Islam in Mexico

Muslims in Tijuana

There is very little information about the origins of Islam in Mexico, but most sources claim it arrived with either Lebanese or Syrian immigrants and some other Middle Easterners such as Egyptians, Iranians and Turks. According to the 2010 census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), there were 3,700 Muslims in the country, majority are Sunnites, with Shiite and Ahmadiyya minority.

Organizations

Mezquita Soraya, the first mosque in Mexico

Today, most Mexican Islamic organizations focus on grassroot missionary activities which are most effective at the community level.

The Centro Cultural Islámico de México (CCIM), a Sunni organization headed by Omar Weston, a British born Mexican convert to Islam, has been active in several big cities in northern and central Mexico. In the state of Morelos, the CCIM built a prayer hall and centre for recreation, learning and conferences, called Dar as Salaam, which also operates Hotel Oasis, a hotel that offers halal holidays for Muslim travellers and accommodation for non-Muslims sympathetic to Islam. This group was the subject of a study carried out by British anthropologist Mark Lindley-Highfield of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. Apart from CCIM there is a branch of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order in Mexico City which is often at odds with the traditionalist Muslim community and is headed by two women, Shaykha Fatima Fariha and Shaykha Amina Teslima. There is also a small Salafi organization (the Centro Salafi de México) led by Muhammad Abdullah Ruiz (a former deputy to Weston) and an educational centre managed mainly by Muslims from Egypt and the Middle East, el "Centro Educativo de la Comunidad Musulmana en México" (run by Isa Rojas a Mexican convert to Islam which studied Islamic studies in the University of Medina), within the capital city.

Muslim population by state

Federal Entity	Muslim Population (2010)
Mexico (whole country)	3,762
Aguascalientes	32
Baja California	190
Baja California Sur	20
Campeche	32
Coahuila	79
Colima	17
Chiapas	110
Chihuahua	78
Durango	34
Guanajuato	111
Guerrero	26
Hidalgo	38
Jalisco	248
México (state)	417
Michoacán	60
Morelos	98
Nayarit	17
Nuevo León	126
Oaxaca	40
Puebla	166
Querétaro	101
Quintana Roo	151
San Luis Potosí	56
Sinaloa	55
Sonora	45
Tabasco	13
Tamaulipas	63
Tlaxcala	19
Veracruz	86
Yucatán	43
Zacatecas	13
Mexican Federal District	1,178

In Chiapas

The Spanish Murabitun community, the Comunidad Islámica en España, based in Granada in Spain, had strong ties to the Chiapas community. The Spanish missionary Muhammad Nafia (formerly Aureliano Pérez), now emir of the Comunidad Islámica en México, arrived in the state of Chiapas shortly after the Zapatista uprising and established a commune in the city of San Cristóbal. Since then there have been reports of indigenous Mayans and Tzotzils converting to Islam. President Vicente Fox voiced concerns about the influence of the fundamentalism and possible connections to the Zapatistas and the Basque terrorist organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), but it appeared that converts had no interest in political extremism. In San Cristóbal, the Murabitun established a pizzeria, a carpentry workshop and a Quranic school (madrasa) where children learned Arabic and prayed five times a day in the backroom of a residential building. Nowadays, most of the Mayan Muslims have left the Murabitun and established ties with the CCIM, now following the orthodox Sunni school of Islam. They built the Al-Kausar Mosque in San Cristobal de las Casas.

Mosques

The Dar as Salam mosque in Tequesquitengo.

• Suriya Mosque in Torreon, Coahuila.
• Dar es Salaam Mosque in Tequesquitengo, Morelos.
• Tahaarah Mosque in Comitan, Chiapas.
• Al Kautsar Mosque in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.
• Al Medina Mosque in San Cristobal de las casas,Chiapas
• Musala Tlaxcala #30 San Critobal de las Casas, Chiapas
• Murabitun Mosque San Cristobal de las casa, Chiapas
• Salafi Mosque Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab in Mexico City.
• Mezquita/ tekke de la Orden Jalveti Yerraji instituto Luz Sobre Luz in Mexico City.
• Masiid Omar, Centro Islamico Tijuana Beaches, Baja California, Mexico.
• Al-Hikmah Ciudad de México, Aragón, Mexico.
• Mezquita Euclides Euclides 25, Col. Anzures, Polanco,Ciudad de México

See also

• Religion in Mexico
• KUSUMO, Fitra Ismu, "ISLAM EN AMERICA LATINA Tomo I: La expansión del Islam y su llegada a América Latina (Spanish Edition)"[1]

• KUSUMO, Fitra Ismu, "ISLAM EN AMÉRICA LATINA Tomo II: Migración Árabe a América Latina y el caso de México (Spanish Edition)" [2]

• KUSUMO, Fitra Ismu, "ISLAM EN AMÉRICA LATINA Tomo III: El Islam hoy desde América Latina (Spanish Edition)"[3]

Sources

• Centro Cultural Islamico de México, A.C. (Spanish)
• Mexico Discovers Islam, Michelle Al-Nasr
• Islam is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas, Jens Glüsing, Der Spiegel
• Adherents.com - Mexico, continued...
• [4] Centro Educativo de la Comunidad Musulmana A.C
• KUSUMO, Fitra Ismu, "Islam En Mexico Contemporaneo", Tesis de Maestria, Escuela Nacional Antropologia e Historia 2004, Mexico ENAH-INAH. (Spanish) [5]