Tokyo Camii: Masjid Kedua Tertua di Jepun

Wajah lama Masjid Camii

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The Tokyo Camii & Turkish Culture Center in Shibuya Ward, notable for its Ottoman architecture and intricate Arabic reliefs, is one of the mosques located across the nation that serve a small but thriving Muslim community estimated to number around 110,000 to 120,000, including roughly 10,000 Japanese Muslims.

Tokyo Camii, which was built in 1938 and is the second-oldest mosque in Japan, is open to worshippers and visitors of any nationality. It also hosts classes, Islamic "nikah" marriage ceremonies and conversions to Islam, which require two Muslim witnesses.

While relatively few worshippers visit Tokyo Camii to pray during regular weekdays, Yenturk said 400 to 500 Muslims, many from other parts of Asia, including Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, regularly attend the important Friday noon prayers.

Although Islam is regarded as the world's second-largest religion after Christianity, Japan's population remains small compared with their numbers in the United States, where 2.454 million reside, or Britain, with a community of 1.647 million Muslims, according to a 2009 report by the Pew Research Center.

According to studies conducted by Hirofumi Tanada, professor of human sciences at Waseda University in Tokyo, there were 58 mosques in Japan as of April 2009, although he said more were founded recently, bringing the total to around 60.

Tanada explained that the first Muslim community recognized in Japan can be traced back to around the early 1920s, when a few hundred Turkish Muslims emigrated from Russia following the 1917 Russian Revolution.

These numbers gradually increased along with the pro-Islam policies of the government of the time, and by the end of the 1930s there were roughly 1,000 Muslims of various origins residing in Japan, Tanada said.

The next influx came in the 1980s, when a wave of migrant workers from nations such as Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh arrived, significantly boosting the Muslim population.

Tanada, who has conducted much research and fieldwork on the country's Islamic communities, said that this increase in the Muslim population also led to an increase in the number of Japanese spouses converting to Islam.

Tanada said exchange students are responsible for the bulk of today's Muslim population in Japan, followed by self-employed workers in businesses such as used-car dealerships and halal food shops, as well as those in professional careers.

Masjid Camii (terkini)

Sumber: Japan Time & Islam In Japan