Biography
Abu Saleh arrived at Heathrow from Mymensingh district in December 1965, travelling directly to 1 Cornwall Terrace in Manningham, an address that had already become a recognised waystation for newly arrived Bengali men seeking work in Bradford's textile mills. He was part of a generation of young men who turned the Victorian terraced streets of Manningham into the heart of Bradford's Bengali community in the years before the Tawakkulia Islamic Society was established at 40 Cornwall Road in 1969. Within two decades of his arrival, the community he joined had built the institutions that define Bradford's Bangladeshi quarter: the Tawakkulia Mosque, the Bangladeshi Youth Organisation, Manningham Housing Association, and BEAP Community Partnership, all within a short walk of 1 Cornwall Terrace.