Conversion to Islam in Mexico

Introduction

Islam in Mexico has surged as a phenomenon characterized by various stages, but of these two large periods can be distinguished. The first is marked by the migration of Arab pioneers, of which there is little record of how these Muslims lived in Mexican lands. A second block is marked by transnationalism and cultural globalization.

The first block is related to the arrival of Moors and Muslim slaves in the period of conquest and is extended by the arrival of Arab Muslim immigrants until approximately the 1980s (Cobos 2008). In this stage, it is imagined that the Moors hid their faith through false conversion to Catholicism. This conversion included a change of name and the absence of an Islamic education as well as communities or groups of prayer.

After la Reforma, between 1833 and 1980, there came the immigration of Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, Egyptians, and Turks, not all of whom were Muslim but who were managing to integrate to the society through marrying...