_A Comunidade Muçulmana em Juiz de Fora (The Muslim Community in Juiz de Fora)

This research was conducted between August 2005 and August 2006, financed by CNPq and UFJF (with a Scientific Initiation grant), using participant observation and in-depth interviews as methodologies to better understand the Muslim community in Juiz de Fora. For theoretical purposes, several books on Sociology and Anthropology of Religions were consulted, with an emphasis on Islam. Since the end of the field research and up to the present moment, reflections have been made on the conclusions of this work, contained herein. The Muslim Charitable Society of Juiz de Fora is located in the city’s commercial center, a point of great circulation of people, mostly merchants, students and residents of the region. The SBM is located in a commercial store inside a gallery, where the traditional meetings take place – on Fridays at lunchtime – in addition to other events throughout the Muslim calendar. Islam in Juiz de Fora, as in the rest of Brazil, constitutes an “almost ethnic” religion (PEREZ; 2003), having arrived in Brazil with the arrival of the Lebanese, establishing itself as a religion restricted to personal and family matters and opening itself, more recently, to the conversion of believers.