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,...

1939 - 2021

Iqbal Geoffrey

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People

Author:

Amirah

Iqbal Geoffrey was a man of Pakistani origin who travelled to London after being accepted as a legal professional in Pakistan and aged 21, he made his way to London with the hopes of pursuing his dreams of art. Very quickly, Geoffrey established himself as an artist in London with his work, 'Epitaph 1958' being acquired by the Tate in 1962 which was an extraordinary feat considering the racial discrimination that people of colour faced during this time. Although, Iqbal Geoffrey found himself to be discouraged and disenchanted with the racial prejudice that he was forced to endure within the world of art and left London to attend Harvard Law School, beginning his multiple careers as a lawyer, educator, accountant and, artist.

Geoffrey was extremely disillusioned with the idea of the British royal family owning the Koh-i-noor diamond, something which has been the subject of vigorous debates for multiple decades, and sought to make an effort to send the diamond back to where it rightfully belonged. Therefore, Iqbal Geoffrey sent 786 letters outlining legal action to the British royal family. He also worked to fight racial discrimination that existed within the art world based upon the injustices he witnessed, he was very much an advocator of equality for people of colour.

Iqbal Geoffrey's life had a huge impact upon people of colour, specifically those who work within the world of art and cannot be looked at as anything but inspirational, to say the least. He passed on the 1st of September 2021 but his work and life will have an everlasting consequence, إِنَّا ِلِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ.

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Sources and Attribution

'Remember Iqbal Geoffery Sir (1939-2021)' Article by, Hassan Vawda.

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