Islam
The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 22,000 members in 2001 served by about 40 mosques.
The first Muslim community which permanently settled in Wales consisted of Yemeni sailors who arrived in ports such as Swansea shortly after 1900. The first mosque in Britain is recorded as having been at 2 Glyn Rhondda Street, Cardiff, in 1860.
In Wales most Muslims live in Cardiff (11,261, 3.7% of the population), but there are also significant numbers in Newport (3,492) and Swansea (2,167).
Read more about this topic: Religion In Wales
Famous quotes containing the word islam:
“The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Sooner or later we must absorb Islam if our own culture is not to die of anemia.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)