An Unknown & Untold Story – The Muslim Contribution to the First World War

The website for “An Unknown & Untold Story – The Muslim Contribution to The First World War”, a new project to raise public awareness during the First World War Centenary of the 400,000 Muslims from undivided India who served in the British Army in The First World War, was launched last week.

Funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, this major national project is a partnership between British Future and New Horizons in British Islam. It aims to address the public appetite for information and learning about the contribution of soldiers from the Commonwealth during WW1, bringing together Muslim and non-Muslim communities to explore this shared history and its relevance to modern-day Britain.

Few people are aware that the multi-ethnic army of 1914 looked much more like the Britain of 2014 than that of 1914, nor that Muslims fought alongside Christians, Sikhs, Jews and Hindus on the battlefield. British Future research discovered that only 1 in 5 people know about this Muslim contribution, and almost nobody (2%) is aware of its scale.

The site – ww1muslimsoldiers.org.uk – contains a 360-degree virtual tour of the new Islamic-inspired Peace Garden opening in Woking today; a short history of the Muslim contribution to the First World War and details of the activities taking place over the four legs of the Unknown & Untold project in Birmingham, Leicester, RMA Sandhurst and Woking.