The connection between Islam and Latin America is not that mysterious. The Muslims controlled large parts of Spain before they were eventually “evicted”. That’s a fact. A guess on my part is that they raped religiously and otherwise “embedded” their nomadic cultural practices within those conquered regions. Given that Islam is “the law”, and Arabs have always been notoriously corrupt, the Anglo concepts of jurisprudence never had a hope of making much headway in Spain until after its colonial empire dissipated(if then). As several well-educated and capitalistic-minded Latins (from Venezuela and Argentine) reminded me, the conquistadors did not come to America to build a new way of life; they came merely for “loot”, which they stole from the natives and took back to Spain (or elsewhere). The Spanish, perhaps due to their Moorish lineage, also raped religiously in northern LatAm as a means of controlling the indigenous; in southern LatAm, they simply exterminated ALL the indigenous (no mestizos in Argentina and Chile). In summary, from the very beginning LatAm has been the province of the corrupt and crooked. Wealth was therefore concentrated into the hands of the most ruthless, who remain the gatekeepers for anyone wishing to do business in their “neighborhoods”. For a famous example, see how the Cisneros switched their bottling franchise from Coke to Pepsi over a single weekend in response to Coke unilaterally raising the price of syrup. They did not pay Coke a dime for doing so, and Coke knew better than to think a Venezuelan “court” was going to stand behind Coke’s propery rights. One of the most amazing “fuck you’s” ever and a lesson to be heeded by anyone who thinks they can “own” assets in LatAm countries.