Muslim Marriage Practices and the First Mosque Weddings
Had Muslims been present in England and Wales in any significant numbers in the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that they too would have been exempted from the requirements of the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753.
What the status of Muslim marriages might have been under the Marriage Act 1836 must be a matter of conjecture, but, if there had been a body that was seen as speaking for the Muslim community as a whole, there is no reason why it would not have been tasked with approving the persons responsible for registering marriages in the same way that the Jewish Board of Deputies was.As it was, the influence of Muslim marriage practices on the debates about reform in the 1820s and 1830s was largely a negative
one. Parallels were drawn between the Unitarians - who were the group primarily interested in reform - and what were termed ‘Mahometans’, but purely to undermine the case for reform. As one MP pointed out, Unitarians, in denying the divinity of Christ, were far more akin to Muslims than to other Protestant Dissenters.55 Others denied that there was any hardship to Protestant Dissenters in having to comply with Anglican rites. The Bishop of Chester declared that if he were in a foreign country - ‘in a country of Jews, of Catholics, or Mussulmen’ - he would ‘hold himself bound to comply with the established laws and ceremonies of the country’, while maintaining his own convictions and beliefs.56 Even those arguing in favour of reform invoked Muslim marriage practices in a negative way, with the Earl of Harrowby pointedly asking whether their lordships ‘would be satisfied with a marriage ceremony for themselves, in which the name of Mahomet was adjured’.57
Clearly, nineteenth-century legislators saw no need to make provision for non-Christian marriages other than those within the established Jewish community.
Nor did this change as the century progressed. While an increasing number of Muslims were coming to England and Wales to study and work, their numbers were still in the hundreds rather than the thousands,58 in contrast to the hundreds of thousands within the different Jewish communities. The majority of Muslims in England and Wales were transitory migrants, employed in dockyards and aboard ships.59 Towards the end of the century, however, the first mosques were opened - one in Liverpool and another in Woking.60 And in April 1891, newspapers excitedly reported the celebration of ‘[t]he first Moslem wedding in England’ at the liverpool mosque.61 This was not, however, a religious-only marriage. The couple in question - a London barrister named Mohammed Almad, and his English bride, Charlotte Fitch - had married on the morning of 18 April in the parish church of St Giles, Camberwell,62 and had then travelled by train to Liverpool for the ceremony in the mosque that afternoon. The newspaper reports of the wedding convey both a sense of excitement at this novelty and a desire to normalize it. One noted that the service ‘was very similar to that with which English people are familiar’ while another even claimed that it ‘bore much resemblance to the Church of England ceremony’.63It was to be the first of a number of weddings there.64 The Crescent reported the seventh such marriage in 1893, noting that just as a pilgrimage to Mecca ‘is one of the events of the life-time of each true believer’, so too ‘it seems to have become almost adopted as a fundamental principle that, if any Moslem in England desires to be married,
Keligtous-Onb MarrtagestnEnglanclancl Wales 21 he should make a pilgrimage to the Liverpool Mosque, to have the ceremony performed there’.65
Despite the fact that reforms to marriage law were being considered again in the 1890s, there would have been nothing in these early mosque marriages to have suggested that legal change was needed to accommodate them.
After all, there was no reason in principle why a mosque should not be duly certified as a place of worship and registered for marriages, despite some contemporary comment to the contrary.66 The initial restriction limiting such certification and registration to Christian places of worship had long disappeared, and a number of Jewish synagogues had chosen to register as a means of escaping the control of the Board of Deputies. It may have been that the failure to register the Liverpool mosque, and the delay in registering the Woking mosque, were due to difficulties in meeting the preconditions for recognition. In order to be registered, a place of worship had to be a separate building, 20 householders were required to certify that it was their usual place of worship, and a fee of £3 had to be paid.67 Even if these had proved obstacles to registration, Muslims were in effectively the same position as many other small Christian denominations, combining their religious ceremonies with a ceremony in the register office or parish church.In the early twentieth century, one Muslim religious-only marriage did hit the headlines, but more for its dramatic sequel than for the fact that it was not solemnized according to English law. Clara Casey, a 17-year-old Salford-born dancer, had converted to Islam and gone through a ceremony of marriage with Ben-Bellkassem at the Liverpool mosque. There was a strategic reason for the religious-only ceremony in this case, in that Ben-Bellkassem was already married. He had married Elizabeth Maud Smith at a register office in Lancashire in 1901,68 the pair having met in her native Glasgow and eloped to England to marry because of opposition from her strict Presbyterian parents. Perhaps it was Clara’s working-class background that meant that she was not portrayed as a victim, despite her claims that she had been told that the ceremony in the mosque was ‘perfectly valid’.69 As the Manchester Ccurier reported, the marriage laws and customs of the Islamic authorities in England ‘would certainly seem stringent enough in the case of mixed marriages to reduce misunderstanding to a minimum’.70
While this was not necessarily an isolated case, the small size of the Muslim population of England and Wales at this time means it is unlikely that any more than a handful of religious-only ceremonies were ever conducted.
If anything, the authorities seemed more concerned with the solemnization of legally binding marriages between Indianstudents and English women.71 In any case, within a few years the Muslim Institute in Liverpool had foundered, and no more weddings were conducted there. The mosque at Woking similarly closed following the death of its founder. Reopening in 1913, in 1920 it was formally registered for weddings,72 giving Muslims a place where they could have a legally recognized religious wedding.
Conclusion
Taking the long view shows that religious-only marriages are not unique to Muslim communities. It also shows that many of the earliest Muslim marriages in England and Wales were located within the legal framework, either by being combined with a legally binding ceremony, or, later, by being conducted in a registered mosque.
What is particularly striking is how the same narratives and explanations recur in relation to different religious groups at different times. Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim religious-only marriages have all been linked to the practices of new immigrants. In each case, claims have been made that such religious-only marriages involve the desertion of wives and children, as well as the commission of bigamy. Such commonalities should, however, give us pause. The fact that recent immigrants feature so heavily in the narrative might lead us to conclude that they are uniquely likely to engage in religious-only marriages; it should also lead us to reflect on whether prejudice and unfamiliarity encourage certain assumptions being made about such immigrants. After all, with hindsight we know that some of the wilder estimates as to the number of religious-only marriages - for example, those suggested in relation to the religious-only marriages of Irish Catholics in the 1820s and 1830s - were very far off the mark.
While taking the long view of religious-only marriages may provide some reassurance that this is not a unique or unprecedented issue, it does also raise some uncomfortable questions about how communities may be marginalized and alienated as their marriage practices are brought under the spotlight.
Notes
1 See eg ‘Register our Marriage’ https://www.registerourmarriage.org/.
2 L Casey, The Casey Review, A Review into OpJjoitMMity سن Iirtegi"ation
(London: Department for Communities and Local Government, 2016); Home Office, The Review into the Application of Shaiia
Law in England and Wales (London: Home Office, 2018), Cm 9560.
3 See eg RC Akhtar, ‘Unregistered Muslim Marriages: An Emerging Culture of Celebrating Rites and Compromising Rights’, in J Miles, P Mody
Reltgtous-Only MarrtagestnEnglandand Wales 23 and R Probert (eds). Marriage Rites and Rights (Oxford: Hart, 2015); RC Akhtar, P Nash and R Probert (eds) Cchabitaticn and Religicus Marriage: StatussmilaritiesandSoluticns ((London: Bristol UMvetsity Press, 2020)∙, ة, Bano, Muslim Wcmen ^^d Shariah Ccuneils: Tran- SeendingtheBcundariescfCcmmunityandLaw (,Basmgstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); K O’Sullivan and L Jackson, ‘Muslim Marriage (Non) recognition: Implications and Possible Solutions’ (2017) 39(1) JSWFL 22; R Parveen, ‘Religious-Only Marriages in the UK: Legal Positionings and Muslims Women’s Experiences’ (2018) 6(3) Sceiclcgy cf Islam 316; I Uddin, ‘Nikah-Only Marriages: Causes, Motivations and Their Impact on Dispute Resolution and Islamic Divorce Proceedings in England and Wales’ (2018) 7(3) OJLR 401; V Vora, ‘The Problem of Unregistered Muslim Marriage: Questions and Solutions’ (2016) Family Law 95, R Parveen, ‘From Regulating Marriage Ceremonies to Recognising Marriage Ceremonies’ in Akhtar, Nash and Probert (eds) Cchabitaticn and ReligicusMarriage,p 87, Independent ILeview, p 17,
See R Probert and S Saleem, ‘The Legal Treatment of Islamic Marriage Ceremonies’ (2018) 7(3) OJLR 376, That is not to say that the law is experieneed in the same way by different religious groups: see R Probert, RAklatar and S Blake, Belief in Marriage: The Evidenee fcr Refcrming Weddings Law (Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2023),
For discussion of the status of non-Anglican marriages before 1754, and under the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753, see R Probert, Marriage Law and Practice in the Lcng Eighteenth (Century: A Reassessment (,Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), chs 4 and 9, Probert, Marriage Law and Praetiee, ch 6,
Clandestine Marriages Act 1753, s 18; Marriage Act 1823, s 31, Probert, Marriage Law and Praetiee, ch 8, Probert, Marriage Law and Praetiee, ch 9,
R Probert and L D’Arcy Brown, ‘Catholics and the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753’ (2008) 80 Lceal Pcpulaticn Studies 78; Probert, MarriageLaw and Practice,eh9,
Report on the State of the Irish Poor in Great Britain (1836) PP 34, pp 3, 23, 61-2; S Gallagher, ‘Irish Catholic Marriages in the London Lying-in Hospital Records’ (1998) 7 Cathclie Aneestcr 102; Royal Commission of Inquiry into Administration and Practical Operation of Poor Laws (1834), PP 44, p 99; App A, pp 103, 105,
Jcurnal cf the Hcuse cf Ccmmcns, 12 June 1823: Petitions of Dr William Poynter and of the Churchwardens, Overseers, and Guardians of the Poor, of the parish of St Luke, Middlesex,
Hansard, HC Deb 7 August 1834 vol 25 col 1026 (Mr O’Connell), Jcurnal cf the Hcuse cf Ccmmcns, 12 June 1823: Petition of Dr William Poynter,
Hansard, HC Deb 7 August 1834 vol 25, col 1026--. See also the comments by Mr Wilks at col 1026,
Jcurnal cf the Hcuse cf Ccmmcns, 12 June 1823: Petition of the Churchwardens, Overseers, and Guardians of the Poor, of the parish of St Luke, Middlesex,
Hansard, HC Deb 7 August 1834 vol 25 col 1027,
Mcrning Chrcnide,8August 1834,
Hansard, HC Deb 7 August 1834 vol 25 col 1027.
Roman Catholic Marriages Bills 1832, 1833, 1834.
See further R Probert, Tting the Rnot-. Tie Torn tion of Marriage 1836-2020 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), ch 2.
Ibid.
Ibid, ch 3.
TNA, TS25/873.
M Clark, ‘Identity and Equality: The AngloJewish Community in the Post-Emancipation Era, 1858-1887 (DPhil thesis, Oxford, 2005), p. 33.
On the reasons underpinning this exemption see Probert, Marriage Law and ؟ractice, ch 5.
Unless they were marrying a non-Jew, in which case this was their only option: see Jones v Robinson (1815) 2 Phill Ecc 285; 161 ER 1146.
See eg Vigevena and Silveira v Alvarez (1794) 1 Hag Con (App) 8n; 161 ER 636.
Ibid, at 637.
Lindo v Belisario (1795) 1 Hag Con 216; 161 ER 530; (1796) 1 Hag Con (App) 7; 161 ER 636.
Lindo v Belisario; see also Goldsmid v Bromer (1798) 1 Hag Con 324; 161 ER 568.
Marriage Act 1836, s 2.
It was however assumed that witnesses would be present, as provisions relating to registration stated that two witnesses should sign the entry of marriage: Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836, s 31. In practice both groups had their own, more demanding, requirements as to witnesses. Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836, s 30.
See Clark, ‘Identity and Equality’, p 128.
Marriage Act 1836, s 2.
Marriage Act 1836, s 42.
On the foundation of the West London synagogue and its non-recognition by the Board of Deputies see D Katz, The Jews in the History of England 1485-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p 342; D Feldman, Eng- Iishmen and Jews: Social Relations ^^d ؟olitica! 1840-1914
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p 24. On its subsequent legal recognition see Probert, Tying the Knot, ch 4.
G Alderman, Modern British Jewry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 1998), pp 3, 74, 119.
Clark, ‘Identity and Equality’, p 163.
Jewish Chronide, 28 January 1876.
Jewish Chronide, 2.8 January 1876.
David Englander, ‘Stille Huppah (Quiet Marriage) among Jewish Immigrants in Britain’ (1992) 34 Jewish Journal of Sociology 85, 91. Manchester Courier, 14 August 1877.
See eg ‘A Jewish Marriage Turns to Be No Legal Marriage At All’, Leeds Times, 1 December 1894; Birmingham Daily Post, 4 August 1900; Yorkshire Evening Post, 3 May 1901; ‘Under the Canopy: Jewish Marriage Practices’, Derby Daily Telegraph, 3 August 1904.
(1899) 15 TLR 250.
Englander, ‘Stille Huppah’.
Jewish Chronicle, 8 April 1892
Reltgtous-Only MarrtagestnEnglandand Wales 25
51 Derby Daily Telegraph, 3 August 1904.
52 Marriage Act 1836, s 39.
53 )ewish Chrcniele,8April-1892.
54 Englander, ‘Stille HuppaM, 103-4.
55 Hansard, HC Deb 25 March 1825 vol 12 col 1237 (Mr Robertson).
56 Hansard, HL Deb 2 April 1824 vol 11 col 82.
57 Hansard, HL Deb 2 April 1824 vol 11 col 84.
58 R Visram, Asians in Britain: 400 Years cf Histcry (London: Pluto Press, 2002), p 44.
59 H AnsaLt,The Within: Muslims in Britain since 00 (,London:
Hurst, 2004); p 35; S Gilliat-Ray, Muslims in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p 24.
60 Ansari, The Infidel Within, p 138.
61 The Standard, 20 April 1891. See also Liverpccl Mercury, 20 April 1891; Birmingham Daily Pcst, 20 April 1891.
62 London Metropolitan Archives, p73∕gis∕044.
63 Birmingham Daily Pcst, 20 April 1891; Liverpccl Mercury, 20 April 1891.
64 Ansari, The Infidel Within, p 134.
65 The Crescent, June 1893.
66 See eg, WNM Geaty, The Law cf Marriage and Lamily Relaticns-. A Manual cf Practical Law (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1892), p 89, suggesting that ‘a Musssulman mosque or a pagan temple could not be registered for marriages.’
67 Marriage Act 1836, s 18.
68 BMD, Lancaster, Q3 1901.
69 ‘The Mosque Marriage: Clara Casey Tells Her Story’, Manchester Ccu- rier, 29 May 1905.
70 ‘Moorish Marriage: Salford Girl at Tangier’, Manchester Ccurier, 29 May 1905.
71 For discussion see Sir EJ Trevelyan, ‘Marriages between English Women and Natives of British India’ (1917) 17 Jcurnal cf Ccmparative Legisla- ticn and Internaticnal Law 223; Sir Frederick Robertson, ‘The Relations between the English Law and the Personal Law of Indians in England with Special Reference to the Marriage Law’ (1918) 18 Jcurnal cf Ccm- )JarativeLegislaticnandInternaticnalLaw 242.
72 Lcndcn Gazette, 24 December 1920.
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