal conflicts and tensions.  In addition, they were created by the actions of individuals with various perspectives, backgrounds and circumstances.

             Given their shared experiences of exclusion and marginalization, it is not suprising  that Muslims who may have had little in common before arriving in England soon formed bonds and associations with each other.  They established communities that revolved around Zawiyahs, which were run by local sheikhs and provided a place for the salat or daily prayer, Eid celebrations, and care of the sick, as well as facilities for marriage and burial ceremonies. ²⁰  The sheikhs taught the principles of Islam to the English wives and children of Muslim men.  As they had the trust of these immigrants, they also became their bankers and were able to provide for the unemployed with Zawiyah funds. ²¹

             Some Muslim immigrants did not remain in any one city or town but rather traveled throughout Britain following opportunities for temporary work as they became available.²²    One missionary called them the "Bedouins of England" explaining that "these disciples of the prophet of Mecca" "wander from Plymouth to Ben Lomond, and from Aberdeen to Hastings."  Seaside resorts and autumn retreats were also favorite spots.  Even the most seemingly isolated immigrants were connected to a larger community. For the "Asiatics" of England were like the "links of a long chain; if one link is found, the others soon come in to view."²³

             Not all Muslims living in England during the late 19^th century, however, came from abroad.  William Henry Quilliam, a solicitor and "a genuine DickySam" or native of Liverpool, led a group of recently-converted English Muslims in that city.  Before focusing on Quilliam and his followers, I would like to discuss briefly Liverpool itself.

For Muslim communities in England during that time tended to reside in areas with a connection to trade and seafaring life.  Related urbanization and growth, immigration, and contact with the empire, which were especially pronounced in Liverpool, all helped to create a space for Islam there.  The city was a center of commerce, and its famous docks formed a continuous line of sea wall for six miles.²⁴  It surpassed all other English ports in terms of foreign trade particularly in Asia, Africa, and the East in general.²⁵  In fact, by mid-century, by any criteria, Liverpool was England's "first port of empire."²⁶ 

             The commercial connections which linked Egypt and India to Liverpool were especially important.  Indian goods via Egypt and Egyptian staples such as cotton entered England through that port.²⁷  The town received Egyptian visitors notably Ibrahim Pasha, known by the "familiar appellation" or the Anglicized version of his name Abraham Parker.  In 1845, he traveled to Liverpool where he was popular for his "sagacious appreciation of English commerce," met with cheering crowds and received with "all due honour."  Similarly in 1862 Mohammed Said, another prominent Egyptian, spent three days in Liverpool where he was entertained by the mayor and addressed by "commercial bodies."  Not only distinguished Egyptian travelers, but also the welfare of ordinary Indian people could arouse concern among Liverpudlians, and in 1860 a public meeting was held in the town hall by the mayor to raise funds for victims of famine in India's northwest provinces.²⁸  For many residents of Liverpool, a relationship with the people of India and Egypt was seen as positive, mutually beneficial, and a source of wealth and prosperity.  For a small group respect for and appreciation of Muslims living in the East went beyond practical and economic interests and included identification with their religious traditions and beliefs.

             In addition to trade, immigration to Liverpool helped to blur distinctions between  the foreign and the familiar.  As a result of immigration, the town grew rapidly during the 19^th century with its boundaries continually expanding in order to accommodate increasing numbers of people from the English countryside and throughout the empire, eventually becoming a city in 1881.  Liverpool was unique in that it had the highest concentration of Chinese residents in England.  Immigrants from China came as sailors or stokers on the new steamships often via the Blue Funnel line.  Those who settled lived near the docks sometimes working in small businesses or laundries. ²⁹  In addition, the Irish made a significant impact upon the town.  Over 100,000 of them arrived in the winter of 1846 and the spring of 1847 alone, and by 1851 Liverpool had a higher percentage of Irish-born residents than any other city or town in England including London.³⁰  As a result of these changes Liverpudlians were exposed to and had become used to accommodating a certain amount of difference in their society either because they had emmigrated from somewhere else and had to adapt to new circumstances or because they came into contact with newcomers whose appearance, values, religion, or behavior seemed different from their own.

             Because of immigration and trade and the phenomenal growth that resulted from both, Liverpool was a city characterized by constant motion, motion of people, products, and ideas.  Even the architecture of the city from the dockyards to the railroads served as a constant reminder of the new capacity to "distribute with great rapidity an ever-increasing quantity of bodies and goods, and to redistribute the very spaces of the city itself: to imperialize the city, and to urbanize the countryside."³¹   In this space of constant flux, maintaining stable boundaries between nation and empire or fixed standards of behavior would have been especially difficult.  It was in the context of migration, movement, and change in England's most important imperial entrep»t that the first community of English-Muslims was established and led by W. H. Quilliam.

             William Henry Quilliam was a direct descendent of Captain John Quilliam, R.N, an officer who distinguished himself in the battle of Trafalgar and was one of the pall bearers at the funeral of Lord Horatio Nelson.³²  W.H. Quilliam was educated in Liverpool and King Williams College, Isle of Man.³³  He began his work as a solicitor in 1878 and eventually had the largest advocacy practice in the north of England.  One article noted that his "extensive legal practice" was well known.³⁴  He had associated with Wesleyans, Unitarians, and Deists before visiting Morocco and Algeria in 1882 and embracing Islam.³⁵

             Figure eight shows Quilliam in what was known as Eastern or Islamic dress.  He also wore the "distinguishing Fez of the Mahommedan races" at consular gatherings in order to make his faith conspicuous.³⁶  Despite the appearance of difference, this behavior was tolerated by other English people at least in part because of the Orientalist tradition of appearing as a Muslim from the East.  English diplomats, travelers, journalists, businessmen, and others who had reason to travel or live in any part of the East, from the Ottoman Empire to India, often had portraits painted of themselves in the clothing of the area.³⁷

             The meaning of this practice changed over time.  Before and during the 17^th century Islam's appeal to the English had to do with the power of the Ottomans.  For it was the "allure of empire" that led the Englishman to change "his hat into a turban - with all the symbolism of strength associated with the Islamic headdress.³⁸  With the decline of Ottoman power in the 18^th and 19^th centuries appearing like a Muslim was more likely to be seen as fashionable or eccentric.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu made harem attire chic in England after her return from Turkey.  Similarly, during his days as a London dandy, Disraeli was fond of dressing extravagantly and prefacing his remarks at social gatherings with the statement "Allah is great," no doubt in part to remind the other guests that recently he had taken a grand tour which included Turkey and Egypt.³⁹  Imitating the Muslim from the East had the effect of domesticating the foreign or making it seem less threatening.⁴⁰  Because of this tradition Quilliam's attire could have made him appear more like an eccentric English Orientalist gentleman than an outsider.  Even his background was appropriate to this role: he was a middle or upper-middle class English man who had traveled to the East and studied Arabic.  Ironically, the mimics who did the work of empire by appropriating and neutralizing the power of the Islamic 'Other' also helped to make Quilliam's behavior acceptable and, therefore, unintentionally contributed to the establishment of a Muslim community in England.

             By 1895 Quilliam's community of recent converts had a Muslim Institute, which included a newly reconstructed lecture hall.  The ground floor of the building was converted to a mosque with arches at the entrance in a "Mooresque style with Saracenic ornamentation" modeled after the famous Tunlun Mosque in Cairo.⁴¹  The community would gather for prayers in the mosque on Fridays, and while meetings were held every Sunday, most likely for those who had converted to Islam from Christianity and were used to Sunday services, care was taken to insure that the proceedings were "purely Islamic in word and spirit."⁴²  For the Liverpool Muslims were sometimes accused of practicing a Christianized or bastardized Islam.

             By 1896 plans were in progress to construct an elaborate mosque that would accommodate approximately 1,500 worshippers.  This "Moslem Cathedral" would attract "holy shrine votaries from the East," and for that reason a Khan would be built as well.  Included in the plan was a library, small museum, and printing office for the publication and dissemination of Muslim materials.  The proposed cite for the new mosque was purchased by the trustees of the Liverpool Muslim Congregation,⁴³ and  Mr. J.H. McGovern, an expert on Eastern architecture who had already designed the previously-completed alterations for the Muslim Institute, provided detailed architectural plans.  In 1898 the plans were forwarded to Quilliam in Istanbul, so that he could submit them to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire with a request for approval and financial assistance.  Despite plans and preparations made by both the architect and the community in general, no such mosque was ever built.  Perhaps after Quilliam's mysterious disappearance in 1908, the community simply lacked the connections and resources to continue the project.⁴⁴

             Quilliam was instrumental to the establishment of a community of British-Muslim believers in Liverpool.  After embracing Islam, he converted his family to the faith and created the weekly publication The Crescent 1893-1908, the organ of the newly-founded British Muslim Association.  He spoke at the Institute and elsewhere in Liverpool and even traveled throughout Britain to deliver lectures on Islam⁴⁵  He also published a number of pamphlets on the topic and worked to establish the Medina Home for Outcast Children in order to provide care and a Muslim education for orphans and poor children.⁴⁶  In addition, he used his connections with Manx societies, temperance organizations, and as Vice President of the Liverpool Geological Society to further the cause.

             Temperance societies proved to be an especially effective way for Quilliam to find converts, and Liverpool was a center of temperance activity.  The first temperance society in England was formed in that city in 1830 after American sea captains distributed tracts to residents.⁴⁷  The movement became so popular in Liverpool that it was regarded as the largest area of prohibition in England.⁴⁸  Quilliam lectured on temperance in both the Vernon Temperance Hall and the Liverpool Muslim Institute and won his first as well as his one hundred and seventy first convert to Islam through this method.⁴⁹  Temperance had much in common with other reforming causes of the time such as the abolition of slavery or the movements to improve working conditions and provide public education. ⁵⁰ Through it English Muslims associated themselves with the Victorian impulse to improve, and presented their faith as the solution to England's problems and societal ills.

             Some of the very same conditions that allowed the development of the first community of English converts to Islam in Liverpool, rapid immigration and growth associated with a thriving port life, also inspired temperance reformers.  The overcrowding which resulted from immigration meant that that for the first half of the 19^th century Liverpool had the highest density of people per square mile in England.  In 1842 it was declared the "unhealthiest" town in the country and could be found at the top of every index measuring poor living conditions.⁵¹  This misery combined with a social life that revolved around the public house created an intolerable situation for the temperance reformer, and those attracted to this movement sought to alleviate both the poverty and the dislocation which accompanied immigration and industrialization.  Temperance societies "provided a supportive framework" for those who had been "uprooted psychologically as well as physically."⁵²  The temperance supporters in Liverpool who converted to Islam most likely found in this religion many of the same qualities that attracted them to the temperance movement in the first place: a community or supportive environment, a vision of a reformed society, and the avoidance of strong drink.  Islam's prohibition of alcohol must have been especially attractive to teetotalers, or those who called for total abstinence.

             Quilliam maintained that Islam had a place in English society and could even improve it, and while he was criticized by some, his conversion was accepted, and he continued to be treated with respect as long as he lived in the Liverpool area.  At least four Liverpool publications presented Quilliam's religious activities in a positive or neutral light.⁵³  Article titles such as "Men who are Talked About" and "Men you Know" suggest his status as a public figure.  Similarly, another article refers to his role in the "Islamic movement in England" as "too well known to need any comment."⁵⁴   He was even praised by one contemporary who referred to him by the affectionate title of "'our Mahomedan solicitor'" and included him in Liverpool's Legion of Honour.⁵⁵

             However, Quilliam never succeeded in converting English people outside of Liverpool.  Despite efforts to spread the faith in the countryside and other towns, no similar communities were established.  A small group of people living in a city transformed by rapid growth and the imperial port may have been able to embrace Islam, but for the majority living in that country during the 19^th century, this religion was still foreign.  Similarily, while Muslim lascar sailors were able to represent themselves, their faith, and their place in English society via public ceremony, individual relationships, and the formation of new communities, they still had to operate within an imperial system characterized by as many constraints as opportunities.  Competing class-based English identities were already defined in relation to the empire, and these new immigrants found themselves in the awkward position of being both symbolically in the middle of domestic political conflict yet simultaneously marginalized by opposing class interests.  Those interested in understanding contemporary Anglo-Muslim concerns should consider the ship, port, and dock of the late 19^th century.   For in these imperial spaces of contact and exchange certain influencial ideas began to take shape as historical actors struggled to define the place of Islam in England and the meaning of the English nation in relation to this religion.