The Woking Mosque Muslims

British Islam in the Early Twentieth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID6085658
AuthorsJeremy Shearmur
Year2014
Volume34
Issue2
Pages165-173
Publication date2014-04-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInstitute of Muslim Minority Affairs Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-6952 • E-ISSN: 1469-9591
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13602004.2014.911584
OpenAlexW2009797970
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited2

This paper discusses the views and social character of the group of British Muslims, centred round the Woking Mosque in the period immediately following the First World War. It argues that this group had four distinctive characteristics. First, it formed its own cultural community, rather than joining a pre-existing ethnic community. Second, it espoused an orthodox but modernistic Islam, influenced by—while not sharing the distinctive doctrines of—the Lahore Ahmadiyya. Third, it faced a leadership problem. Other than Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din (who played a key role in the group's early days, and who was a leading member of the Lahore Ahmadiyya, but had been given a specific brief not to spread their distinctive doctrines), the group was in many ways thrown upon its own resources. Here, Marmaduke Pickthall—subsequently the author of The Meaning of the Glorious Quran—played a major role. But while he had good colloquial and subsequently classical Arabic, his knowledge of Islam was largely self-taught. A final problem here was posed by the fact that the group attracted some converts—including Lord Headley—who exercised considerable influence because of their social standing, but whose knowledge of Islam was limited. Notes1. Most of the issues of this are available on the Internet (http://www.wokingmuslim.org/work/islamic-review/index.htm). I have consulted issues not so available, in the SOAS Library in London. It was initially entitled Muslim India and Islamic Review.2. By “modernistic”, I here mean attempts to reform the practice of Islam and interpret its doctrines, in ways that would fit the lives of people living within, or influenced by, conditions in Western societies from the end of the nineteenth century up to the present day. This contrasts with the kind of modernisation which took place under the impact of colonial-style education, in which a shift to more formal instruction in a classroom was combined with conservatism in the interpretation of religious doctrine (see, on this John R. Bowen, A New Anthropology of Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, Chapter 2).3. See Eric Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale: Ahmadi-Lahori Networks in the Inter-War Period”, in Islam in Inter-War Europe, eds. Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 89–128. In the light of Germain's first-rate documentation of the Lahore Ahmadiyya background of the mission based at Woking, it is worth stressing that: (a) as he notes (p. 103) until the 1930s, the Lahore Ahmadiyya were considered “by many as a modernist, atypical but orthodox Sunni group”; (b) Kamal-ud-Din had explicitly been given the brief of not promulgating anything that could be considered to be of a sectarian character. Cf. http://www.wokingmuslim.org/history/kh-beg/1912.htm; and for his own view of “sects” in Islam, http://aaiil.org/text/biog/auto/kkintrvw.shtml. See also, for a full discussion of Ahmadi religious thought (and of Kamal-ud-Din's role in the Ahmadi movement), Yohanan Freidmann, Prophecy Continuous, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.4. Eric Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale”, op. cit.5. K. Humayun Ansari, “The Woking Mosque: A Case Study of Muslim Engagement with British Society Since 1889”, Immigrants & Minorities, Vol. 21, No. 3, 2002, pp. 1–24. (He simply refers to a disavowal that Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din took Ahmad to be a prophet.).6. I am quoting from the version available in Writings of Muhammad Marmaduke William Pickthall, ed. Muhammad Haneef Shahid, Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 2003, p. 200.7. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, The Cultural Side of Islam, New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan [1927] 1990.8. Pickthall refers to him in The Cultural Side of Islam, Chapter 8; and his Les Institutions politiques dans la société musulmane was translated by Pickthall as “The Reform of Islamic Society”, and published in the journal that Pickthall was editing, Islamic Culture, in Hyderabad January 1927, pp. 111–135 (it has been reprinted more recently in Islamic Studies 2008, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 379–404). See also Sayid Tanvir Wasti, “Said Halim Pasha—Philosopher Prince”, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2008, pp. 85–104, and Ahmet Şeyhun, Said Halim Pasha, Istanbul: Isis, 2003.9. See, on this G. Breckerlegge, “Followers of ‘Mohammed, Kalee and Dada Nanuk’: the Presence of Islam and South Asian Religions in Victorian Britain”, in Religion in Victorian Britain: Volume V Culture and Empire, ed. John Wolffe, Manchester: Manchester University Press and The Open University Press, 1997, pp. 222–267, and Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, Markfield: Kube, 2010.10. See also Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale”, op. cit., pp. 103ff for the development of hostility towards the Ahmadiyya and the success of their outreach in Europe.11. See, for a history of the Woking Mosque, Muslim P. Salamat, A Miracle at Woking, Chichester: Phillimore, 2008.12. See http://www.wokingmuslim.org/13. On whom, see http://www.wokingmuslim.org/pers/dr_leitner.htm; the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and also Salamat's discussion in A Miracle at Woking.14. See also the brief account of the history of Islam in England, by Mushir Hosein Kidwai, available at: http://www.wokingmuslim.org/history/kidwai/ise-1.htm. Breckerlegge refers to a report in the Illustrated London News, 9 November 1889, pp. 590 f., according to which Muslim members of Queen Victoria's household attended the mosque for the celebration of festivals.15. See text to notes 19 and 20 in Chapter 8 of Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, op.cit.16. It was used occasionally, including for a visit by the Baha'i Abdul Baha in January 1913: see Eric Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale”, p. 94.17. See, for a slightly different but not necessarily incompatible story, Salamat's A Miracle at Woking, op. cit.18. Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, op. cit., refers to another group in London, the Anjuman-i Islamia, of South African Muslims of Indian ethnicity, who met in the area of Regents Park. They had an association with Quilliam, but I do not know if they had links with the Woking-based group.19. This volume, compiled by Dr S. A. Khulusi, was published by the Woking Mosque and reprinted in May 1963; a pdf version is available at http://aaiil.org/text/books/kk/islamourchoicemuslimconvertstories/islamourchoicemuslimconvertstories.shtml. There are other editions, but those available from other sources have typically had references to the Lahore Ahmadiyya removed from them; cf. http://www.muslim.org/light/97-2.htm20. Quilliam does not seem to have offered any systematic account of his conversion, and the fullest account seems to have been given when he wrote in the persona of De Leon, in The Islamic Review, January 1915, pp. 4–7 (see Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, Chapter 8, text to note 34). Pickthall wished to become a Muslim during the course of his travels as a young man in the Middle East; he subsequently wished to convert while he was in Turkey, and eventually did so in 1917 (see Muhammad Haneef Shahid's “Introduction” to Writings of Pickthall, p. x). In the case of Evelyn Cobbold, it is not clear just when she became a Muslim—see her Pilgrimage to Mecca, London: Arabian Publishing, 2008.21. British converts to Islam seem to have had a marked proclivity for writing poetry; see, for a recent collection, Brent D. Singleton (ed.) The Convert's Passion, Rockville, MD: Borgo Press, 2009. The material in the anthology was taken from those associated with Quilliam.22. See, for an informative but heavily sarcastic treatment, with reproductions of contemporary newspaper accounts, http://china.notspecial.org/archives/2008/02/index.html. It is interesting, however, that Sheldrake subsequently broke with the Woking Mosque—cf. Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale”, pp. 106–107.23. It is striking that Quilliam's group also developed their own outreach activities to fit the expectations of a British community. See also, for a brief account of British Muslim organisations, http://aobm.org.uk/main/?page_id=3024. Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, Friday Sermons, The Mosque, Woking: Basheer Muslim Library, n.d. Available at: http://aaiil.org/text/books/others/muhammadmarmadukepickthall/fridaysermons/fridaysermons.shtml25. Useful studies include: Anne Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, London: Hutchinson, 1938; Peter Clark, Marmaduke Pickthall, London: Quartet, 1986 and M. A. Sherif, Brave Hearts: Pickthall and Philby—Two English Muslims in a Changing World, Selangor: Islamic Book Trust, 2011. (It is interesting to note that Fremantle, who became a distinguished Catholic woman of letters, was as a young woman briefly converted to Islam, under the influence of Pickthall. See her contribution, “All this, and Heaven Too”, to John Anthony O'Brien (ed.) Roads to Rome, New York: Macmillan, 1954, pp. 166–184.).26. See Sherif, Brave Hearts, op. cit., p. 5.27. For a brief account of this, see the chapter on Pickthall in Jonathan Schneer's brilliant The Balfour Declaration, New York: Random House, 2010.28. See, on this, the discussion in Brave Hearts, op. cit., pp. 29–30.29. See his “The Liverpool Muslim Movement”, Islamic Review, Vol. 2, No. 4, May 1914, pp. 166–168; see p. 166.30. See Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, op. cit., Chapter 1, text following note 21.31. There has been some controversy about the extent to which there was the practice of Islam among Muslim settlers in port districts in England; but it would seem as if there was nothing of an organised character. There was also the South African Muslim group in London with whom Quilliam was in contact.32. See, on this, John Zubrzycki, The Last Nizam, London: Pan Macmillam, 2006.33. On which see, for example, Helen Rose Ebaugh, The Gülen Movement, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010; Muhammed Çetin, The Gülen Movement, New York: Blue Dome, 2010 and John L. Esposito and Ihsan Yilmaz (eds.), Islam and Peacebuilding, New York: Blue Dome, 2010

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