Muslims in Eastbourne

In recent posts, I've been concentrating on Eastbourne's origins as a Victorian holiday resort. But I don't want to lose touch with more contemporary developments.  One such is the increasing diversity of the people who live in the town.   This is reflected in the number of Muslims in the local population.  And the existence of a mosque where they can worship.  

I've found a pamphlet with a study of this mosque and the people who meet and pray at it.  It's called "The History of Eastbourne Mosque Community - East Sussex Muslims - 1995 to 2013".  Its author is Sevket Hylton Akyildiz, who is a post-doctorate research associate at SOAS.  The study covers census data on the Muslim population in the town and wider region.  It then presents information about the mosque itself and the people who attend it.

Unsurprisingly, Eastbourne did not attract large numbers of Muslims during previous waves of immigration.  Those new arrivals made for cities or industrial centres where the work was.  It is the case that Eastbourne's hotel and catering sector employed immigrants, particularly for work whose conditions did not suit local people.  But these workers tended to come from Mediterranean countries - such as Cyprus, Portugal and Spain.  

That said, from 1960 onwards, there were some Muslims living in the town.  Bangladeshis ran Indian restaurants, and brought over chefs and waiters from their country.  The children of wealthy Arabs, Africans and Iranians attended private schools.  And students from Gulf Arab states studied English at the town's language schools.  

The number of Muslims settling in the town increased in the 1990s.  Government policy was to disperse refugees and other immigrants more evenly across the country.  International events, for example the break-up of former Yugoslavia, as well as instability and conflict in other regions, increased the number of Muslims heading for the UK, and the range of countries from which they were either fleeing or relocating.  But even then, the numbers finishing up in Eastbourne remained low, and the increase over time was steady, not dramatic.  

It was about this time that a place for prayer was first established, above an Indian restaurant.  Prior to this, worshippers travelled to Brighton, where a mosque had been established in a converted nursery on Dyke Road some twenty years before.  Or they went to London.  

In 1995, some local Muslims purchased a building in Ashford Square, near the railway, which they converted into a Sunni mosque.  The property had previously been used as a social club by the South Eastern Electricity Board.   Those behind the original purchase (and actually the running of the Mosque till this day) comprised local Palestinians, Mauritians and Bangladeshis.  There were no wealthy overseas patrons or donors.  Nor any external ideological influence seeking to set a theological or political agenda.  All fundraising was local. And, interestingly, the biggest provider of funds was an Iranian woman (therefore Shia) who never used the mosque or involved herself in its management.  

As for those using the building, they come from all across the town and beyond, and are of varying heritage and socio-economic background.  Where once the Muslim community in the town was made up primarily of South Asians, there are now Algerians, Palestinians, Iraqis, Moroccans, Egyptians, Libyans and many others.  

After ten years of use, the mosque became too small to accommodate its growing numbers of users.  The management sought permission to knock  the original building down and construct a new one.  The local community's concerns about these plans - the noise from building, impact on parking - were predictable, and the application was rejected.  Those at the mosque then worked hard with wider community groups to address concerns and in due course a new application -  actually for a bigger building - was submitted and approved.  Building started in 2016, but the study ends before its completion.  I've not visited the new mosque myself, but the photographs I've seen suggest if nothing else a big improvement on the building it replaced.  

So where does this leave us?

The modest presence of Muslims in the town, and their mosque, tells us how far Eastbourne has come in recent times. But people from overseas have settled in the town to work for many years.  The Greek Cypriots are one example.  The Spanish another.  There is a bigger story to tell.  We'll return to this in future posts.