10 April 2024

Daily prayer in Easter 2024:
11, 10 April 2024

William Law (1686-1761) is remembered in ‘Common Worship’ on 10 April

Patrick Comerford

This week began with the Second Sunday of Easter (Easter II), sometimes known as ‘Low Sunday’ (7 April 2024). The Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (10 April) remembers the life and witness of both William Law (1761), Priest, Spiritual Writer, and William of Ockham (1347), Friar, Philosopher, and Teacher of the Faith.

Throughout this Season of Easter, my morning reflections each day include the daily Gospel reading, the prayer in the USPG prayer diary, and the prayers in the Collects and Post-Communion Prayer of the day.

Before this day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

3, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

William Law’s writings stress the moral virtues, a personal prayer life and asceticism

John 3: 16-21 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20 For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’

William Law led a life of devotion and simplicity and caring for the poor

William Law (1686-1761):

William Law (1686-1761) was born at Kings Cliffe in Northamptonshire and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. After ordination as a deacon, he became a fellow of Emmanuel College in 1711.

When George I came to the throne in 1714, Law declined to take the Oath of Allegiance, being a member of the non-juror party who believed the anointed but deposed monarch James II and his heirs should occupy the throne. He lost his fellowship, but in 1728 was ordained priest, and in the same year published A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

His writings stress the moral virtues, a personal prayer life and asceticism, and strongly influenced people such as Samuel Johnson and John and Charles Wesley.

Law returned to Kings Cliffe in 1740, where he led a life of devotion and simplicity and caring for the poor. He remained there for the rest of his life and died on 10 April 1761.

The chapel and cloisters at Emmanuel College, Cambridge … William Law became a fellow of Emmanuel College after ordination (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 10 April 2024):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is the ‘Certificate in Youth Leadership Programme in the West Indies.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Right Revd Michael B St J Maxwell, Bishop of the Diocese of Barbados.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (10 April 2024) invites us to pray:

Thank you, God, for the faithful response of youth ministers to be sufficiently trained and equipped to lead creative and proficient youth ministries throughout the Church in the Province of the West Indies.

The Collect:

Almighty God,
who called your servant William Law
to a devout and holy life:
grant that by your spirit of love
and through faithfulness in prayer
we may find the way to divine knowledge
and so come to see the hidden things of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with William Law to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued Tomorrow

John Myatt’s fading mosaic mural of Samuel Johnson on a corner of Bird Street, Lichfield … William Law’s writings strongly influenced Samuel Johnson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

A visit in Ramadan
to a mosque in
a former chapel
and school in Norwich

The Ihsan Mosque in Chaplefield East, Norwich, in the former Saint Peter Mancroft School (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The Muslim holy and fasting month came to an end today (9 April 2024). During our visit to Norwich two weeks ago, I visited the two cathedrals, many churches and the principal synagogue. I also had an opportunity to see the Ihsan Mosque in Chaplefield East, a four- or five-minute walk from Saint Giles House Hotel, where we were staying.

The Muslim community at the Ihsan Mosque in Chaplefield East, is made up of about 150 men, women and children from a wide variety of backgrounds. But the majority are British-born converts to Islam, making it the only continuous, indigenous Muslim community in Britain.

The mosque also claims it is the first mosque in Britain established and owned by British converts to Islam, although this claim might be contested by the Shah Jahan Mosque on Oriental Road, Woking, which was built in 1889 and is the first purpose-built mosque on these islands. Its founding figures included the Budapest-borb orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840-1899) and the Irish peer Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn (1855-1935), 5th Baron Headley, who were early converts to Islam in Britain.

Nevertheless, these claims are important elements of British social history. Significantly, they also point to the only known expression of an Islamic way of life whose roots are in this country.

From the street, the mosque looks more like a church or chapel. In fact, the building was built in 1876 as a school called Saint Peter Mancroft School for Boys. It was part of the Parish of Saint Peter Mancroft and it stood beside the Saint Peter Mancroft Chapel-in-the-Field Congregational Church.

Since the mid-20th century, the building had a variety of uses, including a scout building and a discotheque.

The early members of a new Muslim community in Norwich began renting the building in the mid-1970s to use as a mosque. An Egyptian businessman who visited Norwich in 1977 was impressed by the community and decided to buy the building on behalf of the community with money he inherited from his mother. His only request was that the mosque be named after his mother Ihsan.

The community says it is growing rapidly. It has a healthy relationship with the wider community of Norwich, resulting in a steady flow of people becoming Muslims and joining the mosque. It has a busy programme of activities, including the five daily prayers, Sunday gatherings, open days, markets and seminars.

A 50-minute documentary film produced in 2016, Blessed Are The Strangers, tells the story about of this small but influential community of Muslim converts in Norwich, their British and Caribbean roots, and their beginnings in west London in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The community has made many contributions to Islamic literature both classical and contemporary, from a translation of Kitab Ash Shifa (The Book of Healing) from Arabic into English, to discourses on economics and psychology.

A key figure in the story of the mosque is the Scottish playwright and actor Ian Dallas (1930-2021), who embraced Islam in Morocco, changed his name to Abdalqadir as-Sufi and became the student of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al Habib.

He gathered a small group of followers who formed a small community in Maida Vale, west London, before trying to build a self-sustaining, Muslim village in Norfolk until their dilapidated Tudor mansion burned down.

By 1977, they had bought old church school building in central Norwich, converted into a masjid known as Ihsan Mosque and that is still in use today, welcoming hundreds of worshippers.

A second strand in the community traces its origins back to Brixton in London in the 1980s, when a growing number of people of Caribbean descent were embracing Islam.

The mosque they set up in Brixton was taken over by an extreme cleric, Abdullah el-Faisal, by 1991. He was ejected in 1993, was later be jailed for soliciting murder, and was deported from Britain in 2007. His followers issued death threats to the mosque’s founders for resisting his teachings.

Many of the founders, wanting to protect their faith, families and lives, moved to Norwich at the invitation of Shaykh Abdalqadar as-Sufi. Their move contributed to the growth of a multicultural Islamic society in Norwich, with Scottish, English, North African and Caribbean roots and cultural influences.

The 2016 film is not just as a historical documentary but also leaves viewers wondering why the Norwich Muslim community is unique, rather than the norm. Instead, as one reviewer points out, many communities talk of Bengali, Pakistani, Arab, Turkish and Somali mosques in Britain, even though Islam in theory is a way of life open to all.

As well as the Ihsan Mosque near Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich has mosques in Dereham Road, Rose Lane and Aylsham Road, and a community centre in Sandy Lane.

Norwich Central Mosque and Islamic Community Centre in Aylsham Road opened in July 2020, but was firebombed days later, leaving the community traumatised. In the aftermath of the attack, the Conservative MP for Norwich North Chloe Smith visited the mosque.

As part of its community outreach efforts, the East Anglian Mosque and Community Centre in Rose Lane has hosted open days. Nonetheless, the Muslim community in Norwich remains small and often feels it is geographically isolated from larger communities in Birmingham, London and Yorkshire.

Blessed Are The Strangers from C>MEDIA on Vimeo.