Musulmán is the Spanish word for Muslim
UPDATE 1/9/18 This paper was written over 10 years ago as a college paper assignment. This paper is not intented to serve as an authority of the topic of Islam and Islam in Latin America, but it merely an observation with cited sources.
This is the first of many Monotone Monday series titled: Obscure College Papers, where I will post my own college papers and short stories for your reading pleasure.
Without further adieu, I give you: Musulmán
Musulmán is the Spanish word for Muslim. It is an identity rarely discussed in Latin America and even more rarely understood. But in recent years, there has been a demand for knowledge in this subject and an understanding for it that has broken many boundaries and stereotypes in the region. Since its discovery, Latin America has been dominated by Christianity. Against her will, the region has been submitted to Catholic conquest, colonization and conversion. As of recently, however, the presence of Islam has been acknowledged after years of being virtually overlooked in Latin America. Despite its long history in the Iberian Peninsula, the religion’s demand in Latin America has just reached new heights over the past hundred years. Islam has found itself a comfortable niche in Latin America. Its ability to acculturate the traditions and customs in Spanish speaking countries, as with the English and Dutch colonies of the same region, has allowed Islam to flourish in Latin America. In my paper, I will discuss the avenues in which Islam has been brought to Latin America and the presence currently experience in the region.
Latin America’s bond to Islam is deeply rooted in her history. As descendants from Spain, Latin Americans were at the receiving end of a vicious conquest. When Islam conquered Spain in the beginning of the 8th century, it dominated the Iberian Peninsula for almost 800 years, contributing to the cultural flourishing of the region, “leaving an imprint on Spanish food, music, and language” (Green). By the end of their rule in the early 1500s, Spaniards were ready to re-establish Catholicism and would do so in Iberia as well as overseas. The Reconquista1 lingered among the Spaniards and Portuguese. Upon their arrival to the New World, they compared Indians to their Muslim adversaries. The natives were referred to as “infidels” and their temples were called mezquitas, which comes from the Arabic masjid or mosque. In the New World, Spaniards kept their battle cry “Santiago”, which they used in the Christian-Muslim wars of Andalusia, the southern region of Iberia governed by the Muslims. This was a famous war cry against the Moors, and they “continued to exercise its mysterious power whether in the torrid regions of the Antilles or in the placid regions of the South American mountains” (Bazán, 173). Explorers and Conquistadores2 would constantly compare and parallel the Indians to the Moors, and as a result, they were less likely to sympathize or relate, yet quick to strike and suppress. The constant pairing of Indigenous with Islamic tradition began to fade away with the process of religious conversion. The Reconquista in Spain allowed Islam to be virtually erased from its history. Few are aware of the implications of this denial and how the Moorish influence has made Spain and Latin America what it is today. In recent years, Latin American Muslims have felt a sense of entitlement to the religion, just as they once felt entitlement to Christianity. This entitlement allows many Latin Americans to undertake the religion with a sense of pride and reassurance.
This may also be true for the natives of Latin America. In Mexico, for example, most converts have come from the Indigenous population. For many Indigenous converts, the appeal of Islam has much to do with their treatment among the Spanish-Catholic community, which is the majority of Mexico. Most of the Christian Mayas in Chiapas, for example, have converted because most of them “had been abandoned by Mexican society and [were] ripe for the Islamic group’s message of another path.” The indigenous populations of Mexico find comfort in Islam, and in their equality. Many believe that Christianity destroyed their culture, and use the example of alcohol abuse as proof of this destruction. Although alcoholism is prevalent among the Tzotzil Indians, for example, they hope that “the strict band on spirits in Islam helps many to break the vicious circle of addiction and poverty” (Glusing). They believe that only through Islam can they rediscover their original values. Therefore, in this particular setting, Islam can lend itself to the Indigenous community’s need for social and economic changes.
The Islamic-Latin American ties are also deeply rooted in African culture, mainly through the African Muslims who joined Conquistadores and Transatlantic Slave Trade. There have been claims, by Arab and Africans Muslims, of New World discoveries years prior to the Spanish Conquest. European explorers are said to have “heard or read of Muslims finding strange, wonderful, distant lands across the Atlantic and felt that it was a shortcut to India” (Westerlund 443). Many Moorish Science Temple Muslims3 claim descent “from the Moorish settlers before Columbus and that the importation of slaves never existed and was a lie made to separate them from their land” (444). The first most significant migration of Muslims was African slaves. For 400 years, millions of slaves were brought to the New World and small percentage of them was Muslim. Brazil, for example, had the highest percentage of African slaves from the slave trade (approximately 35.4%) and Islamic culture was once very strong among a part of them (Garcia). The early Muslims of Brazil were of African origin, and they were also the most literate of African slaves. Many African Muslims came from the African regions of Yoruba and Hausa, and were able to keep Islam alive in the New World until the 20th century. When slavery and segregation were abolished many of the African Muslims, who were now seen as “leaders among slaves” were forced to assimilate. Today, the number of African Muslims in Brazil has diminished, mainly because of the abolition of slavery and other “factors which led to a decline in the number…were public education, inter-marriage and desegregation” (Westerlund, 457).
The third significant migration of Muslims came after World War I and II, after an influx of Arabs to the region from countries such as Syria and Lebanon, and more recently South Asia. This is the source of the Islamic rediscovery in Latin America. Over the past 50 years, Muslims have been building their lives in Latin America, and spreading Islam throughout their communities. Mexico and Argentina are good examples countries with strong Muslim communities. Due to the lack of African slave descendants, Islam’s origin in Mexico and Argentina are often attributed to the Syrian or Turkish immigrants that migrated after World War I and II. Even though Islam is not publicly approved by the majority of Latin Americans, its influence is more than accepted by many. For example, in 1995, the death of the son of the Argentinean president, Carlos Menem created shock among Argentinean citizens. Not because of his son’s death, but rather, the manner in which the funerary services took place. Although President Menem had converted to Catholicism, his family, who were Syrian immigrants, remained Muslim. His deceased son, Carlos Menem Jr., “identified himself as an Argentinean Muslim, his self-portrait being that of someone who believed in God, the Prophet and the Quran, but [he was] not a practicing Muslim” because he could not pray at the mosque, refrain from drinking alcohol or eat pork, because it was “difficult to stick to such practices while living in Argentina” (Jozami, 69). Many speculate that President Menem’s was always Muslim at heart, and his conversion was merely political4, which shows the power of the Catholic Church in Latin American government. For his son’s funeral, Menem “requested to give him a Muslim ‘Ghusal’ (the ritual burial cleansing) and he was buried according to the Muslim rites in an Islamic cemetery” (Arif). Despite the demand for Islamic awareness and religious identity in the Americas, the Catholic Church still has a grip on Latin American religiosity, to the point, that it affects the light in which Latin Americans view Islam, and can often construe negatively in the eyes of the majority and mass media.
The skewed understanding of Islam in Latin America lends itself to misinterpretation and assumptions similar to the ones made after the events of September 11th. This might give insight on the rise of suspicions of terrorism in the region and the “Islamic fundamentalism and terrorist activity in Latin America, whether it’s the unsolved 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires or fund raising in the ‘wild west’ Tri-Border Area5” (Connell). The U.S State Department’s annual report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, has highlighted concerns of terrorist activity in this region with potential links to the Al Qaeda terrorist network although they’ve been claimed as “uncorroborated by intelligence and law-enforcement officials” (Sullivan, CRS-2). Many government officials are convinced that these events are closely connected to the conflict occurring in the Middle East, and that the terrorist attack on September 11th “was part of the global collision between those that uphold Western Ideals and Islamic fundamentalists who do not hold a democratic world view” (Connell). Even though this clash of Western and non-Western Cultures is being disputed in a new setting, Latin America identifies very well with it. Latin America’s political past points towards this type of conflict. From the revolutionary years of the 60s, paired with cycles of democracies spawning military regimes and vice-versa, Latin America has been politically unstable, as seen in the variety of countries that differ in political ideology, from the democratic consumer capitalist in Chile, to the militant socialist in Venezuela. Latin America has also been subjected to Western Ideals, and although its culture is partly indigenous and African, it is constantly grouped to the expectations of Western Civilization and Western religiosity.
The practice of Islam as a religion is one that can cater to many cultures. In addition, it is almost a perfect fit within the context of Latin America culture. They both have the similar experiences seen in colonialism, military interventions and “revolving door coups” (Hunter 144). Latin America’s history with Islam also reflects a lingering familiarity with the traditions passed down from the Moors during their rule in Spain. Muslims must contend to misrepresentation through mass media, however, the pretense of “exclusion from historic record has been turning around to a point where most recent history texts mention Muslims in the New World” (Westerlund 456). The presence of Islam in Latin America is inevitable and the rise of Latin American Muslims will continue to grow. The Moorish history, the underdevelopment, the anti-Catholic and Anti-colonial sentiment allows Islam to grow beyond its boundaries in these communities.Page Break Works Cited
Althaus, Dudley. “Islam Taking Root in Southern Mexico”. Houston Chronicle. 2002
Connell, Curtis C., USAF. “Understanding Islam and its Impact on Latin America.” Air University, Air Force Fellows. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. April 2004.
Garcia, Lupe. “Trans-Atlantic Trade: Commerce and Slavery”. Latin American History I. 16 October 2006. Fall 2006. University of Central Florida.
Glusing, Jens. “Praying to Allah in Mexico: Islam Is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas”. Spiegel Magazine. Online. 28 May 2005. < http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,358223,00.html>
Guevara Bazán, Rafael A. “Muslim Immigration to Spanish America.” The Muslim World. July 1996. Vol. 56:3 (173-187). Blackwell Synergy Online. University of Cenral Florida Library, Orlando, FL. 24 April 2007 www.blackwell-synergy.com.
Jozami, Gladys. “The Manifestation of Islam in Argentina.” The Americas. July 1996. Vol. 53:1 (67-85). JSTOR Online. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL. 4 October 2007.
Sullivan, Mark P. “Latin America: Terrorism Issues.” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress. January 14, 2005. Library of Congress.
Westerlund, David and Ingvar Svanberg. Islam Outside the Arab World. St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1999. (pp. 443-459).
