1 in 4 people in world are Muslim
News.com.au
October 09, 2009 7:33AM
THE global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practise Islam, a landmark study has claimed.
The Pew Forum report also revealed that Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon - or North and South America combined.
It claimed that about five per cent of Europe's population practises Islam - and that there are more Muslims living in Asia than in the Middle East.
Until now, experts have largely been guessing at the precise number of Muslims in the world, with estimates from one billion to 1.8 billion.
But the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report, released today, finally pinpoints the number of those practising the world's second largest religion, behind Christianity.
The three-year-long project also provided some surprising statistics. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
'This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report,' said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.
The report provides further evidence that while the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle
East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 per cent of the world's Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 per cent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 per cent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 per cent are in Europe and 0.3 per cent are in the Americas.
While the Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
While those population trends are well established, the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren't as scrutinized.
The report identified about 317 million Muslims - or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population - living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries - from India to Nigeria and China to France - divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
The immense size of majority-Hindu India is underscored by the fact that it boasts the third-largest Muslim population of any nation - yet Muslims account for just 13 per cent of India's population.
'Most people think of the Muslim world being Muslims living mostly in Muslim-majority countries,' Grim said. 'But with India ... that sort of turns that on its head a bit.'
The report also revealed that:
Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about five per cent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims - almost as many as North and South America combined.
In France, where tensions have run high over an influx of Muslim immigrant laborers, the overall numbers were lower but a larger percentage of the population is Muslim.
Two-thirds of all Muslims live in 10 countries. Six are in Asia (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey), three are in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco) and one is in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria).
Indonesia, which has a tradition of a more tolerant Islam, has the world's largest Muslim population (203 million, or 13 per cent of the world's total). Religious extremists have been involved in several high-profile bombings there in recent years.
In China, the highest concentrations of Muslims were in western provinces. The country experienced its worst outbreak of ethnic violence in decades when rioting broke out this summer between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese.
Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States although they only make up 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim, or about two percent of the total population.
Whilst these statistics are probably legit, I feel it would have been prudent for the authors to note the number of Islamic countries where it is not possible to deny been a Muslim,a believer in the Koran.
A believer in the syphilis induced ranting’s of the Paedophile Pirate and slave trader, Mohammed, the “Religion of Peace” is compulsory under threat of DEATH, according to the Islamic Terror Manual,the Koran,so the 25% claimed to follow the teachings of the said Paedophile, Mohammed are greatly embellished to say the least.
Like Communism (Socialism) Nazism,the victims of Islamism have no choice but to claim they are supporters of the Godless despots that rule their lives lest they are killed.
Why do western Judeo Christian democratic leaders, Australia, America, Canada, England, kneel to this demonic minority cabal of confused and befuddled of mind,misfits and criminals?
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