Islam and Muslims in Britain

Gilliat-Ray, Sophie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8320-6853 2017. Islam and Muslims in Britain. DeLong-Bas, Natana, ed. Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies, Oxford University Press, (10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0244)

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Abstract

Introduction There has been contact between the British Isles and Muslim-majority societies since the 8th century ce. Trading links, piracy, missionary excursions, diplomacy, colonialism, and immigration have each in various ways shaped the character and understanding of Islam in Britain, as well as the experience of Muslims living in British society. Consequently, the field of study concerned with documenting Islam as a religion, and more especially Muslim experiences in Britain in more recent times, reflects the scholastic work of historians, social scientists, theologians, political sciences, anthropologists, linguists, and other related disciplines. Precise understanding of “what counts” as Islam in Britain will differ across these various disciplinary perspectives, from the academic efforts of 17th-century Arabists at Oxford and Cambridge to understand Muslim thought and Islamic texts, on the one hand, to more anthropological appreciation of 21st-century urban mosques in modern Britain, on the other. Prior to the 19th century, understanding of Islam in British society was largely based on the writings of travelers and missionaries visiting Muslim-majority societies, and Islam was generally apprehended through the lens of Christianity. However, from the mid-19th century onward, small numbers of seafarers who had been recruited to work on steamships along the trading routes of the colonial empire began to establish boarding houses in major port cities such as London, South Shields, Cardiff, and Liverpool. These boarding houses formed a social and religious hub for early Muslim community development and enabled the establishment of the first mosques in Britain, the earliest recorded being in Liverpool in 1887. After the Second World War, large numbers of single men from the Indian subcontinent were recruited to help rebuild a war-torn society. The expansion in manufacturing industries and the need to develop the economy resulted in an abundance of unskilled and semi-skilled work. Rather like their seafaring counterparts, these men shared accommodation and supported one another in securing employment. With the later arrival of women and extended family members in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a transition from temporary male economic migration to more permanent family settlement. The inclusion of a question about religious identity in the 2001 and 2011 census charts the growth of the Muslim population in Britain (currently at 2.7 million; about 5 percent of the UK population according to the Office for National Statistics). Muslims come from a wide range of linguistic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds, and the religious diversity of Muslim-majority societies is found in microcosm. About half the Muslim population was born in Britain, and about half are under the age of twenty-five.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780197858981
Last Modified:	01 Jun 2026 13:29
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187327

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