Long history with Islam gives Indigenous Australians pride
Peta Stephenson
The Conversation
Muslim conversion is growing in Indigenous communities. In the 2001 national census, 641 Indigenous people identified as Muslim. By the 2006 census the number had climbed by more than 60% to 1014 people.
This recent rise in conversions among Indigenous Australians may seem to be a political gesture. But unknown to many is the long history between Aboriginal people and Islamic culture and religion.
Three centuries of history: Indigenous and Muslim communities have traded, socialised and intermarried in Australia for three centuries.
From the early 1700s, Muslim fishermen from Indonesia made annual voyages to the north and northwestern Australian coast in search of sea slugs (trepang). The trade that developed included material goods, but the visitors also left a lasting religious legacy.
Recent research confirms the existence of Islamic motifs in some north Australian Aboriginal mythology and ritual.
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