Annual Religious Liberty Lecture<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This afternoon, I sat down and began to work on it fairly seriously \u2014 and now I\u2019m concerned that I won\u2019t have time and space to say all that\u2019s on my mind.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s very possible, even likely, that nobody else will like it at all. \u00a0But I\u2019m pretty pleased with the direction in which it\u2019s going.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be discussing Islam as a challenge to religious liberty. \u00a0Whether that challenge is intrinsic to Islam or whether it exists largely in the minds of its critics will be a focus of what I have to say.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In order to orient myself regarding the history of Islam in Australia, I\u2019ve begun to make myself a few notes on the subject. \u00a0Here\u2019s a beginning:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Apparently no later than the 1750s and perhaps even the 1720s or earlier, Indonesian Muslims came to coastal northern Australia to collect trepang<\/em>, which is evidently a marine invertebrate used in Chinese cooking and traditional medicine.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
They may or may not have made much lasting impact, but \u201cMohammedans\u201d appear in Australian public records for 1802, 1811, 1822, and (in the census) 1828.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some Muslims appear to have arrived (perhaps as employees on British ships) during the \u201cconvict period\u201d\u00a0of Australian history (roughly 1842 to 1868) \u2014 on Norfolk Island, for example, during the time that it was used as a penal colony \u2014 but large numbers of Muslims seem to have come only after 1860 or so.<\/p>\n
<\/sup><\/p>\nCamels began to be imported into Australia in 1840, needed for the vast desert interior of the continent. \u00a0Central Asian camel drivers arrived shortly thereafter to tend them. \u00a0Although they actually came from various countries, they were commonly known as \u201cAfghans.\u201d \u00a0They represent the first more or less \u201cformal\u201d presence of Islam in Australia \u2014 particularly, it seems, in the area of Melbourne, again around 1860.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
As might be expected, many camel drivers settled in the vicinity of Alice Springs, which is officially located in the Northern Territory but sits very near the center of the continent. \u00a0For that reason, the railway that runs north-south through Australia\u2019s middle is still today called \u201cThe Ghan,\u201d which is short for \u201cThe Afghan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Slightly later in the nineteenth century, Malay pearl divers came to work in Australia, bringing another ethnic dimension to the Muslim population.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 In the few spare moments that I\u2019ve had to think about it up until now, I\u2019ve been concerned about whether I had anything worthwhile to say for my lecture at the\u00a0University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney later this month: \u00a0 Annual Religious Liberty Lecture \u00a0 This afternoon, I sat down and began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>