In 2001, Sheikh Muhammad bin Nassir Al-Aboudy, the Assistant Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL), traveled to Cuba to obtain permission from the Cuban authorities to establish an Islamic organization that would support Cuba's Muslim community.
Among the other aims of the proposed organization would be the construction of mosques and the dissemination of Islamic culture among Muslims.
Many different groups of Africans arrived in Cuba in the nineteenth century and joined with the Mandingas because of a jihad in Western Africa.
[4] Little formal records exist on the impact of Islam on Cuba in the colonial times, but the Registry of the Court of Mixed Commission of Havana does confirm the Muslim African slaves' arrival in Cuba by documented records which included a unique number to each individual, sex, name, age, height, and from which the slaves came.
[9] Islam became gained in popularity while the country endured an economic crisis, and would come to be more organized by the 1990s.
[11] A lot has changed from the time when Muslims in Cuba could have faced consequences because of the government to having their own mosque with teachers.
With new teachers and a public place to worship more Cubans will be exposed to Islam and the religion will grow.
Former President Fidel Castro was reported to have promised to build a mosque for his country's Muslims, according to members of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) who visited Cuba.
[15] Other Sunnis are concentrated in the Malcolm X Center, in the home of the Muslim Hassan Abdul Gafur, in Cerro, in Havana.