Islam in Virgin Islands, U.S.: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Virgin Islands, U.S.

It was purchased by the United States from the Denmark in 1917 who controlled it since 1672 as Danish Wiest India Islands. The islands remain an organized and unincorporated territory of the United States. It has a total area of 346 sq km, consisting of three main islands: Saint Croix (215 sq km and 49% of the total population), Saint Thomas (81 sq km and 47%), and Saint John (51 sq km and 4%), and about fifty much smaller islands, most of which are uninhabited.

Danish censuses prior to 1901 showed that there were no Muslims in the islands. The first Muslim was recorded in the census of 1901, his name was William Park, born in China, was 59 years old, arrived to the islands in 1888. He lived in St. Thomas and his wife was Luthern who was born in St. Croix. He was not recorded in the following census, but one Muslim was recorded again, his name was Nagib Hamdy, born in Syria and arrived the prior year when he was sixteen years old and lived in Charlotte Amalie. More Muslims arrived here from Palestine in the mid twentieth century and some African descent converted to Islam. Thus, estimates for the Muslim population increased from 1,500 or 2.4% in 1970, to 2,000 or 2.1% in 1980, then decreased to 1,300 or 1.2% in 2000 (300 in St. Thomas, and 1,000 in St. Croix), to 1,200 or 1.1% in 2010.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will remain fixed at 1.1% with respect to the total population; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than one thousand during the second half of this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Virgin Islands, U.S.

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.