ISLAM IN OCEANIA

'Islam in Oceania' refers to Islam and Muslims in Oceania. Some countries in Oceania, notable Australia, have Islam as their third largest religion, after Christianity and Buddhism. By current estimates, there are 600,000 Muslims in Oceania ^[1]

Contents

History

References

History

Islam has been in some parts of Oceania for at least 400 hundred years (since the 1600s). When the people of Papua New Guinea and West Papua traded with China and the Malay empire, in the early 1600s, the presence of Islam was felt in Oceania for the first time ^[2].
Other parts of Oceania hadn't felt the presence of Islam until the 1800s. The first Muslims in Fiji, for example, came when Muslim migrants came on a ship bringing indentured labourers to Fiji in 1879. The first such ship, Leonidas, had 22% of the boarders Muslims. In the next 40 years, a total of 60,553 labourers were brought to Fiji from India under the Indenture system.

References

1. http://www.islamicpopulation.com/oceania_general.html
2. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/3028825.stm