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Islam in Colombia
The statistics for Islam in Colombia estimate a total Muslim population of 85,908, representing 0.2 percent of the population. There are a number of Islamic organizations in Colombia, including Islamic centers in San Andres, Bogota, Guajira, Narino, and Santa Marta. There are also primary and secondary Islamic schools in Bogota and Maicao. Maicao plays host to the continent's second largest mosque, the Mosque of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab.
Over the past few years, Islam and the Arab-Muslim world seem to have entered even more poignantly into the Colombian imagination, gaining a presence in political discourse and strongly influencing popular culture. This Arab cultural influence in Colombia is often attributed to the Brazilian telenovela El Clon and Lebanese-Colombian pop icon Shakira. But Arab-Muslim influence in Colombia preceded Shakira: the protagonist of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold, for example, is half-Arab.
It should be noted that most Arab immigrants to Colombia came during the first half of the XXth century and were Christian Maronites mainly from Lebanon.
See also
Arab diaspora in Colombia
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Islam in Colombia
