Islam is the second largest religion in England after Christianity. Most Muslims are immigrants from South Asia (in particular Bangladesh, Pakistan and India) or descendants of immigrants from that region. Many others are from Muslim-dominated regions such as the Middle East, Afghanistan, Malaysia and Somalia, and other parts of African countries such as Nigeria, Uganda and Sierra Leone. There are also many White Muslims in the country, most of which have Slavic and Balkan backgrounds (Bosnian, Albanian, Montenegrin, Kosovar etc.), as well as some ethnic English converts.
According to the 2011 census, 2.7 million Muslims lived in England and Wales, up by almost 1 million from the previous census, where they formed 5.0% of the general population and 9.1% of children under the age of five.The Daily Telegraph: "Almost a tenth of babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, census figures show" By Keith Perry January 10, 2013
According to the latest 2021 United Kingdom census, 3,801,186 Muslims live in England, or 6.7% of the population. The Muslim population again grew by over a million compared to the previous census.
History
Middle Ages
Although Islam is generally thought of as a contemporary arrival in England, Muslims have been trading and exchanging ideas with the English for centuries.
An early example is the decision of Offa, the 8th-century King of Mercia (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existing at that time), to have a coin minted with an Islamic inscription – largely a copy of coins issued by a contemporary Muslim ruler, Caliph Al-Mansur. These coins may have been minted simply for prestige or to facilitate trade with the expanding Caliphate of Córdoba, as Islamic gold dinars were the most important coinage in the Mediterranean at the time. Offa's coin looked enough like the original that it would be readily accepted in southern Europe, while at the same time his own name was clearly visible.Gold imitation dinar of Offa , British Museum
References to Britain are also found in early Islamic geographical literature, such as the 9th century work of Ahmad ibn Rustah, which describes the islands of "Bratiniya".
Muslim scholarship, especially early Islamic philosophy and Islamic science, was well known through Latin translation among the learned in England by 1386, when Geoffrey Chaucer was writing. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, there is among the pilgrims wending their way to Canterbury a 'Doctour of Phisyk' whose learning included Rhazes (Al-Razi), Avicenna (Ibn Sina, Arabic ابن سينا) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Arabic ابن رشد). In the Pardoner's Tale, Chaucer mentions part of Avicenna's work concerning poisons.Chaucer The Canterbury Tales Harmondsworth Penguin 1951 p280 and note p522 Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (1025), in Latin translation, was a standard text for medical students up until the 18th century.Ziauddin Sardar, Science in Islamic philosophy Roger Bacon, one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method, is known to have studied the works of several early Muslim philosophers.Glick, Thomas F.; Livesey, Steven John; Wallis, Faith: Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, first edition, Routledge, 29 September 2005, Moorstein, Mark: Frameworks: Conflict in Balance, page 237, iUniverse, Inc., 9 June 2004, 308 pp, In particular, his work on optics in the 13th century was influenced by the Book of Optics (1021) by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen).
Professor John Makdisi's article "The Islamic Origins of the Common Law", published in the North Carolina Law Review, suggests that English common law was inspired by medieval Islamic law. Makdisi drew comparisons between the "royal English contract protected by the action of debt" and the "Islamic Aqd", the "English assize of novel disseisin" (a petty assize adopted in the 1166 at the Assizes of Clarendon) and the "Islamic Istihqaq", and the "English jury" and the "Islamic Lafif" in the classical Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, and argued that these institutions were transmitted to England by the Normans, "through the close connection between the Norman kingdoms of Roger II in Sicily — ruling over a conquered Islamic administration — and Henry II in England." Makdisi also argued that the "law schools known as Inns of Court" in England (which he asserts are parallel to Madrasahs) may have also originated from Islamic law. He states that the methodology of legal precedent and reasoning by analogy (Qiyas) are also similar in both the Islamic and common law systems. Other legal scholars such as Monica Gaudiosi, Gamal Moursi Badr and A. Hudson have argued that the English trust and agency institutions, which were introduced by Crusaders, may have been adapted from the Islamic Waqf and Hawala institutions they came across in the Middle East. Paul Brand also notes parallels between the Waqf and the trusts used to establish Merton College by Walter de Merton, who had connections with the Knights Templar, but Brand also points out that the Knights Templar were primarily concerned with fighting the Muslims rather than learning from them, making it less likely that they would imitate Muslim legal institutions.
Early modern period
The first English convert to Islam mentioned by name is John Nelson. The 16th-century writer Richard Hakluyt claimed he was forced to convert, though he mentions in the same story other Englishmen who had converted willingly.
Captain John Ward of Kent was one of a number of English sailors who became pirates based in the Maghreb and also converted to Islam (see also Barbary pirates).
Unitarians became interested in the faith, and Henry Stubbe wrote so favourably about Islam that it is thought he too had converted to the faith.
From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 ships to Barbary pirates, who sold the passengers into slavery in North Africa.Rees Davies, British Slaves on the Barbary Coast, BBC, 1 July 2003 In 1625, it was reported that Lundy, an island in the Bristol Channel which had been a pirate lair for much of the previous half century, had been occupied by three Ottoman pirates who were threatening to burn Ilfracombe; Algerine rovers were using the island as a base in 1635, although the island had itself been attacked and plundered by a Spanish fleet in 1633. In 1627, Barbary pirates under command of the Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon operating from the Moroccan port of Salé occupied Lundy, before they were expelled by Sir John Pennington. During this time there were reports of captured slaves being sent to Algiers and of the Islamic flag flying over Lundy.
The Muslim Moors had a noticeable influence on the works of George Peele and William Shakespeare. Some of their works featured Moorish characters, such as Peele's The Battle of Alcazar and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Titus Andronicus and Othello, which featured a Moorish Othello as its title character. These works are said to have been inspired by several Moorish delegations from Morocco to Elizabethan England around 1600.Professor Nabil Matar (April 2004), Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Stage Moor, Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre]] (cf. Mayor of London (2006), Muslims in London , pp. 14-15, Greater London Authority) A portrait was painted of one of the Moorish ambassadors, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, who had come to promote an Anglo-Moroccan alliance.
Turbans were worn in Renaissance England. While friendly relations were formed between England and the Islamic civilizations of the Middle East in the early 16th century, Persian and Turkish style fashions were sometimes worn by the higher classes as a form of party or fancy dress.
Diplomatic relations were also established with the Ottoman Empire with the chartering of the Levant Company and the dispatch of the first English ambassador to the Porte, William Harborne, in 1578.Kupperman, p.39 For the first time, a Treaty of Commerce was signed in 1580. Numerous envoys were dispatched in both directions and epistolar exchanges occurred between Elizabeth and Sultan Murad III. In one correspondence, Murad entertained the notion that Islam and Protestantism had "much more in common than either did with Roman Catholicism, as both rejected the worship of idols", and argued for an alliance between England and the Ottoman Empire.Kupperman, p.40 To the dismay of Catholic Europe, England exported tin and lead (for cannon-casting) and ammunition to the Ottoman Empire, and Elizabeth seriously discussed joint military operations with Murad III during the outbreak of war with Spain in 1585, as Francis Walsingham was lobbying for a direct Ottoman military involvement against the common Spanish enemy.Kupperman, p.41Nabil I. Matar, "Renaissance England and the Turban." Although she never did receive any assistance from the Ottomans, her relations with the sultans did not waver.
In 17th-century England, there was a "second wave" of interest in the study of Arabic science and Islamic philosophy. Arabic manuscripts were considered the key to a "treasure house" of ancient knowledge, which led to the founding of Arabic chairs at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where Arabic was taught. A large collection of Arabic manuscripts were acquired, collected in places such as the Bodleian Library at Oxford. These Arabic manuscripts were sought after by natural philosophers for their research in subjects such as observational astronomy or mathematics, and also encompassed subjects ranging from science, religion, and medicine, to typography and garden plants.
Besides scientific and philosophical literature, works of Arabic fictional literature were also translated into Latin and English during the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famous of these was the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was first translated into English in 1706 and has since then had a profound influence on English literature. Another famous work was Ibn Tufail's philosophical novelJon Mcginnis, Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources, p. 284, Hackett Publishing Company, .Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought, Lexington Books, . Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, which was translated into Latin as Philosophus Autodidactus by Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671 and then into English by Simon Ockley in 1708. The English translation of Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, set on a desert island, may have inspired Daniel Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, considered the first novel in English, in 1719.Nawal Muhammad Hassan (1980), Hayy bin Yaqzan and Robinson Crusoe: A study of an early Arabic impact on English literature, Al-Rashid House for Publication.Cyril Glasse (2001), New Encyclopedia of Islam, p. 202, Rowman Altamira, .Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357-377 .Martin Wainwright, Desert island scripts, The Guardian, 22 March 2003. Later translated literary works include Layla and Majnun and Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus.