Jody Mellor
- Apr 1, 2023
- 5 min read

Bila¯d al-Welsh (Land of the Welsh): Muslims in Cardiff, South Wales: past, present and future.

Updated: Jun 26

Historical introduction In the mid-19th century, a major technical transformation took place in the world’s merchant shipping industry. Most freight ships were no longer powered by sails, but by steam from coal-fired engines. At this time, the Durham and South Wales coalfields were among the most productive in Britain, and their proximity to major ports like Cardiff and South Shields gave these places a particular strategic advantage in the world of commercial shipping. But the transition from sail to steam vessels created work that was hot, dirty and tiring, and this form of occupation was increasingly rejected by British labourers. New recruits on these trading ships were therefore drawn from colonial territories with strong merchant shipping traditions, such as coastal India, Yemen, and Somalia. They were employed primarily as firemen and stokers on vessels moving between Britain and the far East (Aithie 2005; El-Solh 1993; Lawless 1995).

In cities such as Cardiff, boarding houses were established to accommodate this transient community of seafarers drawn from many different religious and ethnic origins. Having completed their passage on one ship, they would reside in boarding houses in dockland areas until new employment could be found on an out-bound vessel. By 1881 there were enough transitory seafarers in Cardiff to warrant the establishment of a so-called “Home for Coloured Seamen” in the Butetown district of the city (Ansari 2004). An increasing number of boarding houses owned and managed by Muslims, mostly Yemenis from the Shamiri tribe, provided a physical, social, religious and economic base for these seafarers, and provided the foundations for the later emergence of more established religious facilities and associations. The diversity of the British Empire was reflected in microcosm in most major British maritime ports, including Cardiff. Besides the Yemeni and Somali seafarers, there were Pathans, Punjabis and Mirpuris who had been recruited in Bombay, while Bengalis from the Sylhet region were recruited in Calcutta. The availability of workers for the ships varied according to the vibrancy of the agricultural industry at the time, since most recruits were peasant farmers.

Map of the Horn of Africa

Increasing number of Muslims to Britain, as the volume of trading between Britain and Asian countries expanded. This had direct consequences for cities such as Cardiff, with the result that by the end of the 19th century Welsh Office records suggest a population of 5,000 Arab seamen in the city (Aithie 2005). Despite the size and historical significance of early (if transient) Muslim settlement in Cardiff, relatively little research has been conducted about the religious lives of Muslims in the city. The paucity of evidence is also compounded by an emphasis on race, employment, and labour relations in the research that does exist. Muslims in Cardiff are discussed through these particular analytical frames, and their religious activities are often only mentioned incidentally in accounts which otherwise tend to focus upon their migration or socio-economic conditions, especially in the 20th century. In many ways this is not surprising. After all, Muslim settlement in the city has been directly related to economics in terms of maritime trade, and the demand for additional labour during time of war. The combination of a lack of in-depth research about Muslims in the city (Chambers 2006) created the rationale for an 18-month research project to document aspects of the early history and settlement of Muslims in Cardiff, giving particular prominence to their development of religious associations and the maintenance of rites and rituals. Although the first author of this paper (Gilliat-Ray) had been collecting data on this for some years previously, the study began properly when Dr Jody Mellor took up the post of research assistant in July 2008.1 Over an eighteen-month period, interviews have been taking place with Muslim elders who have been living and working in the city for at least two generations. Some of these have been video-recorded.

In cities such as Cardiff, boarding houses were established to accommodate this transient community of seafarers drawn from many different religious and ethnic origins.

The resources of the Butetown History and Arts Centre have been examined, alongside photographic and other documentary evidence. Collaboration with the “Four Generations Project” (2009–2010) led by the Somali Integration Society (SIS) in Cardiff has also added to the research base. Whilst there have been studies of Yemenis and Arabs settling in Cardiff, the story of Somali settlement is virtually unrecorded, and the SIS project will represent an important addition to the literature. Our current research builds upon a number of well-known studies of race and ethnicity in Cardiff (and other port cities). These include Kenneth Little’s survey of Loudon Square (Cardiff ) in his book about race relations in Britain in the 1940s (Little 1948). This is supplemented by Fred Halliday’s work on Yemenis in Britain which includes substantial documentation on port cities (Halliday 1992), and Richard Lawless’s study of Yemenis in South Shields, who were connected to Yemenis in Cardiff via kinship and other ties (Lawless 1994; Lawless 1995). Local historical studies of labor relations in Wales, and especially work by Neil Evans (Evans 1985) and Marika Sherwood (Sherwood 1988) also provide useful insights, and these are set in the wider historical context of Muslim settlement in Britain via work by Humayun Ansari (Ansari 2004).artford Seminary. 453 This paper will demonstrate that throughout their settlement in the city, the fortunes of Muslims and their scope for exercising religious agency and autonomy have been affected by wider social, political and economic factors. This has been most evident in their relations with local authorities and civic officials. There have been highly variable responses to Muslim presence and settlement, from active support and engagement with Muslims (for example, during the First and Second World War), to outright racism and moral outrage at the prospect of mixed-faith and mixed-race marriages. In other words, the place that Muslims have occupied on the boundary between inclusion/recognition and exclusion/marginalization has been strongly conditioned by local, national, and international politics.

Credit: Ibrahim Ismaail

Secondly, it is clear that these wider external politics have often gone on to shape intra-Muslim relations and negotiations, and this has been most evident in the “biography” of the first mosque in Wales, established in Cardiff in 1936.

By charting the changing location, ownership, predominant ethnicity, religious “school of thought”, and various architectural manifestations of a single mosque, it becomes clear how buildings are direct expressions of other social and political interests (Gilliat-Ray 2010b). Thirdly, this paper examines some of the changing fortunes of women in Cardiff — especially white Welsh Muslim converts — and argues that they have often been at the sharp and contested interface between male Muslim seafarers and wider local communities.

Extract of the book entitled: Bila¯d al-Welsh (Land of the Welsh): Muslims in Cardiff, South Wales: past, present and futuremuwo_1331 452 Written by: Sophie Gilliat-Ray & Jody Mellor.

See the project web site at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/relig/research/researchcentres/csi/

centre-for-the-study-of-islam-in-the-uk.html

I am grateful to Dr Grahame Davies, Honorary Research Fellow, Islam-UK Centre Cardiff University, for pointing out this architectural feature.