A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland or other lands east of the Cape of Good Hope who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the mid-20th century.
A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland or other lands east of the Cape of Good Hope who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the mid-20th century.
The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, also known as the first Kashmir war, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars between the two newly independent nations. Pakistan precipitated the war a few weeks after its independence by launching tribal lashkar (militias) from Waziristan, in an effort to capture Kashmir and to preempt the possibility of its ruler joining India.
Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, was facing an uprising by his Muslim subjects in Poonch, and lost control in portions of the western districts. On 22 October 1947, Pakistan's Pashtun tribal militias crossed the border of the state. These local tribal militias and irregular Pakistani forces moved to take the capital city of Srinagar, but upon reaching Baramulla, they took to plunder and stalled. Maharaja Hari Singh made a plea to India for assistance, and help was offered, but it was subject to his signing of an Instrument of Accession to India.
Islam is the second-largest religion in the United Kingdom, with results from the 2021 Census recording just under four million Muslims, or 6.0% of the total population in the United Kingdom. London has the largest population and greatest proportion (15%) of Muslims in the country. The vast majority of British Muslims in the United Kingdom adhere to Sunni Islam, while smaller numbers are associated with Shia Islam.
During the Middle Ages, there was some general cultural exchange between Christendom and the Islamic world. Nonetheless, there were no Muslims in the British Isles; however, a few Crusaders did convert in the East, such as Robert of St. Albans. During the Elizabethan age, contacts became more explicit as the Tudors made alliances against Catholic Habsburg Spain, including with the Ottoman Empire. As the British Empire grew, particularly in India, Britain came to rule territories with many Muslim inhabitants; some of these, known as the lascars, are known to have settled in Britain from the mid-18th century onwards. In the 19th century, Victorian Orientalism spurred an interest in Islam and some British people, including aristocrats, converted to Islam. Marmaduke Pickthall, an English writer and novelist, and a convert to Islam, provided the first complete English-language translation of the Qur'an by a British Muslim in 1930. Under the British Indian Army, a significant number of Muslims fought for the United Kingdom during the First and the Second World Wars (a number of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest honour). In the decades following the latter conflict and the partition of India in 1947, many Muslims (from what is today Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) settled in Britain itself.