Islam And The Victorians

How did the Victorians perceive Muslims in the British Empire and beyond? How were these perceptions propagated by historians and scholars, poets, dramatists and fiction writers of the period? For the first time, Shahin Kuli Khan Khattak brings to life Victorian Britain's conceptions and misconceptions of the Muslim World using a thorough investigation of varied cultural sources of the period. She discovers the prevailing representation of Muslims and Islam in the two major spheres of British influence - India and the Ottoman Empire - was reinforced by reoccurring themes: through literature and entertainment the public saw 'the Mahomedan' as the 'noble savage', a perception reinforced through travel writing and fiction of the 'exotic east' and the 'Arabian Nights'. "Islam and the Victorians" will be an important contribution to understanding the apprehensions and misapprehensions about Islam in the nineteenth century, providing a fascinating historical backdrop to many of today's concerns.

After formally announcing his conversion to Islam in the late 1880s, the Liverpool lawyer William Henry Abdullah Quilliam publicly propagated his new faith and established the first community of Muslim converts in Victorian Britain. Despite decades of relative obscurity following his death, with the resurgence of interest in Muslim heritage in the West since 9/11 Quilliam has achieved iconic status in Britain and beyond as a pivotal figure in the history of Western Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. In this timely book, leading experts of the religion, history and politics of Islam offer new perspectives and shed fresh light on Quilliam's life and work. Through a series of original essays, the authors critically examine Quilliam's influences, philosophy and outlook, the significance of his work for Islam, his position in the Muslim world and his legacy. Collectively, the authors ask pertinent questions about how conversion to Islam was viewed and received historically, and how a zealous convert like Quilliam negotiated his religious and national identities and sought to indigenise Islam in a non-Muslim country.

Jamie Gilham collates the work of leading and emerging scholars of Islam in Britain, Christian-Muslim relations and Victorian Studies to offer fresh perspectives on Islam and Muslims in Victorian Britain. The contributors reveal 19th-century attitudes and beliefs about Islam and Muslims to demonstrate the plurality of approaches and representations of Islam in Britain's past. Also bringing to life the stories and voices of early Muslim settlers and converts to Islam, this book examines the lived experience of Muslims in the Victorian period. Sources include political and academic writings, literature, travelogues, the press and other forms of popular culture. Intersectional themes include religion and religiosity, 'race' and ethnicity, gender, class, citizenship, empire and imperialism, and prejudice, discrimination and resilience.

This book is concerned with Western images of Muhammad and Islam, and examines changing attitudes to the Prophet and Islam in 19th-century England: It analyzes the shifts in images of the Prophet from that of the profligate, heretical, lustful, ambitious imposter of the late medieval and early modern period to the much more sympathetic portrayal of Muhammad in the 19th century as a noble Arab, sincere, heroic, pious and courageous. It argues that such changing images were the result of increasing knowledge about the origins of Islam and of various social, intellectual and political changes in the West. It demonstrates that the meaning of Islam for the West was created in the complex relations between the "fact" of Islam and the Western "myth" about it.

This is the first full biography of Abdullah Quilliam (1856–1932), the most significant Muslim personality in nineteenth century Britain. Uniquely ennobled as the Sheikh of Islam of the British Isles by the Ottoman caliph Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1893, Quilliam created a remarkable Muslim community in Victorian Liverpool, which included a substantial number of converts. Ron Geaves examines Quilliam's teachings and considers his legacy for Muslims today. Ron Geaves is professor of the comparative study of religion at Liverpool Hope University and has contributed substantially to the study of British Islam, religion in South Asia, and fieldwork in religious studies.

A timely reconsideration of the life and times of one of the West's most prominent Muslim converts.

Jamie Gilham collates the work of leading and emerging scholars of Islam in Britain, Christian-Muslim relations and Victorian Studies to offer fresh perspectives on Islam and Muslims in Victorian Britain. The contributors reveal 19th-century attitudes and beliefs about Islam and Muslims to demonstrate the plurality of approaches and representations of Islam in Britain's past. Also bringing to life the stories and voices of early Muslim settlers and converts to Islam, this book examines the lived experience of Muslims in the Victorian period. Sources include political and academic writings, literature, travelogues, the press and other forms of popular culture. Intersectional themes include religion and religiosity, 'race' and ethnicity, gender, class, citizenship, empire and imperialism, and prejudice, discrimination and resilience.