Islam is a minority religion in South Africa where Muslims, numbering 654,064, comprised just 1.46 percent of the population of 44.8 million in 2001, with women making up half of the Muslim population. Approximately 90 percent of Muslims are either descendants of slaves and political prisoners from Southeast Asia who were brought to the Cape Colony by the Dutch East India Company beginning in the 1650s, or indentured and trader migrants from South Asia who settled in Natal from 1860 onwards. The…