and scholars. Some of them are Mirza Masroor Ahmad (Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Community), Sheikh Abdul Qayum (one of the best known scholars in Europe and Chief Imam of East London Mosque), Abu Yusuf Riyadh ul Haq (Khateeb of Birmingham Central Mosque), Dr. Mahmudul Hasan (Khateeb of Essex Mosque), Abdur Rahman Madani (Chairman of Global Eid Trust and Chief Imam of Darul Ummah Mosque), Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi (principal of Hijaz College), Ajmal Masroor (Imam and Liberal Democrats politician) and Pramukh Swami Maharaj (fifth spiritual successor of Hindu Swaminarayan). History in Britain The earliest date at which South Asians settled in Great Britain is unclear. If the Romany are included, then the earliest arrivals were in the Middle Ages. DNA surveys have linked Romanies to present-day South Asian populations and the Romani language is a member of the Indo-Aryan language family. Romanies are believed to have begun travelling westward around 1000 CE, and have mixed with Middle Eastern and European populations over many centuries. Romani began arriving in sizeable numbers in parts of Western Europe in the 16th century. The Romani who settled in Britain are known as Romanichal. The first educated South Asian to travel to Europe and live in Britain was I'tisam-ud-Din, a Bengali Muslim cleric, munshi and diplomat to the Mughal Empire who arrived in 1765 with his servant Muhammad Muqim during the reign of King George III. He wrote of his experiences and travels in his Persian book, Shigurf-nama-i-Wilayat ('Wonderous Chronicle of Europe'). This is also the earliest record of literature by a British Asian. Also during the reign of George III, the hookah-bardar (hookah servant/preparer) of James Achilles Kirkpatrick was said to have robbed and cheated Kirkpatrick, making his way to England and stylising himself as the Prince of Sylhet. The man was waited upon by the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, and then dined with the Duke of York before presenting himself in front of the King. Lascars When the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut, India in 1498, he established the first European-Asian sea route (commonly called the Cape Route), opening up direct maritime passage between South Asia and Europe. An extension of this route, devised by the Dutch explorer Hendrik Brouwer in 1611 and known as the Brouwer Route, subsequently found a new waterway to Southeast Asia. In the following centuries, the United Kingdom, and its predecessor states, utilised these