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Lat, al- See goddess.

Latin America

According to some scholars, Islam was first estab-

lished in Latin America between the 11th and

12th centuries as a result of maritime contacts

established by African Muslim sailors. The same

scholars support the idea of a Muslim European

influence in the 16th century stemming from the

participation of moriscos (Andalusian Muslims

who remained in Spain under Christian rulers

after 1492) in the discovery and conquest of the

continent. However, these first origins of Islam in

Latin America are still debated. The first Muslim

population to arrive of which we have specific

data were the African Muslim slaves brought to

the continent by the Dutch, French, and British

colonial powers. Later on, in the 19th century,

following the abolition of slavery, the recruitment

of indentured labor from india and indonesia

brought to Latin America a number of Indian

and Indonesian Muslims, mainly to the present-

day countries of Guyana, Suriname and Panama.

Following this, in the last decades of the 19th

century, Muslim and Christian Arabs from Greater

syria (the Mediterranean Levant) emigrated to

and settled in Latin America as a consequence of

both the devastating effects of the ongoing eco-

nomic crisis of the Ottoman Empire and specific

cases of religious persecution of Christian com-

munities.

The Muslim community in Latin America

today is small in size, diverse in character, and

grouped in several countries. Although no exact

statistics of the total Muslim population exist, it is

estimated that the Muslim community constitutes

less than 1 percent of the total population of Latin

America. Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad have

the largest number of Muslims followed by Brazil

and Argentina.

Although not the largest in number, Brazil has

one of the strongest Muslim communities. Despite

a number of African Muslim slaves who were

brought to the country during the 17th and 18th

centuries, the current Muslim community dates to

the arab emigration in the last decades of the 19th

century. It is concentrated mainly in the state of

São Paulo, where the first mosque was established

in 1950. In 1968 the Islamic Dawa Center of Latin

America for the spread of Islam was founded.

Suriname has the largest Asian Muslim popu-

lation, 26 percent of its total population. The Suri-

namese Muslim community originates from the

indentured Indian and Indonesian labor brought

by the Dutch and the British at the turn of the

L