Islam and Britain

The history of British Islam before the Second World War has been an abiding concern of the religious studies scholar Ron Geaves. In this follow-up to his biography of the British Muslim convert Abdullah Quilliam, Geaves offers a focused exploration of the origins and activities of the Muslim Ahmadiyya movement in Punjab and Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The early chapters of the book trace the founding of the movement by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889, emphasizing how British control of India and the widespread narrative of ‘Islam in danger’ shaped a range of Islamic reform movements in South Asia. In some respects, Ahmad’s teaching aligned with orthodox Hanafi doctrine and practice, emphasizing the superiority of the Quran over other religious scriptures and the reasonableness of Islam. But Ahmad also stood out among Indian Muslim reformers of the period. At the same time that he rejected violent jihad and embraced British rule as a part of a divine plan, he adopted a combative approach towards Christianity, challenging British missionaries to debates and prayer duels. Ahmad went beyond defending Islam against Christianity in India, also calling for a programme of missionary work around the world. The most distinctive characteristic of the Ahmadiyya movement was its teaching on Ahmad himself. In 1891, Ahmad declared himself a prophet and the promised messiah, a proclamation that many other Muslims deemed heretical to the idea of Muhammad as the seal of the prophets. To this day, Ahmadi Muslims are viewed as outside the fold of Islam by many other Muslims

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