Christians are prohibited from proselytizing and face social discrimination and some police harassment. There are two Roman Catholic churches and one Protestant church in the country, but these are restricted to expatriates.
Major Religion
Islam
DATE OF ORIGIN 800 C.E. to 1500 C.E.
NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS 602,000
History
The Comoros was settled at least a thousand years ago, first by migrants from Madagascar and later by Islamic settlers from the Persian Gulf and the East African coast. According to widely held belief, Islam was brought to the islands earlier—in the seventh century C.E., during the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad—bytwo Comorian nobles who traveled to Arabia. Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that Islam arrived in the Comoros between the ninth and sixteenth centuries and was introduced by Arab merchants and Shirazi princes who had been expelled from Persia.
Long before French colonization in the nineteenth century, Islam played a central role in the Comoros. Ruling families learned to speak and write Arabic, made the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), and maintained ties with other Indian Ocean Muslim communities, such as Kilwa, Zanzibar, and Oman.
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