Islam in Panama - Modern Period

Modern Period

The second wave of Muslims were single-male immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and Lebanon who arrived from 1904 to 1913 and later married local women. In 1929 another group came from Bombay, India who went on to form the Sunni Indo-Pakistani Muslim Society. From 1929-1948 this organization (renamed Panama Muslim Mission) initiated construction on a mosque in Panama City. The location was half completed and was used for Eid prayers and classes for new Muslims, who numbered about twenty-five blacks of West Indian descent. There was also another group practicing Islam in Colón led by a Jamaican named Basil Austkan, who rented a place for salat on 6th Street and Broadway. In 1932 there was a group of Muslim in San Miguel, Calidonia in Panama City who resided in Short Street where they held meetings and prayers. The Muslims in Panama City of Indo-Pakistan origins had no family structure until 1951 when the first families arrived. In 1963, they purchased a plot in the local cemetery called Jardin de Paz; in 1991, property was purchased in an area called Arraijan, which is now used solely as a Muslim cemetery.