Fatima Cates

BBC News, Fatima Cates: Victorian woman who helped set up UK's first mosque honoured "Born Francess Elizabeth Murray, she is believed to be the first woman to convert to Islam on British soil when she became a Muslim in 1887." Also see Hamid Mahmood and Yahya Birt, Beacon Books, Our Fatima of Liverpool: The Story of Fatima Cates, the Victorian woman who helped found British Islam

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality has just been published. Congratulations to the editors Bruce B. Lawrence and Vincent J. Cornell for bringing this volume (and team of contributors) together:

"The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality is an authoritative reference work comprising twenty-eight scholarly essays that explore the expressive and performative dimensions of Islamic spirituality. Edited by two of its most prominent scholars, and bringing together a stellar cast of contributors, this wide-ranging volume covers religious practices, sacred texts, history and places, gender, music, poetry, the visual arts, and politics."

I was pleased to contribute a chapter on ‘Islamic Spirituality and the Internet’ to the book.

Prince Harry's book

https://t.co/9x9S4AqTSw
'Crime against humanity' - senior Taliban leader hits out at Harry over '25 kills'

— Gary Bunt (@garybunt) January 6, 2023

'They'

BBC Radio 4, Sarfraz Manzoor, 'They'

Sarfraz Manzoor's 'They' was a Book of the Week on Radio 4. It's a worthwhile listen. There are some references to the influence of social media too (on episode 3), but I recommend the whole series.

'They' - Sarfraz Manzoor's New Book

Sirin Kale, Guardian, Sarfraz Manzoor on how prejudice works both ways in British Muslim communities

"[But] now, aged 50, Manzoor is returning to the subject of British Muslims with his book They, a nuanced exploration of the lives of the 3.4 million Muslim people living in Britain today. (They specifically focuses on Muslims of south Asian descent, the community with which Manzoor is most closely connected.)"

Mahmood Mattan

BBC News, Booker Prize: Novel inspired by last hanging at Cardiff prison

"Mr Mattan was posthumously acquitted in 1998 - 46 years after he was executed - when it was found evidence had been largely fabricated and manipulated by police at the time.

"Somali-born author Nadifa Mohamed said her motive for writing the semi-fictionalised The Fortune Men was to portray the real Mahmood Mattan."

Responses to Ed Husain's Book

A Daily Mail newspaper article based on Ed Husain's new book has received negative responses online, of which this is one of the most high-profile:

These are complete and utter lies designed to do nothing but divide. The damage this does to all of us is devastating. It’s shameful, disgusting and a national embarrassment. Many are trying to bring us together, yet those with the largest platforms spread vile, dangerous hate. pic.twitter.com/5gQa7aOaAu

— Adil Ray OBE 💙 (@adilray) June 5, 2021

Here's a review of the book:

Yahya Birt, Medium, A Brown Sahib’s Lament: Ed Husain Among the Minarets

"Ed Husain’s latest screed on British Islam is a mashup between a Thomas Friedman in-depth ethnography via Uber, V. S. Naipaul’s gothic horror of all things Islamic, and a “brown sahib” reworking of post-Brexit English nationalism. In lieu of a review that it doesn’t warrant, I offer this brief visceral reaction instead."

Publisher's page

I haven't seen the book myself (not sure I am encouraged by the views of the above).

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

Book review: Afua Hirsch

Guardian, Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch review – everyday racism and a search for identity, 19 Jan 2018

This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World

Independent, This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World by Jerry Brotton, book review "With Henry VIII's break with Rome and then (in 1570) Elizabeth's excommunication as a "heretic" by Pope Pius V, England found itself shunned as a rogue state by Catholic Europe. It needed friends with clout in strategic locations. Around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, only the lands of Islam could supply them. Thus the stage was set for an extraordinary half-century of adventures, deals, conspiracies and misunderstandings: a little-known story that Brotton chronicles with scholarship, assurance, and not a little charm."

Muslim Women in Britain: De-Mystifying the Muslimah

Sariya Contractor, Muslim Women in Britain: De-Mystifying the Muslimah (Hardback) - Routledge

New book: "Perceptions of Muslim women in Western society have been shaped by historical and sociological conditions such as colonialism, patriarchy and Orientalism. In Muslim Women in Britain, Sariya Contractor seeks to reinstate the Muslimah as a storyteller who tells her own story."

The book is expensive (£80) - hopefully a cheaper edition will emerge in due course, as it looks very interesting.

Maajid Nawaz interview

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - Start the Week, National Identity with Maajid Nawaz and Sir Christopher Meyer.  For information (and UK residents who can access Radio 4's Listen Again): Maajid Nawaz discusses his opinions and publicises a new book entitled 'Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening'. I haven't read this book yet, not seen any reviews.

New and noted - Muslims in Britain: Making Social and Political Space

Muslims in Britain: Making Social and Political Space. Edited by Waqar Ahmad, Ziauddin Sardar (Routledge) "The management of social, religious and ethnic diversity is a key social policy concern in Britain, and Muslims in particular have become a focus of attention in recent years. This timely and topical volume examines the position of Muslims in Britain and how they are changing and making social, political and religious space." I am looking forward to reading this in due course (haven't seen it yet).

New book: 'Towards Building a British Islam'

Haifaa A. Jawad, Towards Building a British Islam: New Muslims' Perspectives, Continuum Books "Despite the current negative image of Islam in Europe there has been a steady growth of converts to Islam over the past few decades. British converts are a highly diverse group, with different social, economic and educational backgrounds. Recently this group has grown in confidence and become increasingly active in influencing positive Islamic discourse in Britain. The book sheds light on the intellectual and spiritual contributions of some of the prominent figures of this group of ‘new Muslims’, and assesses their efforts in shaping Islam in British society; including: Martin Lings, Gai Eaton, Tim Winter and Hamza Yusuf."

New book: 'The Muslim Oskar Schindler'

Michael Theodoulou, The National, The Muslim Oskar Schindler gets belated recognition, 8 Jan 2012 "He was an aristocratic and charismatic young bon viveur who loved parties, good food, fine clothes and beautiful women. But Abdol-Hossein Sardari was also a hero.

"As a junior Iranian diplomat in wartime Paris, he saved thousands of Iranian and other Jews from becoming Holocaust victims."

Maktabah

Telegraph, Terrorists' favourite bookseller guilty, 15 Dec 2011 "The Maktabah website received nearly 20m hits from 460,000 obsessive users, more than a third of whom lived in the US.

"Faraz made profits of at least £62,000 and employed a number of salesmen, sending unsolicited copies of his books to Islamic shops around the country."

Book: Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media

Peter Stauber (Reviewer), Counterfire, Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media  

Book review of Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media, eds. Julian Petley and Robin Richardson (Oneworld Publications 2011), 352pp

There's also a review by Tom Mills at New Left Project, Book Review: Pointing the Finger

As with so many other titles I refer to in my blogs, I haven't read this book yet (it cropped up in one of my student's papers!), but look forward to seeing it sometime.  

Framing Muslims: Representation in Culture and Society Post-9/11

I lifted this from the email announcement, as it looks interesting. Please address any questions to the organisers, rather than myself:

AbdoolKarim Vakil (King’s College, London)co-editor of Thinking Through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives Hurst 2011

and

Julian Petley (Brunel University) co-editor of Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media,
Oneworld, 2011

AbdoolKarim Vakil and Julian Petley will discuss their new books and the contexts and ideas behind them, before taking questions from the floor. Copies of both books will be available for purchase.

Thursday 19 May 2011, 5.30-7.00pm
Room G3, SOAS Main Building, SOAS, University of London, Russell Square

All are welcome. Booking not required.

Further information: http://www.framingmuslims.org/

book: 'Young British Muslims'

Just received Young British Muslims, Identity, Culture, Politics and the Media
by Nahid A Kabir (EUP), which I plan to review for these pages in due course.

New and Noted: Tariq Modood, 'Still Not Easy Being British'

Recently published, by Trentham Books: Tariq Modood, Still Not Easy Being British: struggles for a multicultural citizenship "The late 1980s and early 1990s saw dramatic shifts in race relations in Britain. It was the time of the fracturing of a political ‘black’ identity; of ethnic minority assertions to be British and about remaking what it is to be British; of the manifestation of the social mobility of Indians and, above all, the emergence of Muslim identity politics in the Rushdie Affair. These issues were the subject of Tariq Modood’s Not Easy Being British. One of the first books to note these developments and analyse their implications, Not Easy became an underground classic.

"In this new collection, Modood returns to some of these topics, considering especially the growth of Muslim political assertiveness and the reactions to it in the context of rethinking multiculturalism and Britishness. Modood’s reflections and bold interventions in controversies - which characterise his work and have made him a renowned intellectual commentator on Muslim politics and multiculturalism - could not be more relevant to our fraught and fearful times."

I haven't seen this one yet, which came out in September, but I'm familiar with Modood's 'Not Easy Being British'.