TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO. Muslims make up only 8 percent of the population of Trinidad and Tobago, yet their influence in this twin-island Caribbean nation extends far beyond their numbers. The country’s ceremonial president, Noor Mohammed Hassanali, is Muslim, as are many members of parliament and other officials. Many businesses are Muslim-owned. In 1990 Trinidad was thrust briefly into the world spotlight when an obscure Black Muslim group attempted to overthrow Trinidad’s democratically elected government by force.
Historians believe Trinidad’s first Muslims were not East Indians but black slaves from the Mandingo tribe of West Africa, many of whose members embraced Islam in the 1740s. According to Omar Hasan Kasule’s 1978 report “Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago,” slaves were first brought to work Trinidad’s sugar plantations around 1777, and by 1802, they numbered nearly twenty thousand. Kasule writes, “In the 1830s, a community of Mandingo Muslims who had been captured from Senegal lived in Port of Spain. They were literate in Arabic and organized themselves under a forceful leader named Muhammad Beth, who had purchased his freedom from slavery. They kept their Islamic identity and always yearned to go back to Africa.”
The Africans eventually lost contact with their homeland, unlike the later East Indian arrivals, who did maintain links with India and were thus able to sustain their Islamic beliefs. Trinidad’s first East Indians came as indentured servants. On 31 May 1845 (an anniversary observed here every year), the Fatel Razeck arrived in Port of Spain, carrying 225 Hindu and Muslim laborers from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The indenture system, introduced by Trinidad’s British colonial masters shortly after slavery was abolished in 1834, was a form of unpaid servitude that required peasants to work the sugar plantations for a specified period-usually five years-in order to pay off their debts. Inhumane living conditions were often accompanied by efforts to impose Christianity on the newcomers, regardless of their existing religious beliefs.
For most of the nineteenth century Trinidad’s economy depended heavily on sugar exports; during World War II the colony served as an important strategic asset for Great Britain. In 1962 Trinidad received its longawaited independence, and the country’s economic emphasis began shifting from sugar to petroleum. Oil exports soon made Trinidad one of the wealthiest and most industrialized nations in the Caribbean. Yet the country’s relatively high standard of living has not guaranteed social equality or even stability.
On 27 July 1990) members of a radical Black Muslim group, the Jamaat al-Muslimeen, stormed the parliament building in Port of Spain, threatening to kill Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson and other officials unless Robinson resigned and made way for a new government sympathetic to their demands. Although the prime minister survived by agreeing to the radicals’ conditions, twenty-four others died in the six-day ordeal, which was marked by widespread looting and fires that gutted downtown Port of Spain.
Most blacks and East Indian Muslims distanced themselves from the Jamaat’s leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, whose activities were rumored to have been financed by Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qadhdhafi. Yet despite public outrage, Abu Bakr and his 113 followers were never punished, since the courts later ruled that the amnesty granted to the Black Muslims was legally binding.
According to the 1990) census, 36 percent of Trinidad’s 1.2 million inhabitants are Roman Catholic, 23 percent Hindu, 13 percent Protestant and 8 percent Muslim. Most of the country’s 100,000 Muslims are of East Indian rather than African origin, and they live mainly in and around Port of Spain. The communities are mixed; mosques often share the same street with white clapboard Baptist churches and elaborate Hindu temples.
There are about eighty-five mosques on the main island of Trinidad. One or two mosques can also be found on Trinidad’s sister island Tobago, home to a few dozen African Muslims. One of the largest in the country is the Jinnah Memorial Mosque in St. Joseph. Built in 1954 and named after Pakistan’s first governor-general, the structure is easily recognized by its two towering minarets and can accommodate one thousand worshipers. Large mosques are also located in Tunapuna, Curepe, San Fernando, and Rio Claro.
Several Muslim organizations flourish in Trinidad, the largest being the Anjuman Sunnat-ul-Jamaat Association, which was founded in the 1930s and represents some 8o percent of the nation’s Muslims. In addition, the Trinidad Muslim League, the Islamic Trust, and the Islamic Missionaries Guild of South America and the Caribbean all have significant followings. Recently the community celebrated the opening of a spacious Islamic Center in Kelly Village, containing classrooms, a library, a bookshop, and meeting rooms for religious functions.
The Trinidadian government officially recognizes several Muslim holidays, including `Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fast month of Ramadan. Thousands of Muslims attend the annual governmentsponsored `Id al-Fitr gathering at the national stadium in Port of Spain. In addition, more than a hundred Trinidadian Muslims make the annual pilgrimmage to Mecca.
There are increasing ecumenical efforts to combat social problems. Islamic leaders have begun to join their Christian and Hindu brethren in calling attention to Trinidad’s growing problems with alcoholism, drug abuse, violent crime, and AIDS, and in denouncing what they see as an erosion of traditional values brought on by the annual Carnival.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kasule, Omar Hasan. Muslims in Trinidad and Tobago. Pamphlet, Port of Spain, 1978.
Luxner, Larry. “Muslims in the Caribbean.” Aramco World Magazine 38 (November-December 1987): 2-11.
Trinidad under Siege: The Muslimeen Uprising. Port of Spain, 1990)
LARRY LUXNER
