Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
is a majority
Christian nation, with Islam being one of the smallest minority faiths in the country. According to a 2011
Pew Research Center report, there were then 10,000 Muslims in Cuba who constitute less than 0.1% of the population. As of 2012, most of the 10,000 Cuban Muslims were converts to the religion.
At a certain point there were many Muslim students entering the nation of Cuba interested in studying at Cuba's prestigious schools. The number of students was approximately 1500–2000. That group included students of Pakistani origin, among others. It is known that the dominant population that went to study at Cuba was the Pakistani students who were about 936 in strength. In 2001, Sheikh Muhammad bin Nassir Al-Aboudy, the Assistant Secretary-General of the
Muslim World League
The Muslim World League (MWL; ar, رابطة العالم الاسلامي, Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, ) is an International Islamic NGO based in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that promotes what it calls the true message of Islam by advancing moderate ...
(MWL) travelled to
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
to obtain permission from the Cuban authorities to establish an Islamic organization that would support Cuba's Muslim community. Among the other aims of the proposed organization would be constructing mosques and the dissemination of
Islamic culture among Muslims.
the Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation had opened the first prayer room for Cuban Muslims and the first mosque in Cuba was under construction with Turkish funding.
History
Islam was largely introduced to Cuba during the colonial times (the late sixteenth century to the nineteenth century).
This introduction, though, was not from colonists, but from Muslim Western African slaves who arrived in Cuba. Between 1808 and 1848, 49.4% (20,654) of the enslaved Muslim Africans who were captured and brought to the Americas arrived in Cuba, and many more who lack proper documentation have been suggested to have arrived.
The majority of these slaves were
Mandingo from
Senegambia or, as the British colonists called them, Mohammedanists. Many different groups of Africans arrived in Cuba in the nineteenth century and joined with the Mandingas because of a jihad in Western Africa.
Little formal records exist on the impact of Islam on Cuba in the colonial times, but the Registry of the
Court of Mixed Commission of Havana does confirm the Muslim African slaves' arrival in Cuba by documented records which included a unique number to each individual, sex, name, age, height, and from which the slaves came.
Also, evidence pointing to African origins of Islam in Cuba comes from the many Islamic names found by scholars, such as Henry Lovejoy, belonging to these slaves, such as Mohammed, Hausa, and Nupe.
In 2011, Islam scholars also analyzed the different names found on the records from the Mixed Commission Courts of Havana to identify the names of Muslim and Arabic origin.
It's been reported that there was more than 5,000 Muslims in Cuba before 1959 but most (around 80 percent) emigrated after the
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...
.
Cuban Muslims learned Islam through embassies of Middle Eastern countries as well as through students coming to study in Cuba from Muslim countries. Islam started to spread among Cubans in the 1970s and '80s. Printed and audio-visual Islamic resources are now almost nonexistent in Cuba. Spanish translation of the Quran and other major Islamic books are not available in the country. The Muslim community of Cuba even lacks educated religious cadres.
[http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=28195]
Islam became gained in popularity while the country endured an economic crisis, and would come to be more organized by the 1990s. Islam was not organized very well in the past because the main worshipers were slaves and they did not have the freedom to make Islam more organized in Cuba. Cuba's government also had problems with accepting Islam as an official religion at first. By the 1990s, the Cuban government was becoming more accepting of public practice. At first, Islam in Cuba was difficult to practice because of the lack of Islam books in Spanish—but with the completion of a mosque in Havana in 2015, it has become easier for people to worship. A lot has changed from the time when Muslims in Cuba could have faced consequences because of the government to having their own mosque with teachers. The change for some Muslim Cubans are difficult because they have always eaten pork and used alcohol. The change for many will be gradual because of lack of formal teaching and imams in the past. Since the Cuban Muslim community is still young many of the Cuban traditions have blended with the new Muslim traditions. With new teachers and a public place to worship more Cubans will be exposed to Islam and the religion will grow.
Mosque
Cuba houses a mosque named
Abdallah Mosque in Old Havana open to everyone for all daily prayers. Elsewhere, Cuba's Muslims usually pray in their homes. Although former
President
President most commonly refers to:
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Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Fidel Castro was reported to have promised to build a mosque for his country's Muslims, according to members of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) who visited Cuba,. In the past, the only prayers performed in public were the Friday Prayers that were conducted in a place known as Casa de los Árabes ("The Arab House") in old Havana. The Arab House belonged to a wealthy
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
immigrant who lived in Cuba during the 1940s, and it was built on
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
n architectural designs. The House encompasses an Arab museum and restaurant.
Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...
donated US$40,000 for the remodeling of the House, but it was only opened for Friday prayers.
Religious Groups
There are two Islamic groups in Cuba: the Cuban Islamic Union, which is headed by its president, Imam Yahya Pedro,
and Cuban Association for the Diffusion of Islam, which is headed by its president, Abu Duyanah.
Other Sunnis are concentrated in the Malcolm X Center, in the home of the Muslim Hassan Abdul Gafur, in Cerro, in Havana. Hassan Abdul Gafur was the first to form an Islamic organization in Cuba in 1994.
Notable Muslims
* Alí Nicolás Cossío - Former foreign ministry official who now reports for the "Voice of Islam", a radio station
*
Juan Carlos Gómez
Juan Carlos Gómez (born 26 July 1973) is a Cuban former professional boxer who competed from 1995 to 2014. He held the WBC cruiserweight title from 1998 to 2002, and challenged once for the WBC heavyweight title in 2009.
Amateur career
*Ama ...
- Professional
boxer Boxer most commonly refers to:
* Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing
*Boxer (dog), a breed of dog
Boxer or boxers may also refer to:
Animal kingdom
* Boxer crab
* Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans
* Boxer snipe ee ...
and former
Cruiserweight Champion
See also
*
Arab Cubans
References
External links
Practicing Islam in Catholic Cuba(includes photos), by Benazir Wehelie, Special to CNN
{{Islam in the Americas
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...