[21] In the 16th century, Muslims from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia were present in London, working in a range of roles, from diplomats and translators to merchants and musicians.

[27][28][29] The first educated South Asian to travel to Europe and live in Britain was I'tisam-ud-Din, a Bengali Muslim cleric, munshi and diplomat to the Mughal Empire who arrived in 1765 with his servant Muhammad Muqim during the reign of King George III.

Converts to the religion outside of courtly life, the majority of the Muslim population in the Subcontinent, too were more focused on their regional and lingual cultural identities-whether that be Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, or Gujarati.

[33] The first group of Muslims to come to Great Britain in significant numbers, in the 18th century, were lascars (sailors) recruited from the Indian subcontinent, largely from the Bengal region, to work for the East India Company on British ships, some of whom settled down and took local wives.

One of the most famous early Asian immigrants to England was the Bengali Muslim entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomet, a captain of the East India Company who in 1810 founded London's first Indian restaurant, the Hindoostanee Coffee House.

[47][48] Other aristocratic British converts included Sir Archibald Hamilton, 5th Baronet, Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley, St John Philby and Zainab Cobbold (the first Muslim woman born in Britain to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca).

[49][50] Muslim migrants from former British colonies, predominantly India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh,[49] were recruited in large numbers by government and businesses to rebuild the country.

[52] British Asians (both Muslim and non-Muslim) faced increased discrimination following Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech and the establishment of the National Front (NF) in the late 1960s.

There are also a smaller number of Salafi-oriented mosques, inspired by Abul A'la Maududi and Jamaat-e-Islami, are representative of the Arab mainstream or are associated with the UK Turkish Islamic Trust.

The Murabitun World Movement founded by Abdalqadir as-Sufi (born Ian Dallas) in 1968 is a branch of the Sufi Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri tariqa which was run out of Achnagairn in the Scottish Highlands.

Gujarati Muslims from the Surat and Bharuch districts started to arrive from the 1940s when India was under British colonial rule, settling in the towns of Dewsbury and Batley in Yorkshire and in parts of Lancashire.

There are large numbers of Gujarati Muslims in Dewsbury, Blackburn (including Darwen), Bolton, Preston, Nottingham, Leicester, Nuneaton, Gloucester and London (Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney).

[117] However, due to the Cyprus conflict, many Turkish Cypriots began to leave the island for political reasons in the 1950s,[118] with the numbers increasing significantly after the intercommunal violence of late 1963.

[128] The majority live in capital city of London, particularly in Hackney, Haringey, Enfield, Lewisham, Lambeth, Southwark, Croydon, Islington, Kensington, Waltham Forest, and Wood Green.

He was known locally for his work advocating trade unionism and divorce law reform and persuaded more people in Liverpool to convert but they faced abuse from the wider society.

[147] The denominational or theme breakdown of mosques and prayer rooms in the UK in 2017 with a sum total of more than 5% were as follows: 41.2% Deobandi, 23.7% Barelvi, 9.4% Salafi, and 5.9% Shia (Twelver, Bohra, Ismaili).

In a 2010 aggregate study published by the Government Equalities Office, Muslims in the United Kingdom had the lowest median hourly salary and held the least wealth amongst religious groups.

[171] According to analysis based on the 2011 census, Muslims in the United Kingdom faced poor standards of housing and were more vulnerable to long-term illness.

For example, in February 2008 Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury (the head of the Church of England) lectured at the Royal Courts of Justice on Islam and English law.

"[211] In March 2014, The Law Society issued guidance on how to draft sharia-compliant wills for the network of sharia courts which been established to deal with disputes between Muslim families.

[228] There have been multiple cases of non-Muslim prisoners threatened with violence[229] with "convert or get hurt" being a commonly used phrase by Muslim gangs according to an independent report published by the government.

[231] Other reasons why inmates may convert include wanting protection in wings where Muslim gangs are prevalent, the ability to go to chapel, and access to different foods.

[235][236][237] Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat, foreign affairs spokesman has said that Saudi Arabia provides funding to hundreds of mosques in the UK, espousing a very hardline Wahhabist interpretation of Islam.

[238] In July 2017, a report by the Henry Jackson Society, a neo-conservative[239][240] think tank, claimed that Middle Eastern nations are financially supporting mosques and educational institutions linked to spreading extremist material with "an illiberal, bigoted Wahhabi ideology".

[260] In March 2024, the Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, suspended the Civil Service Muslim Network (CSMN) over alleged antisemitic remarks and activities.

[275][276][277] On 18 May 2013, just as the bill to legalise same-sex marriages was being prepared to pass into law, over 400 leading Muslims including head teachers and senior representatives of mosques across the country, published an open letter opposing the bill on the grounds that "Muslim parents will be robbed of their right to raise their children according to their beliefs, as homosexual relationships are taught as something normal to their primary-aged children".

63% believed that different religious and ethnic groups should mix together more in their local area and Muslim children had higher levels of university aspiration than the general population.

"[293][294] In January 2010, the British Social Attitudes Survey found that the general public "is far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than of any other religious group," with "just one in four" feeling "positively about Islam," and a "majority of the country would be concerned if a mosque was built in their area, while only 15 per cent expressed similar qualms about the opening of a church.

71% of respondents named Islam as having a more negative impact on society compared to other religions with 18.1% of those surveyed supported banning all Muslim migration to the UK.

[337] However, a 2019 critique from two Sikh academics and a UK government report found the allegations to be false and misleading, lacking solid data and promoting historical tensions "designed to whip up fear and hate".