The number of Muslims in Japan is growing fast
But locals are wary of building facilities for them
EVERY FRIDAY scores of Muslim men and women stream into a mosque in an unassuming four-storey building in Beppu, a hot-spring mecca on Kyushu, the most southerly of Japan’s big islands. Many are students who study nearby at Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University (APU) and work part-time at the hotels around town. Others have come to man the fishing boats and shipyards that the ageing and shrinking local population can no longer fully staff.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Hiji hajis”
From the January 9th 2021 edition
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