Abstract:

This study examines William Henry Quilliam, who was a middle-class intellectual and gentleman converted to Islam in Victorian age Britain. The article begins with sketching out some biographical data about Quilliam, whose journey to Islam, and works for the sake of Islam in Britain. Quilliam had established Liverpool Islam Institute, in which a number of Britons embraced Islam via this institution that it had become a pattern of Muslim minority in a Christian environment in order to represent Islam and deliver the message. Therefore, having such a local institute, that fledgling Muslim community in Liverpool managed to have the attention of Muslim community in the world with their local, national and even international activities. Quilliam also held the first and last title of sheikh al-islâm of British Isles appointed by Caliph Abdulhamid the second, the Ottoman Sultan between 1876 and 1909 years. Abdullah Quilliam is occasionally labelled as innovator in religion with his ethno-cultural approach to Islam and sometimes as an agent trying to alter Islamic religion. Thus, an examination on the reality of such claims concludes this study.

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