New Zealand's vibrant and diverse Muslim community

Saturday, 16 March 2019

PM Jacinda Ardern, Winston Peters, Simon Bridges and MPs met with Christchurch Muslim leaders at the Canterbury Refugee Resettlement and Resource Centre. (First published March 16, 2019)

Though they only constitute one per cent of New Zealand's population, Muslims are the most rapidly-growing religious group in the country.

An ethnically diverse demographic hailing from 80 countries around the world, Muslims in New Zealand are united by their faith.

Former president of the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand Dr Anwar Ghani said although there has been an influx of immigrants in recent decades, the first Muslims arrived as early as the mid-19th Century.

Noureddine Boudouad and Nadia Elhajjaoui express their grief outside the Kilbirnie mosque in Wellington.

'Islam and Muslims are not strangers to New Zealand. They've been here since 1860.'

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'It is not an alien religion by any means, but it is becoming more visible as the population is growing.'

Dr Anwar Ghani with his Koran during Ramadan.

As New Zealand's Muslim population has increased, so has the number of places of worship.

There are at least 18 mosques in Auckland, nine in Wellington, four in Christchurch, two in Hamilton and one in Dunedin.

The number of mosques in New Zealand has grown as the Muslim population has increased. The Wellington mosque in Kilbirnie is a centre of community activities.

Mosques are vibrant community hubs. General communication and sermons are spoken in English, while the ritual readings from the Koran are done in Arabic.

According to the 2013 census, the number of New Zealanders who identify as Muslim was 46,149.

Ghani said about 30 per cent of this country's Muslims were born here. Of the remaining 70 per cent who immigrated, most arrived in the past 20 years.

The Muslim population increased six-fold between 1991 and 2006. The majority of New Zealand Muslims are Sunnis, but there are a large number of Shias, concentrated mainly in Auckland.

Significant communities of Muslims came to New Zealand from the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia and there significant numbers of the Indo-Fijian Muslim and Somali communities.

Though New Zealand's Muslim population was concentrated mainly in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, more and more people were also settling in the regions, Ghani said.

An influx of students in recent years from Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore have also increased the proportion of Muslims in centres of learning such as Dunedin and Palmerston North.

Ghani said the only times they noticed an increase in anti-Muslim sentiments was when there has been an Islamist terrorism event overseas.

'Muslims here have been living in perfect harmony and there haven't been any incidents where it has gone beyond the normal.'