Port-au-Prince, Dhul Hijja 14/Feb 26 (IINA) – The dawn of Islam in Haiti goes back to the time when America was discovered, for some historical documents reveal that there were some Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula (Andalusia) who accompanied the Spanish explorer, Christopher Columbus in 1492.

Then in the early part of the 20th century, a wave of immigrants from Syria came to South and North America, some of whom went on to Haiti. It is said that the first one to arrive in Haiti was someone who hailed from the Palestinian village of Aizariya, near Jerusalem. He arrived here in 1920, along with 19 other families.

At the moment, the Muslim population of Haiti is just 3,000, out of a Haitian population of nearly 7,000,000.

Haiti is situated in the Caribbean, and among its immediate neighbors are Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Among Haiti’s crops are sugarcane, coffee, and a few other minor products.

The majority of the Muslims here are indigenous Haitians, followed by the ethnic Middle Eastern groups. But because of their lack of financial resources, the Muslims were not able to build a mosque or school until 1985, when one of the Muslims turned his residence into a mosque, and put up a minaret, so that it appeared as such.

Ninety-five percent of Haitians are of African extraction, but because they are using old and outdated methods of agricultural production, they still remain largely poor. And though the country has relatively large mineral resources, these have as yet to be properly exploited.

OB/OB/IINA