North Korea
Located in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula in the east of Asia, the country is bordered by the Sea of Japan to the east, the Yellow Sea to the west, China to the north, and South Korea to the south. Almost all of the country is Korean.
The first contact of the Korean Peninsula with Islam was made in the middle of the 7th century AD through Arab and Iranian traders. It is estimated that the Muslims who had contact with the Tang Dynasty, which ruled in China at that time, moved to Korea from here. The Silla Dynasty, which ruled Korea in the same period, also took place in the works of Muslim scholars and geographers in the following periods. After the Mongols' domination of Korea in the 13th century, the presence of Islam in the region was strengthened by Muslim rulers who took important roles in the army and politics. This situation lasted until the middle of the 15th century, and with the assimilation policies implemented during this period, a small number of Muslims living in the region either migrated to other regions or melted into the local population. It was possible for the Islamic world to re-establish contact with Korean geography centuries later, with Muslim scholars sent to the region during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II, however, no lasting success was achieved in this attempt either. Tatar Muslims, who fled from the Bolshevik regime in Russia in the early 1920s, dispersed to various cities in today's North and South Korea but had to leave the country due to the war environment that emerged after the Second World War. The information activities of the imams of the Turkish unity, who came to the region in accordance with the UN Security Council decision during the war, for the local people, increased the interest in Islam in South Korea in the post-war period, and the Muslims of the country started to institutionalize their activities since the 1960s. Today, the number of Muslims in South Korea is estimated to reach 150,000. However, a similar process was not possible for North Korea, and the presence of Islam in the country remained at an extremely limited level due to the communist regime's policies and practices that adopted the construction of a religionless society and its closed political attitude. It is estimated that around 3,000 Muslims live in North Korea today.
