The history of Islam in Japan is relatively brief in relation to the religion's longstanding presence in other countries around the world.

There are few and isolated records of contact between Islam and Japan before the opening of the country in 1853, although some Muslims did arrive in Nagasaki in earlier centuries.

The first modern Muslim contacts were with Malays who served aboard British and Dutch ships in the late 19th century. In the late 1870s, the life of Muhammad was translated into Japanese. This helped Islam to find a place in the intellectual imagination of the Japanese people, but only as a part of the history of cultures.

Another important contact was made in 1890 when Ottoman Turkey dispatched a naval vessel to Japan for the purpose of saluting the visit of Japanese Prince Akihito Komatsu to Istanbul several years earlier. This frigate was called the Ertugrul, and was destroyed in a storm along the coast of Wakayama Prefecture on the evening of September 16, 1890.

20th century

The first Japanese to go on the Hajj was Kotaro Yamaoka. He converted^[1] to Islam, after meeting up with the pan-Islamic agitator Abdürreşid İbrahim, whereupon he took the name Omar Yamaoka. Both were travelling with the support of nationalistic Japanese groups like the Black Dragon Society (Kokuryūkai ), Yamaoka in fact had been with the intelligence service in Manchuria since the Russo-Japanese war. His official reason for travelling was to seek the Sultan's approval for building a mosque in Tokyo (completed 1938). This approval, granted 1910, was necessary as Abdülhamid II considered himself, as Khalifah and Ameerul Mu'mineen (lit. Caliph and Leader of the Faithful; the leader of all Muslims).

Another early Japanese convert was Bunpachiro Ariga, who about the same time went to India for trading purposes and converted to Islam under the influence of local Muslims there, and subsequently took the name Ahmed Ariga. Yamada Toajiro was from 1892 for almost twenty years the only resident Japanese trader in Istanbul^[2]. During this time he served unofficially as consul. He converted to Islam, and took the name Abdul Khalil, and made a pilgrimage to Mecca on his way home.

The real Muslim community life however did not start until the arrival of several hundred Turko-Tatar Muslim refugees from Central Asia and Russia in the wake of the October Revolution. These Muslims, who were given asylum, in Japan settled in several main cities around Japan and formed small communities. They are estimated at less than 600 in 1938 for Japan proper, a few thousand on the continent. Some Japanese converted to Islam through the contact with these Muslims.

The Kobe Mosque was built in 1935 with the support of the turko-tatar community of traders there. The Tokyo Mosque, planned since 1908 was finally completed in 1938, with generous financial support from the zaibatsu. Its first imams were Abdürreşid İbrahim (1857-1944), who had returned in 1938, and Abdulhay Qorbangali (1889-1972). Japanese Muslims played little role in building these mosques. To date there have been no Japanese who have become Imam of any of the mosques.

The Greater Japan Muslim League (Dai Nihon Kaikyō Kyōkai 大日本回教協会) founded in 1930, was the first official Islamic organisation in Japan. It had the support of imperialistic circles during World War II, and caused an "Islamic Studies Boom"^[3]. During this period, over 100 books and journals on Islam were published in Japan. While these organizations had their primary aim in intellectually equipping Japan's forces and intellectuals with better knowledge and understanding of the Islamic world, dismissing them as mere attempts to further Japan's aims for a "Greater Asia" does not relfect the nature of depth of these studies. Japanese and Muslim academia in their common aims of defeating Western colonialism had been forging ties since the early twentieth century, and with the destruction of the last remaining Muslim power, the Ottoman Empire, the advent of hostilities in World War II and the possibility of the same fate awaiting Japan, these academic and political exchanges and the alliances created reached a head. Therefore they were extremely active in forging links with academia and Muslim leaders and revolutionaries, many of whom were invited to Japan.

Nationalistic organizations like the Ajia Gikai, were instrumental in petitioning the Japanese government on matters such as officially recognizing Islam, along with Shintoism, Christianity and Buddhism as a religion in Japan, and in providing funding and training to Muslim resistance movements in Southeast Asia, such as the Hizbullah, a resistance group funded by Japan in the Dutch Indies. Intellectual exchange between the Islamic and Japanese academia was at its pinnacle at this time, only to crumble with Japan's defeat. After the Occupation had begun, the numerous Islamic institutions were dissolved and banned being as they had been at the forefront of academic study and protest in Japan against Western colonialism. Claims have been made of these organisations being mere fronts for the Japanese war effort; however the depth and breadth of Japanese-Islamic studies and academic and political exchange by promiment figures such as Okawa Shumei as well as his student, Toshihiko Izutsu, the volumes of written work produced by these figures and others, their translations of the Qur'an, the conversion of numerous promiment figures in Japanese politics to Islam and their claim and such demonstrate that this was certainly not the case.

Shūmei Ōkawa, by far the highest-placed and most prominent figure in both Japanese government and academia in the matter of Japanese-Islamic exchange and studies, managed to complete his translation of the Qur'an in prison, while being prosecuted as an alleged class-A war criminal by the victorious Allied forces for being an 'organ of propaganda'. Charges were dropped for his erratic behaviour officially; however historians have speculated that the weakness of the charges against him were more likely the true reason for this. While Okawa did display unusual behaviour during the trial such as rapping on the head of Tojo Hideki, he also stated that the trial was a farce and unworthy of being called one.

He was transferred to a hospital on official claims of mental instability and then prison, and freed not long thereafter, dying a Muslim in 1957 after a quiet life where he continued lecturing, on his return to his home village and his wife, who survived him. He claimed to have seen visions of Muhammad in his sleep.

Post World War II

The second president of the association was the late Umar Mita. Mita was typical of the old generation, who learned Islam in the territories occupied by the Japanese Empire. He was working for the Manshu Railway Company, which virtually controlled the Japanese territory in the north eastern province of China at that time. Through his contacts with Chinese Muslims, he became a Muslim in Peking. When he returned to Japan after the war, he made the Hajj, the first Japanese in the post-war period to do so. He also made a Japanese translation of the meaning of the Qur'an from a Muslim perspective for the first time.

Thus, it was only after the second world war, that what can properly be called "a Japanese Muslim community" came into existence. Though many Islamic organisations were established since the 1900s, each of them had only very few active members.

Muslim demographics

Islam was thought to have first come ot Japan in the early 1900's when Muslim Tartars were escaping Russian expansionism.^[4] The Muslim community in Japan has a history of over 100 years, although some sources contest more than this amount.^[5][6][4] In 1909 it was documented by historian Caeser E. Farah that Abdul-Rashid Ibrahim was the first Muslim who successfully converted the first ethnic Japanese, and in 1935 Kobe Mosque - Japan's first Islamic building - was constructed.^[7][4]Some sources have stated that in 1982 the Muslims numbered 30,000 (half were natives).^[4] Many of the ethnic Japanese during the economic boom of the 1980's converted when large swathes of immigrants from Asia came and integrated with local population.^[8] The majority of estimates of the Muslim population have been put at around 100,000 in estimates.^[9][4][10] Although a minority religion in Japan, recent evidence suggests Islam is growing,^[4][6] and is especially prominant among young ethnic Japanese married women, as documented by the Japan Times as early as the 1990s.^[8]Furthermore in 2000 Keiko Sakurai had estimated the number of ethnic Japanese Muslims in Japan at 63,552, and around 70,000 - 100,000 foreign Muslims residing in the country.^[5] However according to essayist Michael Penn states that 90% of Muslims are foreign and about 10% are ethnic, but the true figure is unknown and this is just another speculative estimate.^[9] In Japan the government does not take religion into account as part of the demogrpahic concern under religious freedom. As Penn states, "The Japanese government does not keep any statistics on the number of Muslims in Japan. Neither foreign residents nor ethnic Japanese are ever asked about their religion by official government agencies".^[9] Although Penn has noted that Islam and the culture of the Japanese people are similar in away, large proportions of Japanese are ignorant of what Islam is. However in the recent geo-politcal climate it has been suggested Islam is making new ground in Japan both politically and culturally in the country.^[9]

Mosques

According to japanfocus.org, 'There are currently between 30 and 40 single-story mosques in Japan, plus another 100 or more apartment rooms set aside, in the absence of more suitable facilities, for prayers. Many Muslim communities have plans to build mosques in the near future.

Education about Muslims in Japan

The potential number of proselystizers represented by the Muslim community in Japan is itself extremely small in proportion to the national population of more than 120 million. Students together with immigrant workers constitute a large percentage of the Muslim community, which is concentrated in major urban centers such as Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo but is seldom organised in such a way as to conduct effective programs to familiarize non-Muslims with Islam. However, some Muslim students association and local societies have organized camps and gatherings in an effort to improve the understanding of Islamic teachings and for the sake of strengthening the bond among Muslims.