Talk:Islam in Brazil

Proposed Link
Hi, I'm working with The Pulitzer Center, a non-profit journalism agency geared towards providing audience to underrepresented news stories. I'd like to link this page to a video on the Pulitzer site; "Clouds Over Iguaçu," concerning Muslims in Brazil, http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=235 Please let me know if I can post these links. Many thanks in advance. Blendus 16:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

700000 to 3 million muslims in Brazil?!?! I've been to Brazil and am of muslim heritage. There were virtually no mosques in medium sized cities, and only a few in the major ones. At most, there are maybe 70 thousand muslims in Brazil...and that's a bit of a high estimate. Where did these muslims come from? Virtually all migrants out of Syria and Lebanon in the 1800s and early 1900s were christians or jews...immigration law halted muslim migration. A few did come...most assimilated. There has been no mass conversions, and no mass migration of muslim peoples into brazil recently. So where the heck did that 700000 - 3000000 figure come from?? There are only 130 000 jews in the country, and yet they have their distinct areas in Rio and Sao Paolo, and plenty of famous people. I can't think of a single region where muslims are congregated.

Anyways, the islamic people that over exagerate muslim populations everywhere are a delusional lot. No need to lie to the masses.

I agree with anon above. This article seems to have been edited by a man on a mission (a jihad? Ok, only joking...). The figures of 700,000 to 3 million actually would reflect the low and high estimates for people of Arab origin in Brazil. The overwhelming majority (not 90%, rather 99%) would be Christians, who fled the Middle East exactly because of religious upheaval in theird homeland (which, sadly, goes on to this day). Their presence in South America is also one of the reasons Lebanon, which once had a Christian majority, now has a Muslim majority. Some effort should go into de-politicizing this article. I changed some of the wordings in the first paragraph to reflect that.

Afc 19:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As long as you make proper citations. Your edit claims that most Lebanese immigrants were Christian but you have no source for that.  I really know very little about this subject (besides that 3 million seemed absurdly large) but, the best way to make this work is to cite reliable sources. gren グレン 19:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the muslim community claims from the article. Every religion claim to have more followers than they actually do. I also included a reference to census data. Alvaroludolf 19:04, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I referenced the US State Department, which did state that the total number of muslims in the census was probably an undercount. Also, what the Muslim leaders in Brazil think of the census numbers, whether true or not, is at least worth mentioning. This is why this information is encyclopedic material and should not be just deleted.
 * US State Department claims are contested by Brazilian government. Since 9/11 US is trying to show Brazil as a source of terrorism with little success and one of the proofs of Brazilians terrorist is supposed to be a bigger number of muslins in Brazil. US State Department's claims still only claims with no actual data to back it. Alvaroludolf 13:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

It's hardly surprising that 2 of the 3 portuguese translations of the Qur'an were made in Brazil - as Brazil represents more than 80% of the total portuguese speakers. It shouldn't be there as a sign of the 'rise of Islam' in Brazil. Speaking of which, it seems that there are many times more jews than muslims in Brazil, has anyone considered writing a 'Judaism in Brazil' article? 21:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There Are Approx. 12,000,000 Arabs in Brazil
So, how can there be only 27,000 Muslims in the country? Unless these Arabs are all Christians, which seems unlikely since there are probably fewer than 12,000,000 Christian Arabs in the entire world, this figure cannot possibly be correct. I would think that the supposedly Muslim-collected figure of between 700,000 and 3,000,000 is far more accurate, if not also disparate to an extent. Brazil is the largest Arab-populated country outside the Middle East, and more than 90% of Arabs are Muslim, so do the math. There is definitely something wrong with the official estimate. I assume Brazilian Muslims are quite well assimilated, so they probably do not publicly profess their faith in any overt way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.243.35.203 (talk) 00:06, 28 August 2010 (UTC) Virtually all of them are Arabs Christians, usually Maronites, who fled Lebanon and Middle East due to persecutions and starvation. Moreover, these includes also people of 'partial' Arab ancestry, as Maronites often married outside their ethnic group. Previous president of Brazil, Michel Temer, is an Arab Christian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.60.6.163 (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Anon, there aren't 12 million "Arabs" in Brazil, that 3 million figure reflects the high estimate for people of Middle Eastern descent, most of which are of mixed heritage. The official "estimate" is actually from the 2000 census, where people ae actually counted and interviewed. In areas where there are significant communities of people of Lebanese or Syrian descent you always find numerous Orthodox or Maronite churches, yet no mosques to be seen. There's a difference between being assimilated and not professing your faith at all. The latter would be actually tantamount to not being Muslim anymore, wouldn't it?
 * afc (talk) 01:14, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Just a correction, afc: the 3 million figure refers to Muslim people who are not active practioners of Islam. Of course, this figure has been provided by a Muslim group. That is, it should be taken with a grain of salt. I see no reason for a Muslim, even one who isn't very attached to his religious traditions, to misreport his religion on the Census. The Catholic population in Brazilian is also somewhat detached from religion - yet they're accurate in informing their religious affiliation to the government. Guinsberg (talk) 21:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

A huge grain of salt. Governments of Brazil and Arab countries have long inflated the number of arab descendents in Brazil: a research by Brazil's IBGE found only 1% of the white population in some states that received more immigration claiming arab ancestry of any sort. That'd be about 1m people, not 3, 7 or 11 million as government sources claim. The number of muslims is also weirdly inflated in some sources: census give about 35 thousand in 2010. That number most definitely increased since then, if for any other reason because of continual arrivals of refuges. It might have even doubled or tripled. But anyhow, it solidifies 2 notions: the vast majority of early arab immigration to Brazil was christian and jewish; and the number of muslims in Brazil is in fact quite low and usually inflated by most sources that don't have data behind them. 201.17.93.143 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 19:10, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Islam in Brazil. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051126160504/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200505/the.arabs.of.brazil.htm to http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200505/the.arabs.of.brazil.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:43, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Islam in Brazil. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://www.30-days.net/muslims/muslims-in/america-south/brazil/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070902221325/http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=235 to http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=235
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110202105224/http://islamamericas.com/ to http://www.islamamericas.com/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:34, 17 November 2017 (UTC)