Book to hear me tomorrow at 6pm talking @MACFESTUK about my new book, “Islam in Victorian Liverpool”, out soon with @claritasbooks, co-authored with R. Macnamara and M.Z. Maksudoğlu. 1/9 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/macfest2021-islam-in-victorian-britain-tickets-120080567209?ref=ecal

It's a translation of a 1895 travelogue, "Liverpool Müslümanlığı" or “Islam in Liverpool” about Britain’s first mosque community from a copy found in the University of Ankara's library by M. Hasanov. This Ottoman Turkish text also features English, Arabic and Persian. 2/9

It casts new light on and raises new questions about the Liverpool Muslims and their president, W.H. Abdullah Quilliam (1856‒1932). It caused a stir among this small community of converts, and was eventually banned by the Ottoman authorities a few years later. 3/9

The author was a journalist and travel writer, Yusuf Samih Asmay (d.1942), who started a pro-Ottoman newspaper in Cairo, Misr, in 1889. He was quite fiercely anti-British and wanted the Ottomans to reassert authority over Egypt after it had become a British protectorate. 4/9

It is a witty & engaging first-hand account based on his 33-day stay, through which we meet an extraordinary cast of characters, most notably the lawyer-journalist, Good Templar and convert Abdullah Quilliam, who lies at the centre of Asmay’s critique of the Institute. 5/9

We meet the outspoken American convert and divorcee Nafeesa Keep (1844–1925), who came to Liverpool from New York seeking guidance and inspiration, but who had become disenchanted with the community after 6 months, whom we’ve not been able to source a photo of yet. 6/9

There’s the 20-year-old Crown Prince of Afghanstan, Nasrullah, who donated £2500 to construct a new mosque in the name of his father, the Amir of Afghanstan, Abdur-Rahman. This donation while welcome also raised questions about the Institute’s financial probity. 7/9

And finally lively and sharp 39-year-old Maulana Barakatullah Bhopali (1854–1927) serving as imam, lecturer and most importantly PR agent for the Institute in the Muslim world, a prominent pan-Islamist and later Prime Minister of the provisional Free India government. 8/9

So join me and @RobertReschid who is talking about her extraordinary ancestor, R. Stanley, who converted to Islam in 19th-century Lancashire. It is a tale of two journeys to Britain’s first attested mosque community in Liverpool, one from Stalybridge and the other from Cairo. END

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