Sikh Matron
- Kinver
- 1985-10-13
A historic occasion in Southfields as London's first mosque is officially opened.
A momentous occasion in Southfields as the Fazl Mosque, the first to be purpose-built in London, is opened in an official ceremony. The Imam, Hadhrat A.R. Dard(ra), presents a silver key to Khan Bahadur Sheikh Adbul Qadir, Indian Representative to the League of Nations, before the minaret calls the faithful to prayer. The event was attended by 600 distinguished guests, dignitaries and local MPs.
The significance of the event was recognised in the national press, with The Times reporting, "The occasion is one of great importance in the history of religious movements outside Christianity in this country". The Fazl Mosque was not Britain's first, however. Woking's Shah Jahan Mosque was built in 1889 and remained a central Islamic hub for much of the 20th century: see Feast of Eid-ul-Fitr (1924) and Moslem Festival at Woking (1928), also available on BFI Player.
From local news to feature film, through home movies and TV documentaries, this collection showcases South Asian Britons in front of and behind the camera. The contribution of colonial troops is illuminated through the earliest newsreels, while hardhitting current affairs programmes highlight the struggles faced in the 1960s, 1970s and beyond. Public information films produced for South Asian audiences feature alongside Hindi-language films made in Britain and interviews with prominent Asian-British figures. A bold wave of British Asian filmmaking in the 1990s is represented through early works by the likes of Gurinder Chadha and Asif Kapadia.