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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000645 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SOCI KPAO KISL SP
SUBJECT: THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN SPAIN 
 
REF: A. 04 MADRID 3887 
     ¶B. MADRID 517 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY.  This message is the first of two cables 
discussing Spain's large and growing Muslim community that 
stems from Poloff's discussions with leading members of the 
Muslim community in Madrid.  Islam has long been a force in 
Spanish history dating back to Moorish rule from the eighth 
to fifteenth centuries, but Muslim institutions lacked 
official recognition until 1992.  There is little 
comprehensive data on the Muslim community in Spain, and 
estimates place the number of Muslims anywhere from 500,000 
to 1,000,000.  The largest Muslim populations are found in 
Catalonia, followed by Madrid, Andalusia, the Valencian 
Community and Murcia, and the African enclaves of Ceuta and 
Melilla.  The majority of Muslims are recent immigrants from 
Morocco, but there are also Algerian, Pakistani, and Arab 
communities, as well as a number of Spanish converts to Islam. 
 
¶2.  Muslim community leaders generally favor the policies of 
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, although some 
believe that he has not gone far enough in addressing their 
concerns.  The community leaders were united in their 
negative view towards former Prime Minister Jose Maria 
Aznar's policies.  Although Spanish law has many protections 
against discrimination, in practice, Muslims have a harder 
time finding work and housing in Spain.  Muslim leaders are 
concerned about what they regard as media misinformation 
about their community.  The major priority of the Muslim 
community is increased educational opportunities, including 
the teaching of Islam in public schools.  END SUMMARY 
 
//ISLAM ON THE RISE// 
 
¶3.  There is little comprehensive data, but it is clear that 
Islam is growing rapidly in Spain.  The population has 
doubled in the last ten years due to immigration, the high 
birth rate among Muslims, and new Muslim converts.  The 
Spanish government bars questions on religion in censuses and 
other official questionnaires, limiting the ability to 
compile statistical data.  The diversity of the community and 
the large number of illegal immigrant Muslims in Spain also 
make demographic data difficult to obtain.  Estimates of the 
size of the Muslim community in Spain vary from 500,000 to 
1,000,000.  Roughly 60 percent of the Muslims in Spain are of 
Moroccan origin.  In March 2004, the National Institute of 
Statistics reported that there were 375,767 Moroccans living 
in the country legally as of January 2003.  Salih Alaly, 
Assistant Director of Madrid's Islamic Cultural Center, 
estimated that the congregation of the Islamic Cultural 
Center, Madrid's most important mosque, was 40-50 percent 
Moroccan, 30 percent Algerian, 10-15 percent of Spanish 
origin, and the rest from other nations. 
 
¶4.  According to Mustapha El M'Rabet, the President of the 
Association of Moroccan Workers and Immigrants in Spain 
(ATIME), the leading employment sectors for the Muslim 
community include typical jobs for the immigrant 
community--construction, agriculture, the restaurant 
industry, restoration and landscaping, and work as domestic 
servants.  Second generation Muslims in Spain tend to have 
higher levels of education and tend to improve their 
situation; many get jobs as journalists, doctors, and 
computer operators, according to Yusuf Fernandez, spokesman 
for the Islamic Federation of Spain. 
 
//WHERE DO THEY LIVE?// 
 
¶5.  Spain's largest Muslim population is found in Catalonia, 
the traditional destination for Moroccan immigrants. 
Fernandez estimates that 300,000 to 350,000 Muslims live in 
Catalonia, including Moroccans and a substantial Pakistani 
community in the Barcelona area. 
 
¶6.  Fernandez estimates that 250,000 Muslims live in the 
Madrid area, where there are more than 55 mosques. Press 
reports assert that close to one-third of these mosques have 
affiliations with Islamic radical groups.  The largest mosque 
in Spain is the Islamic Cultural Center, informally dubbed 
the M-30 mosque because of its proximity to a major highway 
running through Madrid.  Salih Alaly estimates that 2,000 
Muslims attend services at the M-30 mosque each Friday. 
 
¶7.  Other important Muslim communities in Spain include 
Andalusia, the Valencian Community and Murcia, and the 
African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.  Immigrants are 
attracted to Andalusia because of its geographical proximity 
to North Africa and the large number of manual labor jobs in 
the agricultural sector.  Andalusia derives its name from Al 
Andalus, the Moorish name for Spain. The Alhambra, among the 
best-preserved Muslim landmarks in the world, is located in 
the Andalusian city of Granada.  The Valencian Community and 
Murcia attract Muslim workers because of the high demand for 
cheap manual labor in construction and agriculture.  Ceuta 
and Melilla are located in North Africa and are far easier to 
access than other Spanish communities across the Straits of 
Gibraltar. 
 
//LEADING MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS// 
 
¶8.  The Muslim community is diverse and does not speak with 
one voice.  The community is officially represented by the 
Islamic Commission of Spain (CIE), which includes the Islamic 
Federation of Spain and the Union of Islamic Communities in 
Spain.  There are over 240 mosques and 64 religious 
communities registered with the Islamic Federation with more 
than 160 additional mosques throughout Spain that are not 
represented by the Federation.  Although M'Rabet's ATIME is 
not a religious organization, its 14,500 members are 
predominantly Muslim and participate in debates on the role 
of Islam in Spanish society.  ATIME has proposed the creation 
of a Muslim Council in Spain, and has engaged prominent 
members of the GOS to push the idea.  M'Rabet says his 
proposal is meant to clear up the current disorganization in 
the Muslim community by setting forth rules on the training 
of imams and discussing the origins of financing for Muslim 
activities in Spain.  According to M'Rabet, the Muslim 
Federation and the Islamic Commission are against this 
proposal because they fear it would erode their current 
influence with the GOS. 
 
//RECOGNITION OF ISLAM IS NEW IN SPAIN// 
 
¶9.  Representatives of Islamic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths 
signed a bilateral agreement with the GOS in 1992 that was 
designed to give other religions equal status with the 
Catholic Church.  The November 1992 act fixed relations 
between the GOS and the Spanish Islamic community as 
represented by the CIE.  Fernandez told us that "religious 
freedom is rather young in Spain," as the Catholic Church has 
had many advantages that other religions have not had. 
Mercedes Rico Carabias, the Director General for Religious 
Affairs at the Ministry of Justice, told Poloff that 
"although the Catholic Church has traditionally received 
special considerations from the state, the government has 
tried to be more inclusive of other religions" (Ref A). Rico 
Carabias handles the GOS's relations with the Muslim 
community from a religious perspective while the Main Foreign 
Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior handles Muslim 
issues related to immigration and terrorism.  The GOS is 
currently trying to implement expanded public funding and tax 
benefits for Muslim, Protestant, and Jewish institutions. 
 
//MUSLIMS VIEWS OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT// 
 
¶10.  M'Rabet and Fernandez said they appreciated the approach 
of the GOS towards the Muslim community after the March 11, 
2004 train bombings.  Both praised the recent efforts of the 
Zapatero administration to normalize the immigration status 
of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (Ref B). 
M'Rabet noted that the February 7, 2004 immigration 
normalization is positive because it "resolves the problems 
of many people in irregular situations and it helps eliminate 
the 'black market' in labor."  He further added that the 
normalization allows law-abiding citizens to pay their taxes, 
making the proposal good for his workers association and good 
for the GOS.  Fernandez ventured that the immigration 
normalization would benefit the Socialist Party by 
reinforcing its positive image in the Muslim community. 
 
¶11.  While praising Zapatero's political discourse as 
"correct" and "conciliatory", M'Rabet noted that the current 
government had been in power only nine months and still lacks 
"an effective plan of integration" for the Muslim community 
that would include improved access to jobs, authorization for 
Islamic instruction in the public schools, and improved 
access to health care for Muslim immigrants.  Ebraheem A.S. 
Alzaid, the Director of Madrid's Islamic Cultural Center, 
described Zapatero as "better than Aznar", but Alzaid noted 
that he has yet to see significant concrete actions from the 
current government.  He is concerned that although the GOS 
promised to hire Islamic teachers for public schools under 
the 1992 bilateral agreement, there are no Islamic teachers 
in Spain's public schools today. 
 
//VIEWS OF AZNAR// 
 
¶12.  While Muslim leaders are generally sympathetic to the 
policies of the Zapatero government, the previous Popular 
Party government of Aznar is not viewed in the same light. 
Fernandez believes that the Socialist government is a "better 
fit for the Muslim people," as "Aznar was a Catholic 
fundamentalist who supported the Catholic religion at the 
expense of Protestants, Jews, and Muslims."  Alzaid took 
issue with Aznar's anti-terrorism speech at Georgetown 
University on September 21, 2004.  He did not agree with 
Aznar's remarks attributing the Madrid bombing to al-Qaida, 
but also tracing the roots of the attack to the 
eighth-century invasion of Spain by the Moors and the 
successful resistance and the subsequent reconquest of Spain 
by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.  He favors the current 
government's allusions of "international terrorism", where 
Aznar talked of "Islamic terrorism, but never of Christian or 
Jewish terrorism." 
 
¶13.  M'Rabet believes that Aznar's Popular Party has 
occasionally made the situation worse for immigrants in Spain 
by blaming increased crime on immigrants from Colombia, 
Kosovo, and Morocco.  M'Rabet said that there are clearly 
mafia elements in some of the immigrant communities, but 
argued the talk of increased crime as a result of immigration 
does a disservice to the thousands of hard working law 
abiding immigrants in Spain. 
 
//PROBLEMS OF DISCRIMINATION AND MISINFORMATION// 
 
¶14.  The Muslim community continues to suffer from 
discrimination, particularly in obtaining work and rental 
housing.  M'Rabet told us that anti-discrimination laws exist 
and the government talks of equal rights, but Muslims in 
Spain face large informal hurdles to renting apartments and 
obtaining bank loans.  He says many owners and bankers will 
refuse apartments and loans upon viewing a Moroccan 
applicant.  The Islamic Federation reported that the building 
permit process for new mosque construction could be difficult 
and lengthy, especially for building sites in central urban 
locations.  Many Spanish citizens blame recent Moroccan 
immigrants for increased crime rates in the country, which 
sometimes results in anti-Muslim sentiment.  M'Rabet claimed 
that police frequently ask for identity documents based 
solely on physical appearance of people who look like they 
are Muslims. 
 
¶15.  There has been no documented increase in violence 
towards Muslims following the March 11 train bombings in 
Madrid. However, Muslim leaders were concerned that media 
reports appeared to link the Islamic religion to the 
terrorist attacks, as opposed to focusing on the extremists 
themselves.  Alzaid, a Saudi national, is concerned about 
media reports that state that Saudi imams are influencing 
Islam in Spain.  His position as Director of the Cultural 
Center does not include preaching duties.  He told Poloff 
that none of the imams in Spain are of Saudi origin and that 
he was not aware of any imam who had received religious 
training in Saudi Arabia.  All of the Muslim community 
leaders were concerned about the negative portrayal of 
Muslims on television and in films. 
 
//COMMENT// 
 
¶16.  The Muslim community in Spain is likely to grow 
proportionately larger in the coming decades due to Spain's 
low fertility rate, need for manual labor, aging native 
population, porous borders, and close proximity to countries 
of migration in North Africa.  While more than 90 percent of 
Spain's population is Catholic, only 20 percent of Catholics 
go to church regularly.  By contrast, Spanish Muslims remain 
devout, even after many years of residence in Spain.  New 
immigration normalization rules and proposed changes in 
voting for residents of Spain are likely to make the Muslim 
community an increasingly powerful voice in the politics of 
Spain, which may in turn generate friction with non-Muslim 
Spaniards.  Post has stepped up outreach efforts to the 
Muslim community to demonstrate USG interest in their 
concerns and to encourage Muslim leaders to act as a force 
for moderation.  END COMMENT. 
 
MANZANARES