Among the late Maulana Yusuf Motala’s many achievements is the establishment of a dar al-ifta’ inside the Darul-‘Ulum al-‘Arabiyya al-Islamiyya in Holcombe near Bury in 1981, founded only eight years after the seminary’s own inauguration. Given this early date, this may well be the first dar al-ifta’ founded in Britain.[1]…

My new biography of Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865–1900), the cofounder of England’s first mosque community, coauthored with Maulana Hamid Mahmood, is now out. It can be puchased online in paperback, hardback and ebook formats. I hope you will enjoy it. To get a flavour of the book, here is a reading of the first chapter, which sets the scene. This is about when Fatima, then known as Frances, first heard Abdullah Quilliam in June 1887 at the Birkenhead Workingmen’s Temperance Association lecture on Islam. The chapter is called “A Fateful Meeting in Birkenhead”.

Interview with Sulaiman Wilms, Editor of Islamische Zeitung, 3rd November 2022, https://islamische-zeitung.de/yahya-birt-ueber-muslimische-minderheiten-wirklich-subversiv-ist-den-universalen-anspruch-fuer-uns-aufrechtzuerhalten/ [Original in German: Text from Google Translate with some editing] Yahya Birt on Muslim Minorities: “It is really subversive for us to uphold the [Islamic] universal claim.”

Transcript of an interview with Muhammad Jalal of the “Thinking Muslim Podcast”, Episode 73, July 2022 (may vary slightly from the recording in places). — The original podcast can be found here: “Jordan Peterson, White Supremacy and the Perils of Engagement”, Thinking Muslim Podcast, Episode 73, July 2022. The article upon which the podcast is based is here. Y. Birt, “The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Convert Leaders in the West and the New Ethno-Nationalism”, The Long View (London), 4/3, July 2022, pp.3–6. The pdf version is here. The interview below expands on some of the issues in the article, so it is better to read the article first of all.

I wrote this collection of 25 poems during December 2021 and January 2022 while visiting God’s Beloved in Medina and performing the…

I’m pleased to say that Abdullah Quilliam’s poems have been put together and published for the first time, edited by Ron Geaves and me, by…

I’m glad to say that our annotated translation of Yusuf Samih Asmay’s unique Ottoman Turkish travelogue about Britain’s first mosque community in Liverpool from 1895 is now out, which also features a long scene-setting analysis of the text, alongside key archival documents and short biographical notices of key members of…

Yahya Birt summarizes Ed Husain’s latest diatribe on British Muslims, so that you don’t go through the rigmarole of reading it yourself. — I had low expectations, but with his Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), Mr. Husain has managed to lower the bar even further, which I suppose is some kind of achievement. Ed Husain’s latest screed on British Islam is a mashup between a Thomas Friedman…

These have been a difficult few weeks, and testing times for many in the Muslim communities as we have lost loved ones and friends to the…