Islam in Australia
is the second-largest religion in Australia. According to the 2021 Census in Australia, the combined number of people who self-identified as Australian Muslims, from all forms of Islam, constituted 813,392 people, or 3.2% of the total Australian population. That total Muslim population makes Islam, in all its denominations and sects, the second largest religious grouping in Australia, after all denominations of Christianity.
Demographers attribute Muslim community growth trends during the most recent census period to relatively high birth rates, and recent immigration patterns. Adherents of Islam represent the majority of the population in Cocos Islands, an external territory of Australia.
The vast majority of Muslims in Australia are Sunni, with significant minorities belonging to the Shia denomination. The followers of each of these are further split along different Madhhab and sub-sect. There are also practitioners of other smaller denominations of Islam such as Ibadi Muslim Australians of Omani descent, and approximately 20,000 Druze Australians whose religion emerged as an offshoot of Islam which arrived in Australia with the immigration of Druze mainly from Lebanon and Syria. There are also Sufi minorities among Muslim practitioners in Australia.
While the overall Australian Muslim community is defined largely by a common religious identity, Australia's Muslims are not a monolithic community. The Australian Muslim community has traditional sectarian divisions and is also extremely diverse racially, ethnically, culturally and linguistically. Different Muslim groups within the Australian Muslim community thus also espouse parallel non-religious ethnic identities with related non-Muslim counterparts, either within Australia or abroad.
History
Prior to 1860
Contact between northern Australia and the Makassan trepang traders from Sulawesi is well documented from at least the 18th century, and some scholars suggest it may have begun earlier. However, it should be noted that Islam arrived in Sulawesi, Indonesia, until the early 17th century when the kingdom of Luwu converted to Islam, followed quickly by the Makassar kingdoms of Gowa and Talloq in 1605. Anthropologist Ian McIntosh has recorded Warramiri oral traditions in north-east Arnhem Land referring to a spiritual being called Walitha’walitha, which some elders interpret as related to the Arabic phrase Allah ta’ala. According to McIntosh, this figure features in a ceremony known as the Wurramu, which the Warramiri share with the Makassan, although in the Aboriginal context it functions as a mortuary ritual. He notes that elders describe the ceremony on one level as reflecting contact with foreign visitors, and on another as addressing the passage of the soul of the deceased to a heavenly realm.Makassan contact with Australia
While Islam arrived in South Sulawesi, Indonesia, until the early 17th century through the efforts of three scholars from Minangkabau, Sumatra, known as the Dato' Tallua'','' Indonesian trepangers from the southwest corner of Sulawesi were already visiting the coast of northern Australia, "from at least the eighteenth century" to collect and process trepang, a marine invertebrate prized for its culinary and medicinal values in Chinese markets. Remnants of their influence can be seen in the culture of some of the northern Aboriginal peoples. Regina Ganter, an associate professor at Griffith University, says, "Staying on the safe grounds of historical method... the beginning of the trepang industry in Australia to between the 1720s and 1750s, although this does not preclude earlier, less organised contact." Ganter also writes "the cultural imprint on the Yolngu people of this contact is everywhere: in their language, in their art, in their stories, in their cuisine." According to anthropologist John Bradley from Monash University, the contact between the two groups was a success: "They traded together. It was fair - there was no racial judgement, no race policy." Even into the early 21st century, the shared history between the two peoples is still celebrated by Aboriginal communities in Northern Australia as a period of mutual trust and respect.Others who have studied this period have come to a different conclusion regarding the relationship between the Aboriginal people and the visiting Indonesian trepangers. Anthropologist Ian McIntosh has said that the initial effects of the Macassan fishermen were "terrible", which resulted in "turmoil" with the extent of Islamic influence being "indeterminate". In another paper McIntosh concludes, "strife, poverty and domination.. is a previously unrecorded legacy of contact between Aborigines and Indonesians." A report prepared by the History Department of the Australian National University says that the Macassans appear to have been welcomed initially, however relations deteriorated when, "aborigines began to feel they were being exploited.. leading to violence on both sides".
A number of "Mohammedans" were listed in the musters of 1802, 1811, 1822, and the 1828 census, and a small number of Muslims arrived during the convict period. Beyond this, Muslims generally are not thought to have settled in large numbers in other regions of Australia until 1860.
Muslims were among the earliest settlers of Norfolk Island while the island was used as a British penal colony in the early 19th century. They arrived from 1796, having been employed on British ships. They left following the closure of the penal colony and moved to Tasmania. The community left no remnants; only seven permanent residents of the island identified themselves as "non-Christian" in a 2006 census.
1860 onward: cameleers and pearlers
Among the early Muslims were the "Afghan" camel drivers who migrated to and settled in Australia during the mid to late 19th century. Between 1860 and the 1890s a number of Central Asians came to Australia to work as camel drivers.Camels were first imported into Australia in 1840, initially for exploring the arid interior, and later for the camel trains that were uniquely suited to the demands of Australia's vast deserts. The first camel drivers arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, in June 1860, when eight Muslims and Hindus arrived with the camels for the Burke and Wills expedition. The next arrival of camel drivers was in 1866 when 31 men from Rajasthan and Baluchistan arrived in South Australia with camels for Thomas Elder. Although they came from several countries, they were usually known in Australia as 'Afghans' and they brought with them the first formal establishment of Islam in Australia.
Cameleers settled in the areas near Alice Springs and other areas of the Northern Territory and inter-married with the Indigenous population. The Adelaide, South Australia to Darwin, Northern Territory, railway is named The Ghan in their memory.
The first mosque in Australia was built in 1861 at Marree, South Australia. The Great Mosque of Adelaide was built in 1888 by the descendants of the Afghan cameleers. The Broken Hill Mosque at North camel camp was built by the cameleers between 1887 and 1891.
During the 1870s, in slave like conditions, White owned companies brought in Malay Muslims as indentured servants to work on Western Australian and Northern Territory pearling grounds. This was in response to amounting public pressure on the pearling industry, who practiced child kidnapping and forced labour of Aboriginal women, girls, and even pregnant mothers, as they were thought to be the best at diving for pearls. By 1900, 38% of indentured-servant pearl divers were Malay. It is thought that thousands were killed in this industry and are buried in Australia; one cemetery alone of indenture Japanese pearl divers had over 1000 graves, with the average age of mid-20's.
One of the earliest recorded Islamic festivals celebrated in Australia occurred on 23 July 1884 when 70 Muslims assembled for Eid prayers at Albert Park, Melbourne. The Auckland Star noted the ceremony's calm demeanor, stating: "During the whole service the worshippers wore a remarkably reverential aspect."
20th century
Most of the cameleers returned to their countries after their work had dried up, but a few had brought wives and settled in Australia with their families, and others settled either on their own, or married Aboriginal or European women. Halimah Schwerdt, secretary to Mahomet Allum, a former cameleer who established himself as herbalist, healer and philanthropist in Adelaide, became first European woman in Australia to publicly embrace Islam. She was engaged to Allum in 1935-37, but there is no record of a wedding. He married Jean Emsley in 1940, who converted to Islam later. Allam also published pamphlets and articles about Islam.From 1901, under the provisions of the White Australia policy, immigration to Australia was restricted to persons of white European descent. Meanwhile, persons not of white European heritage were denied entry to Australia during this period, and those already settled were not granted Australian citizenship.
Notable events involving Australian Muslims during this early period include what has been described either as an act of war by the Ottoman Empire, or the earliest terrorist attack planned against Australian civilians. The attack was carried out at Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1915, in what was described as the Battle of Broken Hill. Two Afghans who pledged allegiance to the Ottoman Empire shot and killed four Australians and wounded seven others before being killed by the police.
In the 1920s and 1930s Albanian Muslims, whose European heritage made them compatible with the White Australia Policy, immigrated to the country. The Albanian arrival revived the Australian Muslim community whose ageing demographics were until that time in decline and Albanians became some of the earliest post-colonial Muslim groups to establish themselves in Australia. Some of the earliest communities with a sizable Albanian Muslim population were Mareeba, Queensland and Shepparton in Victoria.