History of Islam in Australia

History of Islam in Australia

Islam in Australia is a minority religious affiliation. According to the 2016 Australian Census, the combined number of people who self-identified as Muslim in Australia, from all forms of Islam, constituted 604,200 people, or 2.6% of the total Australian population,[1] an increase of over 15% of its previous population share of 2.2% reported in the previous census 5 years earlier. Of that earlier 2.2% figure,[2] "some estimate more than half are non-practicing"[3] cultural Muslims stemming from all the varying denominations and sects of Islam present in Australia.

That total Muslim population makes Islam, in all its denominations and sects, the second largest religious grouping in Australia, after all denominations and sects of Christianity (52.2%[4], also including practicing and non-practicing cultural Christians).

Demographers attribute Muslim community growth trends during the most recent census period to relatively high birth rates, and recent immigration patterns.[5][6] Adherents of Islam represent the majority of the population in Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an external territory of Australia.[7]

The vast majority of Muslims in Australia belong to the two major denominations of Islam, the Sunni and Shia denominations, with the followers of each of these further split along different Madh'hab (schools of thought within Islamic jurisprudence for the interpretation and practice of Islamic law). There are also practitioners of other smaller denominations of Islam, including Ahmadiyya Muslim Australians of various national backgrounds, Ibadi Muslim Australians of Omani descent, as well as some non-denominational Muslims, 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 (Islamic mysticism) minorities among Muslim practitioners in Australia.[8]

While the overall Australian Muslim community is defined largely by a common religious identity with "Islam", Australia's Muslims are not a monolithic community. The Australian Muslim community is fragmented into not only the traditional sectarian divisions of what each sect defines as Islam, but it is also extremely diverse racially, ethnically, culturally and linguistically.[9] 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.[3]