Islam has had a presence in English history since 774; Islamic philosophy and science is foundational to English philosophy and science; early English common law is genuinely based off Sharia; Oxford and Cambridge saw learning Arabic as central to learning about the world — even our chief medical text that all medical students had to learn, until the 1700s, was an Arabic text.

The Industrial Revolution began in England using textiles imported from Muslim Bengal.

In 1911 the British Empire was a Muslim-majority empire, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George described the British Empire as ‘the greatest [Muslim] power in the world’, and said ‘there have been no more loyal adherents to the throne and no more effective and loyal supporters of the Empire’. 400,000 Muslim soldiers fought for Britain in the First World War and 62,000 of them died for it.

5.5 million Muslims fought for the Allies in the Second World War and 1.5 million were killed doing so. Churchill said to President Roosevelt that, “We must not on any account break with the Muslims, who represent a hundred million people, and the main army elements on which we must rely for the immediate fighting.” Without them Britain wouldn’t have won the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942, which marked the beginning of the end for the Axis in the very strategically important region.