South Africa is a Christian majority nation with Islam being a minority religion, practised by roughly 2% of the total population. Islam in South Africa has grown in three different phases. The first phase brought the earliest Muslims as part of the involuntary migration of slaves, artisans, political prisoners, and political exiles from the Dutch East Indies to the Cape Colony from 1652 to 1800. The second phase was the arrival of indentured labourers from British India to work in the sugar-cane fields in Natal from 1860 to 1911. Of the approximately 176,000 Indians of all faiths who were transported to the Natal province, almost 7–10% of the first shipment were Muslims.
The third phase has been marked by a wave of African Muslims following the end of apartheid in 1994. Recent figures put the number of these immigrants at approximately between 75,000 and 100,000. In addition, a considerable number of Muslims from South Asia have also arrived as economic migrants. Although the majority of Muslims are Sunni, smaller numbers are Shia, particularly in Cape Town.
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