Islam in Suriname: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Suriname

The Republic of Suriname has an area of 163,820 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.12. It was conquered by the Netherlands in 1667 and gained its independence in 1975, when it changed its name from Dutch Guiana. It has the largest percentage of Muslims in the Americas. The Dutch abolished slavery in 1863, but replaced it with indentured labor, first from India that started in 1873, and second between 1893 and 1940 from the island of Java, in current Indonesia, which was Dutch occupied. Most of the Javanese were Muslims, while a substantial portion of Indians were Muslim as well.

Based on official estimates, the Muslim population increased from none in 1873, to 1,629 or 2.9% in 1887, to 2,594 or 4.1% in 1895, to 3,918 or 5.7% in 1900, to 6,071 or 8.3% in 1904, to 10,584 or 12.47% in 1911, to 15,431 or 13.6% in 1920, to 35,675 or 23.6% in 1929, to 52,940 or 25.0% in 1949. Post-independence censuses that inquired about religious adherence showed that the Muslim population changed to 65,000 or 20.6% in 1964, to 74,000 or 19.5% in 1972, to 70,000 or 19.6% in 1980, to 66,307 or 16.0% in 2004, to 75,053 or 14.3% in 2012 (including 14,161 Ahmadiyya). The decrease happened as hundreds of thousands of the population, about ten percent of which was Muslim, left to the Netherlands.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to decrease by one tenth of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 0.1 million throughout this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Suriname

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.