My research showed that da‘wa activity underway in various parts of Britain, especially Birmingham, was, by far, much stronger compared with other places, such as France or the Caribbean. For example, Abu Khadeejah’s sisters’ circles, which began with no more than two women at a house in Woodwells Road in Ward End each Sunday, became so popular that they soon reached full capacity and eventually shifted to larger premises on Muntz Street. This growth is a good indication not only of the number of women converting to Salafism at that time, but also of how these women were beginning to negotiate new religious/social spaces through this process. Nasreen recalled how the very first sisters’ circle to be organised was delivered as a means of tackling both knowledge of Salafism and the marginality that both Muslim heritage (MH) and non-Muslim heritage (NMH) women might be experiencing as new converts:
The sisters’ circles originated in a house in 1995 and were taught by Abu Khadeejah. Eventually the living room, kitchen, stairwell, and the landing were full … this is how many sisters were there. On a nice day we’d have to go outside because there wasn’t enough space, and Abu Khadeejah had to use a microphone for us to hear because we were segregated (he sat apart from the women).
Initially, the published translations of British Salafi students returning from studying at institutions, such as the Islamic University of Madinah (IUM), were very popular among upwardly mobile, university-educated, British-born Muslims; however, before long, they began circulating within communities all over the UK, especially those in deprived inner-city areas of Birmingham and London. The decisive effect these translations had upon non-academic audiences, such as NMH convert Rahima, was evident in the impact of reading the English translation of one specific book published in 1997: The Methodology of the Prophets by Shaykh Rabee’ Ibn Haadi al-Madkhali. This book remains a linchpin in helping countless individuals, from both Muslim and NMH backgrounds, to understand the ‘pure’ message of Islam and the methodology of the Salaf. For Rahima, in particular, it clarified the status of Jesus in Islamic thought, and that the call and methodology of all 124,000 Prophets sent down by Allah to mankind affirms the universal and unified principle of worshipping Allah upon Tawheed.
The outcome of all this ‘pietist’ da‘wa activity strengthened Salafism as an RRM far beyond the scope of its original mission, and aligned with the expectations of the institutions British Salafi students who were returning from—for example, the IUM, which was “set up by the Saudi state in 1961 as an explicitly missionary venture” (Farquhar 2017:3):
The IUM has been distinguished from the kingdom’s other Islamic universities by its goal of offering fully funded religious instruction primarily to young men, non-Saudi men, who from the start made up over 80 per cent of its student body. The expectation was that they would return to their communities of origin or travel on elsewhere as du’aat, or missionaries. Although they were certainly expected to preach to non-Muslims, the focus was on offering guidance to Muslim communities seen as having deviated from orthodox belief and practice (Farquhar 2017:3).
Malika, an NMH convert to Salafism of second-generation African-Caribbean descent, described in detail the effect that the “export” of Salafi da‘wa had on locals who were just discovering Salafism—her discussion of the Salafi Bookstore is a strong example of the dynamics of “human agency” in such a cultural transaction (Farquhar 2017:2):
The Salafi Bookstore was a big blessing, it was easy to get to and their books they made sense. I’d read them and know that this is the truth. Even the knowledge in the articles from their website was always sound, there was no confusion. It was clear.
For Rahima, too, works by the major Salafi scholars published by SPUBS helped prevent her from going ‘astray’ in her creed and manhaj; this illustrates the “cross- border circuits” cultivated around religious frameworks emerging from IUM (Farquhar 2017:4) and Shaykh Muqbil bin Haadi al-Waadi’i in Yemen (Bonnefoy 2011:54). This knowledge enabled Rahima to navigate her way through the fitna (discord) that befell the Salafi da‘wa in Brixton Mosque during this era, and shows the level of commitment she gave her newfound faith:
There were issues in the Brixton community surrounding Adnaan, Surur and Abu Usaamah … But I needed to know what the truth is, so I made du’aa: ‘Please Allah show me the scholars and show me the right sect, the Jamaa’ah’. I kept making du’aa and learning, whilst reading and learning from Shaykh Rabee’s stuff.
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