Muslims across Hispanic and Lusophone Geographies

Abstract

Since the early colonization of Spanish and Portuguese America, Muslims were present as formal converts to Catholicism who were called Moriscos in Spanish and Mouriscos in Portuguese. They were often persecuted by the Portuguese and the Spanish Inquisition. Another important Muslim presence in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America was that of enslaved African Muslims, who constituted a significant part of the enslaved population in many areas of Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Brazil. In the last decades of the 19th century, a new Muslim population started to be created through the arrival of Arabic-speaking immigrants from regions that later became Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. While this influx reached all countries, Argentina and Brazil received the largest numbers of immigrants, with Mexico also receiving a much smaller contingent. These immigrants created the first Muslim communities and institutions in the early 20th century. After a period of decline in the 1970s, there was a religious renewal in the Muslim communities with the updates to religious tradition, revival of the Muslim identity among the younger generations, and conversions to Islam of individuals without Muslim background. By the 2000s, conversion to Islam became a well-established phenomenon in many Muslim communities in Latin America. New waves of Muslim immigration and transnational Islamic movements also arrived in Latin America in the late 1990s and early 2000s, creating more pluralism in the Muslim religious landscape. Therefore, the long history of Muslim presence across Hispanic and Lusophone geographies arrives at the 21st century with the consolidation of a diverse and complex Muslim presence.