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Dr Sami Ahmad was born and brought up in Egypt. He recounts his father’s dedication to Sami's education and that of his siblings. He credits his father’s encouragement as the reason for leaving school early and moving away from his village to study at Cairo University at the tender age of 14 years. He completed his first degree in engineering, graduating as the youngest student at the age of 19 years. He went on to teach at the university while completing another science degree that supported his teaching activities. Upon graduation, he completed his military service in the Egyptian army before getting a scholarship for post-graduate study at the University of Birmingham in 1977. He arrived in the UK with his wife and son. He feels he was lucky to come to Birmingham: he liked that the city was large enough to have everything he needed but not so big that he might feel lost. He became active in the social life of the university and was Chair of the Egyptian Society from 1977. He describes meeting every month and getting reels of Egyptian films to watch together. They would also arrange visits to other parts of the UK.

After completing his studies, Sami joined forces with a colleague to create a company focussing on transferring knowledge from the academic world to create technology with real-life applications. Transfer Technology Limited was established in 1984 to create leading solutions for the aerospace and automotive industry. His work involved a lot of travelling and long working hours that stretched into the weekend and Sami describes his wife’s work in supporting the family “my [poor] wife was struggling, on her own taking care of all of these kids. She did a very good job … However, the decision [to stay] wasn’t difficult because I didn’t seek to stay here, I just found myself staying here and cannot leave… it was decided for me.” Even when he was head-hunted to work for Vodafone in Cairo, he found that it was not a good time to pull his children out of school or for the business he had set up. Instead, he worked to establish stronger ties with the Egyptian community that had settled in Birmingham, which made the transition for his wife easier. Now that the children are adults they love to go back to Egypt three times a year, “but we still have our life here because life is where your children and where your grandchildren and interests are. I miss the 10 O’ Clock News and the politics when I am in Egypt.”

Sami talks with passion about how Muslims living here can interact with local [non-Muslim] communities. Sami and his family live in Olton, Solihull, where his son-in-law, Daniel Jackson worked with other Muslims of his generation to establish The Olton Project (TOP) ten years ago. They now teach Arabic, Quran and Islamic Studies to around 150 children of all backgrounds, including non-Muslims. Sami also supports the work of TOP as a treasurer.

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Eiman has very fond memories of her early life in in Upper Egypt where her parents had moved to work before studying civil engineering in Cairo. She describes a close relationship with her parents, particularly her father. After getting married, she moved to Saudi Arabia where her husband worked while they saved to study in the UK. After four years, they moved to Glasgow with their two young sons where her husband studied a Masters and then a PhD in engineering. She vividly describes her first impressions of the green land she saw from the aeroplane as they first landed in Scotland and the first time she saw snow in Scotland.

There was a lot to manage between supporting her husband while he studied and looking after children. Eiman’s mother came to visit her in Scotland after she had her third child, a daughter. Life events introduced further challenges: Eiman’s mother passed away three months after she visited, and when her daughter was nine months old, they discovered that she had a hole in her heart and required open heart surgery. She found great support in the local community of Glasgow: particularly the ‘Muslim House’ where they would meet every Saturday: “we were lucky, we had a good community there [in Glasgow] … the Scottish people are really, really, kind and we had our community there to keep our identity … and they [the children] used to go and learn Quran.” They also kept their connection to Egypt, trying to travel back as much as possible despite the financial difficulties to maintain ties to family and country. To help her own children and those of other local Arab families, she worked with her husband to establish a Saturday school teaching Arabic. Life became easier after her husband finished studying and began working at Strathclyde University.

In 2000, the family moved to Birmingham after her husband was offered a job. Just as she did in Glasgow, Eiman became involved in supporting the lives of local Muslim communities by teaching Arabic at the al-Amanah supplementary school in the evenings. She also worked at Islamic schools: al-Furqan primary and secondary school, and at al-Hijrah school. She now works in adult education with Birmingham City Council. Eiman gives several examples of how she has supported her children through their education, and her assertive and protective approach to parenting. She speaks with pride of her children and their achievements.

On life in Birmingham compared to Scotland, she says, “here, the [Arab] community is big and established.” She describes her life, work and social life in Birmingham as busy: “for Eid, we have a gathering in Dr Hani Elbanna’s [house] … his wife, Allah will blees her and bless her hands, she makes food … and we gather there. Also, I go with my grandchildren on their trips … Generally, I have a very busy life .. We have a gathering on Saturdays, an Egyptian club … and another Egyptian group once a month.”

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Omsalama Ahmed was born and raised in the city of Kosti, in Sudan, during the 1960s. She was the only girl amongst eight siblings. She lost her father at the age of six years and her mother placed great emphasis on ensuring that all her children would receive a good education.

Omsalama moved to live in Khartoum when she began university there. She describes her university years as “when I started to develop my own character … at university there were a lot of activities – cultural, political, social … we became independent for the first time and have your own convictions.” She says was always more of a ‘crowd leader’ than a ‘crowd follower’ and it was while she was at university that she began to wear hijab at time when it was uncommon to do so among her peers. She became active in working with women to become more ‘practising’ in their faith.

She met her husband through a friend whilst studying at university. They got married one month after graduating. Her husband then left Sudan to the UK to pursue his post-graduate studies and she followed him a month later. About her move, she describes a mixture of excitement about the future, as well as anxiety and sorrow about leaving family behind. She arrived in the UK during winter: upon seeing her husband at Heathrow airport she could see frost smoke coming out of his mouth and thought he had started smoking cigarettes.

They began life in the UK in Reading. She found it difficult to adapt to the cold weather and trying to walk in the snow while pregnant. Initially, she would go to the university with her husband would sit in the library or walk to the city centre while he was studying or at lectures. Omsalama describes people in Reading at the time were unaccepting of ‘foreigners’: she recalls that when she caught a bus, “all the women would rather stand up than sit next to me.”

In 1980, they moved to Birmingham where her husband began a PhD at Aston University. Birmingham is a big city [compared to Reading] … we found about 100 Sudanese families in Birmingham … the Arab community was bigger … the bigger number were the Egyptian, Iraqi and Sudanese people who had come here for post-graduate studies.” While planning a social gathering at the University Students Union building to celebrate the arrival of their second child (aqiqah), they were first referred to the Yemeni ‘zaywiyya’ in Balsall Heath to borrow pots and serving dishes large enough for cooking for their gathering. This was the first time they realised there was a large Yemeni community established in Birmingham. Upon learning from Shaykh Muhammad Qasim that that there many children who were not able to learn Arabic, Omsalama, another wife of a Sudanese student (and later male Arab post-graduate students) began teaching Arabic and Islamic Circles. They were first held at Birmingham Central Mosque, then at a house, and later a community centre. Eventually the students raised money to purchase a derelict church (now known as ‘Muslim Students House’) on Edward Road-Moseley Road: “it was in a state … and we don’t have money so literally we had to go … men and women, children to clean that place and make it hospitable.”

The Muslim Student House was not just a place to teach Arabic it was a home for the Arab student community and the children they taught: “… I remember our first Ramadan in that place … we had a really good community … gradually we started to attract the local Yemeni community.” She became a mentor to many of her students and was sympathetic to the struggles they faced. It is difficult to summarise the achievements of Omsalama, but they include gaining post-graduate qualifications, teaching Arabic and RE at Joseph Chamberlain College, becoming an examiner for the Arabic A Level, and establishing ‘Arabica’.

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Rabih was born in Beirut in the 1960s. At the age of 18 years, while the Lebanese Civil War raged on, he took the decision to follow friends to Sweden, where he began learning the language and working as a translator and later, teaching Arabic and Islamic Studies. He got married and began his family whilst living in Sweden, where his wife also worked alongside him as a teacher. Although he found that life in Sweden was relatively stress-free, he found it challenging trying to raise a Muslim family.

Rabih began thinking of moving to the UK after a positive visit to see friends who moved to Birmingham from Sweden. A couple of years later, he took the leap to move to Birmingham in 2006, where he established his restaurant, Bader, serving Lebanese cuisine on Coventry Road. Although he faced difficulties in setting up his new life in Birmingham, he is grateful to the friends he knew from Sweden who helped him to make his way: “they helped me a lot to establish … to find a house … to find schools and universities … they made life easy for me”.

Like several of the other participants who were interviewed, he was initially separated from his family while he worked on establishing his business and the children stayed behind with his to finish their stage of education. When his family joined him two years later, they were able to settle as a family starting school and university. His children began to get involved in activities such as Scouts and sports. Rabih and his family have close bonds with many families in Birmingham, particularly those he knows from his time in Sweden. Although he speaks fondly of the city, his favourite places are where he spends most of his time – his home and his business.

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Dahab Jihar was born in Sudan. Her family are originally from Eritrea. Dahab spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and in Egypt (Alexandria). She worked hard on improving her English whilst at school and when her family later moved to Sweden, her ability to communicate in English helped her a great deal. In Sweden, Dahab’s family lived in a small town where they were the only people of colour. She recalls the way she was treated: “I remember going down the street, and these old ladies would come and touch my curls. Even as a child, I found that quite offensive … I was like a novelty.”

Although she did not wear hijab until she was in her twenties, she always had a strong sense of identity as a Muslim and often felt a sense of conflict: “The onus was onus on me to integrate … but you can’t integrate into a society that doesn’t allow you to integrate sometimes. What I realised growing up in Sweden was that I was expected to assimilate, and I had to almost shed off my identity as a Muslim, as a Black woman … my language, my culture ”. Dahab credits her mother’s strong nature as helping her to navigate these issues and appreciating the Swedish culture whilst also asserting their own identity and culture positively.

At the age of 18 years, Dahab came to visit an uncle in London and decided that she wanted to move to the UK. She began her undergraduate studies in London, which was interrupted when she briefly moved back to Sweden after getting married. She returned to complete her degree and PGCE after her first child was born.

In 2004, Dahab moved to Birmingham upon a friend’s recommendation. She has become familiar with the Muslim community in Small Heath and has also become a part of the Eritrean Muslim community and can identify both positives and negatives in negotiating these spaces. Compared to Sweden, she finds it notable how easy and comfortable it is to wear the hijab or a veil in Birmingham. Dahab began teaching Quran and Arabic as well as a weekly sister’s circle. She has also been active in charity work and in pursuing outdoor sports. She now works as the headteacher of an Islamic school in Small Heath.

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Omayma Targam was born and raised in Egypt. She came to England in 1977. Having to leave her home country as a newly-wed, she describes facing many challenges leaving her family behind while trying to settle in the UK. Her lifeline was writing letters and arranging for occasional international telephone calls. However, she tried to make herself busy with her new life and her son was born a year later. It was difficult to settle at first: her husband’s work as a doctor involved moving every six months. She lived in Yorkshire and Scotland - where she hardly found any Arabs - before moving to Solihull in 1984. She recalls how difficult it was to give birth to her first child on her own without any family support: “I was completely by myself. I remember when it was visiting time when I was in the hospital and I used to just close the door because everybody has visitors and I am all by myself, I have nobody.”

After her second child was born, Omayma’s husband was offered a job in Saudi Arabia and they moved between Egypt and Saudi Arabia for eighteen months before coming back to England. This time the move to England was much easier as she came to realise that England was where she felt at home. Of her early days in Solihull she found that there were very few Muslims there and as a Muslim woman she stood out. As they settled into life, they made connections with other Arab and Muslim communities. Omayma supported her husband in establishing his GP practice, which was set up with intention to help the local Yemeni community and offer them a service where their language was not a barrier for access to healthcare. They made many financial sacrifices to establish the GP practice and she also worked as a receptionist in the surgery. She found the work very rewarding, due to the support it provided to her husband and the knowledge that she was serving the local community. Omayma continued to work in the surgery until her son graduated from medical school and they were able to retire and leave the practice to him.

She has also built a strong social network, involving herself with the Muslim Student’s House and the Amanah mosque. In more recent years, she has supported her son in his project to establish The Olton Project.

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Dr Ahmad Barakat was born and brought up in Syria. His parents both placed a great focus on education. One of six siblings, Ahmad describes a close family and a joyful childhood. After leaving university, he was conscripted to the military service, which he enjoyed, including the discipline that it taught him. He then taught English and Arabic before joining the Syrian Foreign Office as a diplomat. He served in various departments of the Foreign Office, which he found an interesting and rewarding experience. At the same time, he continued his interest in teaching by working at Damascus University at the weekend.

2011 was a landmark year in Ahmad’s personal life; it was marked by the loss of his beloved mother and the birth of his child. Against the backdrop of the civil war in Syria, Ahmad decided to leave Syria to pursue a PhD and start a new chapter in life. He managed to get a study visa for himself but the visa for his family was rejected at first. They reapplied for the family and they joined him in Birmingham after reapplying. His oldest daughter was seven years old when they arrived and found starting school without speaking any English very challenging. It was comparatively easier for his younger son who was four when he moved to the UK. Ahmad praises the way the schools supported his children: “I think in this country they are prepared for international students. They know how to start with the child”.

After his PhD, Ahmad began teaching at the University of Birmingham. He was able to connect with other Syrians in Birmingham, which helped him settle and navigate life.

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Naser Haghamed was born in Eritrea in the 1960s. Eritrea was under the occupation of Ethiopia at the time and during his primary school years, Naser was not allowed to speak in his mother-tongue at school. Shortly before he was due to start secondary school, his mother told him that they were leaving the country. His father had been accused of supporting the Eritrean liberation fighters who were fighting against the Ethiopian occupation, so the family had to leave quickly without alerting authorities. The family first sought refuge in Sudan, later leaving for Saudi Arabia. He went on to receive a scholarship to study in Libya but found life difficult there and returned to Saudi Arabia. Following a short stay in Egypt (at the time of Anwar Sadat’s assassination), he was sponsored by his uncle to move to the UK for his studies.

Naser’s uncle fell into financial difficulties while he was sponsoring and Naser found himself without a sponsor and sought asylum in the UK. After studying for A Levels, he was admitted to study computer science at the University of London. He worked in a bookshop alongside his studies to support himself. After his studies, Naser began working for a computer science company, where he worked his way to senior roles. It was during this job that he met Dr Hani Elbanna (founder of Islamic Relief), who would later hire him as an IT manager to work for Islamic Relief in Birmingham. In 1993, Naser moved to Birmingham and soon made an impression, branching out his work to other departments eventually managing the clothing recycling company.

After the 11^th September attacks in 2001, the Islamic Relief office in Afghanistan was forced to leave, which had an impact operation in the region. Naser decided to enrol for an MBA at Aston University while continuing his work for Islamic Relief. In 2013, he became the CEO of Islamic Relief. Reviewing is development over the course of his career, Naser says, “When I came to London I learnt how to deal with computers, when I came to Islamic Relief I learnt how to deal with people.” Although he can recount many highlights across his career, he also faced many challenges, including discrimination due to the colour of his skin: “at the beginning, I found it difficult to rent a place in Birmingham … when you are African black skin … I remember that I saw a house and I really liked it and went to rent it. And the owner said it’s gone we cannot rent it to you. The next day, a friend of, he has white skin, he is Egyptian, and his wife is American. They gave him!”

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Saleh Mohammed Shaibi was born in the 1930s in the mountain village of Shaib in Yemen. Saleh explains the circumstances of his move to the UK: South Yemen was part of the British Empire at the time and gave the opportunity for Yemenis to come to live and work in the UK. Saleh was one of the many groups of men who migrated to work and to create a better life for themselves as well as support their families back in Yemen.

He initially moved to Sheffield because he had contacts there to help him find work, but he ended up training with the British army when none of the factories would take him on for work because he didn’t look strong enough. He then moved to London before eventually settling in Birmingham.

Saleh credits men from the Yemeni community who had come in earlier years for the help they provided on his arrival. Typically they ran shared housing for other Yemenis coming to England and were also their main source of finding work. It was very much a community effort…Yemenis who knew other Yemenis.

Saleh’s greatest achievement is the establishment of the butchers and grocery shop that he has in Lozells, Saleh’s Food Store (formerly named Saleh and Sons), which specialises in Caribbean groceries and has been serving the community for over 40 years. He fondly recalls many experiences from his training in the army to working as a waiter, from actor to steel worker, to even picking up skills as a tailor. Saleh says that all his experiences have been part of the path that paved his way to becoming a very successful business owner and the respect he has achieved within the community he lives and works in. Saleh has also been accredited for his work and efforts and was awarded shop keeper of the year award in 2018.

(interviewed by his grand-daughter Small Saleh)

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