74 Geaves
established a mosque, a Muslim school and an orphanage in the city.5 By 1893
he had attracted the attention of the Sultan of the Ottomans, Abdul Hamid ii,
the titular Caliph of the Sunni Muslim world, and the Amir of Afghanistan.
The former was to award Abdullah Quilliam the title of Sheikh al-Islam
of the British Isles and the latter donated £2300 for the purchase of the mosque
premises consisting of a boys’ and a girls’ day school, facilities for evening
classes, a Literary Society, Oriental Library and Museum, a boarding house for
visiting Muslims, an orphanage and a printing works. It is estimated that by
1908 when he left Liverpool to reside in Istanbul he had converted over two
hundred and fifty native-born English men and women to Islam. Perhaps more
significantly he had attracted to Islam a number of prominent personalities
who were to play major roles in the establishment of the London Muslim com-
munity in the early decades of the twentieth century.
The Muslim community in Liverpool was more than a group of English
middle-class converts. The renown of the British lawyer and his mosque in Liv-
erpool had gone out to the Muslim world.6 At the time, Liverpool was the sec-
ond city of the Empire and the gateway through which most Muslims arrived
in the country. The new railway linked the city to Manchester and to the rest of
the nation. Wealthy upper-class Muslims had already developed their own ver-
sion of a world tour and arrived in Liverpool on the steamships. They would use
the city as a place of transit to visit London, Europe and even the usa. Many
had heard of the mosque in the city and visited, often staying as a guest in Quil-
liam’s villa, from where they would attend jum’a prayers on Friday, sometimes
even giving lectures on various aspects of Islam or Muslim culture and history.
The steamships did not only bring the wealthy to the shores of England. The
Lascars (Asian seamen) were often in dire straits, stranded in Britain’s ports
as they waited to contract a journey home. Abdullah Quilliam became their
5 Ibid., 4; The Sunday Telegraph, 29th October 1896.
6 Quilliam’s recognition in the Muslim world acknowledged his efforts to establish Islam in
Britain. The Shah of Persia requested to meet the “English Muslim” and congratulated him
on his conversion, giving him a gold pin in the shape of a bird’s nest, the eggs made of pearls.
In 1888, he had already been preaching Islam and had secured a few converts. In 1889 he
wrote The Faith of Islam which went to three editions and thirteen translations. In 1890 he
was invited to visit Constantinople by the Sultan of Turkey and given hospitality at the Palace
of Yildiz for over a month and pressed to accept decorations and honours but declined. In
1891 he was appointed Sheikh ul-Islam of Great Britain by the Sultan of Turkey and the Amir
of Afghanistan. In 1893 he visited Spain and Morocco for the second time, where he was
awarded the title of alim by the University of Fez. He stayed in Africa for several months, vis-
iting the Canaries, Senegambia, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Gold Coast and Lagos.
In Sierra Leone he opened a mosque on behalf of the Sultan who could not attend himself.