Islam in Brazil

Islam in Brazil was first practiced by African slaves. The early Brazilian Muslims led the largest slave revolt in Brazil and Latin America, which then had the largest slave population of the world.The next significant migration of Muslims was by Arabs from Syria and Lebanon. The number of Muslims in Brazil, according to the 2010 Brazilian census, was of 35,207.

History

African immigration

The history of Muslims in Brazil begins with the importation of African slave labor to the country. Brazil obtained 37% of all African slaves traded, and more than 3 million slaves were sent to this one country. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves to work the sugar plantations once the native Tupi people deteriorated. Scholars claim that Brazil received more enslaved Muslims than anywhere else in the Americas.

During the days of the Barbary Wars, some native Brazilians came into interaction with Muslim lands. It was noted by Dr. Antonio Sosa, a Portuguese cleric held captive in North Africa in the 1570s, that the infamous port of Algiers maintained one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world including Amerindians from Iberian colonies in the New World.[4] Barbary corsairs were known to attack shipping and take prisoners coming from the Americas. In 1673, 140 prisoners were taken from a Rio de Janeiro fleet while a 1674 capture of a Brazilian ship contributed in the decision to increase naval protection.


Malê Revolt

The Muslim uprising of 1835 in Bahia illustrates the condition and legacy of resistance among the community of Malês, as African Muslims were known in 19th-century Bahia. The majority of the participants were Nago, the local designation for ethnic Yoruba. Many of the "Malês" had been soldiers and captives in the wars between Oyo, Ilorin and other Yoruba city-states in the early part of the 19th century. Other participants included Hausa and Nupe clerics, along with Jeje or Dahomean soldiers who had converted to Islam or fought in alliance with Muslims."

Beginning on the night of January 24, 1835, and continuing the following morning, a group of African born slaves occupied the streets of Salvador and for more than three hours they confronted soldiers and armed civilians.

Even though it was short lived, the revolt was the largest slave revolt in Brazil and the largest urban slave revolt in the Americas. About 300 Africans took part and the estimated death toll ranges from fifty to a hundred, although exact numbers are unknown. This number increases even more if the wounded who died in prisons or hospitals are included.Many participants were sentenced to death, prison, whippings, or deportation. The rebellion had nationwide repercussions. Fearing the example might be followed, the Brazilian authorities began to watch the malês very carefully and in subsequent years intensive efforts were made to force conversions to Catholicism and erase the popular memory of and affection towards Islam. However, the African Muslim community was not erased overnight, and as late as 1910 it is estimated there were still some 100,000 African Muslims living in Brazil.


Muslim immigrants in Brazil

Following the revolt of the Afro-Brazilian Muslim community, the next period of Islam in the country was primarily the result of Muslim immigration from the Middle East and South East Asia. Some 11 million Syrian and Lebanese (mostly Maronite Christians) immigrants live throughout Brazil. The biggest concentration of Muslims is found in the greater São Paulo region.


Architecture and cuisine also bear the trademarks of the culture brought to the hemisphere by the Arabs. As an example, the second largest fast food chain in Brazil is Habib's, which serves Arab food. The diversity of influence also stretches to businesses such as the textile industry, which is mostly run by merchants of Syrian-Lebanese origin (mainly of Christian faith). The São Paulo city council has a Muslim Councillor by the name of Mohammad Murad, a lawyer.[13] A number of mosques dot the greater São Paulo area, the oldest and most popular of these being found on Av. Do Estado. Since its establishment, the mosque has added a Quranic school, library, kitchen and meeting hall for various functions.

Today

Population

Mosque in Cuiabá, Brazil.

According to the Brazilian census of 2010 there were 35,167 Muslims living in the country, primarily concentrated in the states of São Paulo and Paraná, compared to 22,450 Muslims in 1990 and 27,239 in 2000. There are significant Muslim communities in the industrial suburbs of the city of São Paulo and in the port city of Santos, as well as in smaller communities in Paraná State in the coastal region and in Curitiba and Foz do Iguaçu in the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay triborder area. The community is overwhelmingly Sunni; the Sunnis are almost completely assimilated into broader society. The recent Shi'ite immigrants gravitate to small insular communities in São Paulo, Curitiba, and Foz do Iguaçu.

A recent trend has been the increase in conversions to Islam among non-Arab citizens.A recent Muslim source estimated that there are close to 10,000 Muslim converts living in Brazil. During the past 30 years, Islam has become increasingly noticeable in Brazilian society by building not only mosques, but also libraries, arts centres, and schools and also by funding newspapers. The growth of Islam within Brazil is demonstrated in the fact that 2 of the 3 existing Portuguese translations of the Qur'an were created by Muslim translators in São Paulo.

Infrastructure

Islamic Centre of Campinas.

As has been the case in many of the larger metropolitan mosques in South America, foreign assistance and individual effort have played major roles in the sustainability of the mosques in the greater São Paulo area. For example the Imam of the Av. Do Estado Mosque is from the Middle East and often Imams are chosen jointly by the Mosques' management committees and the Arab governments that pay for the Imam's services. Ismail Hatia, a South African who came to Brazil in 1956, built a mosque in Campinas many years ago. Hatia, who also runs a language school, felt that the approximately 50 Muslim families in Campinas were in dire need of some community organization to help provide cohesion and direction for the Muslims. The Campinas mosque now holds regular Friday juma'at prayers.

Muslim And Happy In ... Brazil

SAO PAULO — There's a big crowd for midday prayers this Friday. More than 500 people — men, women and children — are gathered at the Brazil mosque in Sao Paulo, the oldest and largest Muslim prayer hall in Latin America. The white early 20th century building is surrounded by high walls and shady trees, and retains its peace and serenity despite the city highway built next to it.

A day after the Paris terrorist attacks last January, someone wrote "En sou Charlie" (Je suis Charlie) on the mosque's perimeter wall. The words were quickly cleaned off. Local media characterized it as an "isolated act." The habitual peace and quiet returned, or so it seemed.

A third of the believers here come from West Africa and Arab countries. They are youngsters aged 20 to 35, recently arrived migrants lured here by Brazil's reputation as a land of immense wealth, or forced to flee violence and war. The remainder are Brazilians, half of whom converted to Islam in recent years. Most have earphones to listen to a translation of the sermon. As in practically all mosques in Sao Paulo — there are 17 — the imam doesn't speak Portuguese.

The important thing is that the "faith is accepted," says the primary religious authority in the area, Abdelhamid Metwally, who arrived from Egypt in 2007. Metwally, a graduate of Cairo's Al-Azhar University, speaks with authority and dons a long, black robe and a red fez wrapped in white. "It's so they''ll recognize me," he says with a smile. "But the main thing is what is inside you."

Metwally bears witness every week as four to six Brazilians convert to Islam and utter the profession of faith (shahada). "Brazil is a country of tremendous tolerance, where we can express our beliefs with great freedom, which is not the case anymore in some European countries," he explains.

Soap opera effect

Brazil, the world's most Catholic country, has witnessed a significant increase in Muslims over the past 15 years. The exact number is difficult to know as "they are registered under the 'other' category," says Francirosy Ferreira, an anthropology professor and Islamic specialist at Sao Paulo University (USP). "But their estimated number is now about a million, of whom 30% to 50% are converts, depending on the region," he says. Brazil's overall population is approximately 200 million.

Islam was repressed in the early 18th century when Muslim slaves carried out several revolts. It began to recover in recover in Brazil in the 1920s, with the influx of Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians. This gained momentum in the 1980s and after the 9/11 attacks.

"One observed a renewal of interest in this religion, which was being reviled in the media," Ferreira says. "But here, there was even more interest after October 2001, when the broadcaster Globo began airing a soap opera that took place in Morocco," he adds. The series, called , was created before the terror attacks and sought to paint a picture of the Arab world that included an entirely admirable Muslim protagonist.

But the show's timing — that fact that it coincided with the attacks — "made an impression," says Luiz Carlos Lucena, who has made a documentary on conversions to Islam. According to some sources, roughly 70% of converts in Brazil are women, mostly young and relatively well educated. A large proportion of them are from metropolitan suburbs where Islam's messages about social justice and race equality increasingly resonate.

Cristiane Bertolino converted in 2008, at the Do Pari mosque in Sao Paulo. "I come from a Catholic family and have never had a problem since I began wearing a headscarf, even at work," she says. "It is good to be a Muslim in Brazil. It could even be the best place for a Muslim. I'm not saying there are no prejudices or frictions, but there is no conflict."

"You feel very different"

Dana al-Balkhi arrived here in September 2013 on a direct flight from Istanbul. The 26-year-old language student was one of 1,740 Syrians given refugee status in Brazil at that time. "I knocked at every embassy in Turkey, and Brazil's was the only one to give me a visa," she says in her lively manner.

Her sister came with her but returned to Syria after a few days. "Brazil was too liberal for her. I am a believer too, but less rigid," she says. Dana admits she doesn't like Samba or carnival. She also doesn't understand why her Brazilian friends keep asking her to drink alcohol and dance. "Brazil is an extremely welcoming country," she says. "But it's difficult to practice Islam here. Halal food is expensive and difficult to find. And even if you're not viewed with hostility, you feel very different."

Dana has given private lessons, worked in a clothes shop and been refused jobs, notably in a private school, but now works at the Brasil mosque. There were so many calls after the Paris attacks, she recalls. Metwally and about 40 other imams nationwide swiftly issued public condemnations of the attacks. There were isolated calls, for example from Ali Zoghbi, deputy head of Brazil's Federation of Muslim Associations, that France should also punish blasphemy, though with limited repercussions.

Daniela Ernst, a 30-year-old English teacher who converted as a child, has a more nuanced view of the country. "For Muslims, it is clearly easier to live in Brazil right now than elsewhere," she says. But hostility does exist, according to Ernst, who says she has seen evangelical pamphlets that are openly anti-Muslim. She also mentions an incident in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the house of a Muslim family in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. And in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, a student with a headscarf had stones thrown at her after the Paris attacks, the teacher recalls.

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