ABSTRACT
Two phases of Muslim burials in Britain are examined here: first, nineteenth-century burials of lascar seafarers and, secondly, late-twentieth-century efforts to establish Muslim funeral practices in Newham, East London. Large-scale migration of South Asians to Britain after the Second World War, it might be assumed that burial rites would have been more easily undertaken by Muslims with legitimate residence in Britain. As records from the 1970s indicate, the growth of the Muslim population living and dying in Britain brought its own challenges in terms of local authorities. This chapter demonstrates the significant and on-going challenges Muslims in Britain have faced in terms of burial provision over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Whilst lascar seafarers, as sojourners with few political and legal rights in Britain, had to be pragmatic and adapt Muslim burials to the space that was available to them, Muslim immigrants to Britain have often had long battles to gain access to burial spaces.
