PhD researcher Barbara Denuelle travelled to Liverpool to commemorate the life of the first Victorian woman to embrace Islam.<\/p>\n
The commemoration started at Anfield Cemetery where a tombstone had recently been erected to mark Fatima Elizabeth Cates\u2019 previously unmarked grave thanks to the fundraising efforts of Amirah Scarisbrick. The commemoration then continued at Liverpool\u2019s Abdullah Quilliam Mosque with the book launch of \u201cOur Fatima of Liverpool: The Story of Fatima Cates, the Victorian Woman who Helped Found British Islam<\/em><\/a>\u201d authored by Yahya Birt and Hamid Mahmood.\u00a0The event was the first of its\u2019 kind in bringing together converts to Islam from all over the UK.<\/p>\n The event was organised by a number of British foundations which support converts to Islam, including Batool al-Toma\u2019s Convert Muslim Foundation and the Ihsan Mosque in Norwich with whom Barbara has conducted ethnographic fieldwork.<\/p>\n PhD researcher Barbara Denuelle, is researching conversion to Islam from a Sufi perspective under the supervision of\u00a0Dr Judith Bovensiepen\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Dr Zerrin \u00d6zlem Biner <\/a>and highlights the role of women in both the transmission of spiritual knowledge and community-building with the\u00a0Centre for Ethnographic Research.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"