For us not to exist would have a terrible impact

A community hub visited by “generation after generation” is hoping for transformation.

Now housed in a former church on Earle Road in Wavertree, the Al-Ghazali Centre started life in 1992 running activities for Muslim teens in various community centres, taking them swimming or to play football, and teaching them Arabic so they can read the Quran.

Leyla Mashjari, the centre’s assistant executive manager, told the ECHO:“I was one of those little kids who were joining the sessions. I loved what was happening and I wanted to give back, so I started to volunteer. Eventually I got a job and I’ve never moved, because there’s a satisfaction to doing community work that makes you feel really good.”

Muslims have a relatively long history in Liverpool, partly thanks to the exchange of cultures in its thriving port. Abdullah Quilliam, a solicitor raised as a Methodist, converted to Islam and opened the UK’s earliest recorded mosque in a terraced house on Brougham Terrace, Everton

Fatima Elizabeth Cates, believed to be the first woman in England to convert to Islam, played a leading role in the mosque. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Anfield cemetery for 122 years until members of the Muslim community installed a headstone last year.

And the city’s main mosque, Al-Rahma on Hatherley Street was the third purpose-built mosque in the UK when it was constructed in the multicultural community of Toxteth in 1965. But even now, Liverpool’s Muslim community is small compared to other major cities like Birmingham, Manchester and London.in 1889.