Islam in Greece - Immigrant Muslims in Greece

Immigrant Muslims in Greece

The first immigrants of Islamic faith, mostly Egyptian, arrived in the early 1950s from Egypt, and are concentrated in the country's two main urban centres, Athens and Thessaloniki. Since 1990, there has been an increase in the numbers of immigrant Muslims from various countries of the Middle East, North Africa, as well as from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Somalia. However, the bulk of the immigrant Muslim community has come from the Balkans, specifically from Albania and Albanian communities in the Republic of Macedonia, and other former Yugoslav republics. Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, Albanian workers started immigrating to Greece, taking low wage jobs in search of economic opportunity, and bringing over their families to settle in cities like Athens and Thessaloniki. An official 2001 census listed 443,550 Albanian nationals residing in Greece; not counting undocumented residents and Albanians from the Republic of Macedonia.

The majority of the immigrant Muslim community resides in Athens. In recognition of their religious rights, the Greek government approved the building of a mosque in July 2006. In addition, the Greek Orthodox Church has donated 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2), worth an estimated $20 million, in west Athens for the purpose of a Muslim cemetery. However, both commitments continued to remain dead letters by 2010. Recently, a mosque on Crete was bombed, likely as a result of anti-Muslim bigotry, but no suspects have yet been identified.

There has been anti-Muslim rhetoric from certain right-wing circles in recent years.