: How Did Islam Find its Way to Chiapas, Mexico?

Chiapas, home of the Zapatista rebel movement that stunned Mexico in 1994 by declaring independence, has become the center of a new controversy – this time over religion. The Mexican government has announced that a group of Muslim missionaries has been asked to leave because they lack proper residency documents. The Spanish missionaries have had considerable success in converting many former Christian Mayas, evangelicals that had rejected the traditional faith of their home communities which mixed ancient Maya beliefs with the Roman Catholic tenets introduced by Europeans in the 16th century. Although they’re not the only group bringing Islam to Chiapas, the Spanish missionaries are part of the Murabitun movement, a Sufi dawah group with an anti-globalization outlook that many Chiapas natives may have found favor with, along with their traditional ties to nature. “The indigenas are connected to nature…they see God in their forests and their mountains–and Islam means `the natural way,'” says one convert. Still, some suspect that the movement has direct links to the Zapatista rebels as well as Basque separatists in Spain, which may shed further light on Mexican government motives.

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.