Abdullah Quilliam

William Henry Quilliam was born at 22 Eliot Street, Liverpool, on 10 April 1856, to a wealthy local family. He spent most of his childhood on the Isle of Man and was brought up as a Methodist. He was educated at the Liverpool Institute and the Manx King William's College.{{Cite web|url=http://www.abdullahquilliam.org/about-abdullah-quilliam/|title=About Abdullah Quilliam|website=Abdullah Quilliam Society|access-date=18 December 2016}}

He became a solicitor in 1878, specialising in criminal law, and practising at 28 Church Street, Liverpool.{{Cite web|url=http://www.abdullahquilliam.org/abdullah-quilliam-timeline/|title=Abdullah Quilliam Timeline|website=Abdullah Quilliam Society|access-date=18 December 2016}} He defended suspects in many high-profile murder cases. In 1879, he married Hannah Johnstone. At this time, Quilliam was a Wesleyan Methodist and a proponent of the temperance movement.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17827016|title=The legacy of Victorian England's first Islamic convert|last=Bano|first=Rahila|date=25 April 2012|work=BBC News|access-date=18 December 2016}}

File:8 Brougham Terrace, Liverpool.jpg]]

Quilliam converted to Islam in 1887 after visiting Morocco to recover from an illness. Quilliam purchased numbers 8, 11 and 12 Brougham Terrace, Liverpool, following his conversion, thanks to a donation from Nasrullah Khan, Crown Prince of the Emirate of Afghanistan. 8 Brougham Terrace became the Liverpool Muslim Institute, the first functioning mosque in Britain; it opened on Christmas Day, 1889.{{Cite web|url=http://www.abdullahquilliam.org/cairo-speech-1928/|title=Cairo Speech – 1928|website=Abdullah Quilliam Society|access-date=18 December 2016}} Quilliam also opened a boarding school for boys and a day school for girls, as well as an orphanage, Medina House, for non-Muslim parents who were unable to look after their children and agreed for them to be brought up as Muslims. In addition, the Institute hosted educational classes covering a wide range of subjects, and included a museum and science laboratory.

In 1889, he first published The Faith of Islam, which was concerned with dawah to Islam and its key principles. Initially, 2,000 copies were published, but a further 3,000 copies were produced in 1890. Quilliam also published The Crescent, a weekly account of Muslims in Britain, and Islamic World, a monthly publication with a worldwide audience.

In 1890, Quilliam orchestrated protests against the showing of Hall Caine's play, Mahomet. The first public Muslim burial in Liverpool was of Michael Hall, a former Methodist preacher who had converted to Islam, in 1891.

A number of notables converted to Islam as a result of Quilliam's preaching. They included professors Nasrullah Warren and Haschem Wilde, as well as Robert Stanley, JP and former mayor of Stalybridge. It is estimated that around 600 people converted to Islam in Britain as a direct result of Quilliam's work.

File:Quilliam Brookwood Cemetery 2019.jpg]]

He travelled extensively and received many honours from the leaders of the Islamic world. Abdul Hamid II, the 26th Ottoman Caliph, granted Quilliam the title of Shaykh al-Islām for the British Isles. The Emir of Afghanistan recognised him as the Sheikh of Muslims in Britain and he was appointed as Persian Vice Consul in Liverpool by the Shah. He had contact with English-speaking West African Muslims and toured the region's coastal cities on his way to Lagos to attend the consecration of the Shitta Bey Mosque in 1894.Singleton, Brent D. (September 2009) "'That Ye May Know Each Other': Late Victorian Interactions between British and West African Muslims," Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs vol. 29, issue 3, pp. 387–403.

Quilliam's work in Liverpool stopped when he fled to Turkey in 1908 in advance of being struck off the Roll of Solicitors for unprofessional conduct as a solicitor, fabricating details to make a divorce legally enforceable.[http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19320701.2.91.aspx Straits Times 1 July 1932] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029184001/http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19320701.2.91.aspx |date=29 October 2013 }} "The statutory committee of the Law Society found that when he was acting for a woman who was petitioning for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty and adultery, Quilliam instigated and connived at the act of a man who induced the husband to commit adultery and presented to the court a case which he knew to be false."{{cite news |title=An English Sheikh |url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP19320611.2.48.6 |access-date=5 September 2020 |work=The Evening Post (New Zealand) |volume=CXIII|issue=137 |date=11 June 1932}} gives details of the divorce case of Martha May & Enoch Griffiths Thompson The Muslim community, which believed in contractual divorce, felt Quilliam's conduct was not offensive. Regardless, in his absence, his son swiftly disposed of the property that had been used as a mosque and Islamic centre. Without Quilliam's influence and funding, the Muslim community in Liverpool dispersed.

He returned to England around 1910 and legally married his second wife, legitimizing their children. Going by the name Henri Mustapha de Léon, he founded a magazine, The Philomath, in 1913, then another, The Physiologist, which ran concurrently beginning in 1917. The Muslim community seems to have been aware of his former identity, and he frequently spoke at meetings of his British Muslim Society. He spent most of his twilight years at Onchan on the Isle of Man, where unlikely rumors of keeping a harem swirled around him.{{cite book |last1=Geaves |first1=Ron |title=Islam in Victorian Britain: the life and times of Abdullah Quilliam |date=2013 |publisher=Kube Publ |location=Leicestershire |isbn=1847740103}} He died in Taviton Street, Bloomsbury, London in 1932,{{cite web|url=http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19320701.2.91.aspx|title=Straits Times 1 July 1932|access-date=20 October 2010|archive-date=29 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029184001/http://newspapers.nl.sg/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19320701.2.91.aspx|url-status=dead}} and was buried in an unmarked grave

at Brookwood Cemetery near Woking. The prominent Anglo-Muslims Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (who each translated the Qur'an), and Lord Headley were later buried near him.

Quilliam argued that Muslims should not "take up arms" against other Muslims on the behalf of non-Muslims.{{cite book|title=Religion in Victorian Britain: Culture and Empire|author=John Wolffe|year=1997|isbn=978-0719051845|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/religioninvictor00unse/page/341 341]|url=https://archive.org/details/religioninvictor00unse/page/341}} During the war in Sudan, Quilliam published a pamphlet stating that any British Muslim that decided to aid in some manner the expedition was acting in "contrary to the Shariat".In the name of God, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful! Peace be to all True-Believers to whom this shall come! Know ye, O Muslims, that the British Government has decided to commence military and warlike operations against the Muslims of the Soudan, who have taken up arms to defend their country and their faith. And it is in contemplation to employ Muslim soldiers to fight against these Muslims of the Soudan. For any True Believer to take up arms and fight against another Muslim is contrary to the Shariat, and against the law of God and his holy prophet. I warn every True-Believer that if he gives the slightest assistance in this projected expedition against the Muslims of the Soudan, even to the extent of carrying a parcel, or giving a bite of bread to eat or a drink of water to any person taking part in the expedition against these Muslims that he thereby helps the Giaour against the Muslim, and his name will be unworthy to be continued upon the roll of the faithful. Signed at the Mosque in Liverpool, England, this 10th day of Shawwal, 1313 (which Christians erroneously in their ignorance call the 24th day of March 1896), W.H. ABDULLAH QUILLIAM, Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles.[Source: The Crescent, 25 March 1896, Vol. VII, No. 167, p. 617; original punctuation and spelling retained.] cited from Religion in Victorian Britain: Culture and Empire p. 341 His political views and allegiance to the Ottoman Caliph led some to denounce him as a traitor.Geaves, R. (2010). Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam. Markfield, Kube Publishing., pp. 102–03

His legacy is principally maintained by the Abdullah Quilliam Society, which was founded in 1996. The society aims to complete the restoration of the Liverpool Muslim Institute on Brougham Terrace.{{Cite web|url=http://www.abdullahquilliam.org/completed-works/|title=Completed Works|website=Abdullah Quilliam Society|access-date=18 December 2016}} The society has been assisted by academics including Ron Geaves, formerly of Liverpool Hope University, and Mehmet Seker of Dokuz Eylül University. The society also offers university student accommodation.{{Cite web|url=http://www.abdullahquilliam.org/about-abdullah-quilliam-society/|title=About|website=Abdullah Quilliam Society|access-date=18 December 2016}}

Quilliam, originally The Quilliam Foundation, a think tank aimed at challenging extremist Islamist ideologies, launched in 2008,{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/01/islam.religion|title=Ex-Islamists start moderate thinktank|first1=Owen|last1=Bowcott|first2=Riazat|last2=Butt|date=1 March 2008|work=The Guardian}}{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7360652.stm%7cBBC|title="Ex-extremists call for 'Western Islam'"}}{{Dead link|date=May 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} was named after him.Nawaz, Maajid. Radical. W.H. Allen, London: (2012): p. 327

{{Portal|United Kingdom|Biography|Islam}}

• Alexander Russell Webb, early prominent Anglo-American Muslim convert
• Islam in the United Kingdom

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Lewis|first=Philip|title=Islamic Britain: Religion, Politics, and Identity among British Muslims: Bradford in the 1990s|year=1994|publisher=I.B. Tauris|location=London|isbn=1-85043-861-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/islamicbritainre00lewi}}
• {{cite book|last=Singleton|first=Brent D.|title=The Convert's Passion: An Anthology of Islamic Poetry from Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain|year=2009|publisher=Wildside|location=Rockville, MD|isbn=978-1-4344-0354-4}} (Includes poems by Quilliam and others)

• [http://abdullahquilliam.org Abdullah Quilliam Society]
• [http://abdullahquilliam.wordpress.com/ Abdullah Quilliam: The History of British Muslims]
• [http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/ Quilliam Foundation]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070923014058/http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2826203.ece Forgotten champion of Islam: One man and his mosque The Independent newspaper, 2 August 2007]
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/heritage/england/liverpool/article_1.shtml Special BBC feature on Abdullah Quilliam and his Mosque, including audio testimonials from his grand-daughter and admirers]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060517231304/http://www.mcb.org.uk/features/features.php?ann_id=139 The Muslim Council of Britain's biography and profile on Quilliam's life]
• [http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/bmh/BMH-AQ-poem4.htm The Riddle of Life, poem by Abdullah Quilliam]
• [http://www.wokingmuslim.org/pers/quilliam/ Quilliam mentioned in early Ahmadiyya sources and his connection with the Woking Muslim Mission under the name Professor H. M. Leon]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110724052613/http://www.isb.org.uk/iaw/yesteryear.htm A brief look at Muslims in Britain from yesteryear]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quilliam, William Abdullah}}

Category:1856 births

Category:1932 deaths

Category:Converts to Islam from Protestantism

Category:English religious writers

Category:English former Christians

Category:19th-century Muslim scholars of Islam

Category:Burials at Brookwood Cemetery

Category:English people of Manx descent

Category:Clergy from Liverpool

Category:People educated at King William's College

Category:People educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Boys

Category:English Muslims

Category:English solicitors