Islam and Life of Muslims in Non Muslim Countries: Bolivia

Bolivia,  a landlocked country located in western-central South America has a population of 11,428,245 (2019 estimates) of which a very small fraction is Muslims - around two thousand, representing 0.017 % out of the total population to be exact. And perhaps for this very reason, not much information is available about the life of Muslims in the country.

As per Wikipedia, Imam Mahmud Amer Abusharar, who arrived from Palestine in 1974 founded The Bolivian Islamic Center (Spanish: Centro Islámico Boliviano, CIB) in August 1986. In 1992 a commission for the construction of the first mosque in Bolivia was approved, and it was completed in September 1994 in the city of Santa Cruz. 

In 2004 the first official Sunni mosque, the Yebel An Nur Mosque, was founded in 2004 in La Paz. Prior to that Islam was rather unheard of. The Yebel An Nur Mosque remains self-funded with close ties to the Sunni Bolivian Islamic Center of Santa Cruz while the As-Salam Mosque receives both Sunni and Shia followers, connections, and funding.

The majority of the people attending the Friday ceremony are young men and women. This is because most of the adult men have work responsibilities. According to the National Statistical Institute of Bolivia, the majority of Bolivian citizens self-identify as Catholic. ‘Bosses don’t really keep in mind Muslim duties as they do in the Middle East,’ says imam Ayman Altaramsi, the religious leader of the mosque in La Paz. ‘Bolivian society is not structured around Islam.’

Finding Halal food is one of the biggest problem for the Muslims. Naturally for such a small community, arrangements for Halal meat cannot be made. However, the community solved the problem on its own. ‘Five years ago we started producing our own halal meat,’ Altaramsi says proudly. During the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, ‘about one hundred people come to our Mosque to eat this meat and share their spiritual experiences,’ he says.

There are many converts in Bolivia. Morah Bacinello converted eight years ago after growing up Catholic because Christianity didn’t bring her satisfaction. ‘I came to this mosque to try something else,’ she explains. ‘They told me about eternal life, and this especially caught my interest because I lost a son,’ she says. Bacinello adopted her Arabic name and, two years later, her children also converted to Islam. Now Allah is guiding their lives.

Like many Muslim women, Bacinello wears a hijab, but only two years ago she started to use it in public. ‘I never had any experiences with people approaching me in a negative way,’ she says. ‘In general, people in Latin America are more spiritual than usual, and perhaps more tolerant in terms of religion.’

Despite peaceful presence of Bolivian Muslims, I was amazed to find a post by Fox News saying that "Bolivia Becoming a Hotbed of Islamic Extremism." Interesting isn't it? How can a mere 2000 Muslims threaten a country of 11 million and sow seeds of extremism merely because some belong to Palestine and Iran.

Disclaimer: The data for this post has been collected from the references as given below. If any one differs with the material contained in this post, one may consult the references and their authors.  If someone has more material about the subject, he/she is most welcome to share in the comments box to make the post all encompassing.

To know more about life of Muslims in other non Muslim countries, please visit our page: Islam and Life of Muslims in Non Muslim Countries

You may also refer to our Reference Pages for knowing more about Islam and Quran.

Photo | References: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

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Islam and Life of Muslims in Non Muslim Countries: Colombia

Colombia, a country mainly of Catholic Christians, is located at the northern tip of South America. Talking of Colombia, the rain forests, the Andes come to one's mind. Its rich coffee is one of the world famous. 

Amid these beautiful surroundings and landscape, some 14,000 Muslims are also part of this Latin America country. Muslims constitute mere 0.03% of the total population as per the Pew Research Center report. Most Muslims in Colombia are descendants of Arab immigrants from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine during the late 19th to early 20th century. It was African American Muslim, Esteban Mustafa Meléndez who introduced Islam to Colombia. The Afro-Colombian Muslims in Buenaventura, Colombia’s main Pacific port city, have over the years embraced the teachings of the Nation of Islam, mainstream Sunni Islam, and the Shia denomination. 

Mezquita Central Abou Bakr Alsiddiq (Mosque of Abu Baker Siddiq) - Bogota [Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Author: Felipe Restrepo Acosta ]

It is said that the first wave of converts tended to be more political than spiritual: they said their prayers in English or Spanish, read more political pamphlets than the Qur’an, and had a shaky understanding of Islam’s central tenets. But by and by Islam started to take roots as a true religion and faith.

Sheik Munir Valencia, who was raised Catholic and planned to become a priest before turning to Islam, now who manages a family-home-turned-mosque in the poor, violence-racked Colombian city of Buenaventura. The Sheik says" “Just like that we were Sunni, we learned to read Arabic, we read the Qur’an, we no longer looked toward the United States and started looking toward Saudi Arabia.”

Today, there are a number of Islamic organizations in Colombia, including Islamic centers in San Andrés, Bogotá, Guajira, Nariño, and Santa Marta. There are also primary and secondary Islamic schools in Bogotá and Maicao. Maicao plays host to the continent's second largest mosque, the Mosque of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab.

The Mosque of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab [Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Author ]

Valencia also runs two private charter schools where around 200 children of some of the poorest neighborhoods of the city not only learn their ABCs but their alif ba tas as well. 

How do Muslims mesh with the fellow Colombians? According to the Imam of the Muslim community of Medellin, Ahmed Dasuki, "Muslims encounter the Colombian society and culture with respect and tolerance. Although, Muslims do not take part in the Christian traditions of Colombia, they neither want to change the behavior of the majority non-Muslim population, nor would they want to convince them to convert. Instead, people should find their own way to Islam.If you want to convert, that’s good. If you don’t want to, that’s also fine. The mosque is open to anybody who can come anytime and however many times he wants. We can only teach the Muslim traditions to the people who come to learn the Muslim traditions."

Muslims girls learning to read the Quran [Photo]

Still, Dasuki recognizes the difficulty of Muslim life in a predominantly Christian society, especially in regards to raising children. The questions all immigrant communities struggle with in regards to assimilation become amplified due to the religious and moral divide. “We do live in a very difficult society, with all the clubs, the debauchery and the ‘free love’ which is totally forbidden in Islam,” Dasuki told Colombia Reports.

Islam is taking roots in the native Colombian population slowly. Although no official figures for the number of people who have converted to Islam throughout Colombia, converts are believed to represent a large part of urban Muslim communities. How to converts explain their conversion, according to Jusuf, a Medellin native whose name was Jose before he converted 8 years ago, Islam helped him to get away from a life of drugs and alcohol. He says it was God that told him to convert to Islam, adding that he had always been a religious person, “a good Catholic”, before God intervened and showed him “the path of light,” as he put it.

Is there notion of Islamophobia in Colombia? Well yes it is to an extent and a section of Colombians label Muslims as radicals and terrorist, which is perhaps become common in most of the non Muslim countries around the world. Despite all negative claims, by and large, Muslims have managed to co-exist with Christians within Colombian society. In cities where there is a strong Arab immigrant presence, Arab customs have even blended to certain degrees with the local culture. Arab food, for example, is considered one of the specialties of Barranquilla, a city on the Caribbean coast.

Please watch the video below "Ramadan 2017: Muslim community growing in Colombia":

Author's Note: The data for this post has been collected from the references as given below. If any one differs with the material contained in this post, one may consult the references and their authors.  If someone has more material about the subject, he/she is most welcome to share in the comments box to make the post all encompassing.

To know more about life of Muslims in other non Muslim countries, please visit our page: Islam and Life of Muslims in Non Muslim Countries

Photo | References: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
For more Q&A about Understanding Islam click here

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Muslims in Non Muslims Countries: Argentina

Argentina is home to one of Latin America’s largest Muslim communities. There are varying estimates as to the exact number of Muslims living in Argentina as state census does not take into account the religious considerations while counting the heads. However the best estimates by the Pew Research Centre put Argentinians Muslims around  1,000,000 in in the year 2010. The first mentioned Muslim settlers were the 15th century's Moorish-Morisco (Muslims of the Iberian peninsula of North African, Middle-Eastern and Spanish descent) who explored the Americas with Spanish explorers, many of them settling in Argentina who were fleeing from persecution in Spain such as the Spanish Inquisition. [1]

Later Syrians and Lebanese, came to Argentina as immigrants during the 19th and 20th century. Currently, Islam is easily accepted in Argentina as a religion, and there is no oddity to being a Muslim in Argentine society. According to The Argentina Independent, “no discrimination exists [in Argentina] on account of being Muslim” and “a Muslim in Argentina…can practice his faith in complete peace, without any inconvenience.” [2]

There are also many mosques and cultural centers throughout Argentina, including the Central Mosque, built by Muslim Argentines in 1989, and the King Fahd Islamic Culture Centre, which is the largest mosque in South America.

In Argentina, there are a small community of believers, who are converts that attend retreats and social programs in order to share their commitments to spread the teachings of Islam. Many Muslim Argentines would gather on a weekly basis to learn about their faith, the Quran, and the meaning of belonging to an Ummah (Community).

Although Muslims represent a minority in Argentina, the government is making an effort to ensure that Argentine Muslims are free to express their religion without facing discrimination. In 2011, the government passed legislation allowing women to wear Hijab in public without facing persecution. This law expanded the freedom of religion and expression in Latin America, and helped “the Muslim community to better integrate into Argentine society.” In addition, “according to the new law, Argentinean Muslim women can use photographs wearing headscarf for their national ID cards.”

While in many other countries where Muslim population is increasing, it is the other way in Argentina where the number of Argentine Muslims is decreasing due to several key factors: [2] 

• Firstly, many customs are being lost including learning about the Islamic culture, religion, and the Arabic language. Many Muslim Argentines only have one Muslim parent and do not know Arabic as the younger generations have learned Spanish as their first language. 
• Secondly, there is very little reading material for native Spanish speakers or texts relevant to Islam, especially the Quran. 
• And lastly, there is a lack of study centers and madrasas (Schools) for Islamic teachings. Many Argentine Muslims have better integrated into their country’s culture and they are sometimes not aware of their origins.

Thus the present community feels that there is an urgent need to establish Muslim teaching communities in Spanish language as there are millions of Latin Americans whose native language is Spanish. The problem for conserving Islam in Argentina is that some Argentine Muslims no longer connect to their faith, and most Argentines do not even consider themselves Muslim, even though their ancestors were Muslim. There is less of a fear for Islam in Argentina than in Europe. According to Waqas Syed, the Deputy Secretary General for the Islamic Center of North America, “Unlike Europe and North America, Latin America has been quite untouched with any of the anti-Islamic rhetoric and the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslim Latinos can be described as excellent and strong.” Many Europeans and Americans associate Islam with radicalization, but this is not necessarily the case in Argentina. [2]

The Muslim and Jewish communities rather go well with each other. Despite the fact that there have been attacks on the Jewish communities and Jews had reservations about Muslims' involvement, both the communities still get together and try to have harmonious relationship. 

I came across an article "In Argentina, Muslims and Jews make hummus not war" - which is about a coexistence initiative, by both Muslims and Jews in Argentina’s bustling capital city of Buenos Aires. In September 2017, 20 amateur chefs participated in a hummus-making competition at the Tetuan Moroccan Grill restaurant in the trendy Palermo Soho neighborhood. About 300 people showed up to see judges award a winner of what was unofficially dubbed The First World Championship of Hummus. The event was less about competition and more about bringing people of different cultures and religions together through the food they all love. [3]

However, the Muslim community in Argentina, along with the Diaspora across Latin America and worldwide, has been subject to the Western media’s biased and faulty inferences about Muslims. But despite these reservations, Muslims live a life as per their beliefs and trying to coexist with Jews and other faiths. In the capital Buenos Aires, one can find halal meat and eateries serving halal food. Besides there a re number of centers teaching Arabic and selling Islam related books.

Watch a video in which Muslims are seen welcoming the Hijab law in Argentina:

Author's Note: The data above has been collected from the references as given below. IF any one differs with the material contained in this post, one may consult the references and their authors.  If someone has more material about the subject, he/she is most welcome to share in the comments box to make the post all encompassing.

Photo (King Fahd Islamic Cultural Center)| References: | 1 | 2 | 3 |

If you like Islam: My Ultimate Decision, and to keep yourself updated on all our latest posts to know more about Islam, follow us on Facebook

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Please share this page to your friends and family members through Facebook, WhatsApp or any means on Social Media so that they can also be benefited by it and better understand Islam and the Holy Qur'an - Insha Allah (Allah Willing) you shall be blessed with the best of both worlds.

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