The first mosque founded in England, which has stood as a derelict shell for many years, has been refurbished and reopened to Merseyside’s 20,000 Muslims, BBC reported. But how did it come to be there in the first place?
The mid-terrace house in Liverpool, with its broken windows and peeling paint, had given no clue it was, as one of the men behind its renovation put it, the “birthplace of Islam in Britain.”
The building, in Brougham Terrace, was once owned by Abdullah Quilliam, who opened it as Liverpool Muslim Institute in 1889. A prominent English solicitor who had been educated on the Isle of Man and the son of a Methodist preacher, William Henry Quilliam converted to Islam two years earlier, taking the name Abdullah and claiming to be the first native Englishman to embrace the religion.
The Abdullah Quilliam Society’s Jahangir Mohammed says it is difficult to underestimate the importance of the man or the courage he showed in becoming a Muslim, a step he took while on a trip to Morocco. “On his way, he saw some Hajjis, who had been on pilgrimage, and was intrigued at how peaceful they were when he saw them praying,” he said.
“A Muslim colleague explained that Islam was simply a continuation of previous faiths, Judaism and Christianity. It all seemed logical to him so he became a Muslim at that point. When he came back, he decided that he wanted to promote Islam. At the time, it was seen as the religion of the Devil here, so it was a very brave step to take.”
‘First media Muslim’
Quilliam’s work was met in some quarters by anger and hatred, which Mr Mohammed says intensified after the founding of the mosque and his conversion successes. “He converted 200 locals and 600 people in the whole of the UK and spent a lot of his time persuading people about the merits of Islam and how it wasn’t the evil religion it was presented to be,” he said.
“Because he was successful and Christians were converting to Islam, that produced a lot of hostility. People would come in here and attack him. They would throw pigs’ heads, razor wire, stones. Some were incited by priests, some were incited by the media, but he stood up to that.”
More than simply facing down his detractors, Mr Mohammed says Quilliam turned to the instruments being used to denigrate him and became “the first media Muslim.”
Building in disrepair
In Liverpool, the institute grew to incorporate an orphanage, college, madrasa, hotel, museum and library. But the religious intolerance which Quilliam and his converts faced proved too much for him and in 1908, he left England for Istanbul, returning much later under the name Haroun Mustapha Leon and settling in Woking, where he died in 1932.
Quilliam’s departure saw 8 Brougham Terrace change and from 1908, the buildings were used as council registry for births, deaths and marriages, including records of the marriage of John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia. Later the building fell into disrepair. In 1999, a group of Muslims from Merseyside set up the Abdullah Quilliam Society in order to preserve his legacy and a year later, they took over responsibility for the building, which was in a poor state.
The restoration project has seen the society raise more than £400,000 from donations and it plans to eventually spend £3.8m restoring the buildings and setting up a museum and heritage centre.
Mr Mohammed says Quilliam’s vision deserves nothing less. “It’s very important because this is the first mosque in Britain. It was the centre of Islamic activity in Victorian times and the birthplace of Islam in Britain.
