ABSTRACT
The development and spread of Islam has been dynamic in nature since its inception by the prophet Muhammad, and in many respects the religion’s philosophy and followers have always viewed global growth and eventual dominance as the religions qadar (destiny) (Arnold 1956; Levtzion 1977). As a growing global religion, the boundaries of Islam have ‘remained permeable and have shifted and interacted with other religions over time as people moved’ (Juergensmeyer 2003: 5). The demographic centre of the religion has shifted predominantly eastward over the last 1400 years from its birthplace in Saudi Arabia, with the largest national populations of Muslims today being in South and Southeast Asia (Coatalen 1981). The relatively recent growth of Islam in PNG and elsewhere in Melanesia is part of a global trend of increasing Islamic conversions; a trend described as ‘striking’ for its scale in attracting ‘millions of converts . . . in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America’ (Rambo 2003: 212). Over the last 20 years, the global ummah (Islamic community) has grown at rates that exceed the rate of Muslim population growth, which highlights growth as a result of religious conversions by people of other faiths (Hsu et al. 2008; Wagner 2004). Although increased conversions are a significant factor, the bulk of global growth in the Muslim population overall remains the result of high fertility rates and low contraception use in Muslim majority countries (RoudiFahimi 2004). In 2007, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ranked Islam as ‘the fastest growing religion’ on earth, adding that ‘the fast-growing faiths are upending the old world order’ (FP 2007). The only religious groups growing as fast as Islam globally are evangelical and Pentecostal (EP) sects of Christianity, (Robbins 2004b; Wagner 2004). In 2006, ‘for the first time ever Muslims (19.2 percent) overtook Catholics (17.4 percent) as the largest religious group in the world’ (Kington 2008). The growth of Islam in PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands is different from the growth of Islam in other Melanesian nations because it is growing through conversions of indigenous citizens and not through increased migration. In Fiji and New Caledonia, Muslims are almost exclusively descendants of immigrant labourers. In Fiji, Muslims are predominantly from the Indian
sub-continent (Ali 2004) and in New Caledonia from Algeria and Java (Zocca 2006b), with growth in both countries being stable and in line with Muslim birth and mortality rates. In the Indonesian (yet traditionally Melanesian) province of West Papua, the growth of the Muslim population has climbed rapidly to over 30 per cent of the population, however growth is largely due to the deliberate relocation policies of the Indonesian state, which encourages Javanese Muslims to migrate (Farhadian 2005: 72-78). PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomons are therefore quite unique and share similarities with each other in that there is conversion growth in each country occurring in roughly the same period of time. The first Solomon Islander to convert to Islam was Abdus Samad, who converted in Port Moresby in 1989 (Aziz 1997b: 7). In 1991, Tahir Berg, a Sunni Muslim expatriate from Fiji based in Honiara, witnessed the first three conversions of indigenous locals in the Solomons and supported their endeavours to convert family members and establish the local Muslim League (Aziz 1997b: 7). It is likely that Berg was also responsible for requesting the Regional Islamic Da’wah Council for Southeast Asia and the Pacific (RISEAP) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) to send Sunni missionaries, which occurred in 1995 when a small Tablighi Jamaat visited (Sandbach 1997g). When the Head Imam of PNG toured the Solomon Islands in 1997 he reported there were 143 Muslims in the country (Aziz 1997b: 5). This number conflicts with official Solomon Islands government census figures from 1998 which reported only ‘twelve Muslims to be in the country’ (State 2005: 225). The organisation representing Sunnis is formally known as the Solomon Islands Muslim League (SIML) (SIBC 2005) and recently it claimed close to 2,000 Sunni Muslim converts in the following three main areas: the Malaitandominated area of the capital, Honiara (east and central); the island of Malaita; and the island of small Malaita (Flower 2008; Wate 2005). Despite the Islamic community increasing tenfold from its very small population base in 1997, Muslims remain a small minority in a Christian-dominated country of less than half a million citizens (Ernst 2006b: 172). Interestingly, Baha’ism (an offshoot of Shi’i Islam), has also taken root in the Solomons with more than 2,300 members, of which 71 per cent live on Malaita (Ernst 2006b: 197). Clearly Islamic doctrine and principles are appealing to Malaitans. Vanuatu has also seen a recent rise in its Muslim population since 2001, although the growth is much less numerically and at a slower rate than in the Solomons and PNG. For many years, the population of the Muslim community in Vanuatu remained static and was based in only the village of Mele on the Island of Efate. However, increased foreign assistance for Vanuatu’s Muslim minority over the last eight years has led to a significant increase in conversions. Sunni Islam in Vanuatu arrived in 1978 with Hussein (John Henry) Nabanga of Mele village near Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila. Nabanga (a Ni-Vanuatu), travelled to India in 1973 to undertake a course in scriptural translation and after five years there converted to Islam prior to returning home to Mele (Ahmadu and Shuaibu 2004: 22).
