This dissertation was submitted as part of the Tripos Examination in the Faculty of History, Cambridge University, April 2016.
Key
- Building
- Blue plaque
- People
- Walks / Tours / Trails
- Museum and Archive
- Heritage Project
- Organisation or Family History
- Cemeteries & graves
- Academia
- Publication and Articles
- Place
- Digital Resources
- Art & Culture
- Film and TV
- Mosques and Shrines
- Monuments /Memorials
Academia
Explores how a new generation are redefining what it means to be a Muslim in Britain todayA new generation of...
What did Britain look like to the Muslims who visited and lived in the country in increasing numbers from the...
-(1)-overview.jpg)
Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World (Al Waleed Centre), University of Edinburgh
AcademiaThe HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World (Alwaleed Centre), is an...
The Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK (Islam UK Centre), based in the School of History, Archaeology...
The Centre of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London is focused on...
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies is involved in the study of all aspects of the advanced study of Islam,...
-overview.jpg)
The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge.Based in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern...
The Woolf InstituteThe Woolf Institute conducts teaching, research and outreach, on relations between followers of the Abrahamic Faiths; Jews, Christians...
The Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (IMEIS) at The University of Durham, is based within the School of...
The Aziz FoundationThe Aziz Foundation is a family charitable foundation. Its flagship programme is the Masters Scholarships programme which awards...
Al-Mahdi InstituteThe Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI) assimilates traditional Twelver seminary scholarship with modern approaches to the study of Islam. The Director...
-overview.jpg)
Cambridge Muslim CollegeCambridge Muslim College is an independent higher education institution, focused on developing and disseminating Muslim thought leadership based...
Middle East Centre Archive (MECA): Oxford University: St Anthony's CollegeThe Middle East Centre Archive was founded in 1961 by Elizabeth...
Ebrahim College was established in 2003 as a Darul Uloom style seminary appropriate for the modern world. The aim was...
CIRE is a London-based research centre dedicated to research that will inform Islamic thought, Islamic sciences and Islamic education. It...
Al-Salam Institute was established in Oxford (UK) in 2006 in order to provide students and working professionals with the opportunity...
EMBS was founded in 1988 as a self-help business service for racialised minority groups in Oxford. One of its founders...
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies was founded in 1985 as a centre for the advanced study of Islam and...
In trying to identify some of the earliest Muslim students to matriculate at the University after the enactment of the...
Brothers Wasif Ali and Naseer Ali Mirza became the first racialised minority and Indian students to be enrolled at Trinity...
Somerville College houses archival materials related to the Oxford Majlis, which was a student society modeled after the Cambridge Majlis...
On 3 December 1964, Malcolm X addressed the Oxford Union when he partook in the 'Queen and Country' debate. He...
The Oxford Martin School was the sity of of the Oxford Indian Institute, which provided training to Indian civil servants....
4 December 1877
Balliol College
In trying to identify some of the earliest Muslim students to matriculate at the University after the enactment of the Universities Test Act in 1871 – which ended religious discrimination at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham – we realised that student records did not include information about religious background. It meant adopting a somewhat crude approach of using surnames to identify Muslim students, which posed ethical problems yet seemed to be the only viable way in which we could account for the presence of Muslims at the university.
Amongst the earliest names we encountered was Ahsan Uddin Ahmed. Ahmed was born in Calcutta and was the third son of Nawab Ameer Ali of Khanbahadur. He was admitted to Balliol College on 4 December 1877, aged 18. We know little about Ahmed’s life at the college, and there is no indication that he left the university with a degree. Nonetheless, his matriculation is one of the few concrete pieces of evidence we have about the long presence of Muslims in Oxford.
Collections this record belongs to
Sources and Attribution
OUA/UR 1/1/9, Matriculation form Ahsan Ahmed, Balliol 1877, Bodleian Library, Oxford University Archives
Aleena Din - Aleena is a historian of gender, class and race in modern Britain. Her DPhil research, which was completed at Balliol College and the Faculty of History in 2022, focuses on the migration, settlement and labour experiences of working-class British-Pakistani women who settled in Middlesbrough and Oldham between 1962 and 2002. Aleena is the co-investigator of the community history project 'A Muslim History of Oxford', in collaboration with the national heritage organisation 'Everyday Muslim'. In addition, she is a postdoctoral research associate for the digital humanities project, 'Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830 to the Present' at the University of Bristol (2025).
Licensing
Spotted an issue Report this record