Islam in New Zealand
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Islam in Africa
Islam in Asia
Islam in Europe
Islam in Americas
Islam in Oceania
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Islam in New Zealand began with the arrival of Muslim Chinese gold prospectors in the 1870s. Small numbers of Muslim immigrants from India and eastern Europe settled from the early 1900s until the 1960s. Large-scale Muslim immigration began in the 1970s with the arrival of Fiji Indians, followed in the 1990s by refugees from various war-torn countries. The first Islamic centre was started in 1959 and there are now several mosques and two Islamic schools.
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History
The first Muslims in New Zealand were Chinese golddiggers working in the Dunstan gold fields of Otago in the 1870s. In the early 1900s three important Gujarati Muslim families came from India. The first Islamic organisation in New Zealand, the New Zealand Muslim Association (NZMA), was established in Auckland in 1950. In 1951 the refugee boat SS Goya brought over 60 Muslim men from eastern Europe, including Mazhar Krasniqi who would later serve twice as president of the New Zealand Muslim Association. These Gujarati and European immigrants worked together in the 1950s to buy a house and convert it into an Islamic centre in 1959. The following year saw the arrival of the first imam, Maulana Said Musa Patel, from the Gujarat, India. Students from South Asia and Southeast Asia helped establish the other prayer rooms and Islamic centres elsewhere from the 1960s onwards, although New Zealand had a relatively tiny Muslim population until many years later.
In April 1979 Mazhar Krasniqi brought together the three regional Muslim organisations of Canterbury, Wellington and Auckland, to create the only national Islamic body – the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ). He was honoured for his efforts by the New Zealand government in 2002, receiving a Queens Service Medal. Later Dr Hajji Ashraf Choudhary served as president (1984–85) before pursuing a political career and entering the New Zealand parliament in 1999.
Large-scale Muslim immigration began with the arrival of mainly working class Fiji Indians in the 1970s. They were followed by professionals after the first Fiji coup of 1987. Early in the 1990s many migrants were admitted under New Zealand's refugee quota, from war zones in Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Iraq.
In 1981 Sheikh Khalid Hafiz was appointed Imam of Wellington, a post he held until his death in 1999, and was employed as imam by the International Muslim Association of New Zealand. Soon after his arrival he was also appointed senior religious adviser to the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand.
Cartoon controversy
In 2006, two newspapers in New Zealand decided to republish controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. The Muslim community registered their displeasure through press statements and a small peaceful march in Auckland. The editors said they did not mean offence but would not back down. Prime Minister Helen Clark and opposition leader Don Brash both made statements that the cartoons were not appreciated if they deeply offended members of the New Zealand community, but that such decisions were for editors to make, not politicians. Muslim leaders and the editors got together with the race relations office, and Jewish and Christian representatives in Wellington. As a result of this meeting the editors said they would not apologise but in good faith would refrain from publishing the offending images again. The New Zealand Muslim leadership, through FIANZ, then proceeded in good faith to consider the matter closed and furthermore draft letters to 52 Muslim countries asking that New Zealand products not be boycotted.
Contemporary Islam
In the 2006 census 36,072 people identified themselves as Muslim including many New Zealand-born Muslims of varied ethnic backgrounds including both New Zealand European and Māori. This is up 52.6% from 5 years earlier.[1] New Zealand now has a number of mosques in the major centres, and two Islamic schools (Al Madinah and Zayed College for Girls).
The community is noted for its harmonious relations with the wider New Zealand community, with various interfaith efforts from all sides contributing to this situation. FIANZ established the Harmony Awards [1] as part of Islam Awareness Week in 2008 to recognise the contributions of New Zealanders to improving understanding and relationships between Muslims and the wider community.
The Muslim Students and Youth Association of NZ was formed in 1997. It is affiliated to Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand. It is primarily run by university students and other youth. They undertake regular activities including lectures, sports tournaments and Muslim youth camps, and work with FIANZ who organise the annual Islam Awareness Week (IAW).
There are small communities of Muslims from Turkey, the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) and Southeast Asia, all of which are concentrated in the major cities of Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch. In recent years an influx of foreign students from Malaysia and Singapore has increased the proportion of Muslims in some other centres, notably the university city of Dunedin. Dunedin's Al-Huda mosque is reputedly the world's southernmost, and is further from Mecca than any mosque in the Southern Hemisphere.
Maori Muslims
There is a small but growing amount of conversions among the wider New Zealand population and Islam is the fastest growing religion amongst the Maori community.[2] The 2001 census figures shows that 3000 Europeans registered as Muslim in 2001. Census figures show the number of Maori Muslims increased from 99 to 708 in the 10 years to 2001. But Kireka-Whaanga, the leader of "Aotearoa Maori Muslim Association" (AMMA), said numbers had shot up since September 11, as global media focused on radical Islam.The AMMA, the most influential Maori Muslim movement, has roots in the Hawkes Bay province. They view Tino Rangitiratanga as a form of jihad and that Islam is the perfect vehicle for Maori nationalism. The leader of the AMMA, Sheikh Eshaq Te Amorangi Morgan Kireka-Whaanga was recently identified among the top 500 most influential Muslims on earth.[3]
See also
- Islam by country
- Religion in New Zealand
Notes
- ↑ 2006 Census data
- ↑ Kia Ora Aotearoa
- ↑ "The 500 Most Influential Muslims - 2010" by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (Amman, 2010), page.129.
References
- Drury, Abdullah, Islam in New Zealand: The First Mosque (Christchurch, 2007) ISBN 978-0-473-12249-2
- Drury, Abdullah, “A time for Muslims to examine faith” in The Nelson Mail (5 August 2008), p. 9.
- Drury, Abdullah, “A Tribute to the Illyrian Pioneers” in Al Mujaddid (March 2002 - Muharram 1423), Vol.1, No.16, p. 10.
- Drury, Abdullah, “Crucial element locked in past ” in The New Zealand Herald (25 September 2007).
- Drury, Abdullah, “Halal certification of growing value” in The Otago Daily Times (27 April 2007), p. 30.
- Drury, Abdullah, “Home country doctrine splits once-unified local Muslims” in The New Zealand Herald (12 July 2006).
- Drury, Abdullah, “Integration effort needed” in The Press (2 August 2005), p. 5.
- Kolig, Erich, New Zealand's Muslims and Multiculturalism (2010) ISBN 978 90 04 17835 9.
- Sheppard, William, "The Muslim Community in New Zealand", Chapter 5 in Indians in New Zealand, ed. K.N. Tiwari (Wellington, N.Z.: Price-Milburn, l980). [Purely historical interest; has no content that is not found in other articles.]
- Sheppard, William, "Muslims in New Zealand", The Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (Riyadh), 4/1-2 (l982): 60-81.
- Sheppard, William, "The Islamic Contribution: Muslims in New Zealand", in Religion in New Zealand Society, Second Edition, eds Brian Colless & Peter Donovan (Palmerston North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press, l985), pp. 181-213.
- Sheppard, William, "Muslims in New Zealand", The Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (Riyadh), 16/2 (l996): 211-232. [Updates 1982 article to 1991.]
- Sheppard, William, “Australia and New Zealand”, authored jointly with Michael Humphrey, in Islam Outside the Arab World, eds. David Westerlund and Ingvar Svanberg, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999, pp. 278-294.
- Sheppard, William, "Muslims in New Zealand" in Muslim Minorities in the West: Visible and Invisible, eds., Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith, Walnut Creek, etc.: Altamira Press, 2002, chapter 13.
- Sheppard, William, “New Zealand’s Muslims And Their Organisations” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8, 2 (December, 2006): 8-44. (cf. “Introduction: Muslims In New Zealand” in the next section)
- Sheppard, William, “Introduction: Muslims In New Zealand”, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 8, 2 (December, 2006): 1-7. Co-authored with Erich Kolig.
- Sheppard, William, "Australia and New Zealand", in The Oxford Encyclopaedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), Vol. 1, pp. 154-5.
Further reading
- Drury, Abdullah (2006). Islam in New Zealand. ISBN 9780473122492.
External links
- Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand
- International Muslim Association of New Zealand
- Islam Awareness Week Site
- Islamic Ahlulbayt Foundation of New Zealand
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