Islam in Wales History Project - Exhibition Launch Event 2024

On Thursday, 7 November 2024, the Islam-UK Centre launched a new exhibition in Cardiff University's Glamorgan Building on the findings of the Islam in Wales History Project. Inattendance were members of the Welsh Muslim community, civic and faith leaders, as well as members of Senedd.

The project led by the Deputy Director of our centre, Dr Abdul-Azim Ahmed, seeks to document and tell the “story” of Islam in Wales and make the history of Muslims in Wales accessible to academics, the wider public, and Welsh Muslims themselves, so as to broaden public understanding of a multicultural and multireligious Wales.

Speakers on the evening included Jane Hutt CBE, Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice; Professor Damian Walford Davies, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Cardiff University; and, founder of the Muslim Council of Wales, Professor Saleem Kidwai OBE. The event was chaired by Mariyah Zaman, CEO of Now in a Minute Media, who have been key partners in the delivery of the Islam in Wales History Project.

Cabinet Secretary Jane Hutt commended the project’s importance, and the research of the Islam-UK Centre, saying, “We’re so fortunate that you’re here in Cardiff, in our University, and having such an impact.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Damian Walford Davies welcomed the exhibition, expressing, “How deeply proud I am, of what is out there, what we have achieved here, what Cardiff has achieved”, and “Thank you to the Jameel Foundation and thank you to the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK”.

The exhibition is a captivating visual journey into Muslim history in Wales, and includes a newly commissioned map of Muslim and Islamic connections with Wales.

As well as the physical exhibition, a digital e-book of project outputs has been produced by Centre Development Officer, Mark Bryant, allowing easy access to the project findings. The e-book features the exhibition posters, links to videos and explanatory lectures, and a book of entries to a photography competition on theme of “Islam in Wales” in 2022 to launch the project.

The project reveals the hidden Welsh history of Muslims, from early Victorian converts, to the establishment of Cardiff as one of the earliest Muslim communities in Britain. This builds on the work of our Director, Professor Sophie Gilliat-Ray.

As she remarks in her seminal work on Muslims in Britain, not only is, “The influence of Islamic culture and scholarship on medieval English society… Often… Underestimated and downplayed,” but the “distinctly ‘Islamic character’” of this knowledge is also often contested, creating gaps and silences. The same is true when it comes to Welsh society’s engagement with Islam, and Dr Ahmed’s project provides a powerful remedy.

The exhibition at the Glamorgan Building will run until the end of January 2025.