The Muslim population in St. Louis, Missouri is on the rise. According to the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis, there are around 100,000 Muslims living in the city, with 25,000 to 30,000 of them being adult women.
The Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area, MO-IL, is located on the banks of the Mississippi River and encompasses a total of 16 counties in southern Illinois and northern Missouri. The Louis metropolitan area is a bustling Mississippi River port city. Although the population of Louis has slightly decreased in recent years, the suburbs and surrounding counties have seen a steady growth, causing the metropolitan area to increase in size over the past five years. An increase of 0.86% over the past 5 years has been recorded.
The Louis metropolitan area is home to nine Fortune 500 companies, as well as an advanced medical industry. This draws educated immigrants looking for work in these fields. The average quality of life in St. Louis is also very high compared to most large metropolitan areas. The city's effort to make it more immigrant-friendly and to attract more immigrants every year makes St.
Louis a central city for immigration and diversity. St. Louis has a diverse ethnic composition with a large European, Latin American and Asian population. Throughout the city's history, European immigrants mainly came from Eastern European countries such as Italy, France and Germany. However, there has recently been an influx of Bosnian refugees to the St.
Louis metropolitan area. Nowadays, Bosnians are one of the largest ethnic groups in the city and St. Louis has the largest Bosnian population outside its country of origin. The Asian population has also skyrocketed in recent years due to the city's advanced medical and life science industries which attract many educated immigrants from South and East Asian countries such as China, Korea and India. If immigration trends continue in this way, St. Louis could soon have one of the highest percentages of the country's Asian population.
Jay Hardy, owner of Jay B funeral homes in Maplewood and Fenton said that in the 1970s he dealt with one or two Muslim burials a year. Today that number increases to three or four a week. In August, the Lemay Bosnian Islamic Center purchased a large plot of land in the old Odd Fellows Cemetery on Broadway, making it the first Muslim cemetery in St. Louis. Adil Imdad is a funeral student who is working towards obtaining his license next month and organizing a fundraiser tonight at the Daar-ul-Islam mosque located at 517 Weidman Street to raise funds for what he says will be Missouri's first Muslim funeral home. Mohammed Hussein, a radiation oncologist from Washington believes that practicing the correct religious rituals related to death should be a priority for American Muslim communities.
The Muslim communities of Kansas City, Columbia and Jefferson City maintain small funeral facilities often inside mosques to wash the bodies of the deceased. The growing Muslim community in St. Louis is proof that it is becoming an increasingly diverse city with many opportunities for immigrants looking for work or a better quality of life. With its advanced medical industry and efforts to make it more immigrant-friendly, St. Louis is becoming an attractive destination for many people from different backgrounds.
