Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Islam in Brazil

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions

  • 76 Accesses

Definition

Islam in Brazil incorporates a diverse set of traditions, practices, and histories generated through the migration, labor, and settlement of people in Brazil from Europe, Africa, and the Middle East from the time of colonization, slavery, and immigration beginning in the nineteenth century. Today, Muslim communities thrive in urban locales across the vast country, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Foz de Iguaçu, and Belo Horizonte, helping to sustain the practice for those born as Muslim as well as attracting the attention of a number of curious Brazilians and new converts. Despite this rich history of traditions, in a country entrenched in Catholic tradition and experiencing a recent rise in Pentecostalism, Islam continues to be viewed as an ethnic religion with roots from “elsewhere” and thus embedded in debates about ethnic and cultural authenticity.

Islam Among Early Colonization

Islam’s presence in Brazil dates back to the region European discovery in 1500...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Al-Baghdadi al-Dimachqi A (2007) Deleite do Estrangeiro em Tudo que é Espantoso e Maravilhoso (trans: Farah PD). Bibliaspa, Biblioteca Nacional, Biblioteca Ayacucho/Bibliothèque Nationale d’Algérie, Rio de Janeiro/Caracas/Argel

    Google Scholar 

  • Ahmed N (2001) Islam in global history: volume two: from the death of Prophet Muhammed to the first World War. Xlibris Corporation. American institute of Islamic history and Culture, Concord, CA

    Google Scholar 

  • Ali J (2015) Bahamian and Bazilian Muslimahs. In: Khan A (ed) Islam and the Americas. University of Florida Press, Gainesville

    Google Scholar 

  • al-Jerrahi SMR (2003) História Da Presença Islâmica No Brasil. http://www.masnavi.org/jerrahi/Artigos___Palestras/Historia_da_presenca_Islamica_/historia_da_presenca_islamica_.html

  • Censo Demográfico (2010) Caracteristica gerais da população, religião e pessoas com deficiência. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). http://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/biblioteca-catalogo?view=detalhes&id=794

  • De Castro CM (2013) The construction of Muslim identities in contemporary Brazil. Lexington Books, Lanham

    Google Scholar 

  • Diouf SA (1998) Servants of Allah: African Muslims enslaved in the Americas. NYU Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawthorne W (2014) From Africa to Brazil culture, identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1830. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Karam JT (2007) Another arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese ethnicity in neoliberal Brazil. Temple University Press, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Karasch MC (1987) Slave life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850. Princeton University Press, Princeton

    Google Scholar 

  • Lesser J (1999) Negotiating national identity: immigrants, minorities, and the struggle for ethnicity in Brazil. Duke University Press Books, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovejoy PE (1994) Background to rebellion: the origins of Muslim slaves in Bahia. Slavery & Abolition 15(2):151–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lovejoy PE (2009) Identity in the shadow of slavery. Continuum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Marques, J (2010) Muçulmanos em Curitiba: uma análise das dinâmicas identitárias a partir do jornal Assiráj. Masters Thesis, Universidade Federal Do Paraná

    Google Scholar 

  • Mesquita Brasil. Sobre a SBM. Sociedade Beneficiente Muçulmana de São Paulo. http://www.mesquitabrasil.com.br/sobre_sbm.php. Accessed 31 Oct 2015

  • Mintz S, Price R (1976) An anthropological perspective to the Afro-American past: a Caribbean perspective. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Narbona MdML, Pinto PG, Karam JT (2015) Crescent over another horizon: Islam in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino USA. University of Texas Press, Austin

    Google Scholar 

  • Ortiz F (1975) Los negoros esclavos. Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Habana

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinto PG (2011) Arab ethnicity and diasporic Islam: a comparative approach to processes of identity formation and religious codification in the Muslim communities in Brazil. Comp Stud South Asia Afr Middle East 31(2):312–330

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinto PG (2015) The religious dynamics of Syrian-Lebanese and Palestinian communities in Brazil. Mashriq Mahjar 3(1):30–40

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramos V (2013) Conversión Al Islam. In: Montenegro S and Benlabbah F (eds) Musulmanes en Brasil: comunidades, instiituciones, e identidades. Universidad Nacional de Rosario and the Institut des études hispano-lusophones de la Université Mohammed V – Agdal, Rosario, Argentina and Rabat, Morocco

    Google Scholar 

  • Reis JJ (1993) Slave rebellion in Brazil: the Muslim uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodrigues N (1976 [1933]) Os Africanos no Brasil. Companhia Editora Nacional, São Paulo

    Google Scholar 

  • Silva A d C e (2004) Comprando E Vendendo Alcorões No Rio de Janeiro Do Século XIX. Estudos Avançados 18(50):285–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Soares M de C, Mello PL (2006) O resto perdeu-se? História e folclore: o caso dos muçulmanos das Alagoas. In: Cavalcanti BC, Fernandes CS, de Almeida Barros RR (eds) Visibilidades negras. EdUfal, Maceió, pp 14–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweet JH (2003) Recreating Africa culture, kinship, and religion in the African-Portuguese world, 1441–1770. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill

    Google Scholar 

  • Truzzi OMS (1993) Patrícios – Sírios e Libaneses em São Paulo. PhD thesis, Unicamp, Campinas

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Schuyler Marquez

Authors
  1. Schuyler Marquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Schuyler Marquez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology/Anthropology, Oakland Univ Sociology/Anthropology, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Henri Gooren

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this entry

Cite this entry

Marquez, S. (2016). Islam in Brazil. In: Gooren, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_263-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_263-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08956-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation