Inside iron fence that surrounds an ordinary looking house in calm Santiago neighbourhood reside some unusual Chilean nationals. They enjoy local cuisine, speak the same language and wear similar dress too. But, they don’t share the faith with predominantly Roman Catholic people. They also don’t eat pork and instead of visiting Church on Sunday, pray five times a day in a mosque!

Since 1988, this place has been housing the Centro de Cultura Islámica, the Islamic Cultural Centre, in Santiago, Chile, a country with a meagre Muslim population of 3,500.

Islam plays hardly any role in the life of most Chileans. It's rarely mentioned in the media, only if something happens on the international level. One doesn't see Muslims on the street.

Fuad Musa, the centre’s president, is a Chilean of Arab decent. But unlike the majority of the country he is Muslim and Chilean at once. Despite his polite manner, he does not shake hands with female visitors on the campus. “Salam,” he welcomes this female journalist with his hand on the chest.

Born and bred here, Musa is a typical local in almost every sense of the word. His grandfather emigrated from Lebanon about a century ago.

Since not as many women came to Chile then, Musa's grandfather married a local Christian woman.

He recalls, “My grandmother had no problem with her husband's religion but wanted her children to be Christian, too.” This happened a lot in those days, most men, originally Muslims, fully assimilated to the Chilean society because of their spouse and social context both.

“They lost Islam,” Musa says, explaining that his entire family is Christian. And, so was he for a long time in his life. At some point though, he started searching for his Islamic roots.

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