Timeline: Muslims in Britain

(Reuters) - British security officials are struggling to stem a tide of unease among Muslim communities about an anti-radicalization campaign to, among other things, identify those most vulnerable to recruitment by al Qaeda-aligned groups.

Here is a timeline about Muslims in Britain.

1940-1960 - Muslims begin to arrive in Britain in large numbers, mainly from East Africa and south Asia. The partition of India in 1947 and Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972 were peaks in the gradual increase of Muslim immigrants.

1989 - The death edict imposed by Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on author Salman Rushdie for blasphemy in his novel "The Satanic Verses" marked a unifying effect on the country's disparate Muslim community.

1992-1996 - Many British Muslims are angered by what they feel is the British government's refusal to help Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian War.

1997 - Creation of the umbrella organization, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) with the aim of promoting co-operation and consensus on Muslim affairs in Britain. Individual Muslim associations of groups such as students and doctors had long been in existence, as had smaller unions of Muslim groups.

September 11, 2001 - The 9/11 attacks on the United States see a sharp increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in Britain although the MCB is able to blunt its edge by condemning the attackers.

March 2003 - Britain's active support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq is deeply resented by many Muslims and has been cited since the invasion as a factor in alienating radical sections.

July 7, 2005 - The 7/7 suicide bombings on London's transport system by four young British Muslims, which killed 52 people, realize worst fears about so-called home-grown terrorism and prompt several retaliatory attacks on mosques.

February 2006 - Radical cleric Abu Hamza, whose London mosque was at the center of some of the most important terrorism cases of the last decade, is sentenced to seven years in jail for inciting the murder of non-Muslims.

March 2006 - Shabina Begum loses a legal battle to be allowed to wear full Islamic dress in school. She had been sent home in September 2002 and ordered to change her clothes after she turned up wearing a jilbab.

October 2006 - Prime Minister Tony Blair calls the full veil worn by some Muslim women "a mark of separation".

February 2008 - Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams causes uproar by suggesting British law adopt some sharia law. Critics decry the idea as barbaric, citing the gruesome punishments meted out in strict Muslim countries.

-- The archbishop clearly states that he ruled out such punishments and only wants some aspects of Muslim personal law, as a way to accommodate Muslims who felt torn between their Islamic and British identities.

April 2008 - Six British Muslim men are jailed for supporting terrorism in speeches made at a London mosque. Among them is Omar Brooks, also known as Abu Izzadeen, a Muslim activist who leapt to public attention in 2006 when he heckled then Home Secretary John Reid in front of television cameras.

September 2009 - Three Britons are found guilty of plotting to kill thousands by blowing up airliners bound for North America in suicide attacks using bombs made from liquid explosives. The plot was hatched in Pakistan just months before the men were arrested in August 2006. The ringleader was Abdulla Ahmed Ali.

January 2010 - Britain outlaws the group Islam4UK after it provoked anger with a plan to march through the town of Wootton Bassett in southern England, where British troops killed in Afghanistan are honored.

-- The government is keen to show it is tough on Islamist radicals after Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who had studied in London, tried to blow up a plane flying into the United States on December 25.

March 2010 - Islamic scholar Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, who has promoted peace and interfaith dialogue, issues a 600-page religious edict denouncing terrorism in London.

-- Geert Wilders, a Dutch anti-Islamist politician denounces Islam at a media event held near Britain's Houses of Parliament. He had overturned a ban on him entering Britain in a visit which prompted demonstrations for and against his strong views.