Thursday 29 April 2021

New and Noted: Islam in Victorian Liverpool


Out next month: I haven't seen it yet, but it looks interesting. Details: "The history of Abdullah Quilliam’s activities as the leader of Liverpool Muslim Institute from 1887 to World War One provides a rich laboratory to understand the formative period of modern Islamic thought and the long-lasting geopolitical legacies of the Ottoman and British imperial relationship in shaping contemporary Muslim political identities. Scholars have been fascinated by the extraordinary success of Liverpool’s convert Muslim community and Quilliam's personal charisma in establishing transnational intellectual links with Muslims across the world, the support they received from Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid, and the unprecedented impact they had on contesting the racialization of Islam in the metropole of the British Empire. By translating and publishing an Ottoman-Egyptian intellectual’s critique of this community, Birt, Macnamara and Maksudoğlu shed new light and insight on the global politics of pan-Islamic thought in the high age of imperialism. With great attention to details of personalities, events and conflicts within and around the small Liverpool Muslim Institute, this book provides an excellent example of microhistory that informs, challenges and revises our big narratives of caliphate diplomacy, pan-Islamic solidarity and imperial politics. This annotated translation of Yusuf Samih Asmay’s critical account of “Islam in Victorian Liverpool” is presented with an authoritative scholarly introduction, and should be a required primary text on both graduate and undergraduate courses on imperial Muslim thought and politics."

Book page

Cardiff's Muslim Community in 1947

An interesting photo from the opening of the Peel St mosque (which is also the subject of other photos elsewhere); I'm not certain of the origins of this one.

Monday 26 April 2021

Brick Lane Identity Crisis

Alice Kemp-Habib, GQ, The battle for Brick Lane's curry houses goes to the heart of British-Bangladeshi identity

"A row over a plot of land in East London has ignited mass protest. Could this mark the end for Brick Lane’s iconic curry houses, a focal point for the Bangladeshi community's identity and resistance?" Interesting article. Let's hope Brick Lane's character is maintained.

Thursday 15 April 2021

Muslim Representation

Khadijah Elshayyal, Cage, Rethinking Muslim Representation – 20 years after 9/11

"What can a Muslim political advocacy look like, that addresses Britain’s Muslims themselves and their institutions, with all their diversity and disagreements, their rivalries and their richness?"

Friday 2 April 2021

Sewell Report

Plenty of coverage of the Sewell Report on my Twitter, but here are a few key items: Kalwant Bhopal, Guardian, The Sewell report displays a basic misunderstanding of how racism works

"The government must move away from perpetuating a hierarchy of oppression that promotes the idea of white victimhood and discounts race inequity as a lesser problem. The result of refusing to acknowledge institutional racism is that the government will refuse to act upon it. Instead, Black and minority ethnic children will be blamed for their failings. The commission’s denial of institutional racism is based on an illusory meritocracy, where individuals are wholly responsible for their own success, and Black and ethnic minority pupils must simply work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they are to succeed."