Islam first reached Haiti with enslaved Muslims brought across the Atlantic from the sixteenth century onward, but orthodox practice largely faded under colonial rule. What exists today traces instead to 1922, when Arab immigrants — many originally from Fez, Morocco, arriving around 1920 — reconnected with descendants of Haiti's earlier Muslim population and re-established organized religious life. The community that grew from this second beginning is mostly made up of Haitians themselves, alongside smaller numbers of Moroccan and Trinidadian origin.
Growth accelerated after the devastating 2010 earthquake, when Islamic relief organizations arrived to help rebuild Port-au-Prince and a wave of new mosques and institutions followed; by 2011 the capital alone had at least five mosques, a nightly television program on Islam, and a Muslim member of parliament. Port-au-Prince sits at roughly 18.6°N, a latitude shared with much of the Caribbean, which keeps day length fairly stable through the year and gives Ramadan fasting hours that don't swing as sharply as they would further from the equator.
Haiti's post-2010 Islamic institutions grew largely with support from North American and international Muslim relief networks that use the Islamic Society of North America's convention, and at Port-au-Prince's tropical latitude that method's 15° angles produce reliably clear Fajr and Isha windows across the year.
Islam arrived with enslaved Muslims during the colonial slave trade, but orthodox practice did not survive intact under slavery, so the faith was effectively reintroduced in 1922 when Arab immigrants, many from Fez, Morocco, reconnected with the descendants of Haiti's earlier Muslim population.
Islamic relief organizations that arrived to help rebuild Port-au-Prince also supported new mosques and institutions, and within a year the capital had at least five mosques, a Muslim member of parliament and a nightly television program devoted to Islam.
Estimates put the figure at around 10,000, still under 1% of Haiti's population, with the community made up mostly of Haitians alongside smaller numbers of Moroccan and Trinidadian descent.
Only modestly — Port-au-Prince's tropical latitude keeps daylight hours fairly close to twelve year-round, so a Ramadan that falls in winter looks similar in length to one that falls in summer, unlike in countries much further from the equator.