The original choir in those times was formed by convert women and I’d wanted to revive this tradition. I would go to her grave thinking about how her son would have stood, aged four, having lost his mother, with Abdullah Quilliam leading her janazah, also considering the pain of Fatima’s mother having to bury a child. And there would have been others there such as orphaned children from the children’s home, Medina House. Frances still had more questions, but Quilliam advised her to read the Quran and make up her own mind. Despite the strenuous attempts of her family to frustrate and dissuade her, Frances became Fatima in a matter of weeks. In July, Fatima co-founded the Liverpool Muslim Society with Quilliam and another convert, Ali Hamilton, renting an upstairs room at Mount Vernon Temperance Hall.

Fatima Elizabeth Cates (1865-1900) was a founding figure and leader of Britain’s first mosque community, as well as its first treasurer. One of the earliest women to convert to Islam in England (in 1887), Fatima showed great courage and fortitude in overcoming great opposition from society and her own family to call people to the faith by word and by example. Read more about her and the lives of the other early Muslima converts she influenced in this first ever biography dedicated to our Fatima of Liverpool.Frances soon converted to Islam and adopted the name Fatima and helped Abdullah Quilliam form the Liverpool Muslim Society (LMS) at 8 Brougham Terrace in 1887. Dr Sadek Hamid is an academic who has written widely about British Muslims. He is the author of Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Ground of British Islamic Activism.

This is directly linked to the publication of this book through the efforts of the co-author, Hamid Mahmood who spent years searching primary sources for information about Fatima’s life. She said: "We did a re-enactment of Quilliam's conversion for an interfaith event a few years ago and I got asked to be Fatima. It really was literally just a paragraph I had to say, but I remember getting so into the role, it was really profound. I think it was at that point I really connected with this woman. Associate Professor in the Sociology of Islam, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityWe sang Qasida’s (songs of praise of the Prophet, peace be upon him) in English and Arabic. Zaynab played the Daff very well and had learned how to sing and play whilst living in Tarim in Yemen. She also played a role overseas and represented the LMS to Indian Muslims, her writings were published in international journals such as the Allahabad Review and engaged with the Ottoman Trade Consul for Liverpool alongside Quilliam. Fatima and also travelled to the lands of Islam for several months in 1892, visiting Gibraltar, Malta along the way and appearing to have a special affection for Muslims from India.

Amirah and other members of Liverpool's Muslim community decided to inscribe Fatima's headstone with the final verse of a poem she wrote in 1892. The headstone reads: "Then may we ever heed, The warning God has given, That so we may in safety tread the road that leads to Heaven." Unmarked for more than a century, the exact location of Fatima's grave was found by Hamid Mahmood, a secondary school teacher in London, who named his madrasah, an Islamic weekend school, after her. The 37-year-old previously told the ECHO:"Being a Muslim who was brought up here, and having a madrassa aimed at children born here, who grew up here and spent all their lives here, I wanted to give them something that was from the country itself, and I found that in Fatima Elizabeth Cates." When the fledgling community moved to expanded premises at 8 Brougham Terrace in December 1889, Fatima became the face of the rebooted Liverpool Muslim Institute as its international profile grew, particularly in British India, where her poetry and prose was published in the Allahabad Review. And, despite her family’s opposition, she succeeded in bringing her husband, Hubert Henry Cates, and two of her sisters, Clara and Annie, to the faith. The lives of these amazing early British Muslims will continue to inspire contemporary Muslims and the legacy of the first Liverpool Muslim community lives on in the work of The Abdullah Quilliam Society. It would be great to see Fatima’s biography and other trailblazing British Muslims made into movies or television series.She was appointed to the role of treasurer, a position which she held for eight years and was probably the second most significant person in that Muslim community after Quilliam in its first decade.

These difficult experiences will also resonate with modern converts whose families and friends become hostile and reject them. It also mirrors the vicious Islamophobia that can be seen on the streets of Britain today. Fatima was instrumental in helping to promote Islam and supported other female converts who made a quarter of the total number of converts in the Liverpool community.This compelling account of the life and tragic death of Fatima Elizabeth Cates moves us to consider the significant role that women played in the advent of Islam in Britain.” The book is beautifully written and the authors have done a fab job in bringing Fatima’s story to life. Engaging, emotional and inspiring- the book is very hard to put down (I read it in one sitting!) An appendix is included at the end which includes Fatima’s own writings and poetry which was nice to hear Fatima in her own words. In this period, Fatima began to lessen her active involvement in the Institute and spent time away from Liverpool travelling to the East (probably to Beirut) and taking landscape photography in Southern England.