Author: Philip S. Blair
Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing
Format: Paper back
Pages: 113
Source: available from Amazon
Kilwinning is a town in North Ayrshire to the west of Glasgow. Philip Blair’s multi-faceted biography transports the reader back to the late 1880s, to envisage its stone quarries, iron works and textile spinning mills. John Parkinson was born in this working class, Victorian milieu in 1874. His talent in verse and prose has drawn comparison with the preeminent Scottish poet Robert (Rabbie) Burns. They were both lyricists: Burns’ Auld Lang Syne is a two-hundred year old Scottish favourite, while Parkinson’s The Flag of Islam was adopted in 2009 as the official song of the Cambridge Muslim College.
John Parkinson did not have a life of ease. From the age of seven he was cared for by maternal grandparents, as both parents had passed away. His first jobs, from the age of fourteen, were in the local industries, but he combined this with much self-study and contemplation. He had a passion for astronomy, “having few friends all my leisure was devoted to the study of that absorbing science”. At the age of twenty he was elected a member of the British Astronomical Association. Biographer Philip Blair, a distant kinsman, notes “his fascination with the cosmos was not merely scientific but also deeply spiritual”. Parkinson drifted away from the United Presbyterian Church, “due to his dissatisfaction with both its beliefs and practices”.
He began writing for the local Ayrshire newspaper on scientific topics, but his interests extended to history and mythology, leading to a series of articles titled Sword of Islam on Arab bravery and chivalry published in 1901. There is no record of the works he consulted for this, but on factory worker’s wages he was able to build a personal collection “of over 400 volumes”. Perhaps one of these was Syed Ameer Ali’s The Spirit of Islam that includes the lines, “Chivalry was not the product of the wilds of Scandinavia or of the gloomy forests of Germany; prophecy and chivalry alike were the children of the desert. From the desert issued Moses, Jesus and Mohammed; from the desert issued ‘Antar, Hamza and Ali.”
At the time he was working on the Sword of Islam he also established contact with Abdullah Quilliam and the Muslim community in Liverpool. Philip Blair notes, “the time for John’s actual conversion to the Islamic faith is not known, however, the consensus seems to be that it took place in 1901 after meeting in person Abdullah Quilliam. At the time John adopted the name Yehya-en-Nasr [. . .]”. His first book, Lays of Love and War was published in 1904, “the book showcases John’s appreciation for the noble qualities of Arab warriors and his enthusiasm for the Ottoman Empire, especially during the tumultuous period in Turkey in the early 20th century.” Parkinson’s Osmanli Nameh, “ a lengthy history in verse of the Ottoman Empire” earned him a decoration from the Sultan-Khalifa Abdul Hamid II.
Parkinson was much attached to his homeland: “Yet I, with two centuries of Irish blood in my veins and centuries of English, love Scotland, the land where I was born, and where I spent my childhood [. . .].” He traveled abroad only once, to Burma in 1909 at the invitation of its Muslim community. The descriptions of the voyage from Birkenhead to Rangoon, extensively quoted in this biography, bring out Parkinson’s genius in prose and in verse. Passing en route past the Iberian coast line he reminisced, “how different is the Spain today from the Spain of the past, [. . .] when Cordova and Granada were the glory of the world; when her cavaliers were the noblest and the bravest in Europe and her sons were the masters of literature and learning [. . .]”. The vivid picture brings to mind Muhammad Iqbal’s own soliloquy on the mosque of Cordova, “O, the ever-flowing waters of Guadalquivir/Someone on your banks Is seeing a vision of some other period of time”.
Parkinson did not acclimatise or settle down well and returned from Burma in ill-health. When the British Muslim Society was established in 1914 under the presidentship of Lord Headley, Parkinson was elected vice-president. Unable to come down to Woking, he sent a message, “[. . .] the Society will, I trust, keep us in touch with each, though separated by miles of land; bind us into the great brotherhood [. . .] It will I hope also serve to keep us in touch with the other parts of our world-wide brotherhood. Union is strength. May it be a uniting link, not only between every British Muslim but between us and the Muslims everywhere; consolidating and binding the whole into one unbroken and unbreakable chain, stretching through the Orient and Occident, Africa, and the South and North American States. We have now planted the banner of Islam in the heart of the British Empire [. . .]. ” The message ended with the stirring, “On for Islam! – Yala-al-Islam! Let that be your war cry, that your watchword, and ye shall prevail. May Allah be with you”.
He never married and his last days in the winter of 1918 resided as a lodger in a house in Kilwinning. He was to be a loner in death as in life, buried without Muslim funeral rites. His grave was left unmarked, “due to lack of any close family to erect any form of marker”. This is ironical because he did much research on his family’s genealogy. The burial site was tracked down in 2023. Philip Blair writes, “perhaps some marker can be erected for Kilwinning’s illustrious son over the site of his final resting place” in the town’s Bridgend Lane cemetery. Quite possible, now that North Ayrshire has almost six hundred Muslim residents.
This is an inspiring biography that adds immensely to our knowledge of British Muslim history. A further bonus is the thought-provoking connection made between a nineteenth/early twentieth century life with contemporary times. For the author, Victorian personalities who found the path to Islam “played a crucial role in laying the groundwork for the Muslim communities that would grow in Britain in the 20th and 21st centuries”. This is an assertion open to discussion, because apart from Gottleib Leitner’s initiative to establish a mosque on the grounds of his Oriental Institute in Woking – and he did not adopt the faith – the nineteenth century British-born Muslims’ efforts were not long lasting in their institutional impact. Perhaps the more salient connection between past and present generations is the call to the brotherhood of faith transcending geography and ethnicity, as Parkinson so eloquently expressed in 1914. It is a moot point that Parkinson’s call for Muslim solidarity “were merely designed to inspire his religious brethren and hark back to his favoured romantic and chivalrous times he read and enjoyed as a boy.” His call was for a pan-Islamic revival in the here and now.
JS/January 2025