Islam in Britain
Islamic Studies · Key Stage 2 · The School
A longer history than people expect
Muslim sailors and traders were in British ports from the 1600s onwards. Britain's first recorded mosque opened in the 1880s. The Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking dates from 1889. Large communities arrived after the Second World War. Most came from South Asia. Later, people came from Somalia, the Arab world, Turkey and eastern Europe.
Today
Around four million Muslims live in Britain. Most of them were born here. They are doctors, drivers, shopkeepers, teachers, footballers and MPs. Communities differ enormously by heritage. Think of a Pakistani family in Bradford, a Somali family in Cardiff and a Turkish family in London. They share a religion. They share little else about daily life.
What a mosque does locally
A British mosque does much more than the five prayers. Most run weekend classes for children. Many run a food bank or a soup kitchen. They hold funerals. They register marriages. They often hold open days for neighbours. Many are also where people turn in a local crisis. That is one reason RE lessons visit them.
Here is one case, told from start to finish. In 1889 Dr Gottlieb Leitner built a mosque in Woking, in Surrey. Shah Jahan Begum, the ruler of Bhopal in India, helped to pay for it. Leitner died in 1899. After that, the mosque fell out of use. Around 1912 or 1913 a man named Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din found it locked and unused. He was put in charge of it, and it was used again. Sources tell the story of the takeover differently, so we leave out the details. Today the mosque's website lists prayer times, marriages, funerals and guided tours.