Yunus Emre InstituteBook launch and talk of ‘The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam’ with Professor Ron Geaves at Yunus Emre Institute London.
Join us at Yunus Emre Institute London on Thursday, June 30th, 7 pm for a book launch & talk on ‘The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam’ with Professor Ron Geaves, British scholar of religious studies and an editor of this unique and fascinating collection.
This event with be run jointly between Yunus Emre Institute London and the book’s publisher, Beacon Books.
Traditional Turkish food will be served.
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About the Event:
The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam, edited by Ron Geaves and Yahya Birt, brings together, for the first time, the secular and religious poetry of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932) in a single volume.
William Henry Quilliam was a local Liverpool solicitor and resident who embraced Islam in 1887 (aged 31), after returning from a visit to Morocco. He took on the name Abdullah and opened the Liverpool Muslim Institute, Britain’s first mosque community. Alongside opening schools and orphanages in Britain, Quilliam was a prolific writer, publishing books, journals, and poetry. Through his efforts, he amassed many prominent titles, including the title of Shaykh al-Islām for the British Isles given by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the 26th Ottoman Caliph, and the Persian Vice Counsel to Liverpool by the Persian Shah. He had a significant and unquestionable influence on the growth of Islam in Victorian Britain.
With The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam, readers can explore his entire four-decade poetic output which reveals much about his inner spiritual and emotional life, uncovering the private man behind the public figure. Professor Ron Geaves will be introducing a selection of poems of Abdullah Quilliam from this collection. The poems written in Liverpool and Istanbul provide fresh insights into the founder of England’s first Mosque and Muslim community in Liverpool between 1889 and 1908.
The book will be available to buy during the event!
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Book Launch & Talk: The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam
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Date: Thursday, 30 June 2022
Time: 7 pm (UK time)
Venue: 10 Maple Street, London, W1T 5HA
Registration is essential.
This event will be streamed live on the Yunus Emre Institute London’s Facebook and YuTube accounts, @yeelondra.
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About the Speaker:
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Professor Ron Geaves is an Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of History, Archaeology, and Religion at Cardiff University. He held a Chair in Religious Studies at the University of Chester (2001-2007) and a Chair in the Comparative Study of Religion at Liverpool Hope University (2007-2013). An author of nineteen books on religion, his research interests focuses on the transmigration of Islam into the UK.
In recent works he has been arguing for the revival of Sufism globally and, also, the history of the Muslim presence in the UK, culminating in his ground-breaking book Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam. He was Chair of the Muslims in Britain Research Network (2007-2010) and instrumental in the creation of BRAIS (British Association of Islamic Studies), and still remains on their advisory board.