Ismaeel Nakhuda

Growing up in a working-class area full of back-to-back terrace houses in a northern English town in the 1990s, I remember a time when my elderly non-Muslim English neighbours would tell my father how seeing young Muslims walking to the local mosque several times a day made them feel safe.

The story of Islam in Britain as told nowadays would always be incomplete without mention of the so-called ‘Shaykh al-Islam of the British Isles’ Abdullah Quilliam (d. 1932), the Victorian-era solicitor who converted to Islam and founded and presided over the Liverpool Muslim Institute.

The evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in World War Two has captured the imagination of generations of Brits. It is a source of national pride that repeatedly plays itself in popular culture. The depictions are, however, often mono-racial where the presence of non-white soldiers is ignored.