Islam in Saint Lucia: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Saint Lucia

It consists of one island with an area of 616 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.1.8. It was conquered by the British in 1814 and gained its independence from the UK in 1979. The first Muslims were indenture labors brought by the British from India in 1859. Between 1859 and 1860; 1,200 indenture labors were brought from India and the 1891 census shows that Muslims make up just over 10% of East Indians.

Thus, based on census data as illustrated in Table 5.1.8, the Muslim population increased from none in 1859, to 131 or 0.4% in 1871, to 199 or 0.5% in 1891, but then continued to decrease to 162 or 0.32% in 1901, to 67 or 0.14% in 1911, to 45 or 0.09% in 1921, to ten or 0.01% in 1946. It then gradually grew to 25 or 0.02% in 1980, then 81 or 0.06% in 1991, then 222 or 0.14% in 2001, but decreased to 174 or 0.11% in 2010.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.02 of a percentage point each decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain in few hundreds throughout this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Saint Lucia

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.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.