Islam in Thailand

Islam is a minority faith in Thailand, with recent statistics suggesting 4.9 percent of the population Figures as high as 5 percent of Thailand's population have also been mentioned. Most Thai Muslims belong to the Sunni branch, although Thailand has a diverse population which includes immigrants from around the world.

Popular opinion seems to hold that a vast majority of the country's Muslims are found in the Thailand's four southernmost provinces of Satun, Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, where they make up majority of the population. However, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs' research indicates that only 18 percent of Thai Muslims live in those three provinces. The rest are scattered throughout Thailand, with the largest concentrations being in Bangkok and throughout the southern region.

According to the National Statistics Office, in 2005, Muslims in southern Thailand made up 30.4 percent of the general population above the age 15, while less than three percent in other parts of the country.

In Siam (modern Thailand) Indian Muslims from the Coromandel Coast served as eunuchs in the Thai palace and court.

Thailand's Muslim population is diverse, with ethnic groups having migrated from as far as China, Pakistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as well as including indigenous Thais, while about two-thirds of Muslims in Thailand are ethnically Malay.

Many Thai Muslims are ethnically and linguistically Thai, who are either hereditary Muslims, Muslims by intermarriage, or recent reverts to the faith. Ethnic Thai Muslims live mainly in the central and southern provinces - varying from entire Muslim communities to mixed settlements.

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Wikipedia