Islam in Japan

Islam in Japan

Foreign Muslims began arriving in modern Japan almost from the beginning of the “opening” of the country. Most of these first Muslims were Malay sailors serving aboard British or Dutch ships. Ever since that time, Islam has existed in Japan, but only in a very modest degree. By the early 20th century a handful of ethnic Japanese also began to convert to Islam.

Photo: Kotaro “Omar” Yamaoka, the first Japanese Muslim to make the Hajj

By 2005, there were about 60,000 Muslims in Japan, with about 10% of those being ethnic Japanese. Additionally, there were a couple of dozen mosques, mostly in the Kanto region. The largest single community of foreign Muslims was the Indonesian, who made up more than a third of the total foreign Muslim population.

MOSQUES IN JAPAN

There are a couple of dozen mosques in Japan, most of them in the Kanto region.

Photo: Tokyo Mosque
Source: Tokyo Mosque homepage

In addition to mosques, there are also a couple of hundred more small prayer rooms that have been established by local Muslim communities.