When Britain loved Rastafari
Muslim residents
HAILE SELASSIE I VISITING SHAH JAHAN MOSQUE IN WOKING
The following address to Haile Selassie by Sir Abdulla Archibald Hamilton, a well-known English statesman and convert, on behalf of Muslims in the UK is reported in New Times and Ethiopia News, Nov 7th, 1936:
"I give expression to our feelings of deep admiration for the manner in which your Majesty has faced the great trial through which your country and people have recently passed and are still passing ... The sympathies of the great world of Islam have been with your country and yourself throughout the grim struggle that has just ended in disaster
Standing in your Majesty’s presence we cannot help recalling how, brutally persecuted at home, the first believers in Islam took refuge, on the prophets advice, in the then country of Abyssinia, and how they were hospitably received by the Negus of the time and benevolently protected by him from the evil intentions of their enemies who had come there to demand their forcible repatriation. Indeed so vividly do we recall this thrilling episode of the Muslim history that as we speak we can see in our imagination Ja’far, the leader of the Muslim refugees, pleading with hope and fear the Muslim cause, weak in material resources, before the great Negus, and the monarch shedding tears of spiritual joy at the touching spiritual enthusiasm of the speaker. Today still in the Islamic world that memory is a living reality”.
The following address to Haile Selassie by Sir Abdulla Archibald Hamilton, a well-known English statesman and convert, on behalf of Muslims in the UK is reported in New Times and Ethiopia News, Nov 7th, 1936:
"I give expression to our feelings of deep admiration for the manner in which your Majesty has faced the great trial through which your country and people have recently passed and are still passing ... The sympathies of the great world of Islam have been with your country and yourself throughout the grim struggle that has just ended in disaster
Standing in your Majesty’s presence we cannot help recalling how, brutally persecuted at home, the first believers in Islam took refuge, on the prophets advice, in the then country of Abyssinia, and how they were hospitably received by the Negus of the time and benevolently protected by him from the evil intentions of their enemies who had come there to demand their forcible repatriation. Indeed so vividly do we recall this thrilling episode of the Muslim history that as we speak we can see in our imagination Ja’far, the leader of the Muslim refugees, pleading with hope and fear the Muslim cause, weak in material resources, before the great Negus, and the monarch shedding tears of spiritual joy at the touching spiritual enthusiasm of the speaker. Today still in the Islamic world that memory is a living reality”.