Depending on the source, the percentage of Muslims in Thailand has been placed at around 4–8 per cent of a total population of approximately 65 million people. Islam is currently the largest minority religion in Thailand where (despite intermittent pressures by the Buddhist Sangha), Buddhism, a religion of great import in Thai society and the creed of the vast majority of Thais, has not been declared the official religion of the country. Muslims are concentrated in the southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Yala, and Satun, where they make up anywhere between 65–85 per cent of the local population and are mostly ethnic Malay. The region itself has become known in popular parlance, somewhat problematically, as the “deep south”, “deepestmost south” or “far south” — terminology that further accentuates the perception of marginality to Thailand. Other areas of major Muslim concentrations are in the North (Chiang Mai), the central plains (Bangkok and Ayutthaya), and the “upper” south (Songkhla, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phuket). This narrative of the marginalization of Malay-Muslims is further underscored in the way that until recently they were also known pejoratively as khaek or “dark-skinned visitors” in colloquial discourse. There is also a Buddhist minority in the Muslim-dominated southern provinces amounting to approximately 30 per cent of the population, depending on which of the southern provinces one is referring to. Despite their minority status in the south, Buddhists are concentrated chiefly in urban areas and town centres (though there are Buddhist-majority rural villages scattered across the southern provinces), while the Malay-Muslims have a weightier presence in rural areas where economic activity continues to revolve around farming, agriculture, and fishing, and where traditional Malay practices and lifestyles still hold sway despite the onslaught of development and modernization.

UNDERSTANDING ISLAM'S PLACE IN THAI HISTORY

The question of the arrival of Islam to Patani continues to be debated by Thai historians. According to some historical records, Muslim communities were present in Thailand as early as the thirteenth century — prior even to the conversion of Melaka — during the reign of King Ramkhamhaeng (1279–1298) who ruled the Sukhothai kingdom. Islam, as several scholars have noted, arrived in Thailand via a number of routes, namely, the Indo- Malay Archipelago, Yemen, Persia, South Asia, China, Burma, and Cambodia.