Islamic Beliefs History | History |
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Other Prophets in Islam Prophet Adam (AW) Prophet Adam was the first human being to be created by Allah the All-Mighty who we are all descendent from. He was created from clay as Allah the All-Mighty says in the Qur'an "He created man (Adam) from sounding clay like the clay of pottery." ( 55:Quran). he had a wife called Eve (Hawa). When Allah All-Mighty Said: Remember when your Lord said to the angels: "Truly I am going to create man from clay. So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him (his) soul created by Me, then you fall down prostrate to him." So the angels prostrated themselves all of them; except Iblis, he was proud and was one of the disbelievers. Allah said: "What prevented you Iblis that you did not prostrate when I commanded you?" Iblis said: "I am better than him (Adam), You created me from fire and him You created from clay." Allah said: "Get down from this Paradise, it is not for you to be arrogant here. Get out, for you are of those humiliated and disgraced." Iblis said: Allow me respite till the Day of Resurrection)." Allah said: "You are of those allowed respite." (7:11-15 Quran). (http://anwary-islam.com/prophet-story/adam.htm) Prophet Dawud (AW) - David Dawud (AW) was another prophet of Allah, and he was a young man when he fought Goliath, the giant warrior. Many people laughed when he stepped forward to fight him however, he had belief in Allah that he will be protected. One pebble to his head, had knocked him out, lifeless. As stated in the Qur'an: "So they routed them by Allah's Leave and Dawud killed Goliath, and Allah gave him (Dawud) the kingdom (after the death of Saul and Samuel) and wisdom, and taught him of that which He willed. And if Allah did not check one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief. But Allah is full of Bounty to the Alamin (mankind, jinns and all that exist"). (2:251 Quran). And to Dawud We gave the Psalms. (17:55 Quran). The full story can be found at (http://anwary-islam.com/prophet-story/dawud.htm) Prophet Isa (AW) -Jesus In many verses of the Glorious Qur'an Allah the Exalted denied the claim of the Christians that He has a son. A delegation from Nagran came to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). They began to talk about their claim about the Trinity, which is that Allah is three in one, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with some disagreement among their sects. That is why Allah affirmed in many verses of the Qur'an that Isa is a slave of Allah, whom He molded in the womb of his mother like any other of His creatures, and that He created him without a father, as He created Adam without a father or a mother. While Maryam was praying in her temple, an angel in the form of a man appeared before her. Verily! I seek refuge with the Most Beneficent (Allah) from you, if you do fear Allah." The angel said: "I am only a Messenger from your Lord, (to announce) to you the gift of a righteous son." She said: "How can I have a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?" He said: "So (it will be), your Lord said: "That is easy for me (Allah): And (We wish) to appoint him as a sign to mankind and a mercy from Us (Allah), and it is a matter (already) decreed, (by Allah).'" (19:18-21 Quran) The full biography can be found at (http://anwary-islam.com/prophet-story/isa.htm) The Historical Roots of British Islam British Muslims today have a rightful sense of familiarity with their surroundings. The encounter of Islam and the British Isles goes back a long way. Just as under the surface of Britain's handsome landscape there is a complex geological interplay, similarly our cultural topology has been fashioned by diverse forces and interminglings, including the Muslim encounter for over millennium. What better indication then the English language itself. The philologist Richard Derveux has uncovered 600 loan words from Arabic. Far from being an alien deposition in the topsoil, Islam in Britain has deep historical roots.
Eighth - Fifteenth Century Muslim cartographers were well aware of British Isles. Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi in his 'Surat al-Ard', written around 817 mentions a number of places in Britain. Offa of Mercia (died 796) was a powerful Anglo-Saxon King who had coins minted with the inscription of the declaration of Islamic faith (There is no god but Allah) in Arabic. The Ballycottin cross, found on the Southern coast of Ireland and dated around the 9th century also bears an Arabic inscription. At the centre of the cross set in a glass bead in Kufic Arabic script is the phrase 'Bismillah' (in the name of Allah). It is generally believed that the first Englishman known for certain to have been a scholar of Arabic was Henry II's tutor, Adelard of Bath (c, 1125) who travelled in Syria and Muslim Spain and translated a number of Arabic texts into Latin. In the Twelfth Century, King John was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated. Matthew Paris, a contemporary monk, gives details of an emissary sent by King John in 1213 to the North African Amir, Mohammed An-Nasir. King John offered to help Muslims in their campaigns in Spain against the Catholic king of Aragon. Muslim scholarship was well known among the learned in Britain by 1386, when Chaucer was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury, a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Razi, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). Ibn Sina's canon of medicine was a standard text for medical students well into the Seventeenth Century. Following Adelard's footsteps, others too sailed from Britain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in quest of Arabic learning and returned to enlighten their fellow countrymen. This included Danel of Morley and Michael Scotus, whose translations of Aristotle from Arabic were of great value during the Renaissance. The first book ever to have been printed in England by Caxton in 1477 is considered to be 'The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers', which was a translation of a popular Arabic compilation entitled 'Mukhtar al-Hikam Wa mahasin al-Kalim', by Abul Wafa Mubashir Ibn Fatik. `Acknowledgements- 'The Quest for Sanity', published by The Muslim Council of Britain, 2002) Sixteenth & Seventeenth Century This was a time when Muslim naval power dominated the Mediterranean. This expanse included Istanbul, the centre of the Ottoman Empire; Aleppo, a crucial link in the Silk Route; Beirut, "the Marte-towne whereunto all the ships coming from Europe doe arrive"; Jerusalem, the city of pilgrimage; Cairo, a centre of trade, witnessing "the greatest concourse of Mankind in these times, and Fez, "a world for a city". When the threat of the Spanish Armada loomed in the mid-1580s, Queen Elizabeth did not hesitate to ask the Ottoman Sultan Murad for naval assistance against the Spaniards. Of all the countries of Europe, Britain enjoyed the most extensive trade with Muslim lands. The first English convert to Islam whose name survives in an English source, 'The Voyage made to Tripoli (1583)', was a "son of a yeoman of our Queen's Guard.His name was John Nelson". A Chair of Arabic at the University of Oxford was established in 1636, and it was known that Charles I collected Arabic and Persian manuscripts. The Bodleian Library in Oxford has the manuscript of a letter to Charles from Sutlan al-Walid of Morocco - part of this reads, "To our exalted presence has come your noble servant, John Harrison, well and in good health and with far-reaching, sincere hopes. He has taken up residence with us, encompassed by kindness and treated with all manner of genorisity.... The turmoil of the Civil War may have encouraged some Englishmen to break with tradition and an account written in 1641 referred to "a sect of Mahomatens" being "discovered here in London". By 1646, King Charles was holed up in Oxford under siege by Cromwell's army and the worst of the fighting was soon to be over with defeat for the Royalists. In December 1648, the 'Council of Mechanics' of the new Commonwealth voted for a toleration of various religious groups, including the Muslims. The next year, in 1649, the first English translation of the Qur'an, by Ross, was printed. It had two imprints, attesting to a wide circulation. Following the regicide in 1649, sole authority now rested with Cromwell, 'Lord Protector'. Reference to Islam and Muslims was part of the discourse of the times. Cromwell's enemies attacked the revolutionaries for their disrespect of parish priests and rejection of the 'High Anglican' official tenets: "And indeed if Christians will but diligently read and observe the Laws and Histories of the Mahometans, they may blush to see how zealous they are in the works of devotion, piety and charity, how devout, cleanly and reverend in their Mosques, how obedient to their Priests, that even the Great Turk himself will attempt nothing without consulting his Mufti." The revolutionaries, according to their critics, followed their own self-declared religious authorities, while even the Sultan heeded the advice of the Mufti on religious matters. Other writers who were unsympathetic to the revolution compared the 'Professours of Religion' amongst the Turks with 'the Puritans' of Cromwell. In Cromwell's camp there were men like the remarkable Henry Stubbe, scholar in Latin, Greek and Hebrew and friend of Pococke, the first professor of Arabic in Oxford. Cromwell, or his Secretary, John Milton, showed familiarity with the Qur'an in a letter to the ruler of Algiers in June 1656. "Cromwell expected the addressee to abide by the commercial agreements between their two countries because of the nature of Muslim religion: 'We now at this time require the like of you who have declar'd your selves hitherto in all things to be men loving righteousness, hating wrong, & observing faithfulnesse in covenant.' The last words repeat the exact description of Islam as a religion that advocates righteousness and repudiates wrong-doing." From secretary to antiquarian to Lord Protector, the Qur'an was a text widely consulted and quoted: it had legitimacy for addressing not only Muslims overseas but Christians in England and the rest of the British Isles. Stubbe's contemporary at Cambridge, Isaac Newton, who was much influenced by Muslim Arab scholarship placed the offer of the Lucasian Professorship made to him in 1674 at risk by refusing to take holy orders, a mandatory requirement at the time. Newton secretly rejected Trinitarianism (according to his biographer, Michael White, Newton was 'fanatically opposed' to the concept of Trinity). Fortunately for science, King Charles II granted him a special dispensation and all subsequent holders of the chair were exempted from holy orders. Texts in Arabic in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and medicine were central to higher education in England in the seventeenth century. In order to obtain access to the advanced knowledge of the day, not only were translations commenced at Oxford and Cambridge, but preparations were made to train a generation of Arabic scholars. A visitor to Westminster School observed in his diary, "I heard & saw such exercises at the election of scholars at Westminster School, to be sent to the Universitie, both in Lat: Gr: Heb: Arabic in Theames & extemporary Verses, as wonderfully astonish'd me, in such young striplings." Linguistic ability was important, because, in the words of Isaac Barrow, Cambridge Professor of Mathematics, 'the mastery of Arabic was necessary for the advancement of learning'. Muslim intellectual giants came to be known by their anglicised names 'Alfarabi, Algazel, Abensina, Abenrusd, Abulfeda, Abdiphaker, Almanzor, Alhazen'. Walter Salmon included among the authorities of his Practical Physik (1692) 'Geber Arabs', or the chemist (and alchemist) Jabir ibn Hayyam. Robert Boyle, the chemist known to every schoolboy, studied Arabic sciences in order to be able to challenge the 'groundless traditional conceptions' in contemporary learning. Boyle in turn acted as a guide for Isaac Newton, a seeker of the truth who naturally became drawn to the esoteric sciences (perhaps better called the mystical arts). Newton, in the words of Maynard Keynes, 'regarded the universe as a cryptogram set by the Almighty'. Newton left behind more than a million words on the subject of alchemy - itself an Arabic word. An illustration from 1676 shows two Englishmen being served coffee, in the company of a turbaned Turk with twirled moustaches. The Turk is big and at ease, while his table companions are sitting in a demure fashion. It is an apt imagery that applies not just to the social interaction in the first coffeehouses that appeared in Britain around this period, but to the wider inter-relationships between Britain and Muslims in the seventeenth century. The Colonial Period In 1897 a map of the British Empire would include Nigeria, Egypt, India and Malaya, all large territories with significant Muslim populations. Muslim lands provided the manpower and material resources that contributed to the prosperity of Victorian and Edwardian England. The colonial encounter first brought Muslims to Britain as seamen, soldiers or students. The seamen, known as 'lascars', established the first communities in the main ports of England and Scotland. By the turn of the century there were also several hundred Muslim peddlers, who even ventured to the remoter parts of Scotland with their wares and medicines. For a long period during her reign Queen Victoria employed two male Indian secretaries - Mohammed Buksh and Abdul Karim. They both entered the Queen's service three days after her Golden Jubilee in 1887, but while Buksh remained at the rank of bearer, Abdul Karim became her secretary and an influential figure in the Royal Household. The 'Muslim time-line' below describes how a Muslim community emerged in more recent times, with information on its most important personalities. 1860: Existence of a mosque at 2 Glyn Rhondda Street, Cardiff, recorded in the Register of Religious Sites (now maintained by the Office of National Statistics) 1886: Founding of the Anjuman-I-Islam in London, later renamed the Pan-Islamic Society. 1887: William Henry Quilliam (Shaikh Abdullah Quilliam) embraced Islam and led a small community in Liverpool. In 1889 the community rented a house, 8 Brougham Terrace, to serve as a prayer hall. He would personally call the adhan - the call to prayer - from one of its upper windows. The community was soon able to purchase the rented property and also 9-12 Brougham Terrace, which became the Liverpool Muslim Institute. Following a visit to Turkey Abdullah Quilliam was given the title 'Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles' by the Sultan. He founded a weekly journal, The Crescent, that was published from 1893 to1908. Quilliam is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, near Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking. 1889: Establishment of the Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking, with an adjoining student hostel, under the patronage of the Indian Muslim princess, the Begum of Bhopal. It was the base for the journal Muslim 'India and the Islamic Review', re-named as 'the Islamic Review' in 1921. An early editer was the charismatic Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, a barrister originally from Lahore. 1910: Syed Ameer Ali convened a public meeting at the Ritz Hotel for the establishment of the London Mosque Fund for "a mosque in London worthy of the tradition of Islam and worthy of the capital of the British Empire". He was the first Indian to be appointed Privy Councilor and to be given membership of the Judicial Committee, the then Supreme Court of the Raj. On retirement in 1904 he settled in Britain with his English wife, His sons Waris and Tariq would subsequently serve as trustees on a number of the first mosque projects in London. 1913: First issue of the journal 'Muslim India & The Islamic Review', later renamed the 'Islamic Review', Woking. The journal was published for sixty years. 1914: Friday prayers held under the auspices of the London Mosque Fund, first in Lindsay Hall, Notting Hill Gate, and later at 39 Upper Bedford Place. The venue then shifted to 111 Campden Hill Road, where prayers were conducted till October 1928. 1916: British Muslim Lord Headley (Al-Haj El-Farooq) writes to Secretary of State Austen Chamberlain for allocation of state funds for the purchase and construction of a mosque in London "in memory of Muslim soldiers who died fighting for the Empire". 1917: Marmaduke Pickthall, the son of an Anglican clergyman and distinguished poet and novelist, declared his Islam in dramatic fashion after delivering a talk on'Islam and Progress' on 29 November 1917 to the Muslim Literary Society in Notting Hill, West London. Throughout the Great War (1914-1918), and even prior to declaring his faith as a Muslim, he wrote extensively in support of the Ottomans. When a vicious propaganda campaign was launched in 1915 over the massacres of Armenians, Pickthall rose to the challenge and argued that all the blame could not be placed on the Turkish government. At a time when many Indian Muslims in London had been coopted by the Foreign Office to provide propaganda services in support of Britain's war against Turkey, Pickthall's stand was a most courageous one and of great integrity. When British Muslims were asked to decide whether they were loyal to the Allies (Britain and France) or the Central Powers (Germany and Turkey), Pickthall said he was ready to be a combatant for his country so long as he did not have to fight the Turks. He was conscripted in the last months of the war and became corporal in charge of an influenza isolation hospital. The Foreign Office would have dearly liked to have used his talents as a linguist, but instead decided to regard him as a security risk. 1928: Formation of the London Nizamiah Mosque Trust Fund by Lord Headly (Al-Haj El-Farooq) ; these funds were subsequently transferred to the London Central Mosque Fund (present day Islamic Cultural Centre in Regents Park). 1930: A branch of the Western Islamic Association was formed in South Shields by Khalid Sheldrake. In 1936 there was also a sufi zawiya in South Shields at 45 Cuthbert Street. By 1938 the Muslim community was 700 strong. 1933: Muslim Society of Great Britain, under the presidency of Ismail de Yorke, organises Islamic events at the Portman Rooms, Baker Street. 1934: Formation of the Jamiat Muslimeen, East London, under the presidency of Dr. Qazi, with branches in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle. Following the death of Lord Headley, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy took over as chairman of the Nizamiah Mosque Trust. 1937: Abdullah Yusuf Ali, best known in the English-speaking Muslim world for his monumental translation and commentary of the Holy Qur'an, finally settles in Britain after years as an itinerant educationalist. British Muslims initiate their first political campaign by expressing opposition to the Peel Commission's proposals for the partitioning of Palestine. Yusuf Ali, drawing on his first-hand knowledge of the mandates drawn up by the League of Nations, lectured widely on the injustice in Palestine, at venues in Brighton, Cambridge and London. Yusuf Ali was the only non-ambassadorial trustee of the London Central Mosque Fund, thus representing the British Muslim community. 1940: Churchill, at a war cabinet meeting on 24th October, authorises allocation of funds for the acquisition of a site for the London mosque. 1941: East London Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre opened by the Egyptian Ambassador, Dr Hassan Nahjat Pasha. The Mosque was subsequently managed by the Jamiat Muslimeen. 1943: Formation of the Jamiat Ittihad Muslimeen, Glasgow. The Jamiat's first mosque was at 27/29 Oxford Street, Glasgow. 1944: King George VI visits the Islamic Cultural Centre - Regents Lodge in Regents Park - for its official opening. 1950 - 1975: If the main emphasis of Muslims in the earlier period was the establishment of proper prayer facilities, the emphasis would shift towards the establishment of social, educational and welfare institutions. While not 'history' - it may well appear in the distant past to the majority of British Muslims today - half of whom are under thirty years old! 1962: Groups of students from six cities meet in Birmingham to form the Federation of the Students Islamic Societies in the UK & Eire (FOSIS). The UK Islamic Mission was also formed this year. 1969: The Muslim Educational Trust came into being, addressing the needs of Muslim schoolchildren, and publishing the landmark 'First Primer of Islam' in April 1969. 1970: Martin Lings (Abu Bakr Sirajuddin) appointed Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the British Museum. The Union of Muslim Organisations (UMO) was formed with Dr Syed Aziz Pasha as General Secretary. Bashir Maan elected the first Muslim councillor in Glasgow. 1971: Jamiat-ul-Muslimeen, Manchester, commence work on a purpose built mosque in Victoria Park; 'Impact International', the authoritative Muslim news magazine, launched in London in May; the ulema association 'Jamiat Ulema Britain' formed. 1973: Establishment of the Islamic Council of Europe, with headquarters in London and diplomat Salem Azzam appointed Secretary General. The Islamic Foundation, Leicester (subsequently relocated in 1990 to Markfield) was also formed this year with Professor Khurshid Ahmed as its first Director General. 1974: Opening of the Dar-al-Uloom, Holmcombe Hall, Bury; publication of the 'Draft Prospectus of the Muslim Institute for Research and Planning', by Dr Kalim Siddiqui 1976: World of Islam festival in London 1977: Belfast Islamic Centre established; Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) reverts to Islam. 1978: Completion of the new markaz of the Tableegh Jamaat in Dewsbury. In his best-selling book 'The English', Jeremy Paxman offers a relatively well-known historical fact but then in his inimitable style concludes with a startling insight, "the first thing you discover about the English, is that they are not English - in the sense of coming from England - at all. They had arrived from Jutland, Anglen and Lower Saxony. The 'English race', if such a thing exists, is German. These first English people certainly demonstrated characteristics, which have reasserted themselves periodically through the English story.... they showed early symptoms of that urge to smash things which seizes the country from time to time, whether in the destruction of the monasteries or the levelling of town centres in the 1960s". But there can be other less destructive patterns in social and cultural history - the multicultural conviviality of the Elizabethan coffee houses are due for a comeback. References The Islamic Quarterly, London, Volume I, April- July1957, 'The British Isles According To Medieval Arabic Authors' by D. M. Dunlop The Islamic Quarterly, London. Volumes XVII, Nos. 1 and 2, January-June 1973, 'A letter to Charles I of England from the Sultan Al-Walid of Morocco' by D. S. Richards. The Islamic Quarterly, London. Volumes XX-XXII, No. 4, December 1978, 'Some Oriental Elements in Islamic Scholarship in the West' by R. Hawari The Islamic Quarterly, London. Volumes XXVIII, No. 3, Third Quarter 1984, 'The Arabic contribution to English' b Robert Devereux 'Islam in Britain 1558 - 1685' (Cambridge University Press, 1998) by Professor Nabil Matar. The section above 'Sixteenth & Seventeenth Century' quotes extensively from this source. 'British and Muslim?' by Abdal-Hakim Murad http://www.islamfortoday.com/murad05.htm |
