Islam in Americas

History of Islam in Americas

Muslims arrived at the Americas as early as the tenth century [MRO];more than five centuries before Christopher Columbus “discovery” of“the new world” in 1492. Some Muslims also came with the Spanishconquistadors to the Americas. Like what happened in the IberianPeninsula, all Muslims were forced to abandon their religion. Inaddition, between 1615 and 1700 Muslim Moriscos from Spainestablished a colony in the lands currently occupied by Colombia andVenezuela, but they were obliterated by the Spaniards. Other Muslimscame with the waves of enslaved black Africans during the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries; some of whom were Muslims. They led revoltsagainst the inhumane treatment in Haiti in 1757, Jamaica in 1831, andBrazil in 1835. However, all these revolts were crushed, and Islam wasobliterated again due to various oppression tactics.

Slavery was abolished by the British in 1834, French in 1848, andDutch in 1863. However, slavery was replaced by indentured labormostly from British India by the Brits and Dutch and Java by the Dutch.Some of this labor was Muslim and their decedents remain in thecontinent, mostly in former British and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean.Most notably are Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad; the three countrieswith the largest Muslim percentage in the continent. The indenturedlabor system was abolished by the British in 1917, and the other colonialpowers followed suit afterwards.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Muslims emigratedfrom Syria, Lebanon and the Balkans, all of which were under theOttoman Empire. Many were fleeing the wars and avoiding enlistmentin the Turkish army. Then Muslim Tatars came from Poland to NorthAmerica in the early twentieth century. This was followed by remarkableconversion rate of African descents to Islam throughout the continent.This conversion started in the United States in 1920s, where BlackMuslims constitute a third of the Muslim population. Another wave ofMuslim immigrants started in mid-twentieth century from Palestine afterthe declaration of Israel.

In the 1960s, immigration laws in the United States and Canadachanged to welcome immigrants from all over the world and not justWhites. Since then, the number of Muslims is fast growing due toimmigration, but also higher birthrate and conversions. Immigrationfrom the Middle East and Indian subcontinent towards all parts of thecontinent also continues. About half of Muslims in this continent live inthe United States, a quarter live in Canada, and the remainder is spreadsparsely throughout the rest of the continent. However, the countrieswith the largest Muslim minority starting with the largest are Suriname(14%), Guyana (7%), and Trinidad (5%).

The Muslim population in the Western Hemisphere, both in size andin percentage, remains the lowest in comparison with other continents. Ithas likely increased from none in 1800, to 0.06 million or 0.04% in 1900,to 2.6 million or 0.3% in 2000, to seven million or 0.7% in 2020, and isprojected to exceed sixteen million or 1.4% by 2050 and thirty million or2.9% by 2100. A plot of decennial estimates of the Muslim populationand its percentage with respect to the total population in the Americasfrom 1900 to 2100 is provided in Figure 5.0. This shows that the Muslimpopulation in this region was barely increasing until 1940 and isincreasing slowly but at a faster rate in both number and percentageafterwards and towards the end of this century.

We divided the Americas into six regions; the data for each isincluded in a separate section and are sorted in terms of the percentageof Muslims in descending order. These regions are Southern CaribbeanIslands (Section 5.1), North America (Section 5.2), Central CaribbeanIslands (Section 5.3), South America (Section 5.4), Northern CaribbeanIslands (Section 5.5), and Central America (Section 5.6). In Section 5.7, thetotal population in each of the five regions of the Americas and the corresponding percentage and number of Muslims is presentedcentennially in Table 5.7a from 600 to 2100 and decennially in Tables 5.7band 5.7c from 1790 to 2100.