169 Accrington mosque - childhood memories

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This is a blog about churches, for a few reasons. There are lots of them in places I go, and I got brought up Catholic so I know a lot about  the liturgical side. Also, I’m a historian so I think traces of the past are cool.


I only rarely put in mosques or synagogues or other religious buildings. This is mainly because Christian churches are generally more showy and theatrical than is the case for other religious buildings. But I have on occasion put in synagogues and mosques which interest me particularly and also serve to remind us that everyone else’s religion is dead respectworthy too.


This mosque is in Accrington, where I lived for quite a number of years in the 1970s, and have regularly visited ever since. I’m including it for mostly personal reasons. When I lived there, in the part of town where half our neighbours were Pakistanis, the everyday racism against Pakistanis and Muslims was basically omnipresent, in my town and my (Catholic) school. They certainly didn’t have a decent mosque, and were no doubt reduced to using whatever makeshift solution they could find. So, when, in 2017, this lovely mosque was built (two hundred yards from the now demolished street where I lived) it seemed to me a symbol that everyday racism had retreated, or at least that you could be Muslim and very visible. I think this is true: the minority of racists are getting louder these days, and are still a danger, but they are less numerous than when I was young. So I was truly delighted to visit this mosque.


I tried to explain some of  this to the guy looking after the mosque, who was very nice but probably thought I was very odd.





















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