Historical Investigation to the Problems and Challenges of Muslims in Papua New Guinea

Abstract—It is not difficult to see why Muslims who live as a minority innon-Muslimcountries like Papua New Guinea are seen as a problem and threat.These are partly due to political and historical factors, partly due to the press media, which have unjustly confirmed for many that Muslims are violent, prone to anarchy. Mostnon-Muslimcountries like Papua New Guinea in which Muslims live have an image of themselves as plural, secular, modern and tolerant societies. Muslims somehow challenge such an image; they provoke the worst aspect of the state hence, instead of solving the problems of the Muslims in a manner that would be mutually beneficial, the state tends to ignore or minimize them. The examples of Papua New Guinean minority Muslims are like that of former state of Yugoslavia where the Serbs went one step further with Muslim minority. They systematically terrorized them and sent them from their homes, the world called it ethnic cleansing and did nothing.Bosnia was added to the list of recent Muslim losses. Can the same fate happen in Papua New Guinea? What offends Muslims living in a country as the minority community?

Index Terms—Papua new guinea, muslims, community, historical.

The authors are with the Department of History and Civilization, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Malaysia (e-mail: ibraheem_abiola@yahoo.com).

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Cite: Ibraheem Mikail Abiola, Haruna Umar Farouq, and Maruf RajiOwoyemi, "Historical Investigation to the Problems and Challenges of Muslims in Papua New Guinea," International Journal of Culture and History vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 46-49, 2016.