Danny Thompson: When the Search Became an Affirmation
Danny Thompson was known above all for the sound of his double bass, which accompanied Pentangle and scores of British musicians. Born in 1939, he lost his father in the war and was raised by his mother. He left school and home at about fifteen and made music an early profession, building a long path through jazz, blues and folk.
Behind that musical career, religious questions remained open. In a 2007 radio interview, Thompson said that he had been raised a strict Catholic but kept asking questions about religion without receiving answers that satisfied him. He later looked into Taoism and Buddhism—not, he stressed, in a desperate search for a lifeline, but as part of an attempt to discover the truth.
Thompson did not describe a dramatic scene or a single conversation that changed his life. What he named clearly was reading. He said that reading the Quran made the truth evident to him and that he found in Islam a direct relationship between the human being and God. He therefore disliked being confined to the label “British Muslim”; he preferred to say simply that he was Muslim.
He entered Islam in 1990 and took the name Hamza, according to The Guardian’s obituary. The same conversion year appears in the biography preserved with the Sunshine Boys tour programme with John Martyn. His search had moved from a Catholic upbringing through an interest in other traditions to the Quran, which he credited with making his choice clear. [4.1] [4.2] [4.3]
Hamza continued to perform. When asked about that choice, he expressed his view that becoming Muslim did not require him to abandon music. This story reports the position as his own; it is neither a fatwa from Madarej nor a ruling on a legal disagreement. His sobriety also began in the late 1970s, years before his conversion, so chronology must not be turned into a religious cause he never stated.
In 1999 he appeared in the BBC series Faces of Islam, discussing his conversion. In 2000 he presented The Furthest Mosque, a programme following him in Jerusalem, as the contemporary tour biography describes it. He was now speaking about his choice to an audience beyond those who knew him as a bassist, while continuing to record and work with other musicians. [6]
Danny Thompson died on 23 September 2025. In his recorded 2007 testimony, the search remained at the centre: religious questions from his upbringing, an exploration of Taoism and Buddhism, then the Quran and what he described as truth becoming clear. This was how he explained the decision he had made in 1990 and the name he carried afterwards: Hamza. [7.1] [7.2]
Sources
- Danny Thompson — ABC Radio National — The Music Show — 2007-02-23
- Danny Thompson obituary — The Guardian — 2025-09-29
- John Hillarby — The Sunshine Boys Tour, Danny Thompson biography, April 2001