‘We Weren’t Expecting to Stay,’ is Everyday Muslim's first archive collection. The collection consists of; video and audio recordings of...
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
Everyday Muslim Heritage and Archive Initiative
Everyday Muslim Heritage and Archive Initiative (EMHAI) was established in 2013 to create an archive collection to document and preserve the lived experience of Muslims in the UK.
The archive collection is an ever-expanding collection of video and audio recordings of oral history interviews from Muslims of diverse ethnic backgrounds across the UK. Alongside a wide-ranging depository of approximately 2000 digitised documents and photographs, that provide both a historical and contemporary narrative of the everyday lives and diversity of the UK's Muslim community.
Additionally, the collection contains video footage of conferences, presentations and other events curated by the EMHAI team.
Exploring the Diversity of Black British Muslim Heritage in LondonThis archive is a unique borne digital archive consisting of important...
Brookwood Cemetery is a Grade I listed Historic Park & Garden. It was also known as the London Necropolis or...
The secret agent Noor Inayat Khan was the first female radio operator to be sent into occupied France during the...
Bengali Muslim migration had reached its peak during the 1970s with the influx of people coming from the Sylhet region...
Iqbal Geoffrey was a man of Pakistani origin who travelled to London after being accepted as a legal professional in...
Bahadur Sher was born in Northern Pakistan in 1930 and arrived in the UK in 1961 with the aspiration to...
Gladys Milton Palmer was a well known and respected British socialite and heiress who converted to the religion of Islam...
Khurshid Ahmed was a member of the Pakistan navy and in 1964, he arrived in the UK as part of...
Origins of 'Macamatheou' In 2001, the local name Macamathehou became of interest by Kenneth Cameron, John Field and John Insley...
The Bow Muslim Community Centre has been serving the Bow community in Tower Hamlets for over 15 years, providing the...
Photographer, Digital Creator and Writer Hiba Kane founded Fellow People as a way to bring together creatives in the United...
The discovery of the grave in Preston dating from 1906 baffled the Muslims community in Preston — how did a...
Fatima Manji is an award-winning English television broadcaster and journalist as well as Britain's first hijab-wearing newsreader. Born in Peterborough...
On 12th March 2021, the Whitechapel Gallery celebrated its 120th birthday, celebrating its diverse and inclusive narratives, including that of...
In 1999, a Shaheed Minar (Martyrs’ Monument) was installed in the southwest corner of Altab Ali Park. The monument consists...
Altab Ali Park can be found on the intersection of Adler Street, White Church Lane and Whitechapel Road. This green...
This masjid was established by Pir Maroof Hussain, a local spiritual leader who acknowledged the need for a place of...
Saturday 31st January 2015 was the date of our inaugural symposium at Bishopsgate Institute in London. The day was packed...
Chanan was born in 1926 in a village near Hoshiarpur. His family owned and farmed the land. He was the...
Caxton Hall is a location in which many momentous events occurred, including the assassination of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the campaign...
The Bangladesh Islamic Centre was founded in the 1980s by the first generation of Bangladeshis to settle in Oxford. Today,...
Founded in 1968, the Bath Street mosque was the first formal site of worship for Oxford's Muslim community, and largely...
EMBS was founded in 1988 as a self-help business service for racialised minority groups in Oxford. One of its founders...
This was an Ahmadiyya Mosque established in the 1980s. It was located on Cowley Road, but the precise location is...
Central Oxford Mosque remains one of the largest places of workship for Muslims in the city. The mosque was founded...
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies was founded in 1985 as a centre for the advanced study of Islam and...
A mosque and welfare house opened in 1984 to primarily serve the Deobandi sect of Muslims living in Oxford. The...
In trying to identify some of the earliest Muslim students to matriculate at the University after the enactment of the...
Founded in 1921, City of Oxford Motor Services Limited was an important site of employment in the 1950s and 1960s...
Jamal's Tandoori Restaurant has been a significant place of networking for Muslims across the city. During the 1950s and 1960s,...
Al Shami restaurant was the site of Oxford's first halal butchers, and was established in the 1960s. Prior to its...
Founded in 1678, the Ashmolean Museum features an Islamic and Middle East Gallery which exhibits a selection of artifacts made...
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...
An anti-racist organisation founded by University of Oxford students in 1956. Its purpose was "To arouse among members of the...
On 3 December 1964, Malcolm X addressed the Oxford Union when he partook in the 'Queen and Country' debate. He...
Lubna Arshad became the first Muslim Lord Mayor of Oxford, May 2023.
Next to the Pitt Rivers Museum is the sire of current Oxford Islamic Society meeting space. There is a rich...
The Oxford Martin School was the sity of of the Oxford Indian Institute, which provided training to Indian civil servants....
Site of the first mixed congregational prayer led by a woman (Prof Amina Wadud) in the UK, 18th October 2008....
The association, which was founded in the 1960s by Sher Afzal Khan, was one of the first of its kind...
A major site of employment which attracted Pakistani Muslims from Sheffield and Bradford. According to the newsreel source linked to...
The UK’s first halal farm, located in Cherwell. In 2002, Lutfi Radwan, a lecturer at the University of Oxford, and...
The Didicot Ordinance Depot at the Vauxhall Barracks, established during the First World War, was a major site of Pakistani...
Noor served in the military during World War II who served as a wireless operator for the Special Operations Executive,...
24 January 1906
A Muslim Grave in Edwardian Preston
The discovery of the grave in Preston dating from 1906 baffled the Muslims community in Preston — how did a Muslim come to be buried in Lancashire at the turn of the century? Ismaeel Nakhuda, a freelance journalist and writer, decided to investigate.
During the clearing of brambles in the early 1970s on the edge of the Muslim section of Preston’s Victorian cemetery, volunteers from the city’s mosques discovered an old headstone with inscriptions in Arabic and English:
“Oh he who is deceased and whose mention will be forever,” read the Arabic, “Here definitely rests Achmed ben Ibrahim al-Marakashi whose soul departed to its Creator on Wednesday 28 Dhu al-Qada 1324.” (Dhu al-Qada being the eleventh Islamic lunar month and 1324 being the Islamic year).
The English inscription below the Arabic read: “Here repose the mortal remains of Achmed Ben Ibrahim of Maraksh Morocco, who died January 24th 1906, aged 60 years.”
The grave became an intriguing mystery: Was Achmed an Arab businessman, a curious traveller passing through, or even a pious Muslim scholar visiting Edwardian Britain spreading teachings of piety as saintly Muslims and Sufis had been doing for centuries throughout the Islamic world?
After research and investigation, many of which caught the attention of British-American Writer and Academic Yahya Birt, of Leeds University, it was revealed that Achmed ben Ibrahim was the head of a group of Moroccan acrobats who toured the British Isles for at least 25 years at the turn of the 20th century. Neither a businessman nor a traveller, his death certificate gave his occupation as “professional acrobat.”
In addition, Yahya had stumbled on Achmed’s obituary published in the 31 January 1906 edition of “The Crescent,” a weekly newspaper that Quilliam edited about Islam in Britain, which wrote: “Bro. Achmet Ibrahim died at 74, North Road, Preston, on Thursday morning last (1st Dhulheggia, 1323). Our deceased brother was 74 years of age, and had led a very active life. He was a native of Fez, Morocco, but had been travelling in Europe for many years with a company of very clever Arab acrobats and tumblers. He was a fervent and sincere Muslim, and always when in Liverpool attended at the mosque for prayers. He had no children, but leaves a wife (a convert to Islam) to mourn his death."
This provides an interesting insight into Achmed’s religiosity: he was a native of the ‘City of Saints’ Fez, a place located on the trans-Saharan trade route and known throughout the Muslim world for its piety and famous Al-Qarawiyyin Madrasah founded in 859 CE by the intelligent Arab woman, Fatima Al-Fihri. It is possible that Achmed mentioned being from Marrakesh rather than Fez for stage purposes, as it would have been better known in Europe.
Regardless of the questions left by his fascinating life and history, there is one thing that is for sure, as mentioned by Nakhuda: no one at Achmed’s funeral on that cold January winter’s day in 1906 would have dreamt that the place where he was being buried, the edge of the non-conformist section of Preston Cemetery, would one day become the burgeoning Muslim section of Preston Cemetery.
Related links
Collections this record belongs to
Sources and Attribution
https://www.lep.co.uk/news/riddle-muslim-grave-edwardian-preston-573646
Licensing
Spotted an issue Report this record