Born in Liverpool in 1856, the English solicitor Abdullah Quilliam was one of the first prominent British converts to Islam, embracing the faith in 1887. In 1889 he founded the Liverpool Muslim Institute and England's first mosque, wrote extensively in defence of Islam, and was honoured by Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II with the title 'Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles'. He died on 23 April 1932 and was buried in the Muslim section (plot M1) of Brookwood Cemetery near Woking.