Fatima Elizabeth Archery Club

24/10/2026

One arrow each. Gold on the line. No pressure, lads! 😅🏹

Omar and Zain finished level at Julūs al-Rumāt, so a one-arrow shootout would decide the gold—and somehow they were still smiling! 😂

The deciding arrows… 🥇 Omar: 6 — GOLD! 🥈 Zain: 2 — SILVER!

Mā shā’ Allāh, well done to both. You made us wait for a winner, but what a finish! 👏🏹

24/10/2026

Alhamdulillah! Jazakumullahu khayran to everyone who took part in Julūs al-Rumāt today. 🏹

A special well done to our young inis who overcame their nerves to shoot—we’re so proud of you! Thank you to everyone who carried out their responsibilities with such care.

Remember, you were already winners the moment you stepped up to the shooting line. 💛

وَمَا رَمَيْتَ إِذْ رَمَيْتَ وَلَٰكِنَّ اللَّهَ رَمَىٰ

“And you did not throw when you threw, but it was Allah who threw.” — Qur’an 8:17 (excerpt)

Well done, everyone! May Allah bless your efforts. 🤲🏼

FEAC Team

23/10/2026

🎯 Step into a 700-year-old tradition of Mamluk Archery in London

Train with us at Fatima Elizabeth Archery Club, where historic technique meets focused practice.

Our sessions

🏹 Taster – 2-hour Have-a-Go: Historic Mamluk Archery (£19.99, ages 8+)

🏹 Beginner Courses

• Short Course (6 hrs / 3 weeks): Asiatic & Mediterranean Archery (£97, ages 8+)

• Intensive Course (10 hrs / 5 weeks): Historic Mamluk Archery (£139.99, ages 10+)

🏹 Independent Practice – 2 hours (£10.95, after a beginner course)

All equipment included.

🗓️ Fri 6–8pm | Sat & Sun 1:30–3:30pm

📍 Connaught School for Girls, Leytonstone, London

🔗 Book here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/fatimaelizabetharcheryclub
We look forward to seeing you on the line 🏹

— Hamid

18/10/2026

14/10/2026

🏹 Female only Mamluk Archery Taster Session

This weekend
*Sat 17 Oct - 11am-1pm*

To sign up:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/fatimaelizabetharcheryclub/2368088?date=2026-10-17

(Link in Story)

07/10/2026

JIRJĪS — ST GEORGE, PALESTINE & THE BOW 🏹

England knows him as St George.
Medieval Muslim literature remembers him as Jirjīs — جرجيس.

And the story is considerably more intertwined than many of us realise.

Al-Ṭabarī describes Jirjīs as “a righteous servant of God among the people of Palestine” — a believer associated in the narrative with the surviving followers of ʿĪsā عليه السلام.

Centuries later, al-Thaʿlabī’s famous Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ tradition contains an account explicitly identified in modern scholarship as “Jirjīs (Saint George).”

This does not mean that the Qurʾān or an authentic ḥadīth identifies St George as a prophet, nor do the early Muslim accounts describe Jirjīs as an archer.

The archery connection emerges elsewhere.

A late-sixteenth-century icon preserved at the Monastery of St Paul, Mount Athos depicts St George with his left arm encircling a bow and arrows.

A sixteenth-century enamel now in the Walters Art Museum depicts another striking detail: a quiver of arrows slung from his belt.

The association eventually moved beyond imagery.

The Rijksmuseum describes St George as a patron saint of archers, in connection with a seventeenth-century shooting guild commission.

And then comes England.

In 1537, Henry VIII granted a charter to the “Fraternity or Guild of Artillery of Longbows, Crossbows and Handguns.” The organisation was also to be a “perpetual fraternity of St George”, established in part for the maintenance of the skill and practice of shooting.

So we have to read the evidence carefully.

We cannot claim that early Muslim tradition presents Jirjīs himself as an archer.

But we can trace something remarkable:

Jirjīs in Muslim memory.
Palestine in his remembered story.
St George carrying bow, arrows and quiver in later art.
St George as patron of archers.
And his name attached to an English shooting fraternity.

A figure remembered across religions, lands and centuries — and, eventually, through the bow.

At Fatima Elizabeth Archery Club, recovering the history of archery also means recovering the unexpected connections carried within it.

Jirjīs. Palestine. St George. Archery. 🏹

04/10/2026

🎊 Congratulations to all archers and especially our FEAC archers for partaking in the Leicester competition! Also FEAC winning:
🥇🥈- Women's
🥈🥉- Men's

27/09/2026

What if one of the smallest fingers in the hand is actually the foundation of the entire bow grip? 🏹

In medieval Islamic archery, this was not treated as a minor detail. Ṭaybughā explains the pressure of the bow-hand grip through the image of a building: strength begins from below.

Ṭaybughā writes:

والشَّدُّ على القَبْضَةِ كالبُنْيَان ... غايةُ الشِّدَّةِ بالخِنْصِر، ثم البِنْصِر ... أقلُّ الشِّدَّةِ بالإصبع الوُسْطَى

“The pressure upon the grip is like a building… the greatest pressure is with the little finger, then the ring finger… and the least pressure is with the middle finger.”

Ibn al-Qayyim likewise writes:

وتَشُدُّ الخِنْصِرَ والبِنْصِرَ والوُسْطَى شَدًّا عَنِيفًا على ترتيبها، الخِنْصِرُ أشدُّ ثم البِنْصِرُ ثم الوُسْطَى، وتترك أصبعيك الإبهامَ والسبابةَ ليِّنَتَيْن.

“Firmly tighten the little finger, ring finger and middle finger, in their order: the little finger is strongest, then the ring finger, then the middle finger; and leave the thumb and index finger relaxed.”

A small detail of the hand — but one preserved with remarkable precision in the medieval Arabic archery tradition.

🏹

References:
Ṭaybughā al-Ashrafī, Ghunyat al-Ṭullāb, British Library Add MS 23489, ff. 39v–40r; Latham & Paterson, Saracen Archery (1970), ch. 8, pp. 78–79.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, al-Furūsiyyah al-Muḥammadiyyah, ed. Zāʾid b. Aḥmad al-Nushayrī, 1428 AH, p. 433.