Singapore's religious plurality is a direct product of how it was populated. The colonial port drew Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese migrants who brought temple worship of Guan Yin, Mazu and lineage deities; Malay and Bugis communities who were already Muslim; Tamil labourers and merchants who built Hindu temples; Sikhs recruited into the police; Armenian, Jewish and Arab trading families; and Christian missions that founded many of the country's oldest schools.
Within a few streets of the colonial centre stand the Thian Hock Keng temple built by Hokkien seafarers, the Sultan Mosque of the Malay quarter, the Sri Mariamman temple with its gopuram, and the Armenian Church, which is the oldest church in the country. That density is now presented as national heritage, and several of these buildings are national monuments. The independent state inherited a memory of communal violence, including the Maria Hertogh riots of 1950, which began in a custody dispute over a girl raised Muslim by a foster mother and claimed by Catholic parents, and the racial riots of 1964.
Religious harmony in Singapore is consequently treated as a security question and not only a civic virtue. The state also treats religious buildings as heritage, gazetting the Thian Hock Keng temple, the Sultan Mosque and the Sri Mariamman temple as national monuments, so that conservation law and religious practice apply to the same walls.