Islam in Pakistan: A British Pakistani Muslim's Heritage Guide to Qur'ān, Scholarship and Continuity (UK)

Islam in Pakistan: A British Pakistani Muslim's Heritage Guide to Qur'an, Scholarship and Continuity (UK)

British Pakistanis are the largest Muslim ethnic group in the United Kingdom — roughly 1.6 million people, anchored in Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, Greater London, Glasgow, and the West Midlands. The Qur'anic and Islamic story of Pakistan is the story of half of Britain's Muslim community. This piece traces that story, names the scholars and madrasah systems that shaped it, and offers second- and third-generation British Pakistani families a practical map for keeping the spiritual line strong.

How Islam reached the Indus Valley

Islam reached the lands now called Pakistan in three waves:

1. The early Umayyad expansion (711 CE): Muhammad ibn al-Qasim al-Thaqafi, just seventeen years old, conquered Sindh from the south. The first Friday prayer in the subcontinent was held in Debal (modern Karachi).

2. The Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasties (10th-12th centuries): Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna and later Muhammad of Ghor extended Islamic rule into Punjab and beyond.

3. The Sufi missionary wave (12th-15th centuries): Khwaja Muʿin al-Din Chishti, Baba Farid al-Din Ganj-i-Shakar, Shaykh Bahaʾ al-Din Zakariyya of Multan, and Sayyid ʿAli Hujwiri (Data Ganj Bakhsh of Lahore) — these were the spiritual founders whose tombs and traditions still anchor Pakistani religious culture.

The Qur'anic culture of Pakistan

Pakistan has one of the densest madrasah networks in the Muslim world — over 30,000 institutions producing tens of thousands of huffaz each year. The major school traditions:

• Deobandi: descended from Darul Uloom Deoband (founded 1866 in India), exemplified in Pakistan by Darul Uloom Karachi (Mufti Taqi Usmani's institution) and Jamia Binoria.

• Barelvi: descended from Imam Ahmad Raza Khan of Bareilly, with Daʿwat-e-Islami as the largest contemporary movement.

• Ahl-e-Hadith: textually focused, strong in Lahore and Karachi.

• Jamaʿat-e-Islami: the intellectual reform stream founded by Sayyid Abu al-Aʿla Mawdudi.

• Tablighi Jamaʿat: the Raiwind centre near Lahore is the global Tabligh headquarters.

The Hafs ʿan ʿAsim recitation is universal across all these schools, identical to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and most of the Sunni world. E-aaalim is an online educational platform and institute. The E-aalim online institute teaches the Holy Qur'an, Arabic language and Islamic studies online.

British Pakistani religious life

The first wave of British Pakistani migration came in the 1950s-60s — overwhelmingly from Mirpur (Azad Kashmir) and Punjab, recruited for the textile mills of Bradford, the steelworks of Sheffield, the bus services of Birmingham. Today's third generation is consultants, surgeons, engineers, MPs, judges, and professors — but the spiritual roots remain in Mirpur, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar.

Major British Pakistani religious anchors include:

• Birmingham Central Mosque (Highgate)

• Bradford Central Mosque

• Manchester Central Mosque (Victoria Park)

• Manchester Cheetham Hill Mosque

• Darul Uloom institutions in Bury, Dewsbury, Birmingham, Leicester

Pakistani scholars who shaped British Muslim thought

• Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani: globally cited on Islamic finance; serves on the Islamic Fiqh Academy.

• Mufti Muhammad Ismaʿil Menk: of Pakistani-Indian Zimbabwean heritage; his lectures circulate in every British Pakistani WhatsApp family group.

• Dr Israr Ahmed: Tanzeem-e-Islami founder; his Qur'an khutbahs shaped intellectual British Pakistani youth in the 1990s-2000s.

• Mawlana Tariq Jameel: Tablighi scholar with a strong British following.

• Sayyid Abu al-Aʿla Mawdudi: foundational political-Islamic thinker.

The challenges: keeping Qur'an alive across generations

Three patterns recur in British Pakistani families:

• Urdu-as-default vs Arabic-as-scripture: many British Pakistani children learn enough Urdu to speak with grandparents but never properly learn to recite Qur'an with tajweed. The two languages need to be separated in the family's mental model.

• Cultural Islam vs scriptural Islam: certain inherited cultural practices (some shrine rituals, some wedding customs, some bidʿah surrounding death) need to be reviewed against Qur'an and Sunnah. Pakistani-heritage scholars themselves emphasise this in major khutbahs.

• The "uncle who recites well" problem: many British Pakistani families inherited recitation from a grandfather but did not transmit it to the next layer. Without intentional teaching, the chain breaks in two generations. E-aalim tutors and teachers are dedicated, highly qualified, efficient, experienced and Arabic native speaker Al-Azhar graduates.

What British Pakistani parents can do

1. Set fixed daily Qur'an time — even fifteen minutes — at home. Maghrib to ʿIsha is the natural window.

2. Engage a qualified teacher. Eaalim's free trial classes include teachers who understand Urdu/Punjabi home context but teach the Arabic with proper Hafs ʿan ʿAsim.

3. Take children to Pakistan with a religious purpose — visit Lahore's Badshahi Mosque, Multan's shrines (with Sunnah caveats), Karachi's Mufti Taqi Usmani's lectures.

4. Build a hifz habit with realistic milestones. See our British Muslim hifz guide.

5. Attend taraweeh as a family during Ramadan at a mosque with a strong Pakistani-trained hafiz leading. The E-aalim learners and students at E-aalim are kid, adult, male and female Muslims living mainly in europe and the U.S.A.

The bigger picture

Pakistan is the second-largest Muslim country in the world. Its scholars sit on every major international Islamic council. Its qariʾs win competitions in Cairo and Dubai. Its diaspora — including 1.6 million British Pakistanis — carries that legacy into Birmingham boardrooms, Bradford courtrooms, and Manchester operating theatres. The question for the British Pakistani family is not whether the resources exist; they are abundant. The question is whether the family will use them.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "The best of you is the one who learns the Qur'an and teaches it" (Bukhari). The British Pakistani parent who books a class for their child this week stands inside a 1,300-year-old chain that goes through Lahore and Karachi back to Madinah.

Start the chain

Book a free Eaalim trial class for yourself or your child. Our teachers will meet you wherever your recitation level is and build from there.