Islam in South Africa is a minority religion, practised by roughly 1.6% of the total population. Islam in South Africa has grown in three phases. The first phase brought the earliest Muslims as part of the involuntary migration of slaves, artisans, political prisoners, and political exiles from the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that lasted from about 1652 to the mid-1800s. The second phase was the arrival of indentured labourers from British India to work in the sugar-cane fields in Natal between 1860 and 1868, and again from 1874 to 1911. Of the approximately 176,000 Indians of all faiths who were transported to the Natal province, almost 7–10% of the first shipment were Muslims. The third phase has been marked by a wave of African Muslims following the end of apartheid in 1994. Recent figures put the number of these immigrants at approximately at between 75,000 and 100,000. In addition, a considerable number of Muslims from South Asia have also arrived as economic migrants. Although the majority of Muslims are Sunni, smaller numbers are Shia, particularly in Cape Town. History The VOC period In the 17th century, the Dutch controlled East Indies and the Cape. Free Muslim labourers (Mardyckers), banished rebels and slaves were taken to the Cape from Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) as free workers, and as slaves. A significant number of slaves from India were also Muslims. The first recorded arrival of free Muslims known as Mardyckers is in 1658. Mardycka or Maredhika implies freedom. The Mardyckers were people from Amboyna in the southern Moluccas and were brought to the Cape to defend the newly established settlement against the indigenous people, and also to provide labour in the same way that they had been employed at home, first by the Portuguese and later by the Dutch, in Amboyna. Jan Van Riebeeck had requested that the Mardyckers be sent to the Cape as a labour force. The Mardyckers were prohibited from openly practising their religion: Islam. This was in accordance with the Statute of India (drafted by Van Dieman in 1642) which stated in one of its : "No one shall trouble the Amboinese about their religion or annoy them; so long as they do not practise in public or venture to propagate it amongst Christians and heathens. Offenders to be punished with death, but should there be amongst them those who had been drawn to God to