Cocos Island, the hidden majority Muslim state/island in Australia?

Actually, mostly of Cocos-Malays now are not reside in Cocos Island anymore, but have been migrated to Australia, and Sabah Malaysia. Ever heard about "Kampung Cocos" in Lahad Datu?. They are Cocos-Malays who migrated to Sabah in 1950's.

Cocos-Malay themselves actually is new people group of Malays that formed by assimilation of few Malayans ethnic from areas where today known as Indonesia and Malaysia. They came to Cocos Island in few wave of arrival.

format_quote Originally Posted by Samiun

Didn't most of them migrated from Malaya to Coco Island? If it was from Indonesia which area was it from? Based on the documentary, 80% of the people living there are still Malays. Why did they migrate to Sabah when Indonesia(jakarta) or Malaysia(Kuching)is closer?

Cocos was empty island when White people discovered it. There's no people there.

The first Malay people who came to Cocos Island were Banjar people from South Borneo (now part of Indonesia) who brought by Alexandar Hare, resident of Banjarmasin, at 1826. In 1827, John Clunies-Ross established coconut farm in Cocos Island. He need more worker, so recruited a number of workers who came from few ethnics in Nusantara, including Java, Bali, Sumatran people,etc. Some source said he got those workers in Batavia (now Jakarta) which was 'international city' where people from various ethnics lived there for business and seek a job. They joined Banjar people community who came earlier.

There was few waves of recruitment which John Clunies-Ross recruited worker from other places too, including Malacca and Penang (Malaysia).

Actually not all of Cocos Malay are Malay, but there were few Papua Melanesian too from Eastern Nusantara archipelago (now Eastern Indonesia). Notice the dark skinned man in 1:12, he is Papuan.

Why did Cocos migrated to Sabah?. In 20th century Cocos Malays started to thinking to leave the island to seek new life. Some of them migrated to Australia (mainland) and establish few Cocos communities there. But there were Cocos people who wanted to migrate to Malay region. They told about it to British colonial authority that then gave them an empty area in Sabah. So they migrated to Sabah in early of 1950's.