Islam in Panama

Last updated January 10, 2024

Panama is a predominantly Christian country, with Islam being a minority religion. Due to the secular nature of Panama's constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.

Early history

Although this legend is fallacious, it is still believed that the first Muslims in Panama were Mandinka slaves, brought by the Portuguese slave traders to work the gold mines in 1552.^[2] The Mandinka were mainly animist and Muslims at that time, and their importation was prohibited by Spanish Laws but was violated by the Portuguese nonetheless. A group of about 500 that arrived on the Atlantic coast of Panama in 1552, escaped from a sinking ship. They elected a man called Bayano (Vaino) as their leader in the fight against the colonizers. They formed councils, in the areas now known as Darién Province, Bay of San Miguel, San Blas Islands and the area along the Bayano River, named after Bayano. Bayano gained truces with Panama's colonial governor, but the well known Commander Pedro de Ursúa successfully captured the guerrilla leader, who was sent to Peru and then Spain where he died in comfort at the expense of the royal treasury with an annuity. Although many insist on saying that Bayano was a Muslim, Bayano was not muslim as he used to attack the spanish troops under the cry of "SANTIAGO A ELLOS" asking the Christian patron saint of chivalry to help them in that dangerous moment.^[3]

Modern Period

The first wave of Muslims were single-male immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and Lebanon who arrived from 1904 to 1913 and later married local women. The first mosque was built by the Ahmadiyya Muslim movement, in 1930.^[4] In 1929 another group came from Bombay, India who went on to form the Sunni Indo-Pakistani Muslim Society. From 1929-1948 this organization (renamed Panama Muslim Mission) initiated construction on a mosque in Panama City. The location was half completed and was used for Eid prayers and classes for new Muslims, who numbered about twenty-five blacks of West Indian descent. There was also another group practicing Islam in Colón led by a Jamaican named Basil Austkan, who rented a place for salat on 6th Street and Broadway. In 1932 there was a group of Muslim in San Miguel, Calidonia in Panama City who resided in Short Street where they held meetings and prayers. The Muslims in Panama City of Indo-Pakistan origins had no family structure until 1951 when the first families arrived. In 1963, they purchased a plot in the local cemetery called Jardin de Paz; in 1991, property was purchased in an area called Arraijan, which is now used solely as a Muslim cemetery.

Community Development: 1970s to Present

In the mid-1970s some native Panamanians influenced by the Nation of Islam and led by Abdul Wahab Johnson and Suleyman Johnson, began propagating Islam in Panama City and Colón. After meeting with Dr. Abdulkhabeer Muhammad they began to study orthodox Sunni Islam. In 1977 they received financing from Arab merchants in Colon to rent a place on 7th Street and Central Avenue, Colón. This group, due to lack of knowledge and assistance, eventually disintegrated. The Indo-Pakistani Muslims began teaching their children at home in 1965 until 1973, when a small teaching program began in a room above Bazar Hindustan on Central Avenue, Panama City. In 1978, they began to use a place in the area of Perejil, Panama City, where prayers and meetings took place until the completion of the El Centro Cultural Islámico de Colón on January 15, 1982. This masjid was built jointly by the Islamic Call Society (based in Libya) and Salomon Bhikhu a local merchant from India. Since its inauguration, classes have been held in the evenings and Sundays for new Muslims and people interested in Islam, given by Dr. Abdulkhaber Muhammad and in his absence Hamza Beard. In 1991 the Muslim community purchased in Arraiján, which is now used solely as a Muslim cemetery. As of March 1997, there were four mosques Panama.

Mosques

Jama Mosque (Panama City)

Related Research Articles

The Anjuman Sunnat-ul-Jamaat Association (ASJA) is the largest and most influential Muslim organisation of Trinidad and Tobago. More than 80% of the Trinidadian Muslim belongs to Anjuman Sunnatul jamaat association. It operates 53 mosques, 7 Primary School and 6 secondary schools. The members of this organization are Sunni Hanafi Muslim.

Bayano, also known as Ballano or Vaino, was an African enslaved by Portuguese who led the biggest slave revolts of 16th century Panama. Captured from the Yoruba community in West Africa, it has been argued that his name means idol. Different tales tell of their revolt in 1552 beginning either on the ship en route, or after landing in Panama's Darien province along its modern-day border with Colombia. Rebel slaves, known as cimarrones, set up autonomous regions known as palenques, many of which successfully fended off Spanish control for centuries using guerrilla war and alliances with pirates, or indigenous nations who were in similar circumstances.

Cuba 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.

Islam is one of the smallest minority faiths in Costa Rica, whose state religion is Catholic Christianity. Without an official number by any state entity, it is considered that the number of Muslims in Costa Rica could be between 1000 and 1500 people, mostly emigrants from Algeria, India, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine and Syria. This number includes Muslims who have immigrated to Costa Rican territory as well as those Costa Ricans who have embraced the Islamic faith through conversion, whose number is estimated to be at around 100. The number of Muslims corresponding to the Sunni and Shia factions is also unknown, although it is generally considered that the Sunnis are the majority.

Jamaica is a predominantly Christian country, with Islam being a minority religion. Due to the secular nature of Jamaica's constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.

Ecuador is a predominantly Christian country, with adherents of Islam representing a very small minority. Due to secular nature of the Ecuador's constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country. The Pew Research Center estimates that Ecuador has a Muslim population of about 2,000, representing 0.011% out of the total population of 16,965,000 inhabitants.

According to 2007 statistics released by the U.S. Department of State concerning Islam in Nicaragua, there are approximately 1,200 to 1,500 Muslims, mostly Sunnis who are resident aliens or naturalized citizens from Palestine, Libya, and Iran or natural-born Nicaraguan citizens born to both of the two groups. The Islamic Cultural Center in Managua serves as the primary salaat (prayer) center for Muslims in the city, with approximately 320 men attending on a regular basis. Muslims from Granada, Masaya, Leon, and Chinandega also travel to the Managua center for Friday prayers. Granada, Masaya, and Leon have smaller prayer centers in the homes of prominent local Muslims. In May 2007 the Sunni leader of the Managua prayer center was dismissed, due to the increase in Iranian influence in the Muslim community and was to be replaced by a Shi'a religious leader. By the end of the reporting period the Shi'a leader had not been identified.

The Islamic Center of America is a mosque located in Dearborn, Michigan, in the United States. The 120,000 sq. ft. facility is the largest mosque in North America and the oldest purpose-built Shia mosque in the United States, as well as the second oldest mosque in the United States after 'Asser El Jadeed which originally opened in 1924 in Michigan City, Indiana. Although the institution dates back to 1963, the center's current mosque opened in 2005. With its large Shia Arab population, Dearborn is often called the "heart of Islam", especially for Shi'ism, in the United States.

The Islamic Society of Central New York is a "purpose-built" Sunni mosque and Islamic community centre located on Comstock Avenue in Syracuse, NY. Founded in 1981, by Khaja Qutubuddin, the center serves the needs of Central New York's estimated 15,000 - 20,000 Muslims providing various services and outreach programs for the Muslim and non-Muslim community. It also runs an Islamic cemetery and the Madrasat Al Ihsan/School of Excellence on West Onondaga Street. The mosque is served by a full-time Imam and is administered by an elected Shura Council.

Eswatini is an overwhelmingly Christian majority country, with adherents of Islam being a minuscule minority. Due to secular nature of the Eswatini's constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country.

Grenada is an overwhelmingly Christian majority country, with adherents of Islam being a minuscule minority. Due to secular nature of the Grenada's constitution, Muslims are free to proselytize and build places of worship in the country. There are over 500 Muslims in Grenada. They make up 0.75% of the population.

Tanzania is a Christian majority nation, with Islam being the largest minority faith in the country. According to a 2020 estimate by Pew research center, Muslims represent 34.1% of the total population. The faith was introduced by merchants visiting the Swahili coast, as it became connected to a larger maritime trade network dominated by Muslims. This would lead to local conversions and assimilations of foreign Muslims, ultimately causing the eventual formation of several officially Muslim political entities in the region. However, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), 55.3% of the population is Christian, 31.5% is Muslim, 11.3% practices traditional faiths, while 1.9% of the population is non-religious or adheres to other faiths as of 2020. The ARDA estimates that most Tanzanian Muslims are Sunni, with a small Shia minority, as of 2020.

After the death of Muhammad in 632, a group of Muslims, who would come to be known as the Sunnis, believed that Muhammad's successor as caliph of the Islamic community should be Abu Bakr, whereas a second group of Muslims, who would come to be known as the Shias, believed that his successor should have been Ali. This dispute spread across various parts of the Muslim world, which eventually led to the Battle of Jamal and Battle of Siffin. Sectarianism based on this historic dispute intensified greatly after the Battle of Karbala, in which Husayn ibn Ali and some of his close partisans, including members and children of the household of prophet, were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the outcry for revenge divided the early Islamic community, albeit disproportionately, into two groups, the Sunni and the Shia. This is known today as the Islamic schism.

Danish Pakistanis form the country's fifth largest community of migrants and descendants from a non-Western country, with 14,379 migrants and 11,282 locally born people of Pakistani descent as of 1 January 2019 according to the latest figures published by the government of Denmark.

Shab-e-Barat, Barat Night, Cheragh e Barat, Berat Kandili, or Nisfu Syaaban is a cultural celebration celebrated in many South Asian, Central Asian, South East Asian and Middle Eastern Muslim countries, on the 15th night of the month of Sha'ban, the eighth month of the Islamic calendar.

The Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH) is a system of mosques in Greater Houston. It is headquartered at the Eastside Main Center in Upper Kirby in Houston.

As of 2012, the city of Houston has the largest Muslim population in Texas and the largest Muslim population in the Southern United States. That year, Kate Shellnut of the Houston Chronicle wrote that "Some estimate that Muslims make up 1.2 percent of the city's population." As of 2012 the estimated population of Muslims in Houston was around 63,000. As of today, there are over 209 mosques and storefront religious centers, with the largest being the Al-Noor Mosque of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH).

The Qatif and Dammam mosque bombings occurred on 22 and 29 May 2015. On Friday May 22, a suicide bomber attacked the Shia "Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque" situated in Qudeih village of Qatif city in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed at least 21 people. The event is the second deadly attack against Shia in six months.

Central Jamaat-e Ahl-e Sunnat is a congregation and mosque of the Pakistani community in Oslo, Norway with 6,000 members, making it the largest mosque in the country. Within Sunni Islam, the mosque is affiliated with Sufism and the Barelvi movement.

References

↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-10. Retrieved 2010-11-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
↑ Islam Outside the Arab World by David Westerlund, Ingvar Svanberg, pg. 452
↑ "El Rey Bayano los Cimarrones y Su Captura". 19 July 2022.
↑ Ingvar Svanberg, David Westerlun (6 December 2012). Islam outside the Arab world. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1124--6 . Retrieved May 6, 2014.

v t e Islam in the Americas
United States and Canada Latin America and the Caribbean
Latin America Hispanic North America Northern Caribbean Central America South America
Sovereign states	Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Bahamas Barbados Belize Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Paraguay Peru Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Suriname Trinidad and Tobago United States Uruguay Venezuela
Dependencies and other territories	Anguilla Aruba Bermuda Bonaire British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Curaçao Falkland Islands French Guiana Greenland Guadeloupe Martinique Montserrat Puerto Rico Saba Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Turks and Caicos Islands U.S. Virgin Islands