Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
is a predominantly
Christian country, with
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
being a minority religion. Due to
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
nature of the Jamaica's constitution,
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.
The first
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s arrived in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
as enslaved people. Islam was one of the main religions of Africans brought to the Caribbean and America. Other Muslim groups came through the indentureship program
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
, and today make up a population of about 1,513 with several
mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
s and
festivals
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
.
History
The first Muslims in Jamaica were West African Moors captured in the
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
sold as slaves to traders, and brought to Jamaica on ships.
Bryan Edwards and
Richard Robert Madden in their works written in the late 18th and early 19th century often wrote about the Muslim slaves of Jamaica and their situation. They wrote that many were able to memorize the Quran, declare the
shahada
The ''Shahada'' ( Arabic: ٱلشَّهَادَةُ , "the testimony"), also transliterated as ''Shahadah'', is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there i ...
, fasted, prayed, and some were even able to write in Arabic.
Over time most of them lost their Islamic identity due to forced mixing of ethnic groups. Mu’minun of African descent belonging to the Islamic nations of Mandinka, Fula, Susu, Ashanti and Hausa ceaselessly tried to maintain their Islamic practices in secrecy,
while working as slaves on the plantations in Jamaica. By the time the slaves were liberated, much of the Muslim faith of the past had faded, and the freed slaves picked up the faith of their former slave masters. Some Muslim slaves returned to Africa or traveled to other parts of Latin America while others remained in Jamaica and practiced their faith in secret. These factors led to the virtual disappearance of Islam in Jamaica outside of the Indian community.
About 16 percent of the 37,000 indentured
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n immigrants who arrived to Jamaica between 1845 and 1917 were Muslims. Muhammad Khan, who came to Jamaica in 1915 at the age of 15, built Masjid Ar-Rahman in
Spanish Town in 1957, while
Westmoreland's Masjid Hussein was built by Muhammad Golaub, who immigrated with his father at the age of 7. The indentured Muslims laid the foundation of the eight other masjids established in Jamaica since the 1960s, with the advent of an indigenous Jamaican Muslim community that now forms the majority of the Muslim populace on the island.
Current demography
The statistics for Islam in Jamaica estimate a total
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
population of about 1,513.
There are several
Islamic organizations and
mosques in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, including the Islamic Council of Jamaica which was founded in 1981 and the Islamic Education and Dawah Center, both located in
Kingston and offering classes in Islamic studies and daily prayers in congregation. Outside Kingston organizations include Masjid Al Haq in
Mandeville, Masjid Al-Ihsan in
Negril
Negril is a small (pop. 6,900) but widely dispersed seaside resort, beach resort and town located in Westmoreland Parish, Westmoreland and Hanover Parish, Hanover Parishes of Jamaica, parishes at the far western tip of Jamaica, southwest from ...
, Masjid-Al-Hikmah in
Ocho Rios
Ocho Rios (Spanish for "Eight Rivers") is a town in the parish of Saint Ann on the north coast of Jamaica, and is more widely referred to as ''Ochi'' by locals. Beginning as a sleepy fishing village, Ocho Rios has seen explosive growth in the ...
, the Port Maria Islamic Center in
Saint Mary and the
Mahdi Mosque in
Old Harbour.
Festivals
These are the main Islamic Festivals practised by Jamaican Muslims:
* The
Ramadan Fast
*
Hosay
Hosay (originally from Husayn) is a Muslim Indo-Caribbean commemoration that is popularly observed in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Guyana, and Suriname. In Trinidad and Tobago, multi-coloured model mausoleums or mosque-shaped model tombs kno ...
(or
Ashura)
*
Id al Fitr (or Eid-Ul-Fitr)
*
Eid al Adha
Eid al-Adha () is the second and the larger of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam (the other being Eid al-Fitr). It honours the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ismail (Ishmael) as an act of obedience to Allah' ...
(or Id-al-Kabir)
*
Mawlid
*
Miraj
Miraj (Pronunciation: iɾəd͡z ) is a city in Sangli District and also in Maharashtra, India, that was founded in the early 10th century. It was an important jagir of the Adil Shahi court of Bijapur.
Shivaji Maharaj stayed in Miraj for ...
*
Hijrah
The Hijrah or Hijra () was the journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina. The year in which the Hijrah took place is also identified as the epoch of the Lunar Hijri and Solar Hijri calendars; its date e ...
References
Further reading
* Islamic Horizons Sept/Oct 2001
* Afroz, S. (2001) 'The Jihad of 1831–1832: The Misunderstood
* Baptist Rebellion in Jamaica'
ournal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2001
{{Islam in the Americas
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...