Our Fatima of Liverpool: The Story of Fatima Cates, the Victorian woman who helped found British Islam

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Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865-1900) was a founding figure and leader of Britain’s first mosque community, as well as its first treasurer. One of the earliest women to convert to Islam in England (in 1887), Fatima showed great courage and fortitude in overcoming great opposition from society and her own family to call people to the faith by word and by example. Read more about her and the lives of the other early Muslima converts she influenced in this first-ever biography dedicated to our Fatima of Liverpool. The LMS became a hub for new Muslims and offered a range of educational services and cared for orphans. As the activities of the mosque increased, so did the number of people who converted including her sisters and husband. In this period, Fatima began to lessen her active involvement in the Institute and spent time away from Liverpool travelling to the East (probably to Beirut) and taking landscape photography in Southern England.

Yahya Birtis a community historian who has taught at the University of Leeds. He has an M.Phil. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Oxford.She said: "We did a re-enactment of Quilliam's conversion for an interfaith event a few years ago and I got asked to be Fatima. It really was literally just a paragraph I had to say, but I remember getting so into the role, it was really profound. I think it was at that point I really connected with this woman.

This is a surprising book in many ways and the authors have created a worthy addition to the body of literature relating to faith in Britain. As a non-Muslim reader, I was surprised to discover that Islam in Britain is rooted not only in Liverpool but in British converts to the faith. I was also surprised that this ���Muslima’, this Victorian church-attending young woman, played such a key role in establishing a mosque and sharing her experiences of conversion. I see Fatima as an inspiration, a scouser like me, who trod a similar path, but in the most bold and pioneering way. May God rest her soul and raise her rank and may we be reunited in the best of places with beloved God” Picture 2: Interior of England's first mosque, showing the stage at the rear of the mosque where Divine services were held on Sundays. Islamic hymns were sung, accompanied by an organ, seen on the right. Source: J.H. McGovern, Lectures in Saracenic Architecture (Liverpool, 1896-1898), frontispiece. Described as a transformational convert, the story of Our Fatima of Liverpool makes a welcome addition to the growing literature on early British Muslims.

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The original choir in those times was formed by convert women and I’d wanted to revive this tradition. We were invited by the teacher and founder of the Fatima Cates Madrassa in East London to do two assemblies. At the time, it was difficult for other choir members to attend, so I went and was so impressed that a madrassa was named after a convert from Liverpool. I spoke about being a convert from Liverpool and sang to the children some of the material we had practiced. They then went on to form their own choir. At the recent book launch and commemoration event, they sang one of the poems Fatima had written, it was very beautiful seeing it all come together.

After the event, Frances sought to clear her misconceptions about Islam with Quilliam and he encouraged her to learn more about the faith by giving her a translated copy of the Quran and some of his writings. He lives in West Yorkshire with his family and two cats. He likes walking and being grumpy about the state of the world. I would go to her grave thinking about how her son would have stood, aged four, having lost his mother, with Abdullah Quilliam leading her janazah, also considering the pain of Fatima’s mother having to bury a child. And there would have been others there such as orphaned children from the children’s home, Medina House. The hidden history presented in this book is co-written by Hamid Mahmood, a teacher and founder of the Fatima Elizabeth Cates Phrontistery in London and Yahya Birt, a writer and community historian who has produced publications such as Islam in Victorian Liverpool and The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam. Hamid Mahmood is the founder of Fatima Elizabeth Phrontistery in London, an Islamic supplementary school, and a teacher by profession with an interest in history of Islam and the West.

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It is all the more remarkable that Fatima’s greatest successes came at the moment of her heaviest trial. Throughout the first two years of her marriage, she had to contend with an abusive, violent and, at times, murderous husband. She sued for divorce in December 1891, but was only granted a year’s separation. Nonetheless, their marriage was effectively over and they lived separately until his death at sea in January 1895. We sang Qasida’s (songs of praise of the Prophet, peace be upon him) in English and Arabic. Zaynab played the Daff very well and had learned how to sing and play whilst living in Tarim in Yemen. Frances was a socially conscious, devout Christian, and become active in the Temperance movement which campaigned against the liquor trade and the social harms caused by alcohol. By the age of 19, she became the secretary of the Association of Prohibition of Alcohol in Birkenhead, a position which eventually led her to attend a public talk on “The great Arabian teetotaler” by the well-known Muslim convert William Henry (Abdullah) Quilliam.