This entry includes information about the personal life of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932) and in particular about the two families in...
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
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- Monuments /Memorials
Abdullah Quilliam's Liverpool
This is collection of places in Liverpool related to the life of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932), the founder of Britain's first attested mosque community in 1887, covering his multiple roles as a religious leader, as a lawyer, as a journalist, as a trade unionist and political activist, as well as his personal life.
8 Brougham Terrace was the site of Britain's first attested mosque community, called the Liverpool Muslim Institute (LMI). It was...
Built by the Quilliam Family, four generations lived in this house from the 1870s to the 1950s. Includes some biographical...
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A philanthropic body under the Poor Law Reform Act of 1832. Built workhouses, housing, schools and hospitals, including the famous...
The Medina Home for Children was the first orphanage founded by Muslims in the UK, and was established in 1896....
Fatima Elizabeth Cates (5 January 1865-29 October 1900) was probably the first woman to convert to Islam in Merseyside, who...
This was the residence of Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865-1900), as listed in the 1891 Census, among the first women to...
This was the site of the first Muslim prayer hall in the UK, which was formally established as the Liverpool...
Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865-1900) lived at "Granada", Victoria Road, in the town of West Kirby on the western side of...
The first location of the printing offices of the first Muslim periodical published in Britain, the weekly Crescent (1893-1908), the...
The Magistrates Courts (formerly known as the Police Courts) where the Muslim convert and solicitor William Henry Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932)...
The chambers of Quilliam and Sons, headed by a convert to Islam, the lawyer and journalist, William Henry Abdullah Quilliam...
One nineteenth century couple are an early example of an intercultural Muslim marriage. They were Ali and Amy Mokaiesh who...
Mustapha Karsa (pictured circa 1900) was born in Damascus in around 1848 to a wealthy landowning family. In 1880-1, Karsa...
Abdullah Ydlibi [Idlibi] (c.1820-85) came from a family of Arab notables in administration, politics and trade, with branches in Damascus...
Yahya Parkinson (1874-1918), Scottish Muslim poet, essayist, and critic, was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland, of Irish descent. Born John...
104 Main Street in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, was the birthplace and primary residence of John Parkinson (1874-1814), Britain's founding Muslim poet....
Islam in Victorian Liverpool - An Ottoman account of Britain's first mosque community
Publication and ArticlesIslam in Victorian Liverpool is a unique eyewitness account dating from 1895 of Britain's first mosque community by an Ottoman...
31 October 1900
Grave of Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865-1900)
Fatima Elizabeth Cates (5 January 1865-29 October 1900) was probably the first woman to convert to Islam in Merseyside, who came to Islam in 1887 at the hands of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932). Like many of the early converts in Liverpool, she showed remarkable resilience and steadfastness in the face of considerable hostility and harassment from some intolerant locals. She played a leading role in the life of the Liverpool Muslim Institute, and was the first treasurer of a mosque in Britain. At the time it was claimed, although it is not accurate, that, in the words of the Daily Dispatch, that "she was the first lady ever converted to Islam in England".
She was buried at Anfield Cemetery in the general Anglican section on 31 October. Her plot number is G5 418. Her grave was rediscovered by Maulana Hamid Mahmood in 2019, who had founded a madrasa named after her, Fatima Elizabeth Phrontistery, in northeast London. In Ramadan 2022, a local convert, Amirah Scarisbrick, successfully raised funds for a marble headstone to be installed at Fatima's grave on 4 November 2022, featuring some lines of Fatima's own poetry.
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Sources and Attribution
Hamid Mahmood, "Fatima Elizabeth Cates: The Life and Struggles of an early Victorian Convert to Islam", in Early Muslim Women in Britain, 1860-1960, eds. Jamie Gilham and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, forthcoming.
In Search of Fatima Elizabeth Cates (Elizabeth Cates Phrontistery)
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