Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

 in Australia is a small minority

Minority group

A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...

 religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 grouping, but fourth largest after all forms of Christianity

Christianity in Australia

Christianity is the largest religion listed by Australians in the national census. In the 2006 Census, 63.9% of Australians were listed as Christian. Australia has no official state religion and the Australian Constitution protects freedom of religion. The presence of Christianity in Australia...

 (64%), irreligion

Irreligion in Australia

Atheism, agnosticism, deism, scepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general secularism is increasing in Australia. Post-war Australia has become a highly secularised country...

 (18.7%) and Buddhism

Buddhism in Australia

In Australia, Buddhism is a small but growing religion. According to the 2006 census, 2.1 percent of the total population of Australia, or 418,749 people, identified as Buddhist. It was also the fastest-growing religion by percentage, having increased its number of adherents by 79 percent between...

 (2.1%), excluding 11.2% who failed to answer at the last census. According to the 2006 census, approximately 340,392 people, or 1.71% of the total Australian population were Muslims.

While the Australian Muslim community is defined largely by religious belonging

Religious identity

Religious Identity is a specific type of identity formation. Particularly, it is the sense of group membership to a religion and the importance of this group membership as it pertains to one’s self-concept. Religious identity is not necessarily the same as religiousness or religiosity...

, the Muslim community is fragmented further by being the most racially, ethnically, culturally

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

 and linguistically

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 diverse religious grouping in Australia, with members from every ethnic and racial background, including Anglo-Celtic Australian

Anglo-Celtic Australian

Anglo-Celtic Australian are citizens of Australia with British and/or Irish ancestral origins.-Demography:From the beginning of the colonial era until the mid-20th century, the vast majority of settlers were British or Irish...

 Muslims. Members of the Australian Muslim community thus also espouse parallel non-religious ethnic identities with related non-Muslim counterparts, either within Australia or abroad.

Although Islam's presence in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 is often perceived to be recent by Australian non-Muslims, adherents of Islam from what is today Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 had in fact been visiting the Great southern land

Great Southern Land

"Great Southern Land" is a single released by Australian rock band Icehouse. It was released in August 1982, before the album Primitive Man. Peaking at number five on the Australian Singles Chart, it was later featured in the 1988 Yahoo Serious film Young Einstein, and remains their most popular...

 prior to colonial era settlement of European Christians.