"Like Headley, many of the early British converts to the religion were young aristocrats or the children of the mercantile elite. Some were explorers, intellectuals and high-ranking officials of empire who had worked and lived in Muslim lands under British colonial rule.
The stories of these converts, says Professor Humayun Ansari of Royal Holloway, University of London, reflect the turbulent times in which they lived, as well as the profound questions that were being raised about religion and the nature and origins of humanity.
“There was the carnage and chaos of the First World War, the suffragette movement, the questioning of imperialism and the right of the British and other Western empires to rule over vast numbers of people,” says Ansari. “In many ways, [those who converted] were living in a very troubled world. In Britain’s wars in Sudan and Afghanistan, and later Europe, they saw terrible slaughter, with armies and governments on all sides claiming God was with them.
“They had experienced what they saw as the peace, the spirituality and simplicity of Islamic societies, and it appealed greatly to them,” Ansari adds...
Here are the stories of some of Britain’s Victorian Muslims:"
I am always fascinated by these narratives of moments in history when something that is currently highly political was allowed to be personal. Another thing that these narratives do is remind us that historical cultures were not monolithic, that the world wasn't sepia-toned, that maybe I could have existed then too as substantially the same person. That maybe we are not limited by our contexts.
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