Can you guess why?

Is is because Japan has made life so comfortable for Muslims that they have embraced life in Japan?  Because Japan has built beautiful mosques, or allowed Sharia law, or encouraged separate-but-equal living conditions for their Muslim citizens/immigrants?  If you think these things are true, then you are wrong, wrong, wrong!

According to THIS, here are the real reasons:

What Japan did to avoid problems related to Muslims was much simpler and cheaper; Japan is practically closed to Muslims.

Officially, immigration to Japan is not closed to Muslims. But the number of the immigration permits given to the applicants from Islamic countries is very low. Obtaining a working visa is not easy for adepts of Islam, even if they are physicians, engineers and managers sent by foreign companies that are active in the region. As a result, Japan is “a country without Muslims” ….

One of the leaders of the Muslim community in Japan,  Nur Ad-Din Mori, was asked: “What percentage of Japan’s total population are Muslims?” He responded, “The answer at the moment is: One out of a hundred thousand.”

Japan’s population is 130 million people, so if these Muslim leaders are correct, then there must be around 1300 Muslims. But even those  Muslims who obtained immigration permits and lived many years in the country have very poor chances of becoming Japanese citizens.

Japan officially forbids exhorting people to adopt the religion of Islam (Dawah), and any Muslim who actively encourages conversion to Islam is seen as proselytizing to a foreign and undesirable culture. Too active “promoters of Islam” face deportation- and sometimes even a jail sentence.

In addition, the Arabic language is taught almost nowhere, and the only Korans allowed in Japan are in Japanese.  No public prayer is allowed – an observant Muslim must pray at home. Halal food is difficult to find, and Sharia law is practically non-existent.

The Japanese tend to perceive Islam as a “strange  and dangerous religion” that a true Japanese should avoid, and the recent murders of two Japanese nationals, Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, by ISIS have not contributed to any improvement in the opinions of the Japanese on this matter.

And the most  interesting thing in the Japanese approach to Muslims is the fact that the Japanese do not feel any guilt for such a “discriminatory” approach to Islam, and they evidently do not think they should  apologize to Muslims for the negative way in which they perceive their religion. Arab gas and oil- yes, and Japan maintains good relations with Arab exporters. But Islam – no, and Muslim immigration- neither. Islam is something that is suitable for others, not for Japan, and therefore the Muslims must remain outside.

It’s too bad that we cannot adopt Japan’s attitude toward immigration here in the United States, and the chance of changing the attitudes of a significant portion of our population are small.  It’s interesting to know what works, though – and it isn’t very surprising, either.