Why Did The British To Convert To Islam In The 19th Century

Islam, a growing religion, is now the second largest in the world and in Britain. In fact, it made its first move to the British society in 1583 when the first Englishman converted to the religion. From there, it was a slow start for Islam. Although it continued to grow across Britain in small waves of immigrants, it took a little under four-hundred years for it to really expand in London. From the mid to late 1900’s Islam expanded at a fast pace. Part of the reason being this is the continuous wars that are being fought across the Middle East. Many Muslims are seeking refuge in European countries which has led to the expansion in Great Britain. The argument behind this is what British people have thought of the increase in Islam and what their

Around 100 years later Islam took a big step in Britain when the first English version of the Qur’an was created. Also in the 17th century a Petition to Commonwealth was set for the toleration of religion and it included Muslims. This means that the British people were accepting of the immigrants and wanted them to feel comfortable in their country. Into the 18th and 19th century there were a series of upper class men who also decided to convert to Islam. Towards the end of the 18th century and into the 19th century there were many groups of immigrants who made the trip to Britain from the Middle East. The first wave being in 1869 when the Suez Canal first opened and there was a need for working men. Due to the high number of Muslim men entering the country there was a necessity for a Mosque. The Mosque was built in 1860, just in time for the influx of Muslim men (BBC- Religions). Other types of work that Muslim immigrants did included translators, diplomats, musicians, and servants (The First). These people were benefitting the economy in England. However, even though Islam had been a religion for over 1,000 years, it was still a fairly new concept for most British people in these four centuries (16th-19th). Some British people were converting to the new religion, and some people were sticking to their Christian roots. Those who stuck to their Christian roots had a hard time accepting Islam as a religion.

In the past thirty years or so, the thought of Islamic extremists has become more real. In 1988 Osama Bin Laden created the Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda moved forward to complete many terrorist attacks on the small and the large scale. After the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 killing almost 3,000 people, many people around the world began to understand the harshness of this group. Although the strikes hadn’t yet hit the UK, people began to fear. This of course does not mean that anyone who was Muslim was an extremist, however, it did open people’s eyes to the possibility of a terrorist attack to that scale on a big city like London. In 2005 a series of four suicide bombs went off across London on the public transportation systems. Although this was not to the scale of the New York City attacks, it was still a major Muslim extremist attack on London, Britain, and the United Kingdom. The amount of the Muslim population that extremists make up is still very slim. However, these attacks, as well as some smaller ones in London create a fear for the British people. A British woman who converted to Islam while living in Italy says, “...my first experience of being a Muslim in the UK was being interrogated by a taxi driver on my way to spend Christmas with my family”. The quote is from an article written by The Guardian two years ago. Although the quote