Latin American Muslims

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010[update] found that Muslims make up 0.1% of all of Latin America's population.

From 1492 to 1610, over 3 million Muslims were expelled from the area, with many settling in North Africa, while others attempted to migrate to Latin America.

[4] During his first journey in 1492, Christopher Columbus' interpreter Luis de Torres was a converted Jewish man who spoke in Arabic.

[5] In 1501, Spain increased its efforts to promote Spanish culture in the colonies by creating royal decrees to limit the settlement of Latin America to Catholics.

These decrees sought to ensure that the Catholic faith would be spread throughout the region by limiting the presence of Muslim and Jewish settlers, as well as those who were newly converted.

[6] Furthermore, Spanish rulers issued a series of decrees beginning in 1508 which banned the settlement of the descendants of converted Catholics or those convicted in the Inquisition in the Americas.

[9] The Christian concept of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood), first introduced during the Inquisition's prosecution of religious minorities, played a significant role in shaping colonial racism and the formation of ethno-religious states in Brazil which persisted even after slavery.

This was the first group of Muslim migrants that did not face extreme persecution for either race or religion, therefore is thought to be the most influential source of Islam in modern-day Brazil.

In the 1990s, more Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian and other Middle Eastern migrants came to Brazil as refugees and immigrants fleeing political instability.

Major differences are Asian descending have more of a direct faith to the Muslim relgion, where as Afro-Muslims have a religion that is blended with Christianity due to forced conversion.

[citation needed] A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010[update] found that the number of Muslims in Latin America and Caribbean is around 840,000.

[15] According to the International Religious Freedom Report in 2015[update], the actual size of Argentina's Muslim community is estimated to be around 1% of the total population (400,000 to 500,000 members).