Disillusioned with Britain’s expanding imperialism, Stanley quit the diplomatic service in 1858 and decided to become a Muslim some months later while travelling in Arabia.
“There’s little account of his religious conversion and beliefs,” Gilham said. “It’s just things that you can read in some of the family letters.”
Press reports of Stanley’s conversion emerged in Sri Lanka on his visit there in 1859, before news travelled back home to Cheshire – where it was reported in the local Macclesfield Courier and then the national outlets in London.
Some reported that he made a pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site in Mecca and adopted the name Abdul Rahman – Arabic for “servant of the merciful Lord” – although evidence is unclear, Gilham added.
“Letters show his parents were absolutely furious and equally embarrassed and humiliated that their son would convert to Islam from Christianity.
“His father said to his mother, ‘Is he mad? What can he possibly mean by parading himself in our colonies and our possessions in the degrading position he occupies?’
“His mother replied to his father that the newspaper report in the Macclesfield Courier ‘made me feel sick’.”
They later issued a public denial that their son had converted to Islam however Stanley wrote to one of his brothers that “I have always been a Mussulman [Muslim] at heart”.