Abstract
This paper describes how a simple transcription error ‘created’ what appeared to be the earliest recorded mosque in Britain. Research in 2008/9 for a project about the history of Muslim settlement in Cardiff included a check of mosque registration data that revealed the origin of the factual inaccuracy. However, the paper does not simply concern itself with debunking the myth that has evolved concerning a mosque, said to have been registered in the Cathays district of Cardiff in 1860 (which in fact was not registered until 1991). Rather, it seeks to explore its contemporary resonances. The broadcast of the ‘first mosque in the UK’ story and its multiple repetition and embellishment has satisfied a growing need to articulate ideas about the longevity and legitimacy of Muslim settlement. As such it has created an important symbolic ‘space’ for framing contemporary Muslim experience in Britain. The paper contemplates the independent life that this myth has taken on, and the way in which its promotion has been useful for politicians, academics, tourism promoters, and indeed British Muslims themselves. However, there is an important contrast between the promotion of a story about a supposed historic mosque, and the lived reality of actual Muslim community building. The latter has much more substance—and ultimately more relevance—than the ascription of dates to buildings. It is the story of community struggle and achievement that the current Cardiff research is uncovering, and this paper argues that the debunking of the myth has provided an opportunity (and a responsibility) to disseminate awareness of the historic settlement of Muslims in the city.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See the project web site at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/relig/research/researchcentres/csi/centre-for-the-study-of-islam-in-the-uk.html
I am grateful to Dr Jody Mellor for searching these archives (March 2009).
See the report of the Glamorgan Archivist to the Joint Archives Joint Committee meeting, http://www.rhondda-cynon-taff.gov.uk/stellent/groups/Public/documents/Reports/023850.pdf, [accessed 23/9/09].
I am grateful to Prof Ceri Peach for sending me his ‘Final Report’ on a project: “Ethnicity and Cultural Landscapes: Mosques Temples and Gurdwaras”, Leverhulme Trust grant F/773/A (unpublished).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml [accessed 23/9/09].
‘Islam in the British Isles: some key events and dates’, http://www.mcb.org.uk/library/scrd181298.php [accessed 23/9/09]
‘The Historical roots of British Islam’, http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/september03_index.php?l=24, [accessed 23/9/09].
Muslims in Britain, http://www.islaminbritishstone.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=68, [accessed 23/9/09]
http://www.therevival.co.uk/wp-site/95, [accessed 23/9/09]
‘What’s on in Cardiff’, http://www.whats-on-in-cardiff.co.uk/cardiff-bay.htm, accessed 23/9/09].
http://www.muslims.plaidcymru.org/content.php?nID=839;lID=1 [accessed 23/9/09]
‘Understanding is key to community integration says First Minister’, http://wales.gov.uk/news/topic/officefirstminister/2007/1746524/?lang=en, [accessed 23/9/09].
Academics have been actively engaged in the production of an evidence base that refutes these sensationalist claims. See for example the special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, November 2009.
‘Islam in British Stone’, http://www.islaminbritishstone.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=50&Itemid=68, [accessed 24/9/09]
See the announcement of funding for this project and brief details at: http://www.hlf.org.uk/English/InYourArea/Wales/News/Small+batch+feature+Feb+09.htm [accessed 25/9/09].
Butetown History and Arts Centre, www.bhac.org [accessed 25/9/09].
References
Ali, M. (2009). ‘Restoring Britain’s oldest mosque’, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1230650228217&pagename=Zone-English-News%2FNWELayout, (accessed, Islam Online, 5/1/09).
Ameer, M. (2004). The Muslims in London: striving for self-sufficiency without isolation. Islamic Tourism, 14, 22–23.
Ansari, H. (2002). The woking mosque: a case study of Muslim engagement with British society since 1889. Immigrants and Minorities, 21(3), 1–24.
Ansari, H. (2004). The ‘Infidel’ within: Muslims in Britain, 1800 to the present. London: Hurst.
Aslet, C. (2005). Landmarks of Britain: the five hundred places that made our history. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Brednich, R. (2002). Where they originated: some contemporary legends and their literary origins. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 20–22, 7–16.
Evans, N. (1980). The South Wales race riots of 1919. LLafur: Journal of the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History, 3(1), 5–29.
Evans, N. (1985). Regulating the reserve army: Arabs, Blacks and the local state in Cardiff, 1919–1945. Immigrants and Minorities, 4(2), 68–115.
From scholarship, sailors and sects to the mills and the mosques. (2002). The Guardian.
Gale, R. (2004). The multicultural city and the politics of religious architecture: urban planning, mosques and meaning-making in Birmingham, UK. Built Environment, 30(1), 18–32.
Geaves, R. (2009). Islam in Victorian Britain: the life and times of Abdullah Quilliam. Leicester: Kube.
Gilliat-Ray, S. (2005). Sheikh Saeed. Agenda: Journal of the Institute of Welsh Affairs, Winter 2005/06: pp. 5.
Gilliat-Ray, S. (2010). Muslims in Britain: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, F. (1992). Arabs in exile: Yemeni migrants in urban Britain. London: I B Tauris.
Harrison, R. (2009) Restoring Britain’s Islamic heritage. Arab News, 6th January.
Heathcote, E. (2009). Mosques and modernity. Financial Times, 14th August.
Lawless, R. (1995). From Ta’izz to Tyneside: An Arab community in the north east of England in the early 20th century. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Little, K. (1942a). Loudoun square: a community survey I. Sociological Review, 34, 12–33.
Little, K. (1942b). Loudoun square: a community survey II. Sociological Review, 34, 119–146.
McAdam, D. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. New York: Guildford.
Mirza, M., Senthilkumaran, A., & Zein, J. (2007). Living apart together: British Muslims and the paradox of multiculturalism. London: Policy Exchange.
Nielsen, J. (2004). Muslims in Western Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Omaar, R. (2006). Only half of me: Being a Muslim in Britain. London: Viking.
Ryan, J., & Naylor, S. (2002). The mosque in the suburbs: negotiating religion and ethnicity in South London. Social and Cultural Geography, 3(1), 39–59.
Sherif, J. (2002). Historical roots of Islam in Britain. In The quest for sanity: Reflections on September 11 and the Aftermath (pp. 163–174). London: Muslim Council of Britain.
Sherwood, M. (1988). Racism and resistance: Cardiff in the 1930s and 1940s. LLafur: Journal of the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History, 5(4), 51–71.
Sherwood, M. (1991). Race, nationality and employment among Lascar seamen, 1660–1945. New Community, 17(2), 229–244.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my colleague, Dr Jody Mellor, for checking archive dates in Cardiff and in Merseyside. Further thanks are also due to the Innovation and Engagement Committee at Cardiff University for funding the research upon which this paper is based. I would also like to acknowledge the support and engagement of other colleagues with an interest in the history of Muslims in Britain and the establishment of mosques in particular: Prof Humayun Ansari, Dr Richard Gale, and Professor Ceri Peach. Particular appreciation must be extended to Dr Abdalla Yassin OBE from the Muslim Council of Wales, who enabled the video-recording of a series of interviews with Sheikh Said, and Mr Ibrahim Harbi from the Somali Integration Society, for inviting the Islam-UK Centre to collaborate with the ‘Four Generations Project’. The research project in Cardiff University has also depended upon the time and cooperation of many local Muslims in the city, for which I am extremely grateful.