Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Réunion: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Réunion, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Réunion in the interactive map
History of Islam in Réunion
This is an Overseas Department of France that it occupied since 1638. It is a single island with total area of 2,512 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.3.9. It was known to Arabs and Africans centuries before its discovery by the Portuguese in 1507, when it was uninhabited. It was claimed by the French in 1642 and named Bourbon Island. However, it was only settled in 1665 with a population of twenty, then ninety in 1671, 269 in 1696, and 734 in 1704. It was named Réunion in 1793 to commemorate the union of revolutionaries from Marseille with the National Guard in Paris, which took place on August 10th, 1792. Islam came here in 1854 with the arrival of Muslim immigrant workers from Gujarat, India. Estimates of the Muslim population increased from none in 1849, to 204 or 0.1% in 1897 when they built their first mosque in the island, to 3,000 or 1.6% in 1926, to 5,000 or 2.3% in 1941, to 14,000 or 2.7% in 1982, to 30,000 or 4.3% in 1999, and to 50,000 or 6.1% in 2010.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by one percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 0.1 million or 10% by 2050 and 0.2 million or 15% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Réunion
The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 173.3 | 0.208 | 0.12% |
| 2000 | 780.3 | 33.16 | 4.25% |
| 2100 | 1,116 | 167.3 | 15.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.