Mexico’s Maya Heartland Home to Muslim Community David Alire Garcia - Thomson Reuters Trust
go to original October 26, 2017

Mexico's indigenous minority converting to Islam (Al Jazeera English)

A vibrant Muslim community exists in the indigenous Maya heartland of Mexico, a predominantly Roman Catholic country.

In the southern state of Chiapas, home to a lush mountainous landscape, a Reuters journalist took pictures of members of the small Muslim community, made up of hundreds of mostly Tzotzil men and women, many of whom converted to Islam from Christian denominations.

The Muslim men here are distinguished by their prayer caps, or kufis, and the women by their hijabs, which take the form of traditional Maya shawls.

Locals say the conversions to Islam here began in the late 1980s, around the same time Mexico's Zapatista movement was gaining traction in Chiapas, as institutions including Christianity and capitalism came under increasing criticism.

According to the last census, 83 percent of Mexicans are Catholic. Although Muslims make up less than 1 percent of Mexico's 120 million population, a disproportionate number are clustered in and around San Cristobal de las Casas, a highland city in Chiapas that mixes Maya and Spanish identity.

"People gave us a weird look when we converted. They thought we were terrorists and were scared of us," said Mustafa, a member of the nearby Ahmadia community. "But with the passage of time and our own actions, that opinion has changed."

Check out the related photo essay at Reuters

Read the rest at VOA News

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!