From Drury Lane to Makkah
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is taken from From Drury Lane to Makkah by Shaykh ‘Abd al-Hakim Murad Timothy John Winter. History has not recorded the name of the first British Muslim to carry out the rites of haj . Rumours abound of converted crusaders who made the trip in medieval times, and of British Muslims in Ottoman naval service who visited the hallowed precincts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the first detailed account of the haj by an English Muslim had to wait until the Edwardian era, when the artist, Mahmud Hedley Cole Churchward became the first recorded British “Guest of God”. Like many Anglo-Muslims of his day, Churchward was the conservative, gentlemanly scion of an ancient family; indeed, his ancestors possessed the second-oldest house in Britain. His father ran a successful business in Aldershot, and was well-received in regimental circles, enabling the young Churchward to meet Queen Victoria and t...