The Untold Story of How Islam Reached 2 Billion People

The Untold Story of How Islam Reached 2 Billion People

If it wasn't for their dawah and their ambassadorship and their skillful trade and their merciful dealings and their free mandi and their humility and their learning of the local language and marrying into the local families, I don't think that I would be Muslim today. I owe my own faith to a group of people who spread Islam through daily, small daily acts, spread Islam through a gradual osmosis that won the hearts of local people and embedded themselves into the locality.

The Journey of William Quilliam

It is the year 1887 and a white English man is aboard a ship that is sailing in the Mediterranean, sailing from the shores of this country of the UK all the way to Morocco. As he boarded the ship, he notices that there's a large group of Moroccans on the ship with him on his way to Tangiers. The ship sails, the tide rises, the tide softens. Storms at night come and go, but there's something strange he observes on this two-week ship journey from the isles of the United Kingdom to the coast of Tangiers.

A small group of people, every morning they sit together in a circle. After having prayed, bowing and prostrating together on the deck of the ship, come what may — rain or shine, storm or settled — in unison. They then sit down and they chant some Arabic words for one hour, morning and evening.

This strange discipline is a mystery to him. Are they a group of warrior samurais from the coast of Morocco? What is this that they are chanting? What is this bowing and prostrating? He's extremely curious as to what he sees. He can't communicate with them because they speak a different language to him.

And so he finds someone who does speak English and he asks them. And they tell him this is the Salah, it is a prayer that they are praying five times a day. And this chanting is the recitation of the Quran that they do in the morning and the evening — half a juz in the morning, half a juz in the evening — in order to keep their relationship with their scripture.

He's amazed. The Christianity that he's been seeing in the UK has been on the decline for centuries, reduced to a bunch of hymns and songs sung on a Saturday with no other implication for any part of daily life. It is just a bunch of songs and a faith in salvation and that God will come and he died for our sins. A bizarre theology, a strange belief with no actual implementation in daily life. But this, what he sees from the Moroccan sailors, this is something different he's never observed before.

Upon reaching the coast of Tangiers, he goes in and he begins to explore what it is that these people are doing. Two years later, this man converts to Islam and he changes his name to Abdullah Quilliam. He was formerly known as William Quilliam. This is in the year 1889 CE.

William Quilliam, also known as Abdullah Quilliam, returns to Liverpool and he sets up the Liverpool Islamic Centre, the first masjid in the history of the United Kingdom.

Fatima Elizabeth Cates — The First Treasurer

A young white lady one day is attending a talk by a charismatic man who seems to have converted to the Mohammedan faith. Her name is Elizabeth Cates. In 1889, Elizabeth Cates attends a sermon in English delivered at the Liverpool Islamic Centre. Moved and inspired but having doubts in Islam's relationship with women, she then asks him about the slavery of women and the marriage contract and the concubines. And Abdullah Quilliam says to her, "Elizabeth, if you want to learn more, study for yourself." He hands to her a translation of the Quran and she begins her own journey.

A year later, she converts to Islam and changes her name to Fatima Elizabeth Cates, the first treasurer of the first Islamic centre or masjid in the history of the United Kingdom.

The Hadrami Traders and the Spread of Islam to Southeast Asia

A hundred years prior, in the 18th century, a group of traders taking a fleet from the coasts of Yemen — from Hadramaut — have landed on the coast of Malacca, which is the coastal region of Indonesia today. Armed with their turbans and daggers in their belts, they get off their ships and the first thing they do is they establish a small makeshift masjid on the coast of Malacca.

They begin to trade the best possible forms of silk, of pearls, of gemstone, of spices never before seen on the Indonesian coast. The local villagers flock to see these foreign men with their beautiful trade, with their beautiful goods. Someone reaches out their hands to pay 10 or 20 or 30 of the local currency and the Yemeni trader, the Hadrami trader, says to them, "Take it, it's a gift for you."

This person is shocked — why would you give me a gift? I came to buy from you. This happens again and again. They tell their friends: there are these traders who come from this foreign land and if you are nice to them, they just give it to you for free.

People come, they start to see what's going on. The best of silk, the best of pearls, the best treatment. You're there looking for some pearls or for some silk and this person is pouring you a nice hot cup of Adani shai and he says, "Sit, drink tea with me. Don't go, don't leave me alone."

What magic is this? All I'm used to is a very transactional relationship. How much, brother? This much? Can I have it less? No? Fight, fight, fight. I'm walking off to the next stall. But this guy, he's pouring me tea. He's saying have this silk, it's free for you. I'm sat down, I'm talking to him. Somehow they've learned the local language. They're chatting with me in Bahasa.

Terima kasih. Assalamu alaikum. Who are these mystery men who've learned the language, who sat trading, giving me gifts, pouring me tea? And then Thursday comes and on Thursday I hear that there is a feast on the beach on the coast of Malacca.

What is this feast? The Yemeni traders have come and are serving free food for anybody who wishes to come. Lines and lines of hundreds and hundreds of people lined up to eat this beautiful thing that they call mandi. Free? This is crazy. There must be a catch somewhere.

The Indonesian villagers, the island people line up — men, women and children — in order to taste the juicy chicken and the delicious rice brought by these foreign merchants. Slowly but surely the merchants grow in their influence. They start to marry the local women. Anybody who comes to buy from them, they say, "Come home for some tea, come home for some food." Thursdays are open feast for the whole coast. Anybody can come.

They start establishing masjids, small schools to teach the children Quran. They're not here as visitors, even though they're traders on a ship, even though they've not been given a house or a council home or purchased a property. They're here just to do business, but they have an intention: "We're here to stay. We're not here with one foot here, one foot in Yemen. We're here. We're going to be part of this society."

They start marrying the local women. They start having children. They start learning the local language. They start trading. They start opening up places where you can have free food for the poor, for the needy. Anybody who buys from them prefers to buy from them over any other trader because they get free treatment and tea and hugs and invitation for hot food. Why would you go anywhere else?

The influence starts to grow. They start to buy land and start to buy property. The tribal leaders and chiefs of the coast of Malacca and Indonesia start to pay attention. Who are these mystery men who have come and taken over the village and are looking after everyone, won the hearts of the community, married our daughters, learned the local language and are serving us delicious mandi?

The king of the coast of Malacca says, "Why don't you guys become my diplomats? When I need to send a message to Arabia, let me send you guys." They say, "Of course, we'll work for you for free. We don't need any money from you. If you need a hospital built, need a school built, just talk to us. We'll fund it." And slowly but surely, the first Hadrami-funded hospitals start popping up on the coast of Malacca. The schools, all funded through Yemeni traders' money because they brought the wealth. They brought the goods. They brought the expertise.

And so the villages from this coast of Indonesia start to slowly convert to Islam — not through the sword, not through conquest, but through the gradual day-to-day acts, the osmosis of a group of traders.

Islam Comes to the Coast of India

In the same century, the same traders from the same country — from Yemen, the south of Yemen — they arrive on the south coast of India, on the coast of Malabar. And this is where my ancestors came from. My ancestors, from the small village in the district of Tanjawur in the south of India, converted to Islam at the hands of a group of Yemeni traders.

If it wasn't for their dawah and their ambassadorship and their skillful trade and their merciful dealings and their free mandi and their humility and their learning of the local language and marrying into the local families, I don't think that I would be Muslim today. I owe my own faith to a group of people who spread Islam through daily, small daily acts, spread Islam through a gradual osmosis that won the hearts of local people and embedded themselves into the locality.

It came to a point in time that now, if you go to the south of India or Indonesia or Malaysia, they wear the same clothes and eat the same food and all follow the Shafi'i Madhab — the three things that the Yemeni traders brought us. This is the legacy of how Islam spread throughout the world. The vast majority of the world's population did not accept Islam through conquest, through swords or through force, but through a powerful group of traders from one small part of the world who knew the art and science of ambassadorship.

The Prophet's ﷺ Instructions to Mu'adh ibn Jabal

Where did the Yemenis learn the ambassadorship of Islam? In the life of the Prophet ﷺ, a young 17 or 18-year-old man, a talented, gifted young man called Mu'adh ibn Jabal is learning at his hands. The Prophet ﷺ gives him special attention over anybody else. He turns around in Salah one day and he sees him sat there and he says:

"So don't forget after every Salah to say these words I'm about to teach you." He slowly nurtures and gives special attention to this young man until he reaches his mid-to-late 20s. And he says to Mu'adh, "I want you to be the ambassador of Islam to Yemen." Mu'adh and another companion ride a horse and travel to Yemen on the instruction of the Prophet ﷺ. As they are leaving, the Prophet ﷺ gives them a simple instruction:

"Make things easy and do not make them difficult. Give glad tidings and do not make people run away." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3038; Sahih Muslim, Book 32, Hadith 6173)

With this simple two lines of advice, Mu'adh arrives in Yemen and he starts to do his job. And he is the beginning of what will then become the greatest da'wah movement the world has ever seen — the Hadrami traders who commanded a powerful fleet and a powerful armament of business which they took to the coasts all over the world and converted entire populations to Islam.

The largest Muslim population in the world today is Indonesia — hundreds of millions of Muslims. And how did they convert to Islam? It was through this story that I just shared with you.

Where Are We Today in the UK?

Today if we look at ourselves in the UK, according to Pew, the research agency, one in five British people say that they know a Muslim personally. One in five people — non-Muslims — they say they know a Muslim personally. That means four out of five, 80% of this country, has no friendship, no dealings, has never drunk a cup of tea, never built an acquaintance, never sat down and talked to and understood directly a Muslim. 300 years of being in the UK and 80% of non-Muslims don't know a Muslim by name.

Now I ask you the question: what are we doing wrong? Have we been good neighbors? Have we been welcoming? Have we been open? Are our places of worship open for people to visit? Have we reached out to schools, to churches, to invite them to come visit the masjid and let us introduce them? Have we spoken to our neighbor and invited them home for tea? Have we ever taken out the bins for an elderly neighbor? Have we ever helped an elderly neighbor with their furniture?

Simple day-to-day acts — that for a non-Muslim, they're not reading the Quran. Their Quran is you and me. They don't know Surat An-Nisa, Surat Ali Imran, no. They know Muhammad from next door who's so nice to me, smiles to me, takes out my bins, helps me with my furniture and helps my kids with their maths homework. That's who they know.

Abdullah Quilliam, the first Muslim in the history of the UK, did not convert to Islam due to a Speakers' Corner debate or somebody preaching or someone knocking at his door with a flyer. Why did he convert to Islam? Because he saw a group of Moroccans bring Salah on a ship. It sparked his curiosity and through their beautiful dealings and akhlaq, they won his heart.

Islam for the vast majority of history did not spread through debates, did not spread through preaching, did not spread through violence. It spread through daily acts of trade, of building influence, of generosity, of hospitality, of learning the languages of the locals and integrating into the local families, marrying into the locals until it slowly but surely swept across an entire region.

The First Islamic Kingdom in Malaysia

In Malaysia, the first record of Islam entering the country dates to 600 years after Hijrah — 1200 CE. 103 years later, the first Islamic kingdom sprouts in the middle of Malaysia, the kingdom of Aceh. Just 100 years from the day a Muslim set foot in Malaysia to the day there's an Islamic kingdom in Malaysia. What sihr did they do? What masala, what spice did they put in the curry? Is it rocket science? It is simple.

In 1303, a stone was found — a boulder dated back to 1303 — on the island of Terengganu in Malaysia. This stone lists out 10 sharia guidelines that the kingdom of Aceh had to follow. They were having rules, regulations, a sharia state, a kingdom just 100 years after a Muslim first set foot in the country.

We have been here 300 years. Our intention is not to take over and to rule and all of this kind of stuff, but we want to share our message and share the beauty of Islam and be ambassadors for the faith.

Islam Through Daily Life

Every day you wake up and you go to work in the morning. You get up and you go to work. And you may work with people who don't share the same faith as you. But do our dealings reflect our religion? Or have we created a reputation that we are the biggest slackers? We're the least hardworking. We're the least reliable. We're the latest to meetings. We're the last person to socialize. We're the most closed off. "Don't talk to me or look at me. I just want to talk to my own." What impression have we given to those around us at work?

Oftentimes, Salah at work becomes a struggle for many people. But Salah at work is one of the greatest forms of dawah — Salah in a public place. The principle we learned from the history of Islam and from the story of Yusuf, is that before you speak, you have to show Islam through your limbs, through your acts, and most of all, through the worship that will inspire people to ask, "Why on earth are you doing this? Explain to me."

Last night, I was standing outside the masjid with a brother. And he was telling me that very recently at work, somebody asked him a very controversial question about Islam. And he said, "I spent 15 minutes calmly discussing this idea, this question with them, until they were all — wow, this is really interesting."

Oftentimes, we try to hide our faith at work because we're embarrassed or shy or we think it won't allow us to progress. But if you gently and slowly, without arrogance, without pride, without being too much in your face — if you live it at work, oftentimes it leads to very interesting conversations. Very curious people might ask you a few questions and you end up in a conversation. This is exactly what you want to happen.

Ramadan comes every year. People around you ask, "What is Ramadan? Why do you guys fast? What does it mean?" And these are lost opportunities that we don't use to introduce them.

Ambassadors in Everyday Roles

How many Muslim taxi drivers do we have in Manchester? There are so many Muslim taxi drivers. In every city, a good chunk of the taxi drivers are Muslim. But each of these taxi drivers could be an ambassador, but they're missing out. One time, I rode in an Uber. The driver thought I was a Hindu — he's an Indian guy. He starts driving. He starts asking me, "Brother, what's the purpose of life?" I played along with him. "Oh, really? I'm not sure. What do you think?" He starts giving me dawah: "There must be a creator of this world. It couldn't have just come up." We reached the destination. He gets out the car. He opens his boot. He has Quran translations. Do you know how many people this guy picks up every day? Do you know how many opportunities he's getting?

One time, I went to a shop to buy some food. And as I paid for my food, the gentleman gave me a receipt and a flyer with my receipt. I took the receipt. I checked the flyer. The flyer had a question at the top: "What's the purpose of life?" — a flyer inviting me to Islam. I said, "Brother, don't worry. Alhamdulillah, I'm a Muslim."

There are shopkeepers, taxi drivers, doctors, nurses, dentists, bricklayers who, in every interaction, are trying to introduce people to Islam — trying to be the generous, the kind, the accommodating, the helpful Muslim on the block who's willing to serve and willing to help others, willing to be at the service of those around us.

A Strategic Shift — Looking Outward

One of the key shifts that we need to have — strategic shifts as Muslims — is that our focus has often been: how do I preserve Islam within the Muslim community and how do I help the Muslim community? We've always been insular because we feel we need to survive. We're under threat as Muslims. Our faith is under threat. So we need to look after our own. It's time to start looking outward. What can we do to serve not ourselves but humanity at large?

Can we clean the streets of this area? What can we do to reduce knife crime? What can we do to help the drug situation? Can we set up a soup kitchen in the most difficult corner of the city? And every time somebody comes for soup — salamu alaikum, "Here's your soup." Just that salamu alaikum. What does that mean? "That means peace, brother. Enjoy your soup."

It's these small interactions and these small investments and this serving the public as opposed to just serving ourselves that will change and shift the conversation around Islam. We're living at the moment in a period in British history where we are slowly seeing rising Islamophobia towards Muslims, negative sentiment towards Muslims, discussion about niqab and hijab being banned in parliament. The change in preventing this wave from having a long-term impact on Muslims — the change starts from the absolute grassroots.

Masjids should have open days where we invite non-Muslims, schools, churches and the general public to come and visit. There should be tea and cakes and the best of afternoon tea set up in the masjid. There should be delicious food served for free to guests who come visit. Each of us in this room have to do our part because it's no longer optional to be an ambassador for Islam. It's reached a point that if we don't do it — from taxi driver to doctor — if we don't play our part, people will always have a negative perception of us because the media is working hard to tarnish the name of Islam and Muslims.

The Story of the Laundry

One of the remarkable stories I heard from one of my teachers is that he used to send his clothes to the laundry service in the US every week. Every week he'd take a batch of dirty clothes, take it to the laundry service, drop it with them. One day the woman at the reception of the laundry service asked him a question. She said, "Why is it that the undergarments of all of my clients are stained but your undergarments are always clean? I don't see any marks on your underwear, any dirty marks, but all of my clients without exception, whenever I get the undergarments, they're dirty. Why is it?"

He said, "There's something we Muslims do called istinja. We're very clean people. Even when we use the toilet — akramakumullah — we have a specific way of washing ourselves with water so there's no traces left." She said, "Really? Down to personal hygiene? That's really interesting. I never thought religion would be that specific." "You want to learn more?" he said. "Here, let me pass you a book. Let me pass you a flyer."

It was only a few weeks later that the woman accepted Islam. How did she accept Islam? Did he stand there to have a debate about the existence of God? Did he stand there shouting at her, asking her questions and interrogating her? Did he stand there with the Bible in her face? No. It was his undergarments that led her to question and understand the brilliance of this religion.

The Importance of Wealth, Influence and Trade

I think one of the important things from what I shared with you for your takeaway is the importance of wealth, influence and trade. These Yemeni Hadrami traders who took Islam to Somalia, to the Horn of Africa, to the south of India, to Indonesia, to Malaysia — they were wealthy merchants. They were able to buy land, fund charities, spend on the homeless, because they were in a position of power and influence.

And so it's important to think strategically about these kinds of things — about the importance of entrepreneurship in the history of Islam and as a form of da'wah to others. To have employees who are of other faiths, and through your wise and kind and generous practices, to be somebody who spreads the message of Islam.