The 81-year-old curator of Australia's oldest mosque spoke about how Islam first began to spread across the continent.

Aminullah Shamrouz, whose job it is to take care of the mosque in Broken Hill, a remote Australian mining town of 17,000, is used to being called "Bobby" in the local manner.

According to Bobby, the Broken Hill Mosque was built in 1887 by Afghan cameleers. In the 1800s, up to 4,000 cameleers arrived in Australia from Pakistan, India and Afghanistan to replace horses that could not cope with the work in the mining areas due to high temperatures and hot sand. More than 20,000 camels were brought into the country.

Along with the cameleers, the first wave of Islam came to Australia. Asian immigrants settled near the mines, started families with local women, and the number of Muslims in Australia began to grow, reports bbabo.net citing the Middle East Eye.

Bobby, the father of three daughters, says he is a direct descendant of camel drivers. His father Shamruz Khan and grandfather Zaidullah Fayzullah worked with camels and prayed in the mosque, which is now custodian of their descendant.

bbabo.Net