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.

Bengali Muslim migration had reached its peak during the 1970s with the influx of people coming from the Sylhet region...

Iqbal Geoffrey

Iqbal Geoffrey was a man of Pakistani origin who travelled to London after being accepted as a legal professional in...

Bahadur Sher

Bahadur Sher was born in Northern Pakistan in 1930 and arrived in the UK in 1961 with the aspiration to...

Gladys Milton Palmer

Gladys Milton Palmer was a well known and respected British socialite and heiress who converted to the religion of Islam...

Khurshid Ahmed

Khurshid Ahmed was a member of the Pakistan navy and in 1964, he arrived in the UK as part of...

Altab Ali Park

Altab Ali Park can be found on the intersection of Adler Street, White Church Lane and Whitechapel Road. This green...

Chanan and the Goat

Chanan was born in 1926 in a village near Hoshiarpur. His family owned and farmed the land. He was the...

Caxton Hall

Caxton Hall is a location in which many momentous events occurred, including the assassination of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the campaign...

EMBS was founded in 1988 as a self-help business service for racialised minority groups in Oxford. One of its founders...

Balliol College

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...

Al Shami

Al Shami restaurant was the site of Oxford's first halal butchers, and was established in the 1960s. Prior to its...

Trinity College

Brothers Wasif Ali and Naseer Ali Mirza became the first racialised minority and Indian students to be enrolled at Trinity...

Somerville College

Somerville College houses archival materials related to the Oxford Majlis, which was a student society modeled after the Cambridge Majlis...

Oxford Union

On 3 December 1964, Malcolm X addressed the Oxford Union when he partook in the 'Queen and Country' debate. He...

Oxford Martin School

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....

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...

Noor Inayat Khan GC

Noor served in the military during World War II who served as a wireless operator for the Special Operations Executive,...

1998

Altab Ali Park

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Place

Author:

Mahima Khan

Altab Ali Park can be found on the intersection of Adler Street, White Church Lane and Whitechapel Road. This green space used to be called St. Mary's Park and was the location of St. Mary Matfelon, an old 14th-century white church. The area of Whitechapel derives its name from this church, which was heavily damaged during The Blitz in 1940. Now, only the floor plan and some graves remain of the original building.

In 1998, the park was renamed Altab Ali Park in honor of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi Sylheti garment worker who was killed on Adler Street by three teenagers in 1978 as he was walking home from work. This tragic incident was one of many racially motivated attacks that defined the East End during that period.

Upon entering the park, visitors will see an arch that was created by David Petersen to commemorate Altab Ali and other victims of racism. The arch features a complex Bengali-style pattern, symbolizing the integration of different cultures in east London.

Walking down the center of the park, visitors will see the letters spelling out "The shade of my tree is offered to those who come and go fleetingly," which is a fragment from a poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Finally, in the southwest corner of the park stands the Shaheed Minar, a monument dedicated to the Bengali Language Movement. This smaller replica of the monument in Dhaka, Bangladesh, represents a mother and her sons who were martyred.

The Park currently holds a Green Flag award - The Green Flag Award is the national standards for parks and open spaces in England and Wales. The scheme was established in 1996 and is managed by The Civic Trust. Each green space is judged against an assessment criteria ranging from sustainability to health and safety. Winning a Green Flag Award is a sign of prestige and excellence. Only the best parks win the award; being nominated is an achievement in itself as the selection criteria is thorough.

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Sources and Attribution

© Tower Hamlets council https://www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/leisure_and_culture/parks_and_open_spaces/altab_ali_park.aspx

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