Islam in the Americas

A longer story than many think

Islam is often presented as something foreign to Latin America. Its story here is longer than many people think. It touches the year 1492, the Africans brought across the Atlantic, and the Arab families who settled across the continent.

Sources Diouf, 1998(opens in a new window)

1492: the same year

In January 1492, Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, surrendered. In August, Columbus sailed west. His interpreter on that first voyage, Luis de Torres, was a converso, a Jew forced to convert, who spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and some Arabic: Columbus expected to need Arabic to speak with the rulers of Asia. The end of al-Andalus and the voyage to the Americas belong to the same year.

Sources Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906(opens in a new window); Luis de Torres, Wikipedia(opens in a new window)

Muslims from West Africa

Among the millions of Africans enslaved and brought to the Americas, a significant number were Muslims from West Africa. Many held on to their faith in the hardest conditions: they kept their prayers, fasted, and could read and write Arabic, and their learning and organisation played a part in some of the best-known uprisings against slavery. Their story is part of the history of the Caribbean, Brazil and the whole continent.

Sources Diouf, 1998(opens in a new window)

The Malê revolt: Bahia, 1835

In Salvador, Bahia, Muslims were called malês, from the Yoruba word imale, a Muslim. They taught each other to read and write Arabic in rented rooms used as private mosques, practising on wooden boards. In January 1835, during Ramadan, several hundred enslaved and freed African Muslims rose up in the city. The revolt was put down, but it remains one of the best-known uprisings against slavery in the Americas.

Sources Reis, 1993(opens in a new window); Malê revolt, Wikipedia(opens in a new window); BlackPast(opens in a new window)

Arab and Palestinian families

From the late 19th century, Arab families settled across Latin America. Palestinians came to Chile, Honduras and El Salvador, most of the first of them Christians from around Bethlehem, and Chile’s Palestinian community is now estimated at more than 500,000 people. Brazil is estimated to have around 7 million people of Lebanese descent, by the reckoning of the Brazilian and Lebanese governments: more than Lebanon itself, though surveys that ask people directly find fewer. Many came as travelling traders and went on to build businesses and communities.

Sources Foroohar, Journal of Palestine Studies(opens in a new window); BBC News Mundo, 2021(opens in a new window); Lebanese Brazilians, Wikipedia(opens in a new window)

Arab is not the same as Muslim

This history also untangles two words the news often mixes up. Many Arabs are Christian, as were most of the first Arab families in Latin America, and most Muslims are not Arab: only about one in five Muslims live in the Middle East and North Africa. Islam’s story in the Americas includes Africans, Arabs, and today Latinos themselves.

Sources Pew Research Center, 2025(opens in a new window)

References

  1. Luis de Torres, Wikipedia, consulted 23 October 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Torres(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  2. Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, NYU Press, 1998. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/7563(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  3. Malê revolt, Wikipedia (drawing on João José Reis), consulted 23 October 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%C3%AA_revolt(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  4. BlackPast, The Malê Rebellion in Brazil (1835). https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/the-male-rebellion-in-brazil-1835/(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  5. Manzar Foroohar, Palestinians in Central America: From Temporary Emigrants to a Permanent Diaspora, Journal of Palestine Studies. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/42442(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  6. BBC News Mundo, Cómo llegó Chile a tener la mayor comunidad de palestinos fuera del mundo árabe, 3 June 2021 (republished by T13). https://www.t13.cl/noticia/nacional/bbc/como-llego-chile-a-tener-la-mayor-comunidad-de-palestinos-fuera-del-mundo-arabe(opens in a new window) Accessed 22 October 2026.
  7. Lebanese Brazilians, Wikipedia (citing Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IBGE surveys), consulted 23 October 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Brazilians(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  8. Pew Research Center, Muslim population change, 9 June 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/muslim-population-change/(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  9. João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, translated by Arthur Brakel, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/2365/slave-rebellion-brazil(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.
  10. America, the Discovery of, Jewish Encyclopedia (1906): Luis de Torres “understood Hebrew, Chaldaic, and some Arabic” and was taken as interpreter. https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1385-america-the-discovery-of(opens in a new window) Accessed 23 October 2026.

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