Office Use Only Select - Brunel University London: Fill & Download for Free

What could be the punishment for a Roman soldier who was considered a coward during a battle?Murderous Games: Gladiatorial Contests in Ancient RomeWhHistory Today |Gladiatorial shows turned war into a game, preserved an atmosphere of violence in time of peace, and functioned as a political theatre which allowed confrontation between rulers and ruled.Keith Hopkins | Published in History Today Volume 33 Issue 6 June 1983Mosaic at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid showing a retiarius (net-fighter) named Kalendio fighting a secutor named AstyanaxRome was a warrior state. After the defeat of Carthage in 201 BC, Rome embarked on two centuries of almost continuous imperial expansion. By the end of this period, Rome controlled the whole of the Mediterranean basin and much of north-western Europe. The population of her empire, at between 50 and 60 million people, constituted perhaps one-fifth or one-sixth of the world's then population. Victorious conquest had been bought at a huge price, measured in human suffering, carnage, and money. The costs were borne by tens of thousands of conquered peoples, who paid taxes to the Roman state, by slaves captured in war and transported to Italy, and by Roman soldiers who served long years fighting overseas.The discipline of the Roman army was notorious. Decimation is one index of its severity. If an army unit was judged disobedient or cowardly in battle, one soldier in ten was selected by lot and cudgelled to death by his former comrades. It should be stressed that decimation was not just a myth told to terrify fresh recruits; it actually happened in the period of imperial expansion, and frequently enough not to arouse particular comment. Roman soldiers killed each other for their common good.When Romans were so unmerciful to each other, what mercy could prisoners of war expect? Small wonder then that they were sometimes forced to fight in gladiatorial contests, or were thrown to wild beasts for popular entertainment. Public executions helped inculcate valour and fear in the men, women and children left at home. Children learnt the lesson of what happened to soldiers who were defeated. Public executions were rituals which helped maintain an atmosphere of violence, even in times of peace. Bloodshed and slaughter joined military glory and conquest as central elements in Roman culture.With the accession of the first emperor Augustus (31 BC – AD 14), the Roman state embarked on a period of long-term peace (pax romana). For more than two centuries, thanks to its effective defence by frontier armies, the inner core of the Roman empire was virtually insulated from the direct experience of war. Then in memory of their warrior traditions, the Romans set up artificia1 battlefields in cities and towns for public amusement. The custom spread from Italy to the provinces.Nowadays, we admire the Colosseum in Rome and other great Roman amphitheatres such as those at Verona, Arles, Nimes and El Djem as architectural monuments. We choose to forget, I suspect, that this was where Romans regularly organised fights to the death between hundreds of gladiators, the mass execution of unarmed criminals, and the indiscriminate slaughter of domestic and wild animals.The enormous size of the amphitheatres indicates how popular these exhibitions were. The Colosseum was dedicated in AD 80 with 100 days of games. One day 3,000 men fought; on another 9,000 animals were killed. It seated 50,000 people. It is still one of Rome's most impressive buildings, a magnificent feat of engineering and design. In ancient times, amphitheatres must have towered over cities, much as cathedrals towered over medieval towns. Public killings of men and animals were a Roman rite, with overtones of religious sacrifice, legitimated by the myth that gladiatorial shows inspired the populace with 'a glory in wounds and a contempt of death'.Philosophers, and later Christians, disapproved strongly. To little effect; gladiatorial games persisted at least until the early fifth century AD, wild-beast killings until the sixth century. St Augustine in his Confessions tells the story of a Christian who was reluctantly forced along to the amphitheatre by a party of friends; at first, he kept his eyes shut, but when he heard the crowd roar, he opened them, and became converted by the sight of blood into an eager devotee of gladiatorial shows. Even the biting criticism quoted below reveals a certain excitement beneath its moral outrage.Seneca, Roman senator and philosopher, tells of a visit he once paid to the arena. He arrived in the middle of the day, during the mass execution of criminals, staged as an entertainment in the interval between the wild-beast show in the morning and the gladiatorial show of the afternoon:All the previous fighting had been merciful by comparison. Now finesse is set aside, and we have pure unadulterated murder. The combatants have no protective covering; their entire bodies are exposed to the blows. No blow falls in vain. This is what lots of people prefer to the regular contests, and even to those which are put on by popular request. And it is obvious why. There is no helmet, no shield to repel the blade. Why have armour? Why bother with skill? All that just delays death.In the morning, men are thrown to lions and bears. At mid-day they are thrown to the spectators themselves. No sooner has a man killed, than they shout for him to kill another, or to be killed. The final victor is kept for some other slaughter. In the end, every fighter dies. And all this goes on while the arena is half empty.You may object that the victims committed robbery or were murderers. So what? Even if they deserved to suffer, what's your compulsion to watch their sufferings? 'Kill him', they shout, 'Beat him, burn him'. Why is he too timid to fight? Why is he so frightened to kill? Why so reluctant to die? They have to whip him to make him accept his wounds.Much of our evidence suggests that gladiatorial contests were, by origin, closely connected with funerals. 'Once upon a time', wrote the Christian critic Tertullian at the end of the second century AD, 'men believed that the souls of the dead were propitiated by human blood, and so at funerals they sacrificed prisoners of war or slaves of poor quality bought for the purpose'. The first recorded gladiatorial show took place in 264 BC: it was presented by two nobles in honour of their dead father; only three pairs of gladiators took part. Over the next two centuries, the scale and frequency of gladiatorial shows increased steadily. In 65 BC, for example, Julius Caesar gave elaborate funeral games for his father involving 640 gladiators and condemned criminals who were forced to fight with wild beasts. At his next games in 46 BC, in memory of his dead daughter and, let it be said, in celebration of his recent triumphs in Gaul and Egypt, Caesar presented not only the customary fights between individual gladiators, but also fights between whole detachments of infantry and between squadrons of cavalry, some mounted on horses, others on elephants. Large-scale gladiatorial shows had arrived. Some of the contestants were professional gladiators, others prisoners of war, and others criminals condemned to death.Up to this time, gladiatorial shows had always been put on by individual aristocrats at their own initiative and expense, in honour of dead relatives. The religious component in gladiatorial ceremonies continued to be important. For example, attendants in the arena were dressed up as gods. Slaves who tested whether fallen gladiators were really dead or just pretending, by applying a red-hot cauterising iron, were dressed as the god Mercury. 'Those who dragged away the dead bodies were dressed as Pluto, the god of the underworld. During the persecutions of Christians, the victims were sometimes led around the arena in a procession dressed up as priests and priestesses of pagan cults, before being stripped naked and thrown to the wild beasts. The welter of blood in gladiatorial and wild-beast shows, the squeals and smell of the human victims and of slaughtered animals are completely alien to us and almost unimaginable. For some Romans they must have been reminiscent of battlefields, and, more immediately for everyone, associated with religious sacrifice. At one remove, Romans, even at the height of their civilisation, performed human sacrifice, purportedly in commemoration of their dead.By the end of the last century BC, the religious and commemorative elements in gladiatorial shows were eclipsed by the political and the spectacular. Gladiatorial shows were public performances held mostly, before the amphitheatre was built, in the ritual and social centre of the city, the Forum. Public participation, attracted by the splendour of the show and by distributions of meat, and by betting, magnified the respect paid to the dead and the honour of the whole family. Aristocratic funerals in the Republic (before 31 BC) were political acts. And funeral games had political implications, because of their popularity with citizen electors. Indeed, the growth in the splendour of gladiatorial shows was largely fuelled by competition between ambitious aristocrats, who wished to please, excite and increase the number of their supporters.In 42 BC, for the first time, gladiatorial fights were substituted for chariot-races in official games. After that in the city of Rome, regular gladiatorial shows, like theatrical shows and chariot-races, were given by officers of state, as part of their official careers, as an official obligation and as a tax on status. The Emperor Augustus, as part of a general policy of limiting aristocrats' opportunities to court favour with the Roman populace, severely restricted the number of regular gladiatorial shows to two each year. He also restricted their splendour and size. Each official was forbidden to spend more on them than his colleagues, and an upper limit was fixed at 120 gladiators a show.These regulations were gradually evaded. The pressure for evasion was simply that, even under the emperors, aristocrats were still competing with each other, in prestige and political success. The splendour of a senator's public exhibition could make or break his social and political reputation. One aristocrat, Symmachus, wrote to a friend: 'I must now outdo the reputation earned by my own shows; our family's recent generosity during my consulship and the official games given for my son allow us to present nothing mediocre'. So he set about enlisting the help of various powerful friends in the provinces. In the end, he managed to procure antelopes, gazelles, leopards, lions, bears, bear-cubs, and even some crocodiles, which only just survived to the beginning of the games, because for the previous fifty days they had refused to eat. Moreover, twenty-nine Saxon prisoners of war strangled each other in their cells on the night before their final scheduled appearance. Symmachus was heart-broken. Like every donor of the games, he knew that his political standing was at stake. Every presentation was in Goffman's strikingly apposite phrase 'a status bloodbath'.The most spectacular gladiatorial shows were given by the emperors themselves at Rome. For example, the Emperor Trajan, to celebrate his conquest of Dacia (roughly modern Roumania), gave games in AD 108-9 lasting 123 days in which 9,138 gladiators fought and eleven thousand animals were slain. The Emperor Claudius in AD 52 presided in full military regalia over a battle on a lake near Rome between two naval squadrons, manned for the occasion by 19,000 forced combatants. The palace guard, stationed behind stout barricades, which also prevented the combatants from escaping, bombarded the ships with missiles from catapaults. After a faltering start, because the men refused to fight, the battle according to Tacitus 'was fought with the spirit of free men, although between criminals. After much bloodshed, those who survived were spared extermination'.The quality of Roman justice was often tempered by the need to satisfy the demand for the condemned. Christians, burnt to death as scapegoats after the great fire at Rome in AD 64, were not alone in being sacrificed for public entertainment. Slaves and bystanders, even the spectators themselves, ran the risk of becoming victims of emperors' truculent whims. The Emperor Claudius, for example, dissatisfied with how the stage machinery worked, ordered the stage mechanics responsible to fight in the arena. One day when there was a shortage of condemned criminals, the Emperor Caligula commanded that a whole section of the crowd be seized and thrown to the wild beasts instead. Isolated incidents, but enough to intensify the excitement of those who attended. Imperial legitimacy was reinforced by terror.As for animals, their sheer variety symbolised the extent of Roman power and left vivid traces in Roman art. In 169 BC, sixty-three African lions and leopards, forty bears and several elephants were hunted down in a single show. New species were gradually introduced to Roman spectators (tigers, crocodiles, giraffes, lynxes, rhinoceros, ostriches, hippopotami) and killed for their pleasure. Not for Romans the tame viewing of caged animals in a zoo. Wild beasts were set to tear criminals to pieces as public lesson in pain and death. Sometimes, elaborate sets and theatrical backdrops were prepared in which, as a climax, a criminal was devoured limb by limb. Such spectacular punishments, common enough in pre-industrial states, helped reconstitute sovereign power. The deviant criminal was punished; law and order were re-established.The labour and organisation required to capture so many animals and to deliver them alive to Rome must have been enormous. Even if wild animals were more plentiful then than now, single shows with one hundred, four hundred or six hundred lions, plus other animals, seem amazing. By contrast, after Roman times, no hippopotamus was seen in Europe until one was brought to London by steamship in 1850. It took a whole regiment of Egyptian soldiers to capture it, and involved a five month journey to bring it from the White Nile to Cairo. And yet the Emperor Commodus, a dead-shot with spear and bow, himself killed five hippos, two elephants, a rhinoceros and a giraffe, in one show lasting two days. On another occasion he killed 100 lions and bears in a single morning show, from safe walkways specially constructed across the arena. It was, a contemporary remarked, 'a better demonstration of accuracy than of courage'. The slaughter of exotic animals in the emperor's presence, and exceptionally by the emperor himself or by his palace guards, was a spectacular dramatisation of the emperor's formidable power: immediate, bloody and symbolic.Gladiatorial shows also provided an arena for popular participation in politics. Cicero explicitly recognised this towards the end of the Republic: 'the judgement and wishes of the Roman people about public affairs can be most clearly expressed in three places: public assemblies, elections, and at plays or gladiatorial shows'. He challenged a political opponent: 'Give yourself to the people. Entrust yourself to the Games. Are you terrified of not being applauded?' His comments underline the fact that the crowd had the important option of giving or of withholding applause, of hissing or of being silent.Under the emperors, as citizens' rights to engage in politics diminished, gladiatorial shows and games provided repeated opportunities for the dramatic confrontation of rulers and ruled. Rome was unique among large historical empires in allowing, indeed in expecting, these regular meetings between emperors and the massed populace of the capital, collected together in a single crowd. To be sure, emperors could mostly stage-manage their own appearance and reception. They gave extravagant shows. They threw gifts to the crowd – small marked wooden balls (called missilia ) which could be exchanged for various luxuries. They occasionally planted their own claques in the crowd.Mostly, emperors received standing ovations and ritual acclamations. The Games at Rome provided a stage for the emperor to display his majesty – luxurious ostentation in procession, accessibility to humble petitioners, generosity to the crowd, human involvement in the contests themselves, graciousness or arrogance towards the assembled aristocrats, clemency or cruelty to the vanquished. When a gladiator fell, the crowd would shout for mercy or dispatch. The emperor might be swayed by their shouts or gestures, but he alone, the final arbiter, decided who was to live or die. When the emperor entered the amphitheatre, or decided the fate of a fallen gladiator by the movement of his thumb, at that moment he had 50,000 courtiers. He knew that he was Caesar Imperator , Foremost of Men.Things did not always go the way the emperor wanted. Sometimes, the crowd objected, for example to the high price of wheat, or demanded the execution of an unpopular official or a reduction in taxes. Caligula once reacted angrily and sent soldiers into the crowd with orders to execute summarily anyone seen shouting. Understandably, the crowd grew silent, though sullen. But the emperor's increased unpopularity encouraged his assassins to act. Dio, senator and historian, was present at another popular demonstration in the Circus in AD 195. He was amazed that the huge crowd (the Circus held up to 200,000 people) strung out along the track, shouted for an end to civil war 'like a well-trained choir'.Dio also recounted how with his own eyes he saw the Emperor Commodus cut off the head of an ostrich as a sacrifice in the arena then walk towards the congregated senators whom he hated, with the sacrificial knife in one hand and the severed head of the bird in the other, clearly indicating, so Dio thought, that it was the senators' necks which he really wanted. Years later, Dio recalled how he had kept himself from laughing (out of anxiety, presumably) by chewing desperately on a laurel leaf which he plucked from the garland on his head.Consider how the spectators in the amphitheatre sat: the emperor in his gilded box, surrounded by his family; senators and knights each had special seats and came properly dressed in their distinctive purple-bordered togas. Soldiers were separated from civilians. Even ordinary citizens had to wear the heavy white woollen toga, the formal dress of a Roman citizen, and sandals, if they wanted to sit in the bottom two main tiers of seats. Married men sat separately from bachelors, boys sat in a separate block, with their teachers in the next block. Women, and the very poorest men dressed in the drab grey cloth associated with mourning, could sit or stand only in the top tier of the amphitheatre. Priests and Vestal Virgins (honorary men) had reserved seats at the front. The correct dress and segregation of ranks underlined the formal ritual elements in the occasion, just as the steeply banked seats reflected the steep stratification of Roman society. It mattered where you sat, and where you were seen to be sitting.Gladiatorial shows were political theatre. The dramatic performance took place, not only in the arena, but between different sections of the audience. Their interaction should be included in any thorough account of the Roman constitution. The amphitheatre was the Roman crowd's parliament. Games are usually omitted from political histories, simply because in our own society, mass spectator sports count as leisure. But the Romans themselves realised that metropolitan control involved 'bread and circuses'. 'The Roman people', wrote Marcus Aurelius' tutor Fronto, 'is held together by two forces: wheat doles and public shows'.Enthusiastic interest in gladiatorial shows occasionally spilled over into a desire to perform in the arena. Two emperors were not content to be spectators-in-chief. They wanted to be prize performers as well. Nero's histrionic ambitions and success as musician and actor were notorious. He also prided himself on his abilities as a charioteer. Commodus performed as a gladiator in the amphitheatre, though admittedly only in preliminary bouts with blunted weapons. He won all his fights and charged the imperial treasury a million sesterces for each appearance (enough to feed a thousand families for a year). Eventually, he was assassinated when he was planning to be inaugurated as consul (in AD 193), dressed as a gladiator.Commodus' gladiatorial exploits were an idiosyncratic expression of a culture obsessed with fighting, bloodshed, ostentation and competition. But at least seven other emperors practised as gladiators, and fought in gladiatorial contests. And so did Roman senators and knights. Attempts were made to stop them by law; but the laws were evaded.Roman writers tried to explain away these senators' and knights' outrageous behaviour by calling them morally degenerate, forced into the arena by wicked emperors or their own profligacy. This explanation is clearly inadequate, even though it is difficult to find one which is much better. A significant part of the Roman aristocracy, even under the emperors, was still dedicated to military prowess: all generals were senators; all senior officers were senators or knights. Combat in the arena gave aristocrats a chance to display their fighting skill and courage. In spite of the opprobrium and at the risk of death, it was their last chance to play soldiers in front of a large audience.Gladiators were glamour figures, culture heroes. The probable life-span of each gladiator was short. Each successive victory brought further risk of defeat and death. But for the moment, we are more concerned with image than with reality. Modern pop-stars and athletes have only a short exposure to full-glare publicity. Most of them fade rapidly from being household names into obscurity, fossilised in the memory of each generation of adolescent enthusiasts. The transience of the fame of each does not diminish their collective importance.So too with Roman gladiators. Their portraits were often painted. Whole walls in public porticos were sometimes covered with life-size portraits of all the gladiators in a particular show. The actual events were magnified beforehand by expectation and afterwards by memory. Street advertisements stimulated excitement and anticipation. Hundreds of Roman artefacts – sculptures, figurines, lamps, glasses – picture gladiatorial fights and wild-beast shows. In conversation and in daily life, chariot-races and gladiatorial fights were all the rage. 'When you enter the lecture halls', wrote Tacitus, 'what else do you hear the young men talking about?' Even a baby's nursing bottle, made of clay and found at Pompeii, was stamped with the figure of a gladiator. It symbolised the hope that the baby would imbibe a gladiator's strength and courage.The victorious gladiator, or at least his image, was sexually attractive. Graffiti from the plastered walls of Pompeii carry the message:Celadus [a stage name, meaning Crowd's Roar], thrice victor and thrice crowned, the young girls' heart-throb, and Crescens the Netter of young girls by night.The ephemera of AD 79 have been preserved by volcanic ash. Even the defeated gladiator had something sexually portentous about him. It was customary, so it is reported, for a new Roman bride to have her hair parted with a spear, at best one which had been dipped in the body of a defeated and killed gladiator.The Latin word for sword – gladius – was vulgarly used to mean penis. Several artefacts also suggest this association. A small bronze figurine from Pompeii depicts a cruel-looking gladiator fighting off with his sword a dog-like wild-beast which grows out of his erect and elongated penis. Five bells hang down from various parts of his body and a hook is attached to the gladiator's head"so that the whole ensemble could hang as a bell in a doorway. Interpretation must be speculative. But this evidence suggests that there was a close link, in some Roman minds, between gladiatorial fighting and sexuality. And it seems as though gladiatoral bravery for some Roman men represented an attractive yet dangerous, almost threatening, macho masculinity.Gladiators attracted women, even though most of them were slaves. Even if they were free or noble by origin, they were in some sense contaminated by their close contact with death. Like suicides, gladiators were in some places excluded from normal burial grounds. Perhaps their dangerous ambiguity was part of their sexual attraction. They were, according to the Christian Tertullian, both loved and despised: 'men give them their souls, women their bodies too'. Gladiators were 'both glorified and degraded'.In a vicious satire, the poet Juvenal ridiculed a senator's wife, Eppia, who had eloped to Egypt with her favourite swordsman:What was the youthful charm that so fired Eppia? What hooked her? What did she see in him to make her put up with being called 'The Gladiator's Moll'? Her poppet, her Sergius, was no chicken, with a dud arm that prompted hope of early retirement. Besides, his face looked a proper mess, helmet scarred, a great wart on his nose, an unpleasant discharge always trickling from one eye, But he was a Gladiator. That word makes the whole breed seem handsome, and made her prefer him to her children and country, her sister and husband. Steel is what they fall in love with.Satire certainly, and exaggerated, but pointless unless it was also based to some extent in reality. Modern excavators, working in the armoury of the gladiatorial barracks in Pompeii found eighteen skeletons in two rooms, presumably of gladiators caught there in an ash storm; they included only one woman, who was wearing rich gold jewellery, and a necklace set with emeralds. Occasionally, women's attachment to gladiatorial combat went further. They fought in the arena themselves. In the storeroom of the British Museum, for example, there is a small stone relief, depicting two female gladiators, one with breast bare, called Amazon and Achillia. Some of these female gladiators were free women of high status.Behind the brave facade and the hope of glory, there lurked the fear of death. 'Those about to die salute you, Emperor'. Only one account survives of what it was like from the gladiator's point of view. It is from a rhetorical exercise. The story is told by a rich young man who had been captured by pirates and was then sold on as a slave to a gladiatorial trainer:And so the day arrived. Already the populace had gathered for the spectacle of our punishment, and the bodies of those about to die had their own death-parade across the arena. The presenter of the shows, who hoped to gain favour with our blood, took his seat... Although no one knew my birth, my fortune, my family, one fact made some people pity me; I seemed unfairly matched. I was destined to be a certain victim in the sand... All around I could hear the instruments of death: a sword being sharpened, iron plates being heated in a fire [to stop fighters retreating and to prove that they were not faking death], birch-rods and whips were prepared. One would have imagined that these were the pirates. The trumpets sounded their foreboding notes; stretchers for the dead were brought on, a funeral parade before death. Everywhere I could see wounds, groans, blood, danger...He went on to describe his thoughts, his memories in the moments when he faced death, before he was dramatically and conveniently rescued by a friend. That was fiction. In real life gladiators died.Why did Romans popularise fights to the death between armed gladiators? Why did they encourage the public slaughter of unarmed criminals? What was it which transformed men who were timid and peaceable enough in private, as Tertullian put it, and made them shout gleefully for the merciless destruction of their fellow men? Part of the answer may lie in the simple development of a tradition, which fed on itself and its own success. Men liked blood and cried out for more. Part of the answer may also lie in the social psychology of the crowd, which relieved individuals of responsibility for their actions, and in the psychological mechanisms by which some spectators identified more easily with the victory of the aggressor than with the sufferings of the vanquished. Slavery and the steep stratification of society must also have contributed. Slaves were at the mercy of their owners. Those who were destroyed for public edification and entertainment were considered worthless, as non-persons; or, like Christian martyrs, they were considered social outcasts, and tortured as one Christian martyr put it 'as if we no longer existed'. The brutalisation of the spectators fed on the dehumanisation of the victims.Rome was a cruel society. Brutality was built into its culture in private life, as well as in public shows. The tone was set by military discipline and by slavery. The state had no legal monopoly of capital punishment until the second century AD. Before then, a master could crucify his slaves publicly if he wished. Seneca recorded from his own observations the various ways in which crucifixions were carried out, in order to increase pain. At private dinner-parties, rich Romans regularly presented two or three pairs of gladiators: 'when they have finished dining and are filled with drink', wrote a critic in the time of Augustus, 'they call in the gladiators. As soon as one has his throat cut, the diners applaud with delight'. It is worth stressing that we are dealing here not with individual sadistic psycho-pathology, but with a deep cultural difference. Roman commitment to cruelty presents us with a cultural gap which it is difficult to cross.Popular gladiatorial shows were a by-product of war, discipline and death. For centuries, Rome had been devoted to war and to the mass participation of citizens in battle. They won their huge empire by discipline and control. Public executions were a gruesome reminder to non-combatants, citizens, subjects and slaves, that vengeance would be exacted if they rebelled or betrayed their country. The arena provided a living enactment of the hell portrayed by Christian preachers. Public punishment ritually re-established the moral and political order. The power of the state was dramatically reconfirmed.When long-term peace came to the heartlands of the empire, after 31 BC, militaristic traditions were preserved at Rome in the domesticated battlefield of the amphitheatre. War had been converted into a game, a drama repeatedly replayed, of cruelty, violence, blood and death. But order still needed to be preserved. The fear of death still had to be assuaged by ritual. In a city as large as Rome, with a population of close on a million by the end of the last century BC, without an adequate police force, disorder always threatened.Gladiatorial shows and public executions reaffirmed the moral order, by the sacrifice of human victims – slaves, gladiators, condemned criminals or impious Christians. Enthusiastic participation, by spectators rich and poor, raised and then released collective tensions, in a society which traditionally idealised impassivity. Gladiatorial shows provided a psychic and political safety valve for the metropolitan population. Politically, emperors risked occasional conflict, but the populace could usually be diverted or fobbed off. The crowd lacked the coherence of a rebellious political ideology. By and large, it found its satisfaction in cheering its support of established order. At the psychological level, gladiatorial shows provided a stage for shared violence and tragedy. Each show reassured spectators that they had yet again survived disaster. Whatever happened in the arena, the spectators were on the winning side. 'They found comfort for death' wrote Tertullian with typical insight, 'in murder'.Keith Hopkins is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Brunel University and the author of Conquerors and Slaves (CUP, 1978).Source: History Today |Home | Facts and DetailsPUNISHMENTS IN ANCIENT ROMEcrucifixion of Spartacus probably didn't happenCrucifixion is a well-known form of Roman punishment. That's what the Romans did to Jesus. After the Spartacus Slave Revolt, it was said, slaves were nailed to crosses along a 100 miles stretch of the Appian Way. Many of them remained there, it was said, until their bones were picked clean by vultures. Some historians doubt whether this really took place. There is some archaeological evidence that crucifixions did occur but it is unclear if the punishment was widely practiced.The Emperors had no tolerance for people who revolted. In A.D. 70, Titus put down a Jewish revolt and and punished rebellious Jewish zealots by salting agricultural land, slaughtering and enslaving thousands of Jews, and looting menorahs and other sacred objects. Thousands of Jewish slaves were brought to Rome from Judea. During a huge triumphal procession, commemorated by the Arch of Titus, Jewish prisoners were paraded through the streets and strangled at the Forum. Josephus claimed that all together over 1 million Jews died as a result of the Roman crackdown.The Emperors had no tolerance for people who revolted. In A.D. 70, Titus put down a Jewish revolt and and punished rebellious Jewish zealots by salting agricultural land, slaughtering and enslaving thousands of Jews, and looting menorahs and other sacred objects. Thousands of Jewish slaves were brought to Rome from Judea. During a huge triumphal procession, commemorated by the Arch of Titus, Jewish prisoners were paraded through the streets and strangled at the Forum. Josephus claimed that all together over 1 million Jews died as a result of the Roman crackdown.The Romans burned and sacked the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Arch of Titus in Rome has a frieze showing legionnaires carrying candelabra and silver trumpets from the Temple. The Roman's added insult to injury by razing the Roman standard on the ruin of the Temple with an image of a pig (Jews like Muslims refrain from eating pork).The most common punishments were fines. In some case, people were exiled, a fairly common practice in ancient Greece. Wooden soles were sometimes strapped to the feet of prisoners, making escape difficult. Lacking pliability, wood restricts the foot's movement. According to Romae Vitam: “For theft the common punishment for a Roman citizen was to pay damages usually many times the value of the object stolen. The Romans made the difference between manifest and non-manifest theft, which depended on how close the thief was to the scene of the crime, manifest theft being the worst kind of theft. Initially, the penalty for manifest theft could be flogging, slavery or even death. Later on it was changed to paying damages amounting many times (usually four times) the value of the object stolen."Michael Van Duisen wrote for Listverse: “The status of homo sacer was given to those who broke oaths. Homo sacer translates best as “man who is set apart." Those punished with this title were not allowed to be ritually sacrificed, but they could be killed by anyone, with impunity. Some people were deemed homo sacer by a group of vigilantes, without any actual legal standing. (It is believed this may have occurred in early Rome, since they lacked the standing forces necessary to enforce the law, allowing people to take matters into their own hands on occasion.) In addition, any legal rights the convicted would have normally had, such as land ownership, were revoked, essentially ridding him of what made him a part of society. The Law of the Twelve Tables, the foundation of Roman law, specifically mentions homo sacer, making it the punishment for patrons who deceive their clients. [Source: Michael Van Duisen, Listverse, February 13, 2014]Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Romeslave collarHarold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “It is not the purpose of the following sections to catalogue the fiendish tortures sometimes inflicted upon slaves by their masters. They were not very common, for the reason suggested in, and were no more characteristic of the ordinary correction of slaves than lynching is characteristic of the administration of justice in our own states. Certain punishments, however, are so frequently mentioned in Latin literature that a description of them is necessary in order that the passages in which they occur may be understood by the reader. [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) forumromanum.org |+|]“The most common punishment for neglect of duty or petty misconduct was a beating with a stick or a flogging with a lash. The stick or rod was usually of elm wood (ulmus); the elm-rod thus used corresponded to the birch of England and the hickory of America, once freely used in flogging. For the lash or rawhide (scutica or lorum) was often used a sort of cat-o’-nine-tails, made of cords or thongs of leather.Another punishment for offenses of a trivial nature resembled the stocks of old New England days. The offender was exposed to the derision of his fellows with his limbs so confined that he could make no motion at all—he could not even brush a fly from his face. A variation of this form of punishment is seen in the furca, which was so common that furcifer became a mere term of abuse. The culprit was forced to carry upon his shoulders a heavy forked log, and had his arms stretched out before him with his hands fastened to the ends of the fork. This log he had to carry around in order that the other members of the familia might see him and take warning. Sometimes to this punishment was added a lashing as he moved painfully along. |+|“Less painful and degrading for the moment, but even more dreaded by the slave, was a sentence to harder labor than he had been accustomed to perform. The final penalty for misconduct on the part of a city slave for whom the rod had been spoiled in vain was banishment to the farm, and to this might be added at a stroke the odious task of grinding at the mill, or the crushing toil of labor in the quarries. The last were the punishments of the better class of farm slaves, while the desperate and dangerous class of slaves who regularly worked in the quarries paid for their misdeeds by forced labor under the scourge and by having heavier shackles during the day and fewer hours of rest at night. These may be compared to the galley slaves of later times. The utterly incorrigible might be sold to be trained as gladiators." |+|“The minor punishments were inflicted at the order of the master or his representative by some fellow slave called for the time carnifex or lorarius, though these words by no means imply that he was regularly or even commonly designated for the disagreeable duty. Still, the administration of punishment to a fellow slave was felt to be degrading, and the word carnifex was often applied to the one who administered it and finally came to be a standing term of abuse and taunt. It is applied to each other by quarreling slaves, apparently with no notion of its literal meaning, as many vulgar epithets are applied today. The actual execution of a death sentence was carried out by one of the servi publici at a fixed place of executionSevere Punishments of Slaves in Ancient Romebreaking legs was a Roman military punishmentHarold Whetstone Johnston wrote in “The Private Life of the Romans”: “For actual crimes, not mere faults or offenses, the punishments were far more severe. Slaves were so numerous and their various employments gave them such free access to the person of the master that his property and very life were always at their mercy. It was indeed a just and gentle master that did not sometimes dream of a slave holding a dagger at his throat. There was nothing within the confines of Italy so much dreaded as an uprising of the slaves. It was simply this haunting fear that led to the inhuman tortures inflicted upon the slave guilty of an attempt upon the life of his master or of the destruction of his property." [Source: “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) forumromanum.org |+|]When offenses were more serious, bits of bone, and even metal buttons were attached to stick or floggong lash “to tear the flesh, and the instrument was called a flagrum or flagellum. It could not have been less severe than the knout of Russia, and we may well believe that slaves died beneath its blows. To render the victim incapable of resistance he was sometimes drawn up to a beam by the arms, and weights were even attached to his feet, so that he could not so much as writhe under the torture. In Roman comedies are references to these punishments, and the slaves make grim jests on the rods and the scourge, taunting each other with the beatings they have had or deserve to have. But such jests are much commoner than the actual infliction of any sort of punishment in the comedies. |+|“For an attempt upon the life of the master the penalty was death in its most agonizing form, by crucifixion. This was also the penalty for taking part in an insurrection; we may recall the twenty thousand crucified in Sicily and the six thousand crosses that Pompeius erected along the road to Rome, each bearing the body of one of the survivors of the final battle in which Spartacus fell. The punishment was inflicted not only upon the slave guilty of taking his master's life, but also upon the family of the slave, if he had a wife and children. If the guilty man could not be found, his punishment was made certain by the crucifixion of all the slaves of the murdered man. Tacitus tells us that in the reign of Nero four hundred slaves were executed because their master, Pedianus Secundus, had been murdered by one of their number who had not been detected. The cross stood to the slave as the horror of horrors. The very word (crux) was used among them as a curse, especially in the expression (I) A.D. (malam) crucem. |+|Punishment for Dereliction of Duty by Roman Soldiersfustigation was a Roman military punishmentPolybius wrote in “History” Book 6: “As soon as the morning appears, those who have made the rounds carry the tablets to the tribune. If they bring the full number back they are suffered to depart without any question. But if the number be less than that of the guards, the inscriptions are immediately examined, in order to discover from what particular guard the tablet has not been returned. When this is known, the centurion is ordered to attend and to bring with him the soldiers that were appointed for that guard; that they may be questioned face to face with him who made the rounds. If the fault be in the guard, he that made the rounds appeals at once to the testimony of his friends who were present. Such evidence always is demanded from him; and in case that he is not able to bring this proof, the whole blame rests upon himself. The council is then assembled; the cause is judged by the tribune, and the guilty person sentenced to be bastinadoed. [Source: Polybius (c.200-after 118 B.C.), Rome at the End of the Punic Wars, “History” Book 6. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., “The Library of Original Sources” (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 166-193]This punishment is inflicted in the following manner. The tribune, taking a stick into his hand, gently touches the criminal; and immediately afterwards all the soldiers of the legion attack him with sticks and stones; so that the greatest part of those that are thus condemned are destroyed immediately in the camp. If any one escapes, yet he is not saved. For all return into his country is shut against him: nor would any of his friends or kindred ever dare to receive him into their houses. Those, therefore, who have once fallen into this misfortune are lost without resource. The conductor of the rear, and the leader of the troops, if ever they neglect to give the necessary notice in due time, the first to the inspectors of the watch, and the second to the leader of the succeeding troop, are subject also to this punishment. From the dread of a discipline so severe, and which leaves no place for mercy, every thing that belongs to the guards of the night is performed with the most exact diligence and care."Tribunes and Punishments for Roman SoldiersPolybius wrote in “History” Book 6: “The soldiers are subject to the control of the tribunes, as these are to that of the consuls. The tribunes have the power of imposing fines, and demanding sureties, and of punishing with stripes. The same authority is exercised by the prefects among the allies. The punishment of the bastinadoe is inflicted also upon those who steal any thing in the camp; those who bear false testimony; who, in their youth, abuse their bodies; and who have been three times convicted of one fault. [Source: Polybius (c.200-after 118 B.C.), Rome at the End of the Punic Wars, “History” Book 6. From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., “The Library of Original Sources” (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 166-193]decimation was a Roman military punishment“These offenses are punished as crimes. There are others that are regarded as the effects of cowardice, and disgraceful to the military character. When a soldier, for example, with a view of obtaining a reward, makes a report to the tribunes of some brave action which he has not performed. When any one, through fear, deserts his station, or throws away his arms in the time of engagement. For hence it happens that many, through the dread of the allotted punishment, when they are attacked by much greater numbers, will even encounter manifest destruction, rather than desert that post which they had been ordered to maintain. Others again, when they have lost their shield, or sword, or any other part of their arms in the time of action, throw themselves precipitately into the very midst of the enemy; hoping either to recover what they have lost, or to avoid by death the reproaches of their fellow-soldiers, and the disgrace that is ready to receive them.“If it happens that many are at one time guilty of the same fault, and that whole companies retire before the enemy, and desert their station; instead of punishing all of them by death, an expedient is employed which is both useful and full of terror. The tribune, assembling together all the soldiers of the legion, commands the criminals to be brought forward: and, having sharply reproached them with their cowardice, he then draws out by lot either five, or eight, or twenty men, according to the number of those that have offended. For the proportion is usually so adjusted, that every tenth man is reserved for punishment. Those, who are thus separated from the rest by lot, are bastinadoed without remission in the manner before described. The others are sentenced to be fed with barley instead of wheat; and are lodged without the entrenchment, exposed to insults from the enemy. As the danger, therefore, and the dread of death, hangs equally over all the guilty, because no one can foresee upon whom the lot will fall; and as the shame and infamy of receiving barley only for their support is extended also alike to all; this institution is perfectly well contrived, both for impressing present terror, and for the prevention of future faults."Poena Cullei (Thrown Into River in a Sack with a Monkey)medieval Poena CulleiCapital punishment was quite prevalent in ancient Rome. It was used for a number of crimes in which someone would be jailed or even placed on probation today. Among the crimes for which one could be executed in ancient Rome were deserting the army, running away from slavery, and even under some circumstances, adultery.Michael Van Duisen wrote for Listverse: “ Poena cullei was a special type of capital punishment, one which was reserved for a particular crime: parricide, or murder of a member of one's family. Once convicted, the murderer would have his face covered with a wolf's skin and sandals were placed on his feet (presumably to keep him from defiling the air or the ground). He would now wait in prison until a sack was made for him. Once it was ready, a dog, monkey, snake, and rooster were placed in the sack, along with the murderer, and the sack was thrown into a river or the ocean. [Source: Michael Van Duisen, Listverse, February 13, 2014]Cicero wrote: “They therefore stipulated that parricides should be sewn up in a sack while still alive and thrown into a river. What remarkable wisdom they showed, gentlemen! Do they not seem to have cut the parricide off and separated him from the whole realm of nature, depriving him at a stroke of sky, sun, water and earth – and thus ensuring that he who had killed the man who gave him life should himself be denied the elements from which, it is said, all life derives? They did not want his body to be exposed to wild animals, in case the animals should turn more savage after coming into contact with such a monstrosity. Nor did they want to throw him naked into a river, for fear that his body, carried down to the sea, might pollute that very element by which all other defilements are thought to be purified. In short, there is nothing so cheap, or so commonly available that they allowed parricides to share in it. For what is so free as air to the living, earth to the dead, the sea to those tossed by the waves, or the land to those cast to the shores? Yet these men live, while they can, without being able to draw breath from the open air; they die without earth touching their bones; they are tossed by the waves without ever being cleansed; and in the end they are cast ashore without being granted, even on the rocks, a resting-place in death."Damnatio ad Bestias (Killing by Wild Animals)Damnatio ad bestias (Latin for "condemnation to beasts") was a form of Roman capital punishment in which the condemned person was killed by wild animals in the arena. Unlike the betiarii, who were able to defend themselves to some degree, those condemned via damnatio ad bestias were either defenseless, tethered to one spot, or armed with only a wooden weapon. This form of execution, which first came to ancient Rome around the 2nd century B.C., was considered a type of blood sports called Bestiarii and regarded as entertainment for the lower classes of Rome. Killing by wild animals, such as lions, formed part of the inaugural games of the Colosseum in A.D. 80. Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, this penalty was also applied to the worst criminals, runaway slaves, and Christians. [Source: Wikipedia +]“The exact purpose of the early damnatio ad bestias is not known and might have been a religious sacrifice rather than a legal punishment, especially in the regions where lions existed naturally and were revered by the population, such as Africa and parts of Asia. As a punishment, damnatio ad bestias is mentioned by historians of Alexander's campaigns. For example, in Central Asia, a Macedonian named Lysimachus, who spoke before Alexander for a person condemned to death, was himself thrown to a lion, but overcame the beast with his bare hands and became one of Alexander's favorites. During the Mercenary War, Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca threw prisoners to the beasts, whereas Hannibal forced Romans captured in the Punic Wars to fight each other, and the survivors had to stand against elephants. +Lions were rare in Ancient Rome, and human sacrifice was banned there by Numa Pompilius in the 7th century B.C., according to legend. Damnatio ad bestias appeared there not as a spiritual practice but rather a spectacle. In addition to lions, other animals were used for this purpose, including bears, leopards, Caspian tigers, and black panthers. It was combined with gladiatorial combat and was first featured at the Roman Forum and then transferred to the amphitheaters. +The practice of damnatio ad bestias was abolished in Rome in A.D. 681. It was used once after that in the Byzantine Empire: in 1022, when several disgraced generals were arrested for plotting a conspiracy against emperor Basil II, they were imprisoned and their property seized, but the royal eunuch who assisted them was thrown to lions. Also, a bishop of Saare-Lääne was sentencing criminals to damnatio ad bestias at the Bishop's Castle in modern Estonia in the Middle Ages. +Types of Damnatio ad BestiasWhereas the term damnatio ad bestias is usually used in a broad sense, historians distinguish two subtypes: objicere bestiis (to devour by beasts) where the humans are defenseless, and damnatio ad bestias, where the punished are both expected and prepared to fight. In addition, there were professional beast fighters trained in special schools, such as the Roman Morning School, which received its name by the timing of the games. These schools taught not only fighting but also the behavior and taming of animals. The fighters were released into the arena dressed in a tunic and armed only with a spear (occasionally with a sword). They were sometimes assisted by venators (hunters), who used bows, spears and whips. Such group fights were not human executions but rather staged animal fighting and hunting. Various animals were used, such as hyena, elephant, wild boar, buffalo, bears, lions, tigers, bulls, wolves, and leopards. The first such staged hunting (Latin: venatio) featured lions and panthers, and was arranged by Marcus Fulvius Nobilior in 186 B.C. at the Circus Maximus. [Source: Wikipedia +]The custom of submitting criminals to lions was brought to ancient Rome by two commanders, Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, who defeated the Macedonians in 186 B.C., and his son Scipio Aemilianus, who conquered the African city of Carthage in 146 B.C. It was borrowed from the Carthaginians and was originally applied to such criminals as defectors and deserters in public, its aim being to prevent crime through intimidation. It was rated as extremely useful and soon became a common procedure in Roman criminal law. The sentenced were tied to columns or thrown to the animals, practically defenseless (i.e. objicere bestiis). +Some documented examples of damnatio ad bestias in Ancient Rome include the following: Strabo witnessed the execution of the rebel slaves' leader Selur. The bandit Laureolus was crucified and then devoured by an eagle and a bear, as described by the poet Martial in his Book of Spectacles. Such executions were also documented by Seneca the Younger (On anger, III 3), Apuleius (The Golden Ass, IV, 13), Titus Lucretius Carus (On the Nature of things) and Petronius Arbiter (Satyricon, XLV). Cicero was indignant that a man was thrown to the beasts to amuse the crowd just because he was considered ugly. Suetonius wrote that when the price of meat was too high, Caligula ordered prisoners, with no discrimination as to their crimes, to be fed to circus animals. Pompey used damnatio ad bestias for showcasing battles and, during his second consulate, staged a fight between heavily armed gladiators and 18 elephants. +The most popular animals were lions, which were imported to Rome in significant numbers specifically for damnatio ad bestias. Bears, brought from Gaul, Germany and even Northern Africa, were less popular.Local municipalities were ordered to provide food for animals in transit and not delay their stay for more than a week. Some historians believe that the mass export of animals to Rome damaged wildlife in North Africa. +Victims of Damnatio ad BestiasChristians: The use of damnatio ad bestias against Christians began in the 1st century AD. Tacitus states that during the first persecution of Christians under the reign of Nero (after the Fire of Rome in 64), people were wrapped in animal skins (called tunica molesta) and thrown to dogs. This practice was followed by other emperors who moved it into the arena and used larger animals. Application of damnatio ad bestias to Christians was intended to equate them with the worst criminals, who were usually punished this way. There is a widespread view among contemporary specialists that the prominence of Christians among those condemned to death in the Roman arena was greatly exaggerated in earlier times. There is no evidence for Christians being executed at the Colosseum in Rome. [Source: Wikipedia +]The spread of the practice of throwing Christians to beasts was reflected by the Christian writer Tertullian (2nd century). He states that the general public blamed Christians for any general misfortune and after natural disasters would cry "Away with them to the lions!" This is the only reference from contemporaries mentioning Christians being thrown specifically to lions. Tertullian also wrote that Christians started avoiding theaters and circuses, which were associated with the place of their torture. "The Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions", a text which purports to be an eyewitness account of a group of Christians condemned to damnatio ad bestias at Carthage in 203, states that the men were required to dress in the robes of a priest of the Roman god Saturn, the women as priestesses of Ceres and were shown to the crowd as such. The men and women were brought back out in separate groups and first the men, then the women, exposed to a variety of wild beasts. The victims were chained to poles or elevated platforms. Those who survived the first animal attacks were either brought +Political Criminals: 1) “Deserters from the army. 2) Those who employed sorcerers to harm others, during the reign of Caracalla. This law was re-established in 357 A.D. by Constantius II. Political criminals. For example, after the overthrow and assassination of Commodus, the new emperor threw to lions both the servants of Commodus and Narcissus who strangled him – even though Narcissus brought the new emperor to power, he committed a crime of murdering the previous one. The same punishment was applied to Mnesteus who organized the assassination of Emperor Aurelian. Instigators of uprisings, who were either crucified, thrown to beasts or exiled, depending on their social status. +Criminals: 1) Poisoners; by the law of Cornelius, patricians were beheaded, plebeians thrown to lions and slaves crucified. 2) Counterfeiters, who could also be burned alive. 3) Patricides, who were normally drowned in a leather bag filled with snakes (poena cullei), but could be thrown to beasts if a suitable body of water was not available. 4) Those who kidnapped children for ransom, according to the law of 315 by the Emperor Constantine the Great,were either thrown to beasts or beheaded. +Karl Smallwood wrote in Listverse: “The very first case of damnatio ad bestias in Roman history occurred when Aemilius Paullus sentenced a group of army deserters to death in 167 BC. To make it interesting, he ordered them crushed to death by a horde of elephants. The spectacle proved so popular that death by animals became a part of everyday life for the Romans—literally. Every morning, a Roman citizen could go to the arena to watch such executions take place before an afternoon of actual gladiatorial combat." [Source: Karl Smallwood, Listverse, January 15, 2014]CrucifixionChrist on the Cross by RubensCrucifixion is a well-known form of Roman punishment. That's what the Romans did to Jesus. After the Spartacus Slave Revolt, it was said, slaves were nailed to crosses along a 100 miles stretch of the Appian Way. Many of them remained there, it was said, until their bones were picked clean by vultures. Some historians doubt whether this event really took place. There is some archaeological evidence that crucifixions did occur but it is unclear how widely the punishment was widely practiced. It was not used on Roman citizens unless they did something particularly treasonous.Professor Allen D. Callahan told PBS: “The Romans had a genius for brutality. They were good at building bridges and they were good at killing people, and they were better at it than anybody in the Mediterranean basin had ever seen before... [Source: Allen D. Callahan: Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School, Frontline, PBS, April 1998 <>]“Crucifixion was considered such a humiliating form of punishment that if you were a Roman citizen, of course, you couldn't be crucified, no matter what the offense. It was usually the execution of choice... for slaves and people considered beneath the dignity of Roman citizenship. It was a form of public terrorism... You would be punished by being hung out publicly, naked until you died. And this sent a very powerful message to everybody else in those quarters that if you do or even think about doing what this guy's accused of having done, you, too, can wind up this way and it was very effective; excruciating, perhaps the most excruciating form of capital punishment that we know. <>“It was a Roman job, there's no mistake about that. There has been some examination of the question of whether Jews... actually crucified people in any circumstances. There's some evidence that crucifixion did take place; members of the Pharisee party at one point were crucified, maybe a century and a half before Jesus. But that's disputed. It's a Roman form of execution and it was a public execution on a political charge." <>Nailed to a Stake with a Horizontal Beam: a Myth?Robin M. Jensen wrote in the Washington Post, “The iconic image of the Christian cross tends to feature a central vertical beam transected by a perpendicular beam about a third of the way down. This version of the cross is visible everywhere from emoji (which include both the two-beam Latin cross and the Orthodox cross, also known as the Suppedaneum cross, which has another bar near the bottom) to roadside memorials and, of course, church steeples. [Source: Robin M. Jensen, Washington Post, April 14, 2017. Jensen is the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame, and author of “The Cross: History, Art”<||>]Peter by Caravaggio“But the actual crosses Romans used for executions probably took a different shape. The Greek and Latin words for “cross” — “stauros” and “crux” — do not necessarily describe what most people imagine as a cross. They refer to an upright stake upon which the condemned could be bound with hands above their heads. Most historians surmise that Jesus’ cross was more likely to have been T-shaped, with the vertical element notched to allow executioners to tie the victim to the crossbeam, then raise it and set it securely into the top. The Tau cross, named for its resemblance to the Greek letter, has been adopted over time by various Christian orders and sects, and it probably bears a stronger resemblance to the object upon which Jesus died on than those crosses more commonly depicted in Christian art. <||>Another Myth: “Jesus was fixed to the cross by nails in his hands and feet. Nearly every depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion — including masterpieces such as Sandro Botticelli's “Mystic Crucifixion” and Diego Velázquez's “Christ Crucified” — shows Him attached to the cross by nails through his palms and his feet. The New Testament Gospels do not, however, directly say that Jesus was nailed to the cross. In fact, the only reference to such nails in the Gospels comes from the book of John and the story of doubting Thomas, who asks to see the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands to confirm that he is really encountering the resurrected Christ (John 20:25). The tradition that Jesus was nailed to the cross may also derive from the passage in some translations of Psalm 21:16 that says, “They pierce my hands and feet." <||>“Yet, while some physical evidence for nailing the feet of crucifixion victims has been found by archaeologists, it would have been impossible to fix the condemned to a cross by nails alone, since the bones in the hands or wrists would not have supported the weight of the body. Rather, Romans would have at least also tied victims’ wrists to the crossbeam, or perhaps draped their arms over the back of the beam and secured them with ropes. Suffocation, rather than loss of blood, would be the cause of death." <||>Evidence of CrucifixionProfessor L. Michael White told PBS: “Crucifixion was something very, very real. There are too many ancient sources that talk about it. Josephus himself describes a number of crucifixions that took place in Judea at about this time. So we can be fairly confident [of the crucifixion] as a historical event because it was a very commonplace affair in those days and very gruesome. Now different medical historians and other archaeological kinds of research have given us several different ways of understanding the actual practice of crucifixion. [Source: L. Michael White, Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin, Frontline, PBS, April 1998 <>]“In all probability the feet were nailed either directly through the ankles or through the heel bone to the lower post of the cross. The hands or the arms might be tied rather than nailed. It depends but it suggests really that crucifixion was a very slow and agonizing form of death. It's not from bleeding. It's not from the wounds themselves that the death occurs. It's rather a suffocation because one can't hold oneself up enough to breathe properly, and so over time really it's really the exposure to the elements and the gradual loss of breath that produces death. It's an agonizing death at that. <>“... [E]vidence of crucifixion in archaeological form has been rare until the discovery that was made in recent times of an actual bone from a coffin which was found to have a nail still stuck in it. This is apparently someone who actually did experience crucifixion. ... Now what apparently happened was the nail that had been used to put him on the cross by being placed through his heel bone had stuck against a knot or bent in some way and so they couldn't pull it out without really causing massive tearing of the tissue and so they left it in, and as a result we have one of those few pieces of evidence that show us what the practice was really like." <>Skeleton Foot with a Nail: Proof of Crucifixion?In 1968, archaeologists found the remains of a crucified man in a burial box outside Jerusalem whose wounds were remarkable similar to those described in the Bible as possessed by Jesus. Although it was known that the Romans crucified thousands of alleged criminals and traitors; this was the first crucifixion victim ever found.Michael Symmons Roberts wrote for the BBC: In 1968, a team of builders was hard at work laying foundations for some new houses and roads in Giv'at Ha'mivtar, a suburb of north Jerusalem. At the time, the whole area was a wasteland, and the builders were digging it up in preparation for this new development. One morning they stumbled across something unusual. They suspected it might be important, so they called in experts to advise them. The experts confirmed that they had found an ancient tomb. [Source: Michael Symmons Roberts, BBC, September 18, 2009 |::|]“But the most amazing discovery was yet to come. When they looked inside the tomb, archaeologists discovered an ossuary - a stone box - containing bones from the time of Jesus. It was the custom in Jesus' time for the bones of the dead to be removed from their tomb after six to twenty-four months, and placed in an ossuary to make the tomb available for other corpses. |In this particular ossuary, the archaeologists found one bone that particularly caught their attention. What made this bone distinctive was the rusty nail still lodged in it. After further investigation, they established that these were the remains of a crucified man called Jehohannan. For the archaeologists, it was a breakthrough moment. Jehohannan was the first victim of crucifixion ever found in Israel. Experts at the time believed he would be the first of many, because the records showed that the Romans had crucified thousands of Jewish rebels.Reverend Dr. J. H. Charlesworth wrote: “At the beginning of the summer of 1968 a team of archaeologists under the direction of V. Tzaferis discovered four cave-tombs at Giv'at ha-Mivtar (Ras el-Masaref), which is just north of Jerusalem near Mount Scopus and immediately west of the road to Nablus. The date of the tombs, revealed by the pottery in situ, ranged from the late second century B.C. until A.D. 70. These family tombs with branching chambers, which had been hewn out of soft limestone, belong to the Jewish cemetery of Jesus' time that extends from Mount Scopus in the east to the Sanhedriya tombs in the north west. [Source:Reverend Dr. J. H. Charlesworth from Expository Times, February 1973 <+>]“Within the caves were found fifteen limestone ossuaries which contained the bones of thirty-five individuals. These skeletons reveal under the examination of specialists a startling tale of the turbulence and agony that confronted the Jews during the century in which Jesus lived. Nine of the thirty-five individuals had met violent death. Three children, ranging in ages from eight months to eight years, died from starvation. A child of almost four expired after much suffering from an arrow wound that penetrated the left of his skull (the occipital bone). A young man of about seventeen years burned to death cruelly bound upon a rack, as inferred by the grey and white alternate lines on his left fibula. A slightly older female also died from conflagration. An old women of nearly sixty probably collapsed from the crushing blow of a weapon like a mace; her atlas, axis vertebrae and occipital bone were shattered. A woman in her early thirties died in childbirth, she still retained a fetus in her pelvis. Finally, and most importantly for this note, a man between twenty-four and twenty-eight years of age was crucified. “The name of the man was incised on his ossuary in letters 2 cm high:Jehohanan."lt;+>Archaeological Clues from the Real-Life CrucifixionJehohanan's open arms had been nailed to a crossbar; his knees had been doubled and turned sideways; his legs were nailed on either side of the cross (not together as is often depicted in paintings) with a large iron spike driven horizontally through both heels. The anklebones had broken in a way that called to mind the passages in John.Reverend Dr. J. H. Charlesworth wrote: Jehohanan “was crucified probably between A.D. 7, the time of the census revolt, and 66, the beginning of the war against Rome... According to Dr. N. Haas of the Department of Anatomy, Hebrew University--Hadassah Medical School, Jehohanan experienced three traumatic episodes. The cleft palate on the right side and the associated asymmetries of his face likely resulted from the deterioration of his mother's diet during the first few weeks of pregnancy. The disproportion of his cerebral cranium (pladiocephaly) were caused by difficulties during birth. All the marks of violence on the skeleton resulted directly or indirectly from crucifixion. [Source:Reverend Dr. J. H. Charlesworth from Expository Times, February 1973 <+>]Christian Funerary inscription“A description of Jehohanan's death would be helpful toward imaging Jesus' suffering since both were crucified by the Romans in the same century and not far from the walls of Jerusalem. The lower third of his right radial bone contains a groove that was probably caused by the friction between a nail and the bone. Hence, his arms were nailed to the patibulum through the forearms and not through the wrists, the bones of which 'were found undamaged.' It is logical to infer, therefore, that, contrary to the customary portrayal in paintings and biographies,' Jesus had his arms pierced and not his hands. We should probably translate the only two passages in the Gospels that mention of the crucified Jesus (Lk 24, Jn 20) not as 'hands', but with Hesiod, Rufus Medicus, and others as 'arms'. Hence, according to Jn 20, Jesus said to Thomas, 'place your finger here and observe my arms...' <+>“The legs had been pressed together, bent, and twisted to that the calves were parallel to the patibulum. The feet were secured to the cross by one iron nail driven simultaneously through both heels (tuber calcanei). The iron nail contains after its round head the following: sediment, fragments of wood (Pistacia or Acacia), a limy crust, a portion of the right heel bone, a smaller piece of the left heel bone, and a fragment of olive wood. It is apparent that Jehohanan had been nailed to the olive wood cross with the right foot above the left. Dr. Haas is undoubtedly correct, furthermore, in concluding that the iron nail bent approximately 2 cm because it hit a knot necessitating the amputation of the feet to remove the corpse from the cross. <+>“While Jehohanan was on the cross, presumably after an interval of some time, his legs were fractured. Once forcible blow from a massive weapon delivered the coup de grace, shattering the right shins into slivers, and fracturing the left ones, that were contiguous with the cross (simplex), in a simple, oblique line. The above discoveries throw some light on the manner in which Jesus died, but the question with which we began has not been adequately answered. How could Jesus have died so soon? <+>“Christian art has continuously portrayed Jesus as attached to the cross with his extremities fully extended. Jehohanan's torso was forced into a twisted position with his calves and thighs bent and unnaturally twisted. Since the bent nail did not secure the legs to the cross, a plank (sedecula) was probably fastened to the simplex, providing sufficient support for the buttocks and prolonging torture. If Jesus had been crucified in a similar fashion, and we cannot be certain of this although it is probable, his contorted muscles probably would have generated spasmodic contractions (tetanizations) and rigid cramps would eventually permeate the diaphragm and lungs so as to prohibit inhalation and exhalation. Jesus could have died after six hours. <+>“The two crucified with Jesus, however, did not die so quickly--could this have been because they had not been previously tortured, or because they had been crucified in another manner? Perhaps it is logical to assume that because Jesus had been the centre of attention for at least the preceding week he might have received more of the executioners' attention prior to the final acts of crucifixion. Especially would this be the situation if the other two were crucified because they had been judged to be robbers or criminals (cf. Km 15, Mt 27, and Lk 23) but Jesus condemned for insurrection against Rome. These speculations are not wild but they do extend beyond all the available data: we can only wonder why Jehohanan was crucified, why his legs were broken, and if there were a particularly torturous crucifixion for one charged with insurrection. As we search for these answers we must remember Jesus' particular circumstance: the torture could not last more than seven hours because the approaching Sabbath must not be violated, especially near conservative Jerusalem. <+>“In conclusion, we now have empirical evidence of a crucifixion. Death on a cross could be prolonged or swift. The crucifixion of Josephus' acquaintance who survived should not be projected to the crucifixion of Jesus. The major extrabiblical paradigm for crucifixion is no longer Josephus; it is the archaeological data summarized above. The crucifixion of Jesus, who did not possess a gladiator's physique and stamina, did not commence but culminated when he was nailed to the cross. After the brutal, all night scourging by Roman soldiers, who would have relished an opportunity to vent their hatred of the Jews and disgust for Palestinian life, Jesus was practically dead. I see not reason why the Synoptic account does not contain one of the few bruta facta from his life when it reports that, as he began to stagger from Herod's palace to Golgotha, he was too weak to carry the cross; Simon of Cyrene carried it for him. Metaphors should not be confused with actualities nor faith with history. It is not a confession of faith to affirm that Jesus died on Golgotha that Friday afternoon; it is a probability obtained by the highest canons of scientific historical research. The humanists' and rationalists' facile answer to the question why Jesus died so quickly is no longer acceptable in critical circles; note, for example, the concluding remark in the most recent 'biography' of Jesus by a Jewish scholar: 'Others thought that he called out in despair: "My God, my God (Eli, Eli), why hast thou forsaken me?" And Jesus died." <+>Why So Little Physical Evidence of Crucifixion?Michael Symmons Roberts wrote for the BBC: After nearly four more decades of digging, no more victims of crucifixion have ever been found. Why not? In Tel Aviv, curators at the Israel Antiquities Authority museum had a unique opportunity to find out. They have access to an extensive collection of Jewish ossuaries from the time of Jesus. Surely among all these examples there must be a clue as to what became of all the crucifixion victims. But despite combing through every ossuary, the Tel Aviv experts did not find any bones that suggested the victim had been crucified. [Source: Michael Symmons Roberts, BBC, September 18, 2009 |::|]“The implications of this lack of evidence were unsettling. One of the central tenets of Christian history was under threat, and the case for the resurrection of Jesus potentially undermined. The logic was clear. If the bones of crucified rebels were not ending up in ossuaries, then perhaps it was because the original victims were not being placed in tombs in the first place. And if that were true then was it possible that the body of Jesus was never placed in a tomb? Perhaps his tomb was found to be empty by his followers simply because it was never occupied at all? |::|“If that is the case, then it raises a big question: where, if not in a tomb, did the bodies of Jewish rebels like Jesus finish up? To answer that one, archaeologists began to hunt in the unlikeliest locations. Just south of the city of Jerusalem is one such place. Today it is a park, but from the evidence of chiselling all over the rock face, it is clear to archaeologists that this was once a quarry. At the time of Jesus, quarries had a dual purpose. Not only were they used to cut stone for building, they were also used by the Romans for public executions. Historians now believe that Jesus would have been crucified in just such a quarry. But places like this served other purposes too. The remains of some tombs hewn from the rock suggest that people were not just killed here, they were buried too. Was this the fate of Jesus' body, to be placed in a simple quarry tomb close to the place where he died? |::|“Well, perhaps not, because quarries like this fulfilled yet another purpose for the people of Jesus' time, and even today the local people use it in the same way. Scavenging stray dogs and birds of prey are drawn here not because it is a park, but because one corner is a rubbish dump. |::|“Since the first century, quarries have doubled as city rubbish dumps, but two thousand years ago they were places of execution too. The people who nailed Jesus to the cross were Roman soldiers, and crucifixion was the lowest form of punishment they knew. To suffer the ignominy of dying on a cross marked you out as beneath contempt, an outcast. It is hard to see those soldiers bothering to treat the bodies of their crucified victims with honour and respect. Surely the easiest solution would be to take the bodies down and throw them on the garbage dump, to be dealt with by the dogs and birds. |::|“Maybe that would explain why not a single bone of a crucified rebel was found in all those ossuaries? According to this theory - shocking though it may sound - the body of Jesus never made it to a tomb: it was thrown on a rubbish tip and eaten by dogs. This theory held some sway in the 1990s, but then came the evidence against it - evidence which suggests not only that Jesus' body may not have been thrown to the dogs, but that his body must have made it to the tomb, exactly as depicted in the gospel accounts. The case begins with the nails themselves. |::|Nails Not Used in Crucifixions Perhaps Because They Were Valuable Talismans?Michael Symmons Roberts wrote for the BBC: “The truth is that most rebels were not nailed to their crosses, but tied to them. Some would have been nailed to their crosses - it was a Roman practice - but historians believe there is little chance of finding any of their remains. The reason is simple: the nails of crucified victims were regarded as some of the most powerful charms, or amulets, in the ancient world. Ordinary people prized them very highly, believing that they had healing properties. And apart from their popularity as charms, the crucifixion nails were often reused by the Roman soldiers. So immediately after crucified victims were cut down from their crosses, the nails would be removed from their bodies and pocketed. [Source: Michael Symmons Roberts, BBC, September 18, 2009. Roberts is author the book“The Miracles of Jesus”. |::|]“No wonder the bones of only one clearly crucified victim have ever been found - not because animals ate the remains off a rubbish tip, but because there is no way for archaeologists to tell if the bones found in tombs were those of crucifixion victims or not. Those tell-tale signs, like nails stuck through bones, are always missing. |::|“So why was the bone of Jehohannan discovered with a nail still through it? Why didn't looters make off with it, or Roman soldiers reuse it? Well, the answer lies in that particular nail. It has a bent tip. When they took his body down from the cross, they must have found they could not prize it out. When Jehohannan was nailed to his cross, this nail must have hit a knot in the wood and bent, fixing it to the bone for good. So the discovery of this bone does not mean that Jesus' body was thrown to the dogs. In fact, there are strong grounds for thinking that Jesus - like all Jews - would have been given a proper burial. |::|“Under Jewish law everyone, even the most despised criminal, had to have a proper burial in order to save the land from being defiled. To that end, there were strict procedures for the disposal of bodies, which had to be laid in tombs by sunset on the day of death. All the evidence suggests that the Romans would have respected local religious customs. The strength of their empire was built on adaptability and tolerance of indigenous beliefs, as long as they didn't contradict the aims and beliefs of the Romans themselves. History records that, more than once, Pontius Pilate himself caved in to Jewish demands. |::|“To expose the corpse of an executed Jew beyond the interval permitted by the Law, and then to allow it to be mutilated by scavengers just outside the city of Jerusalem, was a recipe for a riot. So, what would have happened to Jesus' body? The normal practice would have been to wash, perfume and bind the body so that it wouldn't smell in the heat at the funeral seven days later. This was a laborious procedure which could take up to twenty-four hours. It was governed by religious custom and by a powerful sense of respect for the body. |::|“But if Jesus died in the afternoon, as the gospel accounts suggest, then there would not have been sufficient time to prepare the body that day. The women would be forced to leave the body unwashed in the sealed tomb, then come back another day to finish the job. However, the timing was very unfortunate. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus died on a Friday, in which case the women could not return the following day - Saturday - because that day was the Sabbath. The earliest opportunity for the women to attend to the body of Jesus was first light Sunday morning, precisely when the gospels say the women did return to the tomb.Christian Martyr's Last PrayerPersecution of Christians in RomeUnder Roman rule, Christians were denied business opportunities and status in society, prohibited from worshiping, attacked by mobs, persecuted, tortured and killed in organized campaigns by the Romans government. The Roman historian Tacitus accused them of "hatred of the human race." The Book of Revelation was written in response to the Roman persecutions.Christians sometimes had their foreheads tattooed by Romans (some Christian slaves carried religion symbols to counteract images inscribed on them by their Roman masters) or were condemned to work in mines. In the worst cases, they were arrested and given the choice of recanting their faith or facing execution, with some being thrown to hungry lions in the Coliseum and other arenas.Tacitus wrote Christians, "were nailed on crosses...sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the night."Due to persecution, Christians met in secret primarily in the houses of wealthy members. This only seemed to raise the level of hostility against them. Because early Christians held services "behind closed doors" at night instead of during the day in open temples like the Roman they were accused of having orgies and engaging in cannibalism (partly from a misinterpretation of the practice of Communion).The Romans demanded that their gods be worshipped, but at the same time they received the local gods. The reason the Jews and Christian were persecuted is that they presented a threat and refused to worship the Roman gods. Judaism and Christianity were not the only religions in the Roman empire. Mithraism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism and many others were practiced. There were lots of other strange religions around--- Manichaeans, Donatist, Pelagians, Arians. Subjects from all religions were expected to make sacrifices to the Roman gods and worship the Roman emperor as a god.Image Sources: Wikimedia CommonsText Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Rome sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Late Antiquity sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Forum Romanum forumromanum.org ; “Outlines of Roman History” by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L. New York, American Book Company (1901), forumromanum.org \~\; “The Private Life of the Romans” by Harold Whetstone Johnston, Revised by Mary Johnston, Scott, Foresman and Company (1903, 1932) forumromanum.org |+|; BBC Ancient Rome bbc.co.uk/history/ ; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT, Online Library of Liberty, oll.libertyfund.org ; Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Live Science, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" [∞] and "The Creators" [μ]" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum.Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, World Religions edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); History of Warfare by John Keegan (Vintage Books); History of Art by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton's Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.Last updated October 2018Home | Facts and Details

A very, very, silly question. Let’s look at Wikipedia’s list of prominent Muslims in the UK.Actually before we do, let me point out that this is an incredibly long list, it includes politicians, judges, lawyers, authors, journalists, MPs, peers, policemen, military personnel, actors and even fictional Muslim characters on TV, film, stage and book, ( just to show that Muslims play such an important role in UK life that they inevitably get portrayed in the arts too just like everyone else), scientists, and business men. The list is not complete by any means. It includes 9 mayors, not just Sadiq Khan the mayor of London.It does not include all the people who everyday treat our children, teach our children, do our accounts, fix our teeth, drive our planes, ships, taxis, trains and buses, who fix our cars and computers, who just happen to be Muslim too.We in the UK are very proud to have had a Muslim population for so long that there is not a walk of life in which they are not represented, in which Muslims are not playing an I portabt role in maintaining the fabric of our nation. That them being Muslim is not an issue when it comes to them being a useful member of our society.Our healthcare system would just collapse without them for instance.Oh and Muslim children bring yet more joy to our happy laughing schools playgrounds and parks.It is impossible to imagine a UK in the twenty first century without this dynamic, caring community in our midst. We embrace our Muslim brethren. We are all British. First and foremost. Britain is a better place for having lots of Muslims. That diversity is a source strength and hope. That diversity is our future.We have so many important Muslims here in the UK, they win awards, earn medals, deserve praise, get respect. What more do you want? They are integral to the UK, so integral that no one seems to notice and despite that you are concerned about being taken over. Taken over by what? Taken over by all these nice people doing wonderful things just like their fellow Brits who just might happen to be atheist, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Mormaon, and the indifferent.What happens when people immigrate to Britain is like a magic wand is waved, within a few years or generations, everyone is thoroughly British. All you need to be able to do, to be British, is have a laugh. Once you start laughing at daft jokes you have passed the test.So the only people who are ever going to take over the UK are the ones who tell the best jokes.Here is the list at long last, and it is long, don't say I didn’t warn youAcademia and educationEditAli Ansari – university professor at the University of St Andrews[1]Abbas Edalat – university professor at Imperial College London[2]Ali Mobasheri – associate professor and reader at UniversityAsh Amin – Head of Geography at Cambridge University[3]Tipu Zahed Aziz – professor of neurosurgery at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford; lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford and Imperial College London medical school[4]Azra Meadows OBE – honorary lecturer in the Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences at The University of Glasgow[5]Dilwar Hussain – research fellow at The Islamic Foundation in Leicester; co-authored the 2004 book British Muslims Between Assimilation and Segregation; is on the Home Office's committee tackling radicalisation and extremism[6]Ehsan Masood – science writer, journalist and broadcaster; editor of Research Fortnight and Research Europe;[7] teaches International Science Policy at Imperial College London[8]Haroon Ahmed – Emeritus Professor of Microelectronics at the Cavendish Laboratory, the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge[9]Ghayasuddin Siddiqui – academic and political activist[10]Ghulam Sarwar – Director of the Muslim Educational Trust;[11] writer on Islam in English, wrote the first English textbook, Islam: Beliefs and Teachings, for madrasah students in Britain, which is used worldwide in religious education classes, especially in British schools[12]Jawed Siddiqi – professor emeritus of software engineering at Sheffield Hallam University and political activist[13]Kalbe Razi Naqvi – British Pakistani physicist, who has been ordinarily resident in Norway since 1977, working as a professor of biophysics in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology[14]Khizar Humayun Ansari – academic who was awarded an OBE in 2002 for his work in the field of race and ethnic relations.[15]Mohammed Ghanbari – professor at the University of Essex[16]Mohammad Hashem Pesaran – academic, economist, professor of economics at Cambridge University, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge[17]Mona Siddiqui – University of Edinburgh's Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding; regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, The Times, Scotsman, The Guardian, and The Herald[18]Reza Banakar – professor of socio-legal studies at the University of Westminster, LondonSaeed Vaseghi – professor at Brunel University[19]Salman Sayyid – Professor of Social Theory and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds[20]Sara Ahmed – Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths[21] and academic working at the intersection of feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory and postcolonialismTariq Modood – Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy at the University of BristolZiauddin Sardar – scholar, writer and cultural critic[22]Business and financeEditAbdul Latif – restaurateur known for his dish "Curry Hell"[23]Afzal Kahn – Bradford-based entrepreneur; owns a specialist car design company; broke records in 2008 for paying £440,000 for a distinctive "F1" number plate;[24] previously showed an interest in purchasing Newcastle football club[25]Aktar Islam – restaurateur, curry chef and businessman;[26] in 2010, his restaurant Lasan won the Best Local Restaurant category on Channel 4's The F Word;[27] in 2011, Islam won the Central regional heat to reach the final of the BBC Two series Great British Menu[28][29]Ali Parsa – former chief executive officer of private healthcare partnership Circle[30]Alireza Sagharchi – principal at Stanhope Gate Architecture[31]Aneel Mussarat – property millionaire; his company, MCR Property Group, rents apartments to university students in Manchester and Liverpool[32]Sir Anwar Pervez – Pakistan-born businessman; 6th richest Asian in Great Britain and the richest Muslim; founder of the Bestway Group[33]Asim Siddiqui – chairman and a founding trustee of The City Circle[34]Atique Choudhury – restaurateur;[35] his restaurant Yum Yum won Best Thai Restaurant in London at the 2012 Asian Curry Awards[36]Bajloor Rashid MBE – businessman and former president of the Bangladesh Caterers Association[37][38]Enam Ali MBE – restaurateur; founder of the British Curry Awards and Spice Business Magazine[39]Farad Azima – industrialist, inventor and philanthropist[40]Farhad Moshiri – energy investor; part owner of Arsenal F.C.[41]Farshid Moussavi – founder of Foreign Office Architects[42]Gulam Noon, Baron Noon – founder of Noon products, manufacturing chilled and frozen ready meals[43]Husna Ahmad – Bangladeshi-born British humanitarian; chief executive officer of the Faith Regen Foundation; sits on the Advisory Board to the East London Mosque;[44][45] previously sat on the Department for Work and Pensions' Ethnic Minority Advisory Group[46]Iqbal Ahmed OBE – entrepreneur, chairman and chief executive of Seamark Group'; made his fortune in shrimp; the highest British Bangladeshito feature on the Sunday Times Rich List (placed at number 511 in 2006)[47]Iqbal Wahhab OBE – entrepreneur, restaurateur, journalist, publisher; founder of Tandoori Magazineand multi-award-winning restaurant Cinnamon Club[48]James Caan – businessman and entrepreneur; formerly a part of Dragons' Den [49]Javed Ahmed – chief executive of Tate & Lyleplc,[50] – a FTSE 250 company which is one of Britain's oldest brands;[51]Kaveh Alamouti – head of Global Macro Citadel LLC; chief executive officer of Citadel Asset Management Europe[52]Mahmoud Khayami, KSS – industrialist; founder of Iran Khodro[53]Mo Chaudry – born in Pakistan, he was raised in England and went on to become a millionaire businessman in the West MidlandsMohammad Ajman 'Tommy Miah' – internationally renowned celebrity chef, award-winning restaurateur,[54][55] founder and promoter of the Indian Chef of the Year Competition[56]Moorad Choudhry – managing director, Head of Business Treasury, Global Banking & Markets at Royal Bank of Scotland plc[57]Mumtaz Khan Akbar – founder and owner of the Mumtaz brand[58]Muquim Ahmed – entrepreneur; became the first Bangladeshi millionaire at the age of 26,[59] due to diversification in banking, travel, a chain of restaurants with the Cafe Naz group, publishing and property development[60]Naguib Kheraj – vice-chairman of Barclays Bank;[61] former boss of JP Morgan Cazenove[62]Chairman of the Aga Khan Foundation based in KarachiNasser Golzari – principal at Golzari (NG) Architects[63]Leepu Nizamuddin Awlia – car engineer and coachbuilder who converts rusty old cars into imitation supercars in a workshop on Discovery Channel reality television programme Bangla Bangers/Chop Shop: London Garage[64]Ragib Ali – industrialist, pioneer tea-planter, educationalist, philanthropist, and banker[65]Ruzwana Bashir – British businesswoman, founder and CEO of Book Amazing Activities, Tours, and more | Peek, travel company based in San Francisco, California[66]Shelim Hussain MBE – entrepreneur, founder and managing director ofEuro Foods (UK) Limited[67]Siraj Ali – restaurateur and philanthropist;[68]recipient of the 2011 British Bangladeshi Who's Who "Outstanding Contribution" Award[69]Sultan Choudhury – businessman; managing director of the Islamic Bank of Britain[70]Syed Ahmed – entrepreneur, businessman, and television personality; candidate on BBC reality television programme The Apprentice series two in 2006[71]Tahir Mohsan – founder of Time Computers, Supanet, Tpad; manages several investment companies from his base in Dubai[72]Wali Tasar Uddin MBE – entrepreneur, restaurateur, community leader, and chairman of the Bangladesh-British Chamber of Commerce[73][74]Waliur Rahman Bhuiyan OBE – managing director and Country Head of BOC Bangladesh Limited, one of the first British companies to invest in Bangladesh in the 1950s to produce and supply industrial and medical gases[75]Zameer Choudrey – Chief Executive of BestwayGroup[76]EntertainmentEditAbdullah Afzal – actor and stand-up comedian[77]Adnan Sami – singer, musician, pianist,[78][79] actor and composer[80][81]Afshan Azad – actress best known for playing the role of Padma Patil in the Harry Potter film series[82]Ahmad Hussain – singer-songwriter, executive, producer and founder and Managing Director of IQRA Promotions[83][83]Ahsan Khan – film and television actor, host and performer[84]Ahmed Salim – award-winning British producer, known for 1001 Inventions[85]Akram Khan MBE – dancer and choreographer;[86]named Outstanding Newcomer 2000, Best Modern Choreography 2002, and Outstanding Male or Female Artist (Modern) 2005 at the Critics' CircleNational Dance Awards[87]Alyy Khan – film and television actor and host[88]Ali Shahalom – comedian who hosts the comedy YouTube channel Aliofficial1[89]Annie Khalid – English-Pakistani musician and model[90]Aqib Khan – actor; played Sajid Khan in the movie West is West[91]Art Malik – Pakistani-born British actor who achieved fame in the 1980s through his starring and subsidiary roles in assorted British and Merchant-Ivory television serials and films[92]Ayub Khan-Din – actor and playwrightAziz Ibrahim – musician best known for his work as guitarist with Simply Red, The Stone Roses(post-John Squire)[93]Babar Ahmed – British/American writer/director of Pashtun and Pakistani descent; according to the BBC[94]Babar Bhatti – actor; played Punkah Wallah Rumzan in the BBC sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum, his first role[95]Badi Uzzaman – television and film actor[96]Bilal Shahid – singer and rapper[97]Boyan Uddin Chowdhury – former lead guitarist of rock band The Zutons[98]Delwar Hussain – writer, anthropologist and correspondent for The Guardian; in 2013, published his first book, Boundaries Undermined: The Ruins of Progress on the Bangladesh-India Border[99]Dino Shafeek – actor and comedian who starred in several sitcoms during the 1970s and early 80s; played Char Wallah Muhammed in It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Ali Nadim in Mind Your Language[100]Eenasul Fateh (Aladin) – cultural practitioner, magician and live artist; named International Magician of the Year in 1991; winner of the 1997 Golden Turban Award from the Magic Academy of Bangalore in India[101]Hannan Majid – documentary filmmaker whose films have been exhibited at international film festivals including Emirates, Cambridge, Durban, and Leeds[102]Jamil Dehlavi – London-based independent film director and producer of Pakistani-French origin.[103]Farook Shamsher – alternative dub/dance music DJ and record producer; received the Commitment to Scene award at the UK Asian Music Awards2006[104]Hadi Khorsandi – comedian[105]Hajaz Akram – British Pakistani actor[106]Humza Arshad – actor and comedian; producer of the YouTube series Diary of a Badman[107][108][109]Ian Iqbal Rashid – award-winning poet, screenwriter and film director, known for the series This Life and Leaving Normal, and the feature films Touch of Pink and How She MoveIdris Rahman – clarinettistImran Sarwar – game designer and producer on the Grand Theft Auto series of video games[110]Jan Uddin – actor best known for his roles as Jalil Iqbal in BBC soap opera EastEnders and Sweet Boy in the film Shank[111]Jay Islaam – award-winning stand-up comedian,[112][113] broadcaster[114] and journalist.[115][116][117]Jeff Mirza – stand-up comedian and actor[118]Jernade Miah – singer, songwriter; signed to 2Point9 Records (Doh Point Nau); won Best Newcomer at the UK Asian Music Awards2011[119][120]Kamal Uddin – Nasheed singer, songwriter,[121]imam, and teacher[122]Kaniz Ali – makeup artist and freelance beauty columnist;[123] named Best Make-Up Artist at the 2011International Asian Fashion Awards[124]Kayvan Novak – actor; star of Fonejacker[125]Kishon Khan – pianist and bandleader of Lokkhi TerraKatrina Kaif – Model, Film-actressLucy Rahman – singer[126]Mani Liaqat – Manchester-based British Asianactor and comedian, known for his bizarre rants, portly figure, witty voice and mixture of Punjabi/Urdu/Hindi and British everyday-humour[127]Munsur Ali – film producer, screenwriter and director; in 2014, he wrote, directed and produced Shongram, a romantic drama set during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War;[128] first time a British film was simultaneously written, produced and directed by a British Bangladeshi[129]Mazhar Munir – television and film actor; before co-starring in the 2005 movie Syriana, he appeared in three British television shows: The Bill, Mile High, and DoctorsMenhaj Huda – film and television director, producer and screenwriter; directed and produced Kidulthood in 2006[130]Mina Anwar – British actress; played Police Constable Maggie Habib in the sitcom The Thin Blue Line[131]Mo Ali – Somali-British film director[132]Mohammed Ali – street artist; combined street artwith Islamic script and patterns, as "Aerosol Arabic";[133][134] in January 2009, he won Arts Council England's diversity award[135]Muhammad Mumith Ahmed (Mumzy Stranger) – R&B and hip-hop singer, songwriter; first musician of Bangladeshi descent to release a single, "One More Dance";[136] namedBest Urban Act at the UK Asian Music Awards 2011[137]Murtz – television and radio presenterNabil Abdul Rashid – comedian of NigeriandescentNadine Shah – singer, songwriter and musician[138]Natasha Khan – known by her stage name as "Bat for Lashes"; half Pakistani half English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalistNaz Ikramullah – British-Canadian artist and film producer of Pakistani origin[139]Nazeel Azami – Nasheed singer-songwriter signed to Awakening Records[140]Nazrin Choudhury – screenwriter; actress in drama serials;[141] her critically acclaimed radio play "Mixed Blood"[142] won the Richard Imison Award2006Prince Abdi – Somali-born British stand-up comedianRani Taj – dhol player dubbed as "Dhol Queen" after her YouTube video went viral[143]Rita Ora – singerRiz Ahmed – actor who played Omar in the movie Four Lions and Changez in The Reluctant FundamentalistRowshanara Moni – singer and actress[144]Ruhul Amin – film director; has made 13 films for the BBC and Channel 4 including 1986 TV feature film drama A Kind of English;[145] most of his works are documentaries and experimental dramas[146]Runa Islam – film and photography visual artist, nominated for the Turner Prize 2008[147][148]Sadia Azmat – stand-up comedian[149]Sanchita Islam – artist, writer and filmmaker;[150] in 1999, she founded Pigment Explosion, which has branched out into projects including film, painting, drawing, writing and photography[151]Sadik Ahmed – film director, cinematographer, and writer;[152] wrote and directed international award-winning short film Tanju Miah, which was the first Bangladeshi film in the Toronto, Sundance, and Amsterdam film festivals in 2007[153]Saifullah 'Sam' Zaman – DJ and producer associated with the Asian Underground movement, recording as "State of Bengal"[154]Sakina Samo – award-winning actress, producer and director[155]Sami Yusuf – musician[156]Sanober Hussain – British Pakistani; became the first UK Miss Pakistan World 2011Shabana Bakhsh – actress who has appeared in soaps such as River City and Doctors[157]Shahid Khan – known as "Naughty Boy"; British-born Pakistani songwriter, record producer and musician[158]Shahin Badar – singer and songwriter, best known for vocals on The Prodigy's single "Smack My Bitch Up", which earned her a Double Platinum award[159]Shefali Chowdhury – actress best known for playing the role of Parvati Patil in the Harry Potterfilm series[160]Shazia Mirza – comedian from Birmingham, England, whose act revolves around her Muslim faith[161]Shehzad Afzal – writer, director, producer and game designer born in Dundee, Scotland[162]Sohini Alam – singer for Lokkhi Terra and Khiyo bandsSophiya Haque – actress, singer and video jockey;[163][164] played Poppy Morales in Coronation Street, 2008–2009[165][166]Suleman Mirza – lead dancer of Signature, runner-up on Britain's Got Talent 2008[167]Suzana Ansar – singer, actress and television presenter based in the UK and Bangladesh; released her debut band album Suzana Ansar with Khansar in 2009[168]Yusuf Islam[169]Zahra Ahmadi – actressZayn Malik – former member of the British-Irish boy band One Direction[170] and is from Bradford[171]Zeekay – singer, songwriter and performer of Pakistani and Afghan descentFictionalEditAnwar Kharral – fictional British Pakistani character in the teenage television series Skins;[172]portrayed by Dev Patel, who is of Gujarati descentFaiza Hussein Excalibre British Pakistani from the Marvel ComicsSaeed Jeffrey British Bangladeshi/English from Eastenders. Among the first Asian, mixed and Muslim characters in EastendersNaima Jeffrey British Bangladeshi from Eastenders. Among the first Asian and Muslim characters.Ali Osman British Turkish Cypriot from Eastenders. Among the first Muslim and West Asian characters in Eastenders.Hassan Osman British Turkish Cypriot from Eastenders. Among the first Muslim and West Asian characters in Eastenders.Mr Khan British Pakistani from Citizen Khan. Portrayed by British Pakistani/Kenyan Muslim Adil RayBadman British Pakistani from Diary of a Badman web series. Portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Humza ArshadMalik Begum British Bangladeshi from Cornershop show. Portrayed by British Bangladeshi Muslim Islah Abdur-Rahman.The Karim family British Bangladeshi family in Eastenders consisted of Father Ashraf, Mother Sufia, Daughter Shireen and Son Sohail Karim. Related to the Jeffrey family and first full Asian and Muslim family in Eastenders.The Masood/Ahmed family British Pakistani family in Eastenders. Third Asian family and second Muslim family in the show.Masood AhmedZainab MasoodSyed MasoodShabnam MasoodTamwar MasoodKamil MasoodYasmin MasoodAJ AhmedThe Nazir Family British Pakistani family from Coronation Street.Kush Kazemi British Iranian/English. Portrayed by British Iranian Muslim Davood Ghadami. First West Asian and mixed raced Asian character since the Osman family.Shaki Kazemi British Iranian/English. Portrayed by British Iranian/Welsh Shaheen Jafargholi.Tariq Siddiqui from Waterloo Road. Portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Naveed Chaudhry. One of the first Asian main student in the series.Trudy Siddique from Waterloo Road. One of the first Asian main student in the series.Naseema Siddique from Waterloo Road. Third Asian main student in the series. Abdul Bukhari Pakistani born British raised Asian from Waterloo Road. Portrayed by British Iranian Armin Karima.Shifty British Pakistani from film Shifty portrayed by British Pakistani Muslim Riz Ahmed.Sweetboy British Bangladeshi from film Shank portrayed by British Bangladeshi Muslim Jan Uddin.Journalism and mediaEditSheikh Abdul Qayum – chief imam of the East London Mosque; former lecturer at the international International Islamic University Malaysia; television presenter on Peace TV Banglaand Channel S[173]Sheikh Abdur Rahman Madani Shaheb – writer, khatib of Darul Ummah Mosque, Islamic scholar and TV presenter on Islamic programs on Channel S[174][175]Sheikh Abu Sayed Ansarey – Chairman and Imam of West London Mosque; television presenter on Channel S; lawyer[176][177]A. N. M. Serajur Rahman – journalist, broadcaster, and Bangladeshi nationalist[178]Aasmah Mir – BBC presenter and former columnist for the Sunday Herald[179]Abdul Gaffar Choudhury – writer, journalist, and columnist for Bengali newspapers of Bangladesh; best known for his lyric "Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano", which has become the main song commemorating the Language MovementAdil Ray – British radio and television presenter, for BBC Asian Network[180]Adnan Nawaz – news and sports presenter for the BBC World Service[181]Ajmal Masroor – television presenter, politician, imam,[182] and UK Parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow constituency representing Liberal Democrats in the 2010 general election;[183]television presenter on political and Islamic programmes on Islam Channel and Channel S[184]Ali Abbasi – former Scottish TV presenter[185]Anila Baig – columnist at The Sun[186]Arif Ali – regional product director for the Associated Press news agency in Europe, Middle East and Africa[187]Asad Ahmad – BBC journalist and news presenter[188]Asad Qureshi – filmmaker who was kidnapped on 26 March 2010 by a militant group called the "Asian Tigers" in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas[189]Azad Ali – IT worker and civil servant for the HM Treasury; Islamic Forum of Europe spokesman; founding chair of the Muslim Safety Forum; vice-chair of Unite Against Fascism[190]Azeem Rafiq – English cricketer[191]Faisal Islam – economics editor and correspondent for Channel 4 News; named 2006 "Young Journalist of the Year" at the Royal Society of Television awards[192]Fareena Alam – editor of British Muslim magazine Q News;[193] named Media Professional of the Year by Islamic Relief in 2005 and at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in 2006[194]Faris Kermani – film director based in the UK, now head of production company based in London, Crescent Films[195]Hassan Ghani – Scottish[196][197] broadcast journalist and documentary filmmaker, based in LondonJaved Malik – television anchor; publisher of the UAE's first diplomatic magazine, The International Diplomat; Executive Director of the World Forum; served as Pakistan's Ambassador at Large and Special Advisor to The Prime Minister; close friend of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of PakistanKamran Abbasi – doctor, medical editor, and cricket writer; editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; acting editor of the British Medical Journal; editor of the bulletin of the World Health Organization[198]Kanak 'Konnie' Huq – television presenter, best known for being the longest-serving female Blue Peter presenter[199][200]Lisa Aziz – news presenter and journalist, best known as the co-presenter of the Bristol-based ITV West Country nightly weekday news programme The West Country Tonight;[201] one of the first Asian presenters to be seen on television;[202] won the Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy Best Television News Journalist Award[203][204]Mary Rahman – press and public relations consultant; director of MRPR[205]Maryam Moshiri – BBC News presenter[206]Mazher Mahmood (also known as the "Fake Sheikh") – often dubbed as "Britain's most notorious undercover reporter"; in a GQ survey was voted as the 45th most powerful man in Britain;[207] the News of the World paid his six-figure salary, plus an editorial and technical support budget [208]Mehdi Hasan – senior politics editor at the New Statesman and a former news and current affairs editor at Channel 4[209]Miqdaad Versi – assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, media commentator, and advocate for accurate reporting on Muslims.[210][211]Mishal Husain – anchor for BBC World[212]Muhammad Abdul Bari – Chairman of the East London Mosque; Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, 2006–2010Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – environment writer for The Guardian,[213] t[214]Nazenin Ansari – journalist, former correspondent for Voice of America's Persian News Network; Iranian analyst for BBC Radio 4, CNN International, Sky News and AljazeeraNazia Mogra – television journalist for BBC North West Tonight news on BBC One[215]Nima Nourizadeh – film director[citation needed]Nina Hossain – journalist, newscaster, and sole presenter of ITV London's regional news programme London Tonight[216]Nurul Islam – broadcast journalist, radio producer, and presenter best remembered for his work with the BBC World Service[217]Osama Saeed – Head of International and Media Relations at the Al Jazeera Media Network[218]Rageh Omaar – Somali-born British journalist and writerReham Khan – journalist and anchor currently working at Dawn News[219]Riz Lateef – news reader and the BBC Deputy News Manager[220]Rizwan Khan – works for Al Jazeera English; has his own show called Riz KhanSadeq Saba – journalist, head of BBC Persianservice[221]Saima Mohsin – British journalist[222]Saira Khan – runner-up on the first series of The Apprentice, and now a TV presenter on BBC's Temper Your Temper and Desi DNA[223]Sarfraz Manzoor – British writer, journalist, documentary maker, and broadcaster; writes regularly for The Guardian; presents documentaries on BBC Radio 4[224]Shaista Aziz – journalist, writer, stand-up comedian, and former international aid worker[225]Shagufta Yaqub – journalist and commentatorShamim Chowdhury – television and print journalist for Al Jazeera English[226]Shereen Nanjiani – radio journalist with BBC Radio Scotland[227]Syed Neaz Ahmad – academic, writer, journalist, columnist and critic; best known for anchoring NTVEurope current affairs talk show Talking Point[228]Tasmin Lucia-Khan – journalist, presenter and producer;[229] delivered BBC Three's nightly hourly World News bulletins on in 60 Seconds;[230]presented E24 on the rolling news channel BBC News;[231] presents news on the ITV breakfast television programme Daybreak[232]Tazeen Ahmad – British television and radio presenter and reporter[233]Waheed Khan – documentary television director working in British television[234]Yasmin Alibhai-Brown – journalist and author born in Uganda; regular columnist for The Independentand the Evening Standard[235]Yvonne Ridley – journalist and Respect Partyactivist[236]Zarqa Nawaz – freelance writer, journalist, broadcaster, and filmmaker[237]Law and justiceEditJudgesEditDr Fayyaz Afzal OBE – appinted as a District Judge in 2017[238]Khalid Taj Malik – appointed as a District Judge in 2013[239]Khalid Qureshi – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2006[240]Khatun Sapnara – appointed as a Circuit Judge in 2014[241]Khurshid Drabu CBE – retired judge of the Upper Tribunal in the Asylum and Immigration Chamber[242]Karim Mostafa Ali Ezzat – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2016[243]Nadeem Khan – appointed as a District Judge in 2010[239]Najma Mian – appointed as a District Judge in 2016[244]Parveen Lateef – appointed as a District Judge in 2013[239]Shamim Ahmed Qureshi – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2004[240]Shomon Khan – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2016[245]Tan Ikram – appointed as a District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2003[246]Queen's CounselsEditAbbas Lakha QC – barrister at 9 Bedford Row, London[247]Abdul Shaffaq Iqbal QC – barrister at Park Square Barristers, Leeds[248]Aftab Asger Jafferjee QC – barrister at 6KBW College Hill, London[249]Ajmalul Hossain QC – barrister at Selborne Chambers, London[250]Akhil Shah QC – barrister at Fountain Court Chambers, London[251]Akhlaq Ur-Rahman Choudhury QC – barrister at 11KBW, London[252]Ali Naseem Bajwa QC – barrister at Garden Court Chambers, London[253]Amjad Raza Malik QC – barrister at New Park Court, Leeds[254]Karim Asad Ahmad Khan QC – barrister at Temple Garden Chambers, London[255]Karim Raouf George Ghaly QC – barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, London[256]Kerim Selchuk Fuad QC – barrister at Church Court Chambers, London[257]Khawar Qureshi QC – barrister at Serle Court Chambers, London[258]Mohammed Jalil Akhter Asif QC – barrister at Kobre & Kim[259]Mohammed Khalil Zaman QC – barrister at No5 Chambers, London[260]Muhammed Luthful Haque QC – barrister at Crown Office Chambers, London[261]Naeem Majid Mian QC – barrister at 2 Hare Court, London[262]Nageena Khalique QC – barrister at No5 Chambers, Birmingham[263]Nina Soraya Goolamali QC – barrister at 2 Temple Gardens, London[264]Riaz Hussain QC – barrister at Atkin Chambers, London[265]Sadeqa Shaheen Rahman QC – barrister at One Crown Office Row, London[266]Saira Kabir Sheikh QC – barrister at Francis Taylor Building, London[267]Salim Abdool Hamid Moollan QC – barrister at Essex Court Chambers, London[268]Shaheed Fatima QC – barrister at Blackstone Chambers, London[269]Sam Karim QC – barrister at King's Chambers, Manchester[270]Syed Mohammad Sa'ad Ansarul Hossain QC – barrister at One Essex Court, London[271]Syed Raza Husain QC – barrister at Matrix Chambers, London[272]Tahir Zaffar Khan QC – barrister at Great James Street, London[273]Zafar Abbas Ali QC – barrister at 23 Essex Street, London[274]Zia Kurban Bhaloo QC – barrister at Exchange Chambers, London[275]OtherEditAamer Anwar – Glaswegian solicitor; named as Criminal Lawyer of the Year by the Law Awards of Scotland in 2005 and 2006[276]Amal Clooney – London-based Lebanese-Britishlawyer, activist, and author[277]M. A. Muid Khan – barrister who was selected as the Best Human Rights Lawyer of England and Wales for 2012 by the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives; in September 2012, he was ranked as third in the top five Chartered Legal Executive Lawyers of England and Wales by the Law Society[278]Maya Ali – solicitor and Labour Party councillor in Westwood[279]Mirza Ahmad – attorney at St. Philips Chambers in Birmingham[280] and Chancery House Chambers in Leeds;[281] managing director of a private consultancy , Massachusetts (Law & Governance) Limited[282]Mumtaz Hussain – solicitor and radio presenter; since 2010, she has presented Health and Healing with Mumtaz on RedShift Radio[283]Nazir Afzal OBE – Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England;[284] one of his first decisions in that role was to initiate prosecutions in the case of the Rochdale sex trafficking gangSadiq Khan – current mayor of London, senior member of the Labour Party; former Chair of the Fabian Society think tank; serving as the Shadow Lord Chancellor[285]Tahir Ashraf is a Barrister in England and Walesand Solicitor-Advocate and Founder of 5 Chancery Lane Commercial Barristers Chambers. first British Muslim man of Pakistani descent to be an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of International Banking and Financial Law . Also the first British Muslim man of Pakistani descent to have established a set of commercial barristers chambers in London, United KingdomLiterature and artEditAamer Hussein – short story writer and critic.[286]Abdur Rouf Choudhury – Bengali diaspora writer and philosopher; numerous literary awards from Bangladesh including the Granthomela award and life membership from Bangla Academy[287]Eenasul Fateh (Aladin) – cultural practitioner, magician and live artist; named "International Magician of the Year" in 1991; winner of the 1997 Golden Turban Award from the Magic Academy of Bangalore, in India[101]Diriye Osman – Somali-British writer and visual artist[288]Mohammed Mahbub "Ed" Husain – author of The Islamist, an account of his experience for five years with the Hizb ut-Tahrir[289][290]Emran Mian – author and policy advisor at Whitehall[291]Ghulam Murshid – author, scholar and journalist; numerous literary awards from India and Bangladesh, including the Bangla Academyaward[292]Idris Khan – artist based in London[293]Imtiaz Dharker – poet and documentary filmmaker[294]Kaniz Ali – makeup artist and freelance beauty columnist;[123] won the "Best Make-Up Artist" category at the 2011 International Asian Fashion Awards[124]Kia Abdullah – novelist and journalist; contributes to The Guardian newspaper[295] and has written two novels: Life, Love and Assimilation[296] and Child's Play[297]Mohsin Hamid – Pakistani writer; novels Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist(2007), and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia(2013)[298]Monica Ali – author of Brick Lane, a novel based on a Bangladeshi woman[299]Moniza Alvi – poet and writer[300]Nadeem Aslam – novelist[301]Nadifa Mohamed – Somali-British novelist[302]Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – author, lecturer, political scientist specialising in interdisciplinary security studies, and participant of the 9/11 Truth Movement[303]Nasser Azam – contemporary artist, living and working in London[304]Omar Mansoor – London-based fashion designer, best known for his couture occasionwear[305]Qaisra Shahraz – novelist, journalist, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a director of Gatehouse Books[306]Rasheed Araeen – London-based conceptual artist, sculptor, painter, writer, and curator[307]Razia Iqbal – arts correspondent for the BBC; born in East Africa, of Muslim Punjabi origin[308]Rekha Waheed – writer and novelist best known as the author of The A-Z Guide To Arranged Marriage[309]Rezia Wahid MBE – award-winning textile artist whose work has been exhibited both in the UK and abroad[310]Rizvan Rahman – [311]Roopa Farooki – novelist[312]Ruby Hammer MBE – fashion and beauty makeup artist;[313] founder of Ruby & Millie cosmetics bran[314]Ruh al-Alam – Islamic artist, founder of Islamic calligraphic artwork project Visual Dhikr[315][316]Runa Islam – film and photography visual artist, nominated for the Turner Prize 2008[147][148]Rupa Huq – senior lecturer in sociology at Kingston University, writer, columnist, Labour Partypolitician, music DJ and former Deputy Mayoress of the London Borough of Ealing[317]Sanchita Islam – visual media artistShahida Rahman – award-winning author of Lascar, writer and publisher[318]Shamim Azad – bilingual poet, storyteller and writer[319]Shamshad Khan – Manchester-based poet born in Leeds; editor of anthology of black women's poetry; advised the Arts Council of England North West on literature[320][321]Shezad Dawood – artist based in London[322]Suhayl Saadi – literary and erotic novelist and radio/stage playwrightTahir Rashid – British-born poet, manager and entrepreneur in the Islamic media and Nasheed industryTahmima Anam – author of A Golden Age, the "Best First Book" winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize[323]Ziauddin Sardar – scholar, writer and cultural critic[22]Military and policeEditAli Dizaei – senior police officer[324]Jabron Hashmi – soldier who was killed in actionin Sangin, Afghanistan on 1 July 2006[325]Amjad Hussain – senior Royal Navy officer. He is the highest-ranking member of the British Armed Forces from an ethnic minority[326]Muhammed Akbar Khan – served as a British recruit in the First World War and an officer in Second World War; first Muslim to become a general in the British Army[327]Tarique Ghaffur – high-ranking British police officer in London's Metropolitan Police Service; Assistant Commissioner–Central Operations[328]Syed abdul Quayum jelani high ranking British police office of Bradford metropolitan police.he was the first pakistani to become a British police officer in 1965.PolicyEditFormer British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar ChoudhuryAbul Fateh – diplomat and statesman;[329][330] first Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh after independence in 1971Anwar Choudhury – British High Commissioner for Bangladesh, 2004–2008; first non-white British person to be appointed in a senior diplomatic post; Director of International Institutions at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office[331]Asif Ahmad – British diplomat who served as the British Ambassador to Thailand from November 2010 until August 2012;[332] since July 2013, he has been British Ambassador to the Philippines[333]Dr Halima Begum – civil servant, international development manager and Director Education of East Asia at the British Council; previously first secretary for development at the Department for International Development[334]Nahid Majid OBE – civil servant, Chief Operating Officer of Regeneration Investment Organisation and Deputy Director within the Department for Work and Pensions[335] the most senior British Bangladeshi Muslim woman in the civil serviceRohema Miah – independent policy adviser and former political adviser for the Labour Party, 1992–2005[336]Saleemul Huq – scientist and Senior Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development; recipient of the 2007 Burtoni Award for his work on climate change adaptation[337]Talyn Rahman-Figueroa – director of diplomatic consultancy Grassroot Diplomat.[338]PoliticsEditMembers of ParliamentEditAfzal Khan - Labour MP for Manchester Gorton[339]solicitor and former Labour MEP for North West region; first Asian Lord Mayor of Manchester; currently Manchester City Council's Executive Member for Children's ServicesAnas Sarwar – former Scottish Labour deputy leader and Labour MP for Glasgow CentralFaisal Rashid - Labour MP for Warrington South, elected in 2017.[340] Mayor of Warrington in 2016.[341]Imran Hussain – Labour MP for Bradford EastKhalid Mahmood – Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr[342]Mohammad Sarwar – former Labour MP for Glasgow Central;[343] first British Muslim and Pakistani origin MPMohammad Yasin - Labour MP for Bedford, elected in 2017.[344]Naz Shah – Labour MP for the constituency of Bradford West[345]Nusrat Ghani – Conservative MP for WealdenRehman Chishti – Conservative MP for Gillingham and RainhamRosena Allin-Khan – Labour MP for Tooting[346]Rupa Huq – Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton constituencyRushanara Ali – Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow Labour Party constituency; first person of Bangladeshi origin elected to the House of Commons;[347] one of the first three Muslim women elected as a Member of Parliament[348]Sajid Javid – Conservative MP for Bromsgroveand current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport[349]Sadiq Khan – Mayor of London, former Labour MP for Tooting and former Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor[350]Shahid Malik – former Labour MP for Dewsbury; Minister for International Development in Gordon Brown's government[351]Shabana Mahmood – Labour MP For Birmingham LadywoodTasmina Ahmed-Sheikh – former SNP MP for Ochil and South PerthshireTulip Siddiq – Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn constituencyYasmin Qureshi – Labour MP for Bolton South EastPeersEditAdam Hafejee, Lord Patel of Blackburn[352]Amirali Alibhai, Lord Bhatia – life peer[353]Arminka Helic, Baroness Helic – Bosnian-born British Special Adviser (SPAD) and Chief of Staff to the Former British Foreign Secretary William Hague[354][355]Gulam Khaderbhoy, Lord Noon MBE – life peer, businessman and Chancellor of the University of East LondonHaleh, Baroness Afshar – Professor in Politics and Women's Studies at the University of York, EnglandKhalid, Lord Hameed – Chairman of Alpha Hospital Group; chairman and chief executive officer of the London International HospitalKishwer Falkner, Baroness Falkner of Margravine – lead Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords[356]Meral, Baroness Hussein-Ece – Liberal Democrat life peeressMohamed Iltaf, Lord Sheikh – Chairman of Conservative Muslim ForumNazir, Lord Ahmed – Crossbench life peer, formerly Labour[357]Nosheena Mobarik, Baroness Mobarik – Conservative Baroness of Mearns in the County of Renfrewshire; former Chairman of CBI Scotland[358]Manzila Pola, Baroness Uddin – Labour Party life peer, community activist, and first Muslim and Asian to sit in the House of Lords[359]Qurban, Lord Hussain – Liberal Democrat life peer[360]Sayeeda Hussain, Baroness Warsi – Lawyer & British politician for the Conservative Party and a former member of the Cabinet[361]Shas Sheehan, Baroness Sheehan – Liberal Democrat and Baroness of Wimbledon in the London Borough of Merton and of Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth [362]Tariq Mahmood, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon – life peerWaheed, Lord Alli – Labour life peerZahida Manzoor, Baroness Manzoor – Liberal Democrat Baroness; former Legal Services Ombudsman; former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality[363]Members of the European ParliamentEditAfzal Khan – solicitor and former Labour MEP for North West region;first Asian Lord Mayor of ManchesterAmjad Bashir – Conservative MEP for Yorkshire and Humber; former UKIP Small & Medium Business spokesmanBashir Khanbhai – former Conservative MEP for East of EnglandSajjad Karim MEP – born in Brierfield, Lancashire; qualified as a solicitor before being elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 2007; Conservative Legal Affairs Spokesman; sits on the Industry, Research and Energy CommitteeSyed Kamall – Conservative MEP for LondonWajid Khan - MEP for the North West EnglandEuropean constituency[364]Nosheena Mobarik, Baroness Mobarik – Scottish Conservative MEP[365]Members of Scottish ParliamentEditAnas Sarwar – Labour MSP for the Glasgowregion[366]Bashir Ahmad – former SNP MSP[367]Hanzala Malik – Labour MSP for GlasgowHumza Yousaf – SNP Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow and Minister for External Affairs and International Development[368]Members of Welsh AssemblyEditMohammad Asghar – Welsh politician, representing Plaid Cymru[369]Altaf Hussain – former regional Assembly Member in the National Assembly for Wales from 2015 to 2016[370]MayorsEditChauhdry Abdul Rashid – former Lord Mayor of Birmingham[371]Mohammed Iqbal – former Lord Mayor of Leeds(2006)Karam Hussain – was the mayor of the metropolitan borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England from 2008 to 2009.[372]Jilani Chowdhury – Labour Party politician, councillor in Barnsbury and former Mayor of London Borough of Islington; in 2012, became Islington's first Asian mayor[373]Lutfur Rahman – Cllr, community activist, local Independent politician; became the first directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets in 2010; first Bangladeshi leader of the council[374]Mohammed Ajeeb – former Lord Mayor of Bradford; first Asian (Pakistani) Lord Mayor in the UK[375]Muhammad Abdullah Salique – mayor of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from 2008 to 2009[376]Sadiq Khan – elected Mayor of London in May 2016OtherEditMushtaq Ahmad – Lord Lieutenant of Lanarkshire. He was the first Asian to serve as Provost of a Scottish council[377][377]Anwara Ali – Cllr, Conservative Party councillor in Regent's Park, Cabinet member for health and well-being in Tower Hamlets and General practitioner in Spitalfields Practice[378]Shahnaz Ali – British Muslim woman known for her leadership role in equality, inclusion and human rights in the National Health Service and local government in England[379]Bashir Maan – Pakistani-Scottish politician, businessman and writer[380]Maya Ali – Cllr, Labour Party councillor in Westwood and solicitor[279]Muhammad Abdullah Salique, Cllr – Labour Party member, Councillor for Bethnal Green North ward, Mayor of London Borough of Tower Hamlets for 2008/09 municipal year[381]Munira Mirza - was the Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture of London. Born in Oldham.[382][383]Murad Qureshi – Labour Party politician; Greater London Assembly Member[384]Cllr Nasim Ali – Labour Party politician, councillor in Regent's Park, Cabinet Member for Young People in Camden Council and former Mayor of Camden; in May 2003, at age 34, he became the country's youngest mayor as well as the UK's first Bangladeshi and first Muslim mayor[385]Rabina Khan, Cllr – Labour Party politician, councillor in Shadwell, cabinet member for housing in Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, community worker and author of Ayesha's Rainbow[386]Rohema Miah – Independent policy adviser and former political advisor for the Labour Party between 1992 and 2005[336]Salma Yaqoob – former leader of the left-wing Respect Party and a Birmingham City Councillor[387]Syeda Amina Khatun MBE – Labour Party councillor for Tipton Green in the Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council; first Bangladeshiwoman to be elected in the Midlands region, in 1999[388]And there we must leave the list, but on Wikipedia you can find even more Muslims, prominent in the UK for the following things…ReligionScience and medicineSportOther