Islam is widely considered Europe's fastest growing religion. The United Kingdom exhibits one of the world’s greatest religious diversity. Because of the religious liberty and immigration from all around the world, British Islam is one of the most diverse in the world. Today, it is currently the second largest religion in the country after Christianity, and has higher Mosque attendants than Church attendants. Islam has been known in Britain for a long time; there are references to Islamic scholars in the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1386). Following the anti-Islamic frenzy of the Crusades, Britain became friendly with some Islamic countries. Queen Elizabeth I, for example, asked the Ottoman Sultan Murad for naval assistance against the Spanish Armada. The first recorded Englishman to become a Muslim was John Nelson, who converted to Islam at some point in the 16th Century. A 1641 document refers to "a sect of Mahomatens" being in London. There were also a few conversions to Islam during the period, and a few years later, in 1649, came the first English version of the Qur'an, by Alexander Ross. In the 18th and 19th Centuries there were a number of converts to Islam amongst the English upper classes, including Edward Montagu, son of the ambassador to Turkey. The first large group of Muslims in Britain arrived about 300 years ago. They were sailors recruited in India, from the former colonies, to work for the East India Company. Therefore it's not surprising that the first Muslim communities were found in port towns, such as Cardiff, Liverpool, South Shields, Hull, and London. Ships' cooks came too, many of them from Sylhet in what is now Bangladesh. There are records of Sylhetis working in London restaurants as early as 1873. The next wave of Muslim immigration to Britain followed the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The increase in trade caused a demand for men to work in ports and on ships.
The UK has now had a long history of contact with Muslims, with links forged from the Middle Ages and onwards. In the 19th Century Yemeni men came to work on ships, forming one of the country's first Muslim communities. In the 1960s, significant numbers of Muslims arrived, as people in the former colonies took up offers of work. Some of the first were East Africans, while many others came from South Asia. Permanent communities formed and significant communities are present with links to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The UK favours multiculturalism, an idea shared by other European countries which, in general, accepts all cultures as having an equal value and influence over how the government engages with minorities. Also, Islam is growing in the UK through conversions, each year thousands of people convert to Islam in the country.
Wales and Cardiff also have a long established Muslim population, once again started by Yemeni sailors who settled in the city during the 19th century. The first mosque in the UK opened in 1860, in Cardiff (on the site now known as the Al-Manar Islamic Centre). Cardiff is now home to over 11,000 Muslims from many different nationalities and backgrounds. In additional to English and Welsh, the diversity of Cardiff's population (including foreign students) means that a large number of languages are spoken within the city. One study has found that Cardiff has speakers of at least 94 languages, with Somali, Urdu, Bengali and Arabic being the most commonly spoken foreign languages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff#Religion
Muslim Population In:
> Wales - 25,000 (0.85%)
> UK - 1.6 million (2.8%)
> Europe - 51.0 million (7%)
