Fatima Barkatulla – Fatima Elizabeth Cates grave at Anfield Cemetery

Brothers and sisters, I'm here

today in Anfield

Cemetery here in Liverpool,

up north

in England.

And

I really wanted to come and visit the

grave of Fatima Elizabeth Cates.

Her name was originally Frances

Elizabeth Cates,

and she was one of the first Muslims

in the UK. One of the first Muslim

women in,

in Liverpool, if not the first Muslim woman

in Liverpool.

And

I managed to

find

the gravestone.

We pray for her and those Muslims who

came before us here in the UK.

Just to let you know the story behind

her

her gravestone.

1 of the brothers in London,

I believe his name is brother Hamid Ali,

he

he set up a school, and he named

it Fatima Elizabeth Cates

School, I believe.

And, I visited the school actually. It's for

children, and he named it after her. And

then he started, researching

her

grave. You know? Like, where where was she

buried?

And alhamdulillah, he went through the archives and,

for Anfield Cemetery, and he found

her name, Frances Elizabeth

Elizabeth Cates.

And then it said that the person who

had,

arranged her burial

ceremony

was Abdullah Quilliam.

Abdullah Quilliam, you know, one of the

early Muslims in or the Victorian Muslims,

who established a masjid in Liverpool.

And, SubhanAllah,

he and some other brothers and sisters, they

found her gravesite

right

here in Anfield Cemetery.

There's the church, the chapel.

And as you can see, it's a very

old cemetery.

But when they found her grave,

they found that there was absolutely nothing there.

It was

an unmarked grave

in between

gravestones.

And, so,

sister,

I believe her name is Amina

Swazbrick.

She,

started a fundraiser

to try and raise funds so that we

can mark

the grave of our sister Fatima Elizabeth Cates

so that future generations

and the Muslims who come here would would

know, you know, where she is.

I think it's really important to preserve that

history.

And so,

you know, I remember when she was fundraising,

we all took part in that effort.

So

we managed to

establish

her gravestone.

And so if you're ever in

Liverpool,

if you want to come and salons to

the, you know, the Muslims

who are lying here

in their graves,

you can do so.

Unfit cemetery,

you can look it up.

It's quite easy to find. Alhamdulillah.

You can just literally goo put put it

in Google Maps, and you'll find it.

The grave of Fatima Elizabeth Cates

in Anfield Cemetery

here in

Liverpool.

May Allah

bless our brothers and sisters from the past.

May Allah

make their becoming a Muslim

in a time when there were very few

Muslims in the United Kingdom. Make it a

sadaqa jariyah for them,

and,

may he make their graves,

a

garden a a little garden from the Gardens

of Paradise,

and

may we meet them on the day of

judgment.