Based on hitherto untapped source materials, this book charts the history of Muslim missionary activity in London from 1912, when the first Indian Muslim missionaries arrived in London, until 1944. During this period a unique community was forged out of British converts and native Muslims from various parts of the world, which focused itself around a purpose built mosque in Woking and later the first mosque to open in London in 1924.
Arguing that an understanding of Muslim mission in this period needs to place such activity in the context of colonial encounter, Islam and Britain provides a background narrative into why Muslim missionary activity in London was part of a variety of strategies to engage with European expansion and overzealous Christian missionary activity in India. Ron Geaves draws on research undertaken in India and Pakistan, where the Ahmadiya missionaries have kept extensive archives of this period which until now have been unavailable to scholars.
Unique in providing an account of Islamic missionary work in Britain from the Islamic perspective, Islam and Britain adds to our knowledge and understanding of British Muslim history and makes an important contribution to the literature concerned with Islamic missiology.
Reviews:
“In his study of the hitherto largely neglected and yet remarkable contribution of the reformist Ahmadiyya Movement, nowadays persecuted in different parts of the world, Ron Geaves shines a welcome and long overdue light on pioneering Muslim missions in Britain during the inter-war years. With the Movement's members presenting a 'modern', rational style of Islam that came to be viewed as strikingly progressive in European perceptions, Geaves reveals for the first time the full extent of Ahmadiyya interaction with local host societies and how this was able to inspire fruitful knowledge exchanges and alternative visions.” – Humayun Ansari, Professor of the History of Islam and Cultural Diversity, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
“Ron Geaves has written a meticulously researched work and deftly navigates a subject not without controversy. Exploiting a wide variety of source material, this book fills a historical gap concerning Muslims in interwar Britain and the primacy of Ahmadi missionaries in the diverse, largely unified Muslim population of that period. Anyone interest in the development of British Islam will do well to read this book.” – Brent Singleton, Editor of The Convert's Passion and Yankee Muslim