Our Fatima of Liverpool

Published by: Beacon Books,Oldham, 2023, 124pp. ISBN: 9781915025746.

Britain has seen a long line of unusual and at times somewhat eccentric citizens who have entered Islam much to the suspicion, bewilderment and chagrin of fellow Brits. Stories circulate of Elizabethans who “turned Turke” and embraced a faith and lifestyle seemingly at odds with the society and faith of their original communities. While remaining a religion of minority interest in terms of conversion, historical accounts from a variety of periods reveal how the embracement of Islam permeated all levels of society, that filtered through the various echelons of the social strata to include members of the aristocracy down to more lowly wives of Lascar sailors resident in the poverty stricken areas of the seaports.

This text is a tribute to the short life and legacy of a working-class Victorian woman, Frances Elizabeth Murray, who later became known as Fatima Elizabeth Cates, whose interest in Islam was sparked after meeting Abdullah Quilliam at a temperance meeting in Liverpool in 1887. Quilliam explained the basic tenets of Islam to Cates and gave her an English translation of the Qur’an. Despite strong and often forceful family opposition to her desire to study and adopt Islam, she embraced the faith and became an ardent and tireless propagator of Islam. She was to all accounts a most loyal supporter of Quilliam’s endeavours to establish a small Muslim community and open what is widely considered to be the UK’s first mosque in Liverpool, taking the role of its treasurer. There is some speculation that the first mosque in the UK was actually located in a house during the 17th century, although this has not been officially verified. Fatima’s journey to Islam was not easy and she faced often violent opposition and was viciously attacked in the street on numerous occasions, having her faced smeared with horse dung by local mobs, while the windows of the mosque were smashed and the building vandalised.