Islam and Muslims in Victorian Britain: New Perspectives

Edited by Jamie Gilham

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Publication Date: December 14, 2023

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 19^th-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.

Table of Contents

– Introduction, Jamie Gilham, Independent Historian, UK

• Part I: Discourse and Representations

1. The Royal Family’s Attitudes toward Islam and Muslims during the Reign of Queen Victoria, A. Martin Wainwright (University of Akron, USA)
2. Rival Views on the Eastern Question, Muslims and Islam: William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli and Anglo-Ottoman Relations, Clinton Bennett (State University of New York at New Paltz, USA)
3. Thomas Carlyle, Islam, Empire and After, Geoffrey P. Nash (Independent Scholar, UK)
4. ‘Permission to Go and See the Ancient City’: Women Travellers’ Encounters with Islam in the Nineteenth Century, Anne-Marie Beller and Kerry Featherstone (Loughborough University, UK)
5. Translators, Publishers and Popular Readerships: The Qur’an on the Victorian Bookshelf, Alexander Bubb (Roehampton University, UK)

• Part II: Muslim Lives

6. Saiyid Mustafa Ben-Yusuf, an Arab Muslim Convert to Christianity in Victorian Britain, Jamie Gilham (Independent Historian, UK)
7. From Arab Millet to British Islam: Syrian Muslims in Victorian Manchester, Riordan Macnamara (University of Paris-Saclay, France)
8. The Last Nawab of Bengal: India and England, 1838-84, Emeritus Professor Lyn Innes (University of Kent, UK)
9. Maulana Muhammad Barakatullah Bhopali in Late-Victorian England, Professor Humayun Ansari (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)
10. Feeding Hungry Christians: The Liverpool Muslim Institute on Christmas Day, Brent Singleton (California State University, USA)
11. Authority and Legitimacy in Victorian Liverpool: Re-evaluating Abdullah Quilliam’s Title of ‘Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles’, Matthew Sharp (Independent Historian, USA)

Source: Bloomsbury Publishing