한국 이주 아랍 무슬림의 현황과 조직화

The Present Condition and Social Network of the Arab Muslim Immigrants in Korean Society

&nbsp;&nbsp;Recently it is commonly agreed that Korean society is becoming a multi-cultural and a multi-ethnic one. As the discourse on multi-ethnicity and multi-culture widely spread, the word so called &quot;Kosian&quot; began to be used. However, as the term considers only the regional variable, it is impossible to distinguish Asian Muslims who live on different cultural and religious norms from other Asian people. European countries who have already admitted the immigrant society are suffering from many social problems caused by Muslim European youth. Now it is time to research how their traditional values and cultural features of increasing Muslim immigrants are acculturated in Korean society.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper focuses on present condition and social network of Arab immigrant Muslims in Korean society as the first year subject of the project on "Acculturation and Adaptation of Immigrant Muslims in Korean Society: Coexisting with Koslims in a Multi-Cultural Society". The so-called Koslims include South Asian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian, Non-Arab Middle Eastern, and Arab Muslims. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice in the year 2006, the number of those Muslims, both documented and undocumented, was 114,790 ― which occupies over 10% of the whole documented and undocumented foreigners in Korea. Among them, the number of Arab Muslims is only 2,828 or 2.5% of the whole immigrant Muslims in Korea.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;There are several reasons why Arab Muslims take only a small portion among Muslims. First of all, we can point out the geographical distance between Korea and Arab countries. But Arab Muslims from Iraq, Morocco, and especially from Egypt are coming into Korea because of political and economical problems in their countries. Also, quite a number of students come to Korea to get an academic degree. As a result, different classes of Arab Muslims ranging from laborers, students, businessmen, to white-collar workers are becoming a part of Korean society which is turning to multi-cultural and multi-ethnic one. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze present condition, influx, adaptation, religious life and social network of Arab Muslims, using qualitative and qualitative methods.