The Lord Headley | |
---|---|
Born |
Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn 19 January 1855 London, England |
Died | 22 June 1935 Codford, Wiltshire, England |
(aged 80)
Occupation | Muslim scholar |
Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley (19 January 1855 – 22 June 1935), also known as Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq, was an Irish peer and a prominent convert to Islam, who was also one of the leading members of the Woking Muslim Mission alongside Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din. He also presided over the British Muslim Society for some time.
Rowland George Allanson Allanson-Winn was born in London and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge University. He then entered Middle Temple, before commencing studies at King's College London. He subsequently became a civil engineer by profession, a builder of roads in India, and an authority on the protection of intertidal zones.
He was an enthusiastic practitioner of boxing as well as other arts of self-defence, and in 1890 co-authored, with C. Phillipps-Wolley, the classic Broad-sword and Singlestick (1890). He was solo author of Boxing (1889) in the same "All-England Series" (introduced by the boxer Bat Mullins) which was reprinted in 2006. In 1899 he married Teresa Johnson, daughter of William H. Johnson, former Wazir-wazirat (governor) of Ladakh (Jammu and Kashmir), India. She died in 1919.
Headley embraced Islam on 16 November 1913 and adopted the Muslim name of Shaikh Rahmatullah al-Farooq. In 1914 he established the British Muslim Society. He was the author of several books on Islam, including A Western Awakening to Islam (1914) and Three Great Prophets of the World. He was a widely travelled man and twice made the Hajj.