European Jews had trade connections with Sub-Saharan Africa two centuries before any permanent settlement was established. During the 16th century, Jews resident in Holland traded with Africa through the Dutch colonies of Goree, Elmira, St. Thomas and Cape Town. In 1841 the first Jewish colony was established in Cape Town. Today there are some 100,000 Jews in South Africa. The other religion of Middle Eastern origin to enter Sub-Saharan Africa is the Baha'i faith.
Nothing is known of the circumstances under which it came to be transplanted into the continent.
Prior to the 1950s only a handful of Baha'i communities existed south of the Sahara. However, since then extensive missionary work has hugely increased their numbers so that today Baha'i communities exist in thousands of localities throughout eastern and southern Africa. All other major transplanted religions have their origins in the Indian subcontinent. In 1860 the first permanent settlers from India, of whom the majority were Hindus, arrived in Durban from Madras. These were followed by a continual flow of Indian immigrants into South Africa and, in the final decade of the 19th century, the beginning of large scale immigration into eastern and southern Africa, particularly Kenya, Uganda, Rhodesia, Zanzibar and Mozambique.