Who was Hideyoshi—and why he matters now for Japan facing Islam
Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) unified Japan after a century of civil war. He governed as a builder, not a zealot: taxes were stabilized, authority consolidated, and public order placed above sectarian power. In 1587, he confronted a religious-political influx of Portuguese Catholics, expelling Jesuit missionaries while keeping trade on terms set by Japan. He also challenged Portuguese slave trafficking, which had entangled itself with missionary influence, and demanded redress for Japanese captives.
The core lesson was jurisdiction. Faiths could be tolerated as long as they were compatible with Japanese culture, but foreign religious leverage would not set the rules of civic life. That posture— clear lines, early—is the point of reference for Japan’s current dilemma.
Thesis: Japan needs a Hideyoshi-like attitude now. Welcome (in reasonable numbers) peaceful, compatible, and competent new residents along with their commerce; hold the civic line through clear, no-double-standard law; decline institutional pressures, from any creed, that would remake public routines. If we fail to do this, we drift toward the European pattern of irreparable damage and unmanaged frictions that accumulated for decades before anyone named them aloud. As Douglas Murray warned, Europe has committed suicide.
Japan’s temperament
Japan’s religious life is practical. Most people mark time by shrine visits, temple rites, and family memorials rather than strict doctrine. Manners and seasonal obligations hold the fabric together. Tolerance here is a habit of coexistence: queue well, keep your voice down on the late train, clean the street outside your home. These are not dogmas; they are the choreography of a diffuse spirituality and nature-rooted civic life. Imagine trying to submit Japanese culture to any monotheistic, dogmatic religious group: it would overwhelm the social fabric in no time.
This temperament has made space for difference, so long as difference does not require the majority to rebuild its routines. Earlier Muslim arrivals generally fit that pattern: families worked, married, prayed in rented rooms, and did not ask institutions to change shape around them. The present phase, however, now feels different in several towns. Non-negotiable obligations in Islamic practice now collide with systems built for a broadly Buddhist-Shintō, secular public: refusal of cremation where cremation is the norm; halal requirements within a one-menu, secular school lunch program; large mosque projects on narrow streets. Many citizens feel a fundamental change is being asked of the majority, and that the ask arrived without due regard for native forms.
The question is not whether Islam is welcome in Japan. The question is whether we can think and legislate in ways that protect civic order while allowing only compatible immigration into Japanese life.
Christopher Hitchens put the test plainly: “The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.” The question is not whether Islam is welcome in Japan. The question is whether we can think and legislate in ways that protect civic order while allowing only compatible immigration into Japanese life. The answer should be yes—if we keep jurisdiction steady, speak plainly, and publish the rules. Under no circumstances should Japan be bullied into integrating practices incompatible with its civic frameworks.
What the 2025 election revealed
The most recent national vote made one point unmistakable: many voters are alert to immigration pressures and resent what they perceive as bullying or special treatment by some newcomers. In the July 20, 2025, Upper House election, immigration and foreign-resident policy emerged as central campaign issues; several new conservative parties, such as Nippo Hoshuto and Sanseito, expanded rapidly by running on a “Japanese First” platform, and the government created a cross-agency “control tower” days before the vote to address public concerns about foreigners amid a record 3.8 million foreign residents. After the election, officials even floated debating a cap on foreign residents. Together, these moves show how sensitive the public has become.
Let us point out specifically how Muslim cases are being debated in this context in Japan recently.
Friction One: Burial
Islam prohibits cremation; Japan has normalized it almost universally. That clash produces recurring fights when ground-burial sites are proposed.
Hiji, Ōita: A Muslim cemetery project advanced, then stalled, then fell when a new mayor refused to sell municipal land, citing groundwater concerns and resident opposition. Officials published technical criteria and international guidance; the answer remained no.
This was not a verdict on Islam. It was a procedural, ecological, and cultural refusal. Anyone seeking residence in Japan should respect such determinations.
Miyagi Prefecture: Despite residents’ apprehensions, the governor floated a dedicated Muslim cemetery to accommodate existing residents and workers, which triggered extensive objections. Over the past year, the proposal has see-sawed—consideration, pushback, even talk of withdrawal. Whether it proceeds or not, the dispute is now a prefectural matter, not a parochial one.
Burial according to Islamic law is a legitimate religious need. However, in Japan, cremation is the norm. Logic suggests that newcomers either adapt their practice to local conditions or choose a country where such needs are commonly met. The remedy is not panic but precise law and cultural boundaries.
Friction Two: School lunches
Public schools in Japan are secular institutions. When a small number of pupils cannot eat the standard menu because slaughter methods and certification do not meet their law, families already have a straightforward option: bring lunch from home. Despite this option, pressure has mounted in some districts. In 2024, Sakai and Goka (Ibaraki) introduced halal options despite the secular nature of the schools. The debate is now national.
The institutional stance must be clear: one system applied to all. This is how we avoid the drift Melanie Phillips described in Europe: parallel systems growing inside public institutions without public consent. The Japanese Constitution’s separation of religion and state supports that clarity in public schools.
Friction Three: Mosques + neighborhoods
As populations grow, prayer rooms become mosques, and small mosques seek larger buildings. Japan has moved from a few dozen mosques a generation ago to well over one hundred by 2023, with counts around 130–150 today depending on the tally. The trend is clear.
Neighborhood conflicts are not mysterious: parking, noise, fire egress, crowding on narrow streets. Europe’s lesson is that city halls can lose their nerve when confronted by organized religious lobbies. By permitting highly intrusive facilities without firm conditions, some cities allowed the proliferation of spaces where parallel norms took root. Murray’s larger warning, that a civilization can forget to believe in itself, applies as much to permitting as to rhetoric.
The angry case: Kawaguchi + Warabi
Kawaguchi and neighboring Warabi (Saitama), with a high concentration of Kurdish immigrants, became national symbols after two kinds of incidents. First, a mass altercation among mostly Kurdish residents outside a hospital in 2023 disrupted ambulance service and went viral. Second, a Kurdish man who had received a suspended sentence for sexual assault of a minor was later convicted for another sexual assault against a thirteen-year-old and given an eight-year prison term, though authorities did not promptly announce the second case. The sequence hardened public anger and fostered the belief that the system protected an offender more than it protected children because the perpetrator was of Muslim origin, as was the case in the grooming-gang situation in the U.K.
When serious crimes occur, prosecutors and police must move quickly, speak plainly, and seek sentences commensurate with the harm, without the double standards about which many Europeans now complain. Timely, transparent updates prevent rumor from punishing the innocent along with the guilty.
Scale and tempo
Reliable estimates place Japan’s Muslim population in the low hundreds of thousands and rising; foreign residents overall reached about 3.8 million by late 2024. Three decades ago in Europe, a few mosques and modest inflows seemed inconsequential. We know now how rapidly local pressures—reinforced by robust birthrates—can accumulate when institutions hesitate.
Most Japanese are not hostile to Muslims as neighbors, so long as the norms and culture of Japan are respected. Europe’s experience over the last three decades is instructive. The Japanese are understandably anxious about a politics of religious and cultural demand that feels endless. To paraphrase Hitchens: you cannot defend multiculturalism when it is used to erase the host culture. The rule of law requires a confident center and one visible standard.
We need Hideyoshi—before we become Europe
Europe forbade boundary-setting and vilified those who asked basic questions about cultural survival. Phillips saw it early: official multiculturalism, fused with appeasement of extremism, produced a “state of paralysis across British institutions.” Murray’s sharper sentence is a harsh warning, but it should not be a fate. Japan needs to set the lines while numbers are still small and institutions still trusted. In short, we need Hideyoshi, now, before it’s too late.
And Hideyoshi’s relevance is not nostalgia. It is the model of rationality. Separate faith from leverage. Keep the rules inside the polity. Welcome trade, and accept new residents only on clear terms: respect the host country’s civic spirit and legal norms. Modern Japan is a constitutional republic—and an old cultural entity. If the current government holds the line with steadiness rather than noise, the historical comparison will take care of itself.
Japan should remain what it has been: basically open; non-monotheistic; Buddhist in rhythm; Shintō in feeling; secular in public life. It can be hospitable to people who are not from here and still refuse to surrender the forms that hold the place together. That is not hostility. It is custodianship.
