Growth of Islam in the Real World

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CIA (Central Intelligence Agency Report) USA

Original Source: http://www.futurebrief.com/project2020.pdf

The Future of the Global Muslim Population

www.pewforum.org View Original January 27th, 2011

The worlds Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to new population projections by the Pew Research Centers Forum on Religion & Public Life. Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades an average annual growth rate of 1.5% for Muslims, compared with 0.7% for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4% of the worlds total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4% of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion. While the global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, the Muslim population nevertheless is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%, compared with the projected rate of 1.5% for the period from 2010 to 2030.

These are among the key findings of a comprehensive report on the size, distribution and growth of the global Muslim population. The report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life seeks to provide up-todate estimates of the number of Muslims around the world in 2010 and to project the growth of the Muslim population from 2010 to 2030. The projections are based both on past demographic trends and on assumptions about how these trends will play out in future years. Making these projections inevitably entails a host of uncertainties, including political ones. Changes in the political climate in the United States or European nations, for example, could dramatically affect the patterns of Muslim migration.

If current trends continue, however, 79 countries will have a million or more Muslim inhabitants in 2030, up from 72 countries today.1 A majority of the worlds Muslims (about 60%) will continue to live in the AsiaPacific region, while about 20% will live in the Middle East and North Africa, as is the case today. But Pakistan is expected to surpass Indonesia as the country with the single largest Muslim population. The portion of the worlds Muslims living in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to rise; in 20 years, for example, more Muslims are likely to live in Nigeria than in Egypt. Muslims will remain relatively small minorities in Europe and the Americas, but they are expected to constitute a growing share of the total population in these regions.

In the United States, for example, the population projections show the number of Muslims more than doubling over the next two decades, rising from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030, in large part because of immigration and higher-than-average fertility among Muslims. The Muslim share of the U.S. population (adults and children) is projected to grow from 0.8% in 2010 to 1.7% in 2030, making Muslims roughly as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the United States today. Although several European countries will have substantially higher percentages of Muslims, the United States is projected to have a larger number of Muslims by 2030 than any European countries other than Russia and France. (See the Americas section for more details.) In Europe as a whole, the Muslim share of the population is expected to grow by nearly one-third over the next 20 years, rising from 6% of the regions inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030. In absolute numbers, Europes Muslim population is projected to grow from 44.1 million in 2010 to 58.2 million in 2030. The greatest increases driven primarily by continued migration are likely to occur in Western and Northern Europe, where Muslims will be approaching double-digit percentages of the population in several countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, Muslims are expected to comprise 8.2% of the population in 2030, up from an estimated 4.6% today. In Austria, Muslims are projected to reach 9.3% of the population in 2030, up from 5.7% today; in Sweden, 9.9% (up from 4.9% today); in Belgium, 10.2% (up from 6% today); and in France, 10.3% (up from 7.5% today). (See the Europe section.)

Several factors account for the faster projected growth among Muslims than non-Muslims worldwide. Generally, Muslim populations tend to have higher fertility rates (more children per woman) than nonMuslim populations. In addition, a larger share of the Muslim population is in, or soon will enter, the prime reproductive years (ages 15-29). Also, improved health and economic conditions in Muslim-majority countries have led to greater-than-average declines in infant and child mortality rates, and life expectancy is rising even faster in Muslim-majority countries than in other less-developed countries. (See the section on Main Factors Driving Population Growth for more details. For a list of Muslim-majority countries and definitions for the terms less- and more-developed, see the section on Muslim- Majority Countries.)

Growing, But at a Slower Rate

The growth of the global Muslim population, however, should not obscure another important demographic trend: the rate of growth among Muslims has been slowing in recent decades and is likely to continue to decline over the next 20 years, as the graph below shows. From 1990 to 2000, the Muslim population grew at an average annual rate of 2.3%. The growth rate dipped to 2.1% from 2000 to 2010, and it is projected to drop to 1.7% from 2010 to 2020 and 1.4% from 2020 to 2030 (or 1.5% annually over the 20-year period from 2010 to 2030, as previously noted).

The declining growth rate is due primarily to falling fertility rates in many Muslim-majority countries, including such populous nations as Indonesia and Bangladesh. Fertility is dropping as more women in these countries obtain a secondary education, living standards rise and people move from rural areas to cities and towns. (See the Related Factors section for more details.)

The slowdown in Muslim population growth is most pronounced in the Asia- Pacific region, the Middle East-North Africa and Europe, and less sharp in sub-Saharan Africa. The only region where Muslim population growth is accelerating through 2020 is the Americas, largely because of immigration. (For details, see the charts on population growth in the sections of this report on Asia-Pacific, Middle-East-North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Americas.) Falling birth rates eventually will lead to significant shifts in the age structure of Muslim populations. While the worldwide Muslim population today is relatively young, the so-called Muslim youth bulge the high percentage of Muslims in their teens and 20s peaked around the year 2000 and is now declining. (See the Age Structure section for more details.) In 1990, more than two-thirds of the total population of Muslim-majority countries was under age 30. Today, people under 30 make up about 60% of the population of these countries, and by 2030 they are

projected to fall to about 50%. At the same time, many Muslim-majority countries will have aging populations; between 2010 and 2030, the share of people age 30 and older in these countries is expected to rise from 40% to 50%, and the share of people age 60 and older is expected nearly to double, from 7% to 12%. Muslim-majority countries, however, are not the only ones with aging populations. As birth rates drop and people live longer all around the globe, the population of the entire world is aging. As a result, the global Muslim population will remain comparatively youthful for decades to come. The median age in Muslimmajority countries, for example, rose from 19 in 1990 to 24 in 2010 and is expected to climb to 30 by 2030. But it will still be lower than the median age in North America, Europe and other more-developed regions, which rose from 34 to 40 between 1990 and 2010 and is projected to be 44 in 2030. By that year, nearly three-in-ten of the worlds youth and young adults 29.1% of people ages 15-29 are projected to be Muslims, up from 25.8% in 2010 and 20.0% in 1990. Other key findings of the study include:

Worldwide

Sunni Muslims will continue to make up an overwhelming majority of Muslims in 2030 (87- 90%). The portion of the worlds Muslims who are Shia may decline slightly, largely because of relatively low fertility in Iran, where more than a third of the worlds Shia Muslims live. As of 2010, about three-quarters of the worlds Muslims (74.1%) live in the 49 countries in which Muslims make up a majority of the population. More than a fifth of all Muslims (23.3%) live in nonMuslim-majority countries in the developing world. About 3% of the worlds Muslims live in moredeveloped regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Fertility rates in Muslim-majority countries are closely related to womens education levels. In the eight Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive the fewest years of schooling, the average fertility rate (5.0 children per woman) is more than double the average rate (2.3 children per woman) in the nine Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive the most years of schooling. One exception is the Palestinian territories, where the average fertility rate (4.5 children per woman) is relatively high even though a girl born there today can expect to receive 14 years of formal education. Fewer than half (47.8%) of married women ages 15-49 in Muslim-majority countries use some form of birth control. By comparison, in non-Muslim-majority, less-developed countries nearly two-thirds (63.3%) of all married women in that age group use some form of birth control.

Asia-Pacific

Nearly three-in-ten people living in the Asia-Pacific region in 2030 (27.3%) will be Muslim, up from about a quarter in 2010 (24.8%) and roughly a fifth in 1990 (21.6%). Muslims make up only about 2% of the population in China, but because the country is so populous, its Muslim population is expected to be the 19th largest in the world in 2030.

Middle East-North Africa

The Middle East-North Africa will continue to have the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Of the 20 countries and territories in this region, all but Israel are projected to be at least 50% Muslim in 2030, and 17 are expected to have a population that is more than 75% Muslim in 2030, with Israel, Lebanon and Sudan (as currently demarcated) being the only exceptions. Nearly a quarter (23.2%) of Israels population is expected to be Muslim in 2030, up from 17.7% in 2010 and 14.1% in 1990. During the past 20 years, the Muslim population in Israel has more than doubled, growing from 0.6 million in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2010. The Muslim population in Israel (including Jerusalem but not the West Bank and Gaza) is expected to reach 2.1 million by 2030. Egypt, Algeria and Morocco currently have the largest Muslim populations in the Middle East-North Africa. By 2030, however, Iraq is expected to have the second-largest Muslim population in the region exceeded only by Egypt largely because Iraq has a higher fertility rate than Algeria or Morocco.

Sub-Saharan Africa

The Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow by nearly 60% in the next 20 years, from 242.5 million in 2010 to 385.9 million in 2030. Because the regions non- Muslim population also is growing at a rapid pace, Muslims are expected to make up only a slightly larger share of the regions population in 2030 (31.0%) than they do in 2010 (29.6%). Various surveys give differing figures for the size of religious groups in Nigeria, which appears to have roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians in 2010. By 2030, Nigeria is expected to have a slight Muslim majority (51.5%).

Europe

In 2030, Muslims are projected to make up more than 10% of the total population in 10 European countries: Kosovo (93.5%), Albania (83.2%), Bosnia-Herzegovina (42.7%), Republic of Macedonia

(40.3%), Montenegro (21.5%), Bulgaria (15.7%), Russia (14.4%), Georgia (11.5%), France (10.3%) and Belgium (10.2%). Russia will continue to have the largest Muslim population (in absolute numbers) in Europe in 2030. Its Muslim population is expected to rise from 16.4 million in 2010 to 18.6 million in 2030. The growth rate for the Muslim population in Russia is projected to be 0.6% annually over the next two decades. By contrast, Russias non-Muslim population is expected to shrink by an average of 0.6% annually over the same period. France had an expected net influx of 66,000 Muslim immigrants in 2010, primarily from North Africa. Muslims comprised an estimated two-thirds (68.5%) of all new immigrants to France in the past year. Spain was expected to see a net gain of 70,000 Muslim immigrants in 2010, but they account for a much smaller portion of all new immigrants to Spain (13.1%). The U.K.s net inflow of Muslim immigrants in the past year (nearly 64,000) was forecast to be nearly as large as Frances. More than a quarter (28.1%) of all new immigrants to the U.K. in 2010 are estimated to be Muslim.

The Americas

The number of Muslims in Canada is expected to nearly triple in the next 20 years, from about 940,000 in 2010 to nearly 2.7 million in 2030. Muslims are expected to make up 6.6% of Canadas total population in 2030, up from 2.8% today. Argentina is expected to have the third-largest Muslim population in the Americas, after the U.S. and Canada. Argentina, with about 1 million Muslims in 2010, is now in second place, behind the U.S. Children under age 15 make up a relatively small portion of the U.S. Muslim population today. Only 13.1% of Muslims are in the 0-14 age group. This reflects the fact that a large proportion of Muslims in the U.S. are newer immigrants who arrived as adults. But by 2030, many of these immigrants are expected to start families. If current trends continue, the number of U.S. Muslims under age 15 will more than triple, from fewer than 500,000 in 2010 to 1.8 million in2030. The number of Muslim children ages 0-4 living in the U.S. is expected to increase from fewer than 200,000 in 2010 to more than 650,000 in 2030. About two-thirds of the Muslims in the U.S. today (64.5%) are first-generation immigrants (foreignborn), while slightly more than a third (35.5%) were born in the U.S. By 2030, however, more than four-in-ten of the Muslims in the U.S. (44.9%) are expected to be native-born. The top countries of origin for Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2009 were Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are expected to remain the top countries of origin for Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2030.

About the Report

This report makes demographic projections. Projections are not the same as predictions. Rather, they are estimates built on current population data and assumptions about demographic trends; they are what will happen if the current data are accurate and the trends play out as expected. But many things immigration laws, economic conditions, natural disasters, armed conflicts, scientific discoveries, social movements and political upheavals, to name just a few can shift demographic trends in unforeseen ways, which is why this report adheres to a modest time frame, looking just 20 years down the road. Even so, there is no guarantee that Muslim populations will grow at precisely the rates anticipated in this report and not be affected by unforeseen events, such as political decisions on immigration quotas or national campaigns to encourage

larger or smaller families. The projections presented in this report are the medium figures in a range of three scenarios high, medium and low generated from models commonly used by demographers around the world to forecast changes in population size and composition. The models follow what is known as the cohort-component method, which starts with a baseline population (in this case, the current number of Muslims in each country) divided into groups, or cohorts, by age and sex. Each cohort is projected into the future by adding likely gains new births and immigrants and subtracting likely losses deaths and emigrants. These calculations were made by the Pew Forums demographers, who collaborated with researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria on the projections for the United States and European countries. (For more details, see Appendix A: Methodology.) The current population data that underpin this report were culled from the best sources available on Muslims in each of the 232 countries and territories for which the U.N. Population Division provides general population estimates. Many of these baseline statistics were published in the Pew Forums 2009 report, Mapping the Global Muslim Population, which acquired and analyzed about 1,500 sources of data including census reports, large-scale demographic studies and general population surveys to estimate the number of Muslims in every country and territory. (For a list of sources, see Appendix B: Data Sources by Country.) All of those estimates have been updated for 2010, and some have been substantially revised. (To find the current estimate and projections for a particular region or country, see Muslim Population by Country, 1990-2030.) Since many countries are conducting national censuses in 2010-11, more data is likely to emerge over the next few years, but a cut-off must be made at some point; this report is based on information available as of mid-2010. To the extent possible, the report provides data for decennial years 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020 and 2030. In some cases, however, the time periods vary because data is available only for certain years or in five-year increments (e.g., 2010-15 or 2030-35). The definition of Muslim in this report is very broad. The goal is to count all groups and individuals who self-identify as Muslims. This includes Muslims who may be secular or nonobservant. No attempt is made in this report to measure how religious Muslims are or to forecast levels of religiosity (or secularism) in the decades ahead.2 The main factors, or inputs, in the population projections are:

Births (fertility rates) Deaths (mortality rates) Migration (emigration and immigration), and The age structure of the population (the number of people in various age groups)

Related factors which are not direct inputs into the projections but which underlie vital assumptions about the way Muslim fertility rates are changing and Muslim populations are shifting include: To fully understand the projections, one must understand these factors, which the next section of the report will discuss in more detail. Readers can also explore an online, interactive feature that allows them to select a region or one of the 232 countries and territories as well as a decade from 1990-2030 and see the size of the Muslim population in that place and time.

Footnotes 1 The seven countries projected to rise above 1 million Muslims by 2030 are: Belgium, Canada, Congo, Djibouti, Guinea Bissau,Netherlands and Togo. (return to text)

Original Source: http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/

New Report On International Growth Of Islam

By Bryan Maygers, www.huffingtonpost.com View Original January 21st, 2014

Washington, D.C. -- The world's Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35 percent in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to a new, comprehensive report released today by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life on the size, distribution and growth of the Muslim population. The study is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, an effort funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation to analyze religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Over the next two decades, the worldwide Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population -- an average annual growth rate of 1.5 percent for Muslims compared with 0.7 percent for non-Muslims. If current trends continue, Muslims will make up 26.4 percent of the world's total projected population of 8.3 billion in 2030, up from 23.4 percent of the estimated 2010 world population of 6.9 billion. However, while the global Muslim population is predicted to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, it is also expected to grow at a slower pace in the next 20 years than it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2 percent; for the period from 2010 to 2030, the rate of growth is projected to be 1.5 percent. These are among the key findings of The Future of the Global Muslim Population, which seeks to provide up-to-date estimates of the number of Muslims around the world in 2010 and to project the growth of the Muslim population from 2010 to 2030. The report's projections are based both on past demographic trends and on assumptions about how these trends will play out in future years. If current trends continue: Worldwide Seventy-nine countries will have a million or more Muslim inhabitants in 2030, up from 72 countries today.

 A majority of the world's Muslims (about 60 percent) will continue to live in the Asia-Pacific region, while about 20 percent will live in the Middle East and North Africa, as is the case today. Pakistan is expected to surpass Indonesia as the country with the single largest Muslim population. The portion of the world's Muslims living in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to rise; for example, in 20 years more Muslims are likely to live in Nigeria than in Egypt. Muslims will remain relatively small minorities in Europe and the Americas, but they are expected to constitute a growing share of the total population in these regions. Sunni Muslims will continue to make up an overwhelming majority of Muslims in 2030 (87 to 90 percent). The portion of the world's Muslims who are Shia may decline slightly, largely because of relatively low fertility in Iran, where more than a third of the world's Shia Muslims live. As of 2010, about three-quarters of the world's Muslims (74.1 percent) live in the 49 countries in which Muslims make up a majority of the population. More than a fifth of all Muslims (23.3 percent) live in nonMuslim-majority countries in the developing world. About 3 percent of the world's Muslims live in moredeveloped regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The Americas The number of Muslims (adults and children) in the United States is projected to more than double -- rising from 2.6 million (0.8 percent of the total U.S. population) in 2010 to 6.2 million (1.7 percent) in 2030 -- in large part because of immigration and higher-than-average fertility among Muslims, making Muslims roughly as numerous as Jews or Episcopalians are in the U.S. today. Although several European countries will have substantially higher percentages of Muslims, the United States is projected to have a larger number of Muslims by 2030 than any European countries other than Russia and France. Children under age 15 make up a relatively small portion of the U.S. Muslim population today. Only 13.1 percent of Muslims are in the 0-14 age group. This reflects the fact that a large proportion of Muslims in the U.S. are newer immigrants who arrived as adults. But by 2030, many of these immigrants are expected to start families. If current trends continue, the number of U.S. Muslims under age 15 will more than triple, from fewer than 500,000 in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2030. The number of Muslim children ages 0-4 living in the U.S. is expected to increase from fewer than 200,000 in 2010 to more than 650,000 in 2030. About two-thirds of the Muslims in the U.S. today (64.5 percent) are first-generation immigrants (foreignborn), while slightly more than a third (35.5 percent) were born in the U.S. By 2030, however, more than four-in-ten of the Muslims in the U.S. (44.9 percent) are expected to be native-born. The top countries of origin for Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2009 were Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are expected to remain the top countries of origin for Muslim immigrants to the U.S. in 2030. The number of Muslims in Canada is expected to nearly triple in the next 20 years, from about 940,000 in 2010 to nearly 2.7 million in 2030. Muslims are expected to make up 6.6 percent of Canada's total population in 2030, up from 2.8 percent today. Argentina is expected to have the third-largest Muslim population in the Americas, after the U.S. and Canada. Argentina, with about 1 million Muslims in 2010, is now in second place, behind the U.S. Europe The Muslim share of Europe's population is expected to grow by nearly a third, rising from 44.1 million (6

percent of Europe's total population) in 2010 to 58.2 million (8 percent) in 2030. The greatest increases -- driven primarily by continued migration -- are likely to occur in Western and Northern Europe, where Muslims will be approaching double-digit percentages of the population in several countries. In the United Kingdom, for example, Muslims are expected to comprise 8.2 percent of the population in 2030, up from an estimated 4.6 percent today. In Norway, Muslims are projected to reach 6.5 percent of the population in 2030, (up from 3.0 percent today); in Germany, 7.1 percent (up from 5.0 percent today); in Austria, 9.3 percent (up from 5.7 percent today); in Belgium, 10.2 percent (up from 6.0 percent today); and in France, 10.3 percent (up from 7.5 percent today). In 2030, Muslims are projected to make up more than 10 percent of the total population in 10 European countries: Kosovo (93.5 percent), Albania (83.2 percent), Bosnia-Herzegovina (42.7 percent), Republic of Macedonia (40.3 percent), Montenegro (21.5 percent), Bulgaria (15.7 percent), Russia (14.4 percent), Georgia (11.5 percent), France (10.3 percent) and Belgium (10.2 percent). Russia will continue to have the largest Muslim population (in absolute numbers) in Europe in 2030. Its Muslim population is expected to rise from 16.4 million in 2010 to 18.6 million in 2030. The growth rate for the Muslim population in Russia is projected to be 0.6 percent annually over the next two decades. By contrast, Russia's non-Muslim population is expected to shrink by an average of 0.6 percent annually over the same period. France had an expected net influx of 66,000 Muslim immigrants in 2010, primarily from North Africa. Muslims comprised an estimated two-thirds (68.5%) of all new immigrants to France in the past year. Spain was expected to see a net gain of 70,000 Muslim immigrants in 2010, but they account for a much smaller portion of all new immigrants to Spain (13.1%). The U.K.'s net inflow of Muslim immigrants in the past year (nearly 64,000) was forecast to be nearly as large as France's. More than a quarter (28.1%) of all new immigrants to the U.K. in 2010 are estimated to be Muslim. Asia-Pacific Nearly three-in-ten people living in the Asia-Pacific region in 2030 (27.3 percent) will be Muslim, up from about a quarter in 2010 (24.8%) and roughly a fifth in 1990 (21.6 percent). Muslims make up only about 2 percent of the population in China, but because the country is so populous, its Muslim population is expected to be the 19th largest in the world in 2030. Middle East-North Africa The Middle East-North Africa will continue to have the highest percentage of Muslim- majority countries. Of the 20 countries and territories in this region, all but Israel are projected to be at least 50 percent Muslim in 2030, and 17 are expected to have a population that is more than 75 percent Muslim in 2030, with Israel, Lebanon and Sudan (as currently demarcated) being the only exceptions. Nearly a quarter (23.2 percent) of Israel's population is expected to be Muslim in 2030, up from 17.7 percent in 2010 and 14.1 percent in 1990. During the past 20 years, the Muslim population in Israel has more than doubled, growing from 0.6 million in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2010. The Muslim population in Israel (including Jerusalem but not the West Bank and Gaza) is expected to reach 2.1 million by 2030. Egypt, Algeria and Morocco currently have the largest Muslim populations (in absolute numbers) in the Middle East-North Africa. By 2030, however, Iraq is expected to have the second-largest Muslim population in the region -- exceeded only by Egypt -- largely because Iraq has a higher fertility rate than Algeria or Morocco. Sub-Saharan Africa

 The Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow by nearly 60 percent in the next 20 years, from 242.5 million in 2010 to 385.9 million in 2030. Because the region's non-Muslim population also is growing at a rapid pace, Muslims are expected to make up only a slightly larger share of the region's population in 2030 (31 percent) than they do in 2010 (29.6 percent). Various surveys give differing figures for the size of religious groups in Nigeria, which appears to have roughly equal numbers of Muslims and Christians in 2010. By 2030, Nigeria is expected to have a slight Muslim majority (51.5 percent). The 209-page report contains detailed analysis and description of the factors that drive this growth. The main factors, or inputs, in the population projections are: births (fertility rates), deaths (mortality rates), migration (emigration and immigration), and the age structure of the population (the number of people in various age groups). Related factors -- which are not direct inputs into the projections but which underlie vital assumptions about the way Muslim fertility rates are changing and Muslim populations are shifting -include: education (particularly of women), economic well-being (standards of living), contraception and family planning, urbanization (movement from rural areas into cities and towns), and religious conversion. The current population data that underpin this report were culled from the best sources available on Muslims in each of the 232 countries and territories for which the U.N. Population Division provides general population estimates. Many of these baseline statistics were published in the Pew Forum's 2009 report, Mapping the Global Muslim Population, which acquired and analyzed about 1,500 sources of data -including census reports, large-scale demographic studies and general population surveys -- to estimate the number of Muslims in every country and territory. All of those estimates have been updated for 2010, and some have been substantially revised. The full report, which includes an executive summary, interactive maps and sortable data tables, is available on the Pew Forum's website. The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life conducts surveys, demographic analyses and other social science research on important aspects of religion and public life in the U.S. and around the world. As part of the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy organization, the Pew Forum does not take positions on any of the issues it covers or on policy debates.
Original Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/new-pew-forum-report-proj_n_814818.html

Growth of Islam and World Religions

(This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.)

According to statistics from the U.N., Islam is now the worlds second largest religion after Christianity. The U.N. statistics state that the Islam annual growth rate of Islam is around 6.40% compared to 1.46% during the same time period for Christianity. Also according to these statistics, one in five people on the planet are Muslim (by birth or geographical reference).

Other statistics from the U.N.:

Islam in North America since 1989 increased 25% Islam in Africa since 1989 increased 2.15% Islam in Asia since 1989 increased 12.57% Islam in Europe since 1989 increased 142.35% Islam in Latin America since 1989 decreased -4.73% and Islam in Australia and Oceania / Pacific since 1989 increased 257.01%

Major Religions of the World

Christian 2,038,905,000 32% (dropping) Roman Catholics 1,076,951,000 Protestants 349,792,000 Orthodox 217,522,000 Anglicans 81,663,000 Other 537,135,000 Muslims 1,226,403,000 21% (growing) Hindus 828,130,000 13% (stable) Chinese folk religionists 389,543,000 6% Buddhists 364,014,000 6% (stable) Sikhs 23,821,000 < 1% Jews 14,535,000 < 1%

External Links and Sources:

Mapping the Global Muslim Population (Pew Forum) World Fact Book (CIA) Muslim Population Worldwide The Largest Muslim Communities Global Status of Evangelical Christianity Unengaged Unreached People Groups Unreached Ethnic People Group Listings (Joshua Project) and Wikipedia has several good links, maps and resources + World Religions: Britannica Book of the Year, 2003

To Download:

Global Status of Evangelical Christianity Unengaged Unreached Muslim People Groups 100,000 or more (xls file saved via MS Excel, 380 kb) 2010 World Muslim Population compiled by Houssain Kettani at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. 61 pages of interesting statistics on Muslim countries and the demographics of Muslim growth. (pdf, 788 kb)
Original Source:

http://www.30-days.net/muslims/statistics/islam-growth/

Worlds Muslim population more widespread than you might think

By Drew Desilver, www.pewresearch.org View Original June 7th, 2013

1.6billion There are about 1.6 billion Muslims, or 23% of the worlds population, making Islam the second-largest religion. An estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Muslims, making Islam the worlds second-largest religious tradition after Christianity, according to the December 2012 Global Religious Landscape report from the Pew Research Centers Forum on Religion & Public Life. Although many people, especially in the United States, may associate Islam with countries in the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds (62%) of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Pew Research analysis. In fact, more Muslims live in India and Pakistan (344 million combined) than in the entire Middle East-North Africa region (317 million).

However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest concentration Muslims of any region of the

world: 93% of its approximately 341 million inhabitants are Muslim, compared with 30% in sub-Saharan Africa and 24% in the Asia-Pacific region. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 49 countries around the world. The country with the largest number (about 209 million) is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population identifies as Muslim. India has the worlds second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly 176 million) though Muslims make up just 14.4% of Indias total population. Pew Research uses an array of surveys, census reports, population registers and other data sources to estimate numbers of Muslims and other religious groups around the world, the goal being to count all groups and people who self-identify with a particular religion. The figures presented here are as of 2010. Pew Research has put out several major reports recently on Muslims around the world, including ones on differences in their religious beliefs and practices, their views of religion, politics and society, and their use of the internet. For more details on the geographic distribution of the Muslim population, here is the relevant chapter of the Global Religious Landscape report. You can also explore our data on the current Muslim population in each country here and projections for future population growth here. Original Source: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/07/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-youmight-think/

Muslim population growth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muslim population growth refers to the topic of population growth of the global Muslim community . In 2006, countries with a Muslim majority had an average population growth rate of 1.8% per year (when weighted by percentage Muslim and population size).[1] This compares with a world population growth rate of 1.12% per year.[2] As of 2011, it is predicted that the world's Muslim population will grow twice as fast as non-Muslims over the next 20 years. By 2030, Muslims will make up more than a quarter of the global population.[3]

Muslim birth control[edit ]

Coitus interruptus , a form of birth control, was a known practice at the time of Muhammad, and his companions engaged in it. Muhammad knew about this, but did not prohibit it. Umar and Ali , the second and fourth of the Rashidun caliphs, respectively, defended the practice.[4] Muslims scholars have extended the example of coitus interruptus, by analogy , to declaring permissible other forms of contraception, subject to three conditions:[4][5]
1. As offspring are the right of both the husband and the wife, the birth control method should be used with both parties' consent. 2. The method should not cause permanent sterility. 3. The method should not otherwise harm the body.

Politics[edit ]
Estimating Muslim population growth is related to contentious political issues. Some Islamic groups have

accused American demographers of releasing falsely low population numbers of Muslims in the country to justify the marginalization of Muslims.[6]

In Asia[edit ]

India[edit ]
Because of higher birthrates, the percentage of Muslims in India has risen from about 9.91% in 1951 to 13.45% in 2001 to 14% in 2010.[7] The Muslim population growth rate is higher by more than 10% of the total growth compared to that of Hindus .[8] The ratio of young children (aged 06) to the total population is also significantly higher among Muslims than among Hindus in India.[9] Demographers have put forward several factors behind high birthrates among Muslims in India.Sociologists point out that religious factors can explain high Muslim birthrates. Surveys indicate that Muslims in India have been relatively far less willing to adopt family planning measures and that Muslim girls get married at a much younger age compared to other Indian girls.[10] According to Paul Kurtz , Muslims in India are much more resistant to modern contraceptive measures compared to other Indians and as a consequence, the decline in fertility rate among non- Muslim women is much higher compared to that of Muslim women.[11][12] According to a 2006 committee appointed by the Indian Prime Minister, by the end of the 21st century India's Muslim population will reach 320 to 340 million people (or 18% of India's total projected population)[citation needed ].

China[edit ]
In China, Muslim population growth was 2.7% during 1964-1982, compared to 2.1% for the population as a whole. During that time, Chinese Muslims numbered 4.473 million in 1964, and 7.219 million in 1982, according to the national censuses.[6]

In Europe[edit ]
See also: Islam in Europe

According to the Pew Forum , the Muslim population in Europe (excluding Turkey) was about 30 million in 1990, 44 million in 2010 and it is expected to increase to 58 million by 2030; the Muslim share of the population increased from 4.1% in 1990 to 6% in 2010, and will increase by nearly one-third over the next 20 years, reaching 8% in 2030.[13][14] There were 19 million Muslims in the European Union in 2010. Data for the rates of growth of Islam in Europe reveal that the growing number of Muslims is due primarily to immigration and higher birth rates .[15] Muslim women today have an average of 2.2 children compared to an estimated average of 1.5 children for non-Muslim women in Europe.[13] While the birth rate of Muslim in Europe is expected to decline over the next two decades, it will remain slightly higher than in the nonMuslim population.[13] Except for Dutch-Turks , who have a lower birthrate (1.7) than the native Dutch population (1.8)[16][17] There are around 100,000 Muslim converts in the UK.[18][19] France has seen conversions to the faith double in the past quarter century[20] In France there are an estimated 70,000 Muslim converts.[citation needed ] In Germany 20,000 Muslim converts.[citation needed ] In Spain 50,000 Muslim converts.[citation needed ] This is of course not taking into account the number of Muslims who have left the faith.

In World[edit ]

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , the World Christian Database as of 2007 estimated the six fastest-growing religions of the world to be Islam (1.84%), the Bah' Faith (1.7%), Sikhism (1.62%), Jainism (1.57%), Hinduism (1.52%), and Christianity (1.32%). High birth rates were cited as the reason for the growth.[21] Monsignor Vittorio Formenti , who compiles the Vatican 's yearbook, said in an interview with the Vatican

newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that "For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us". He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world populationa stable percentagewhile Muslims were at 19.2 percent. "It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.[22]

Conversion[edit ]
According to the New York Times, an estimated 25 percent of American Muslims are converts.[23] In Britain, around 6,000 people convert to Islam per year and according to a June 2000 article in the British Muslims Monthly Survey the bulk of new Muslim converts in Britain were women.[19]
Original Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth

Passage from Wikipedia article Growth of Religion

In 1990, 935 million people were Muslims. According to the BBC, a comprehensive American study concluded in 2009 the number stood at approximately 23% of the world population with 60% of Muslims living in Asia.[81] From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%. By 2030 Muslims are projected to represent about 26.4% of the global population (out of a total of 7.9 billion people).[82] Several sources believe that this increase is due primarily to high birth rates.[83][84][85] However according to others including the Guinness Book of World Records, Islam is the worlds fastest-growing religion by number of conversions each year: "Although the religion began in Arabia, by 2002 80% of all believers in Islam lived outside the Arab world. In the period 19902000, approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to Christianity".[86] On the other hand in 2010 the Pew Forum stated "Statistical data on conversion to and from Islam are scarce. What little information is available suggests that there is no substantial net gain or loss in the number of Muslims through conversion globally; the number of people who become Muslims through conversion seems to be roughly equal to the number of Muslims who leave the faith. As a result, this report does not include any estimated future rate of conversions as a direct factor in the projections of Muslim population growth"[87] The growth of Islam from 2010 to 2020 has been estimated at 1.70%[82] due to high birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the World Christian Database as of 2007 Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.[88]
Original Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_religion#Islam

Muslim Converts In Mexico Make Up A Diverse, Fast-Growing Community Muslim Converts In Mexico Make Up A Diverse, Fast-Growing Community
By Bernd Debusmann
Published July 29, 2013 Fox News Latino

Islam Builds Muscle In Mexico

Many Mexicans ended up converting to Islam after the 9-11 attacks drew their attention to the religion, piquing their interest. According to the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, today there are approximately 110,000 Muslims living in Mexico. MEXICO CITY When Moroccan national Said Louahabi arrived in Mexico City in 1994, he and fellow Muslims had to attend religious services at the Pakistani embassy because there were no mosques or Islamic centers. I started looking for Muslims and a mosque when I first arrived, Louahabi, an English teacher, told Fox News Latino. At the time, we met at the Pakistani embassy, and there were only about 80 people most of us were foreigners. Now, Louahabi prays alongside hundreds of other Muslims foreigners and Mexicans alike at the three-story Muslim Community Educational Center in the citys upscale Anzures neighborhood. Friday prayers at the Islamic Center are given in Arabic and Spanish. The crowd is diverse: Mexican converts to Islam, expatriates, embassy staff from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Central Asia. The Islamic Center even fields a soccer team. The mosque was packed at a service just before the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, this year falling in July. Many Mexicans who converted to Islam say theyve been impressed with the religions growth in Mexico. I used the Internet and books to learn about Islam, said Mexican convert Alexander Huttanos, an airline pilot who goes by his Islamic name, Ahmed Abbas. Islam has come a long way in Mexico. He actually spent quite a bit of time researching different beliefs and faiths before making a final decision.

I studied many religions, from Christianity to Judaism, Buddhism, African religions, until I found Islam, he added. Allahs path is very mysterious, said Omar Remy, a Mexican who adopted Islam after a visit to Egypt in 1979 and now works for the Community Educational Center. The Internet has helped. It allows people to communicate and investigate the religion. According to Louahabi, many Mexicans actually ended up converting after the 9-11 attacks drew their attention to the religion, piquing their interest. I think Islam is expanding mostly because of the Internet, and what happened on September 11, he explained. People were waking up, digging and searching to see whether we are really terrorists. And many realized thats not the case, Louahabi said. We are just the opposite of what the media proclaim, he added. Islam is against terrorism. Estimates of the number of Muslims in Mexico vary widely. The Mexican government, for example, said there are about 3,700 Muslims in the country, while the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimated there are approximately 110,000. Numbers aside, among Muslims in the country, there is little doubt that the community is already robust. Its growing fast, incredibly fast, Louahabi said of the community, pointing to his own experience. There are a lot of similarities with Christianity and Judaism, so its not difficult for people to grasp, said Eduardo Luis Leajos Frias, a Mexican convert who adopted the Islamic name Lokman Idris. It will keep growing, he added. It will be comparable to the growth of evangelicals weve seen in recent years. Among the most prominent members of Mexicos Muslim community is British-born convert Mark Omar Weston. Formerly a world-class professional water-skier, he runs an Islamic Center and hotel in the Mexican state of Morelos. The hotel serves food prepared in accordance with Islamic dietary practices, known as halal. Most Mexican converts to Islam discover the religion via the Internet, he said in an interview with Fox News Latino. It may become like evangelicals, or any of the many other Bible reading traditions that now exist in the country. According to Zidane Zeraoui al Awad, a professor of international relations at the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Islam in Mexico dates back to the Spanish conquest. In all of Latin America, not just Mexico, Islam arrived with Spanish colonialism. But it was an Islam practiced covertly, he noted, by camp followers who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism. Zeraoui added that while the children of many Muslim immigrants in Mexico have lost their religion, the number continues to grow because of Mexican converts. On one hand, the children of (immigrant) Muslims in Mexico tend to be non-Muslims, he said. But Islam is growing through converts. They are compensating for the loss of Islam among those with Muslim origins. There is a bit of a cultural divide between immigrants that already came as Muslims and have taken their

religion seriously and Mexicans converts who are curious, noted Omar Weston. But generally speaking, teenagers and people in their 20s have been around and see that there are other options, he added. I think that education as a whole helps people be more open to it (Islam). Although still a small community in comparison to other Latin American countries, the Muslim community in Mexico is extremely diverse. In Mexico City alone, there exists a Shiite Muslim womens organization, a Sufi organization headed by two women, and a fundamentalist Salafi organization run by Muhammed Ruiz al-Mekisi, a Mexican convert to Islam. Additionally, in the southern state of Chiapas, there exists a small community of indigenous Mayans who have been persuaded to convert to Islam by members of the Spain-based Murabitun World Movement. The Mayans have blended Islam with traditional practices. Here, we see a form of Islam that has been adapted to an indigenous culture, Zeraoui said. They are putting an indigenous angle on the religion, like they did with the Catholicism that was introduced during the colonial period. Percentage-wise, the largest Muslim population in the Americas is in Suriname, where nearly one out of five people are Muslims, according to the 2013 CIA World Factbook. Significant Muslim communities also exist in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina and Brazil. Bernd Debusmann Jr. is a freelance journalist in Mexico City.
Original Source: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2013/07/29/muslim-converts-in-mexico-make-up-diverse-fast-growingcommunity/

Survey shows Muslim population is fastest growing religion in Canada

OTTAWA The Islamic centre in Saskatoon is experiencing growing pains. Friday services have been split in two so local streets arent clogged with traffic. City officials and nearby residents are working with the centre to answer questions like where to put more parking? We have been experiencing this kind of steady increase for a while, said Amin Elshorbagy, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. We can see this in terms of the need to expand our infrastructure. Most of our Islamic centres are becoming very crowded. Across the country, the Muslim population is growing at a rate exceeding other religions, according to Statistics Canada. It is even growing faster than the number of Canadians identifying as having no religion, though just barely, according to the National Household Survey released Wednesday. The Muslim population exceeded the one million mark, according to the survey, almost doubling its population for the third-consecutive decade. However, the survey results should be taken with caution. Experts say the voluntary nature of the survey, which replaced the mandatory long-form census, leaves gaps in the data from groups that tend not to respond to such surveys, such as new immigrants.

Religion in Canada, a breakdown

Roman Catholics still make up the largest religious group in the country. The largest groups are in Quebec (45.3%) followed by Ontario (31%). As a percentage of the population, they represent 38.7% of Canadians. In the 2001 census, that figure was 43%. The age gap Minority religious groups tend to be younger than Christians. Religions by median age: United Church: 52.3 Anglican: 51.1 Roman Catholic: 42.9 Hindu: 34.2 Sikh: 32.8 No religion: 32.7 Muslim: 28.9 The growth and decline of religious numbers Religions by percentage increase: Muslim: 72.53 Hindu: 67.68 No religion: 63.68 Sikh: 63.43 Buddhist: 22.14 Christian Orthodox: 14.82 Jewish: -0.15 Roman Catholic: -0.5 Anglican: -19.83 United: -29.29 Experts believe the data provide a fairly good, broad picture of Canada, but data on smaller groups may have less reliable information. As mosques become more commonplace and more women wear the niqab, there are growing debates about religious accommodations. We need to sit down as Muslims, not as a community because there isnt one community, and decide what we want to be accommodated and what we want to give up, said Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. That internal debate in the Muslim community sometimes gets sidetracked, largely because of the backdrop of violence done in the name of religion, which Canadian Muslims regularly condemn. It is an additional pressure and a big one on the Muslim community, Elshorbagy said. We need to be extra nice just because were Muslims. We need to go beyond certain limits, which is very unfortunate for people like me, he said. Sometimes the media will call something Islamic terrorism once you call it Islamic, youve brought me into the picture even though I havent done something wrong. And with their numbers now reportedly over the one million mark, the pressures are likely to mount.

Polling has shown that Canadian Muslims are proud to be Canadian, more so than the average Canadian, said Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Subject to potentially higher non-response error: Stats Can slaps disclaimer across survey results

The first pack of data from 2011s National Household Survey comes with the census equivalent of a Surgeon Generals warning: make any historical comparisons at your own risk. Slapped across the back pages of most of the Statistics Canada documents released Wednesday is a disclaimer that the voluntary National Household Survey is an altogether different beast than the nowscrapped mandatory long-form census. The Harper government touched off a controversy in 2010 when it decided to replace the mandatory longform census with a voluntary survey. Demographers, analysts and insiders fretted that the quality of the data would suffer. Read more . . . Canadian Muslims very much want to integrate and be part and parcel of the society. One-on-one, non-Muslims may have favourable views of their Islamic colleagues, but that feeling doesnt always extend to the wider Muslim population, said Pamela Dickey Young, a professor of religion and culture at Queens University. It isnt like Canadian Muslims have not tried to educate the Canadian populacebut for some reason theres still that edge with it that some Canadians have problems getting over, Dickey Young said. Muslims now represent 3.2 per cent of the countrys total population, nudging up from the two per cent recorded in 2001. Immigration has largely fuelled the increase, with the largest share coming from Pakistan over the past five years, according to Statistics Canada. But the survey provides no breakdown of type of Muslims living in Canada, as the survey didnt ask respondents, for instance, whether they were Shiite or Sunni. People keep blocking us into one cohesive mass and were not that at all, Hogben said.

2.2 Billion: Worlds Muslim Population Doubles

REUTERS/ Mohamed Azakir

Sunni Muslim supporters of Lebanon's former prime minister Saad al-Hariri wave flags during what they call "a day of anger" in Tripoli, northern Lebanon January 25, 2011 By 2030 the global population is set to reach over 8 billion and 26.4% of that population will be Muslim. A report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life titled The Future of the Global Muslim Population projects that the number of Muslims in the world is set to double from 1.1billion in 1990 to 2.2 billion in 2030. While these are impressive numbers, it actually indicates that the worldwide growth of Islam is growing but slowing as it will drop from a growth rate of 1.7% between 2010 and 2020 to 1.4% between 2020 and 2030. Pew project that Pakistan is set to overtake Indonesia as the country with the worlds largest number of Muslims as its Muslim majority population pushes to over 256 million. The number in the U.S. will double to over 6.2 million while Afghanistans Muslim population is set to rise by almost 74% as the number rises from 29 million to 50 million, making it the country with the ninth largest Muslim population in the world. (More on TIME.com: Why Egypts Outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Still Thrives .) Better living conditions combined with increased life-expectancy in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa, net migration and global population growth are given as the main factors driving the growth. Despite the projection, Muslims will remain a relatively small minority in the Americas and European countries and the Christian majority in these countries is expected to be just as impressive. While Islam has experienced rapid growth in worshipers of all denominations, it is likely that it will not overtake Christianity as the most dominant world religion as the number of Christians is expected to also reach 2.2billion by 2030. Between them, these two major world religions will make up over half of the Global population at almost 33 per cent by 2030. (More on TIME.com: Colorful Religious Festivals .) There has been a lot of speculation about the growth of the Muslim population around the world, and many of those who speculate dont have good data, said Brian Grim, a senior researcher at the Pew Forum. Instead of a runaway train, its trending with the general global population. This will provide a garbage filter for hysterical claims people make about the size and growth of the Muslim population, Philip Jenkins, a religious history scholar in Christianity and Islam told the Washington Post . Certainly with the world population set to reach 8.3 billion by 2030 the explosive growth of world religions is just as impressive. (Via CNN .)

Original Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/27/2-2-billion-worlds-muslim-population-doubles/

Some Data and Visuals

Youtube

Great Report - http://youtu.be/f88hiWXiFsg

http://youtu.be/OV7jcWynaYo

BBC - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx11KZEwI7M 68000 Muslims/24hrs - http://youtu.be/Ofs4WhZ8MJI

Fox News - http://youtu.be/XfnagknpFBs

Russia Today (RT) - http://youtu.be/WR8970UvutU Russia Today (RT) - http://youtu.be/JBFJfpG3aac BBC - http://youtu.be/3DNWs2yozNw

Islam is indeed the fastest growing religion Silencing the Critics

By

Yahya Ahmed

Recently I was doing a survey on the fastest growing religion in the world. When I searched this on Google most of the results were for Islam but on the first page, a website claims that Islam is not the fastest growing religion. When I opened that page, it was John Gilchrists website, a Christian missionary. One of the sites author Andrew wrote that Islam is not the fastest growing religion. He proved himself to be a totally pathetic human being with it.

Neutral non-Muslim Sources confirming Islam to be the fastest growing religion.

I will just mention a few of them.

Islam is the worlds fastest-growing religion. In 1990, 935 million people were Muslims and this figure had

escalated to around 1.2 billion by 2000, meaning that around one in five people follow Islam. Although the religion began in Arabia, by 2002 80% of all believers in Islam lived outside the Arab world. In the period 1990-2000, approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to Christianity (Guinness World Records 2003, pg 102) (Emphasis added)

According to Readers digest Almanic year book Islam grew by 235% in 50 years between 1934-1984

According to CNN. The second-largest religion in the world after Christianity, Islam is also the fastest-growing religion. In the United States, for example, nearly 80 percent of the more than 1,200 mosques have been built in the past 12 years. Some scholars see an emerging Muslim renaissance as Islam takes root in many traditionally Christian communities.
Islam has drawn converts from all walks of life, most notably African-Americans. Former NAACP President Benjamin Chavis, who joined the Nation of Islam recently, personifies the trend. (Emphasis added)

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/14/egypt.islam/ Today Islam is the fastest growing religion (Is Organized religion a Sham by Ed Sepernik, pg 166) Islam is the fastest growing religion all over the world (Allah and Elohim - Are they the Same God? , Preface) Andrew also helps me with couple of more sources:
1. There are over a billion Muslims in the world today, including 3 to 5 million in the U.S., making it the second most populous religion on earth after Christianity. According to some estimates, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. (The Joy of Sects, Peter Occhigrosso, 1996, p394-397) 2. Islam is the religion which has developed from the preaching and life of Muhammad, a citizen of the city of Mecca in Arabia, who early in the seventh century of the Christian Era appeared as a preacher of monotheism to his own people and founded a religious movement which today counts perhaps as many as 300,000,000 followers, mostly in the heat belt from Indonesia to Morocco. (Islam: Muhammad and His Religion, Arthur Jeffery, 1958, p xi-xiv)

Now he may start crying, No, No, They are unreliable Whether you agree or not, is irrelevant here.

Lets see what Andrew has to say.

Andrew writes:
The claim they are the fastest growing religion in the world is pure myth. We have collected the latest statistics from David A. Barretts huge two volume, "World Christian Encyclopedia", the 2001 AD edition.

In case you havent heard of this work, it is the world standard for religious statistics.

My Response:
Wow !! He is telling us that Islam is not the fastest growing religion because a Christian Encyclopedia says so. Tomorrow if we Muslims produce an Encyclopedia saying that Christianity is not growing at all, will you believe that?? No !! We too will not agree with the mainstream Christian sources as they have every reason to be bias.

Andrew writes:
Muslim's claim that their growth rate is 235 percent and 47 percent for Christianity. This statistic came from the Readers Digest Almanac and Yearbook 1983, and represents 235 percent increase over 50 years. Muslims always leave off the 50 year fact to make it appear they are going 235% every year.

My Response:
Which Muslim says so?? He fails to mention that. Even if some Muslim says so out of ignorance that doesnt carry weight. This is a low way of arguing.

Andrew writes:
A simple review of the readers Digest study shows that the growth rate of Islam vs. Christianity is directly linked to the birth rate in Third World countries where Islam dominates and not actual conversions to each religion. Christianity has always been larger than Islam. These statistics from Readers Digest are over 20 years old. Further, we do not consider readers digest to be an authority on such matters. Why will Muslims not quote real authoritative statistics from certified research groups who show Islam is not the fastest growing religion in 3/4s of the worlds countries.

My Response:
Firstly, who made this Christian Encyclopedias statistics real authoritative?? He raised another pathetic argument. He claims that Islam is the fastest growing religion because of high birth rate in third world countries. This is the point that Islamophobists really raise to prove that Islam is not the fastest growing religion. Much to their misfortune, Guinness World Records debunks this lie. As I quoted above. Ill quote the last part of it.
In the period 1990-2000, approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to Christianity (Guinness World Records 2003, pg 102)

What does that mean in your language Mr. Andrew? Does it mean that 12.5 million more Muslims in third world countries were born in this time period?!!

Andrew writes:
From Table 1-1, there are 1.9 Billion Christians making up 31% of the world population, whereas there are only 1.2 Billion Muslims making up only 20% of the population. It seems that Allah's little trick by making Judas appear like Jesus, so Jesus could escape crucifixion and Judas was crucified in his place, kind of backfired, since 31% of the world's population never learned Allah played a trick and really believes that Jesus not only died, but was raised from the dead! This should be most troubling for Muslims to think that

"Allah's deception" (Qur'an 4:156) actually became the world's largest religion!

My Response:
You are boring me now. He is trying to tell us that Christians are in larger numbers just because Allah deceived. I wonder how many Christians know about this verse? Negligible percentage of them. Mainly, the biased missionaries! Even unbiased readers who read this verse dont say that Allah deceived. Lets analyze this topic in brief. First of all, Allah (SWT) did NOT deceive anyone. No unbiased reader can come up with this point. Let me quote the verse. Verse which Andrew is referring to is 157 not 156. The verse reads That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Apostle of God";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) know ledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- (Quran 4:157) Allah (SWT) only saved his mighty messenger from humiliation. He did not deceive anyone. I have written a brief article on crucifixion. To which Christians have no reply. This refutes the lie of crucifixion. http://www.answering-christianity.com/yahya_ahmed/who_was_on_the_cross.htm Also according to many early writings, Jesus was NOT crucified. For details check out this entire section http://www.answering-christianity.com/ac24.htm#links Now lets turn the tables. Let me quote a verse of the Bible, which Christians dont want you to know about.
Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. (Malachi 2:3)

Its totally ironic when Christians try to take out things in the Quran where as they forget the verses like the one above in their Bible.

All the other statistics that he gave are from a Christian Encyclopedia. They are not from any neutral source.

Hence, The missionary proved himself to be a totally desperate human being. Islam is indeed the fastest growing religion. The neutral sources confirm it. The promise of Allah (SWT) is being fulfilled. The Quran says It is He Who hath sent His Apostle with guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion, even though the Pagans may detest (it). (Quran 9:33) Islam is indeed the fastest growing religion. It will continue to grow and will spread in the full world.

Original Source: http://www.answeringchristianity.com/yahya_ahmed/islam_fasting_growing_religion_world.htm

Fast-growing Islam winning converts in Western world

CAIRO (CNN) -- In the port city of Suez -- and across the Islamic world -- they are celebrating the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. "This is a joyous day and the best day in the life of a man," said pilgrim Hussein Suleiman Hussein. "It is as if I am being born anew."
(1.1M/31 sec. QuickTime movie )

Millions of Muslims across the world will trek to Mecca this week for the annual religious event. They circle the Kaaba, a shrine that contains a black stone sacred to the Prophet Mohammed.

Mohammed decreed that every Muslim who can afford it make the Hajj at least once. It is one of five holy duties required in Islam. A Muslim's first duty is to proclaim that there is only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet. Muslims also must pray five times a day, give charity to the poor and fast during the daylight hours of the holy month of Ramadan. When a cannon signals that the sun has set during Ramadan, Muslims in Cairo break their fast with friends and family, often inviting the poor to share their meals.

Fastest-growing religion

The second-largest religion in the world after Christianity, Islam is also the fastest-growing religion. In the United States, for example, nearly 80 percent of the more than 1,200 mosques have been built in the past 12 years. Some scholars see an emerging Muslim renaissance as Islam takes root in many traditionally Christian communities. Islam has drawn converts from all walks of life, most notably African-Americans. Former NAACP President Benjamin Chavis, who joined the Nation of Islam recently, personifies the trend. "In societies where you have minorities that are discriminated against, I think they may find an appeal in Islam," said Waleed Kazziha of American University in Cairo. Many moderate Islamic countries such as Turkey and Egypt are becoming more conservative. Two decades ago, few middle-class Egyptian women wore scarves or veils on their heads. Now they crowd into special emporiums that advertise Islamic clothing. The shift toward Islamic fundamentalism worries many in the secular world, a fear underscored when splinter groups target Westerners with violent attacks.

Islam vs. the West

But most scholars argue that the extremists are a very small minority and that most Muslims adhere to principles in the Koran that teach peace and tolerance.

"The Islamic world is like any other society we have known in history," said Kazziha. "You might say it has the good, the bad and the ugly." Founded in 622 A.D., Islam is among the newer major religions. But to the non-Muslim world, it sometimes appears inflexible. Clashes between Islamic tradition and Western influence are sweeping the globe. In Islam, contrary to Western beliefs, the rights of the community are considered more important than the rights of the individual. Women are seen primarily as caretakers of the home, and religion strongly influences schools, government and courts. Many Muslims today are trying to find a balance between being members of a global society and

maintaining ties to a religion that calls for strict adherence to the Koran. A case in point is 35-year-old Hisham Hussein, a wealthy playboy who turned to religion and swore off alcohol after an automobile accident. He is going to Mecca this spring. "The most important thing is to maintain the purity of the Hajj, to lead a pure life," he said.

Original Source: http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/14/egypt.islam/

The Muslim Mainstream

Islam is growing fast in America, and its members defy stereotypes
By Jonah Blank Posted 7/12/98 In the polished wooden pews of a white-steepled New England church, the weekend congregants sit with heads reverently bowed. The town of Chelmsford, Mass., is Yankee to the core, and so are most of its inhabitants. Like the sober, strait-laced Pilgrims 300 years before them, the worshipers here shun liquor, dress modestly, and feel uplifted when they call out, "God is great!" Unlike their Puritan predecessors, however, those gathered here address their Maker in Arabic: "Allah-u Akhbar!" they chant, in a call offered five times each day by Muslims from Maine to Alaska. Five to 6 million strong, Muslims in America already outnumber Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Mormons, and they are more numerous than Quakers, Unitarians, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, combined. Many demographers say Islam has overtaken Judaism as the country's second-most commonly practiced religion; others say it is in the passing lane. Yet while Muslims make up one of the fastest-growing religious groups, largely because of immigration, they are among those least understood by their neighbors. Over half the respondents to a recent Roper poll described Islam as inherently anti-American, anti-Western, or supportive of terrorism--though only 5 percent of those surveyed said they'd had much contact with Muslims personally. And according to a draft report scheduled to be released this week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, although the incidence of violence and harassment directed at Muslims declined 58 percent last year, discrimination reports increased 60 percent. In part, such statistics reflect attitudes shaped by Muslims who live across the globe rather than those who live across the street. Militant fundamentalists such as the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran (and a tiny minority of American Muslims) come from an extreme wing, rather than the more moderate center of the world's 1 billion Muslims. But TV cameras and international showdowns raise the militants' public profile. They overshadow the mass of American Muslims, who tend to vote Democratic on issues like immigration and affirmative action, veer Republican on "traditional family values," including such topics as abortion and sex education, and live comfortably within the mainstream of society. The statistics also suggest that the United States must wrestle with a question that has challenged France, Germany, and other European nations as their Muslim populations have grown: Is America a nation based on Judeo-Christian values or on something more universal? Do we value cultural diversity, or merely tolerate it? As the country begins thinking about how the expanding Muslim population might change the nation's sense of itself, the challenge will be to see Islam as it really is, rather than as people wish or fear.

One of the most widespread misconceptions about Muslims here or abroad is that they are primarily Middle Eastern. Fewer than 1 out of 8 American Muslims (12.4 percent) are of Arab descent; other Middle Eastern groups like Iranians and Turks account for only a few additional percentage points each. On a global basis, there are about 100 million more Muslims on the Indian subcontinent alone than in all Arab countries combined. The two largest Muslim groups in the United States are native-born African-Americans (42 percent) and immigrants from South Asia (24 percent). America's polyglot neighborhoods are home to Muslims of every conceivable background: Malays from Southeast Asia and Bosnians from southeast Europe, Songhai from the Sahara desert and Uighars from the Taklimakan desert. America is seldom so truly a melting pot as in her mosques. There is even a mosque on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico: Islam has a small but long-standing presence among Native American communities from the Plains to the pueblos. Islam, which stresses egalitarianism, has a special appeal for the marginalized, but the faith draws many converts from the white middle class: More than 80,000 of America's Muslims are of West European background. When Mariam Agah (nee Mary Froelich) started questioning the faith of her birth, she was not only white and middle class--she was a Roman Catholic nun. At the age of 25, after seven years as Sister Frederick, she gave up her habit: "I was not convinced that Jesus was divine," she says, "and that's when I realized that I needed to leave." That was 28 years ago. Agah got a job at an elementary school, and for a long time she taught and she thought. She read her way through many bookshelves of philosophy, and two works stood out: the Koran and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. "I continued my spiritual journey," she says, "and it led me to Islam." Jim Bates is another unlikely convert. In 1990, after four terms as a Democratic congressman from San Diego, he lost an election--and also lost his marriage, his home, and his sense of direction. Born and baptized a Catholic, raised Protestant in a series of orphanages and foster homes, then a loose follower of Unitarianism for most of his adult life, at age 50 Bates found himself searching, he says, for a truth that would never slip away. He found it through the faith of Pakistani-American friends he'd made during his tenure in Congress. Now Bates spends much of his time consulting, and the rest farming hay and raising quarter horses on a ranch in Idaho. Minister Louis Farrakhan, with his inflammatory racial comments, may be the Muslim leader most familiar to Americans. But he commands the allegiance of only a fraction even of African-American Muslims. His Nation of Islam today boasts only 20,000 to 50,000 members, says Prof. Sulayman Nyang of Howard University. The charismatic Farrakhan can attract huge crowds, as the Million Man March demonstrated, but few of those in attendance actually convert. Instead, the man who attracts the greatest following among American Muslims--black, white, or Asian--is a moderate who has left behind the divisive doctrines Farrakhan upholds. Warith Deen Mohammed, an imam-leader of prayer--and the son and successor of the black separatist Elijah Muhammad, has up to half a million solid supporters, and perhaps 1.5 million followers more loosely affiliated. He has championed unity among Muslims of different races and made significant headway, though desegregation is still a work in progress. Two decades ago, he led most of his father's radical Black Muslim flock into the mainstream of moderate Islam, and into the mainstream of everyday American life. "I've become almost a fanatical supporter of the United States government," he told U.S. News. "To me, the vision of the Founding Fathers is the vision that we have in Islam." Shedding the past. Only a few months after the death of his father in 1975, Imam Warith shocked the faithful by renouncing many of the key tenets preached by Elijah Muhammad. Racially exclusionary rhetoric was jettisoned, as was the proposition that whites were "blue-eyed devils" created by an evil scientist named Yacub as a laboratory experiment. Imam Warith tossed out core Nation of Islam doctrines that are viewed as heresy by the rest of the Muslim world: for example, the belief that movement founder Wallace Fard was a manifestation of God and that Elijah Muhammad was his prophet. "He was like Dr. Frankenstein," Imam Warith (born Wallace) says of his namesake. "He picked up some dead pieces here and

some dead pieces there, put them all together, and breathed life into the creature." In 1985 Imam Warith disbanded the Nation of Islam altogether, urging his supporters to attend any mosque they wished without regard to the race of the other congregants. Several splinter factions had already broken away: One was led by Farrakhan, who re-established the old Nation and resurrected almost all of Elijah Muhammad's doctrines. Wali Mutazammil, who had served as the Nation of Islam's minister for public relations in Kansas City, Mo., remembers setting aside his initial reluctance and rejoining American society. A boxer who'd been the Marine Corps champion featherweight of 1970, Mutazammil had been drawn to the old Nation of Islam partly by the example of boxing legend (and Nation spokesman) Muhammad Ali. In 1976 Mutazammil and the rest of his Missouri congregation followed Imam Warith's invitation to enter the mainstream Muslim fold. Having already studied some of the texts of orthodox Islam, he says, he was glad to be part of a worldwide community. Now Mutazammil runs a management consultant firm with business stretching from East Asia to West Africa. Three-time world heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali also renounced the old Nation theology in the late 1970s. Westerners tend to regard Muslim attitudes toward women as inherently discriminatory, but reality often differs from the stereotype here as well. "In the name of Islam, cultural habits have developed that suppress women," notes Laila Al-Marayati, "and this needs to be dealt with head-on." Born, raised, and still living in Los Angeles, Al-Marayati is a physician and past president of the Muslim Women's League. Throughout the Muslim world, she notes, women are denied equal rights of marriage, divorce, and property. But such discrimination, she and many other Muslims argue, is a betrayal rather than a reflection of the true spirit of the faith: "The challenge is to let Islam become a tool for elevating women rather than for oppressing them." The Dawoodi Bohras, a group of 1 million Shiite Muslims spread throughout the world, seem to meet this challenge. "It's a very matriarchal community," says Shamim Dahod, an Andover, Mass., physician. She notes that every Bohra family in her New England congregation is a dual-career household and says she has experienced much greater sexism in her last hospital posting than she has in any mosque. Harsh image. Perhaps the most persistent negative stereotype of Islam is that it is a faith of violent extremists, represented by a masked militant rather than the doctor or computer software designer living next door. It is a stereotype that stings: Muslims in America say they are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. In a sense, American Muslims (many of them refugees from the regimes with which they are associated in the public mind) are held hostage to the behavior of Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah: Anti-Muslim violence in the United States rises sharply when tensions peak in the Middle East. Sgt. George Curtis feels a special pride in having defended the holy sites of Mecca and Medina from the forces of Iraq. He is the commander of an M1A1 Abrams tank at Fort Carson, Colo., a veteran of the gulf war, and also one of the 10,000 Muslims serving in the U.S. military. He sees no contradiction in his roles, noting that the Army has provided special "halal" meals for him and has relieved him of daily physical training requirements during the fast of Ramadan. "Whether it's Iraq or anywhere else in the world," he says, "my first duty is to defend my country." At a mall in Chantilly, Va., last January, all sides of American Islam were on display. It was Eid-ul Fitr, the festival that ends the fasting month of Ramadan, and the crowd in attendance was as multifaceted as any other mass of 15,000 people one could find. The prayer leader delivered his sermon in English--the only language virtually everyone present could understand. Somali immigrants in white robes and loosely coiled turbans rubbed shoulders with Philadelphia B-boyz in Kangol hats, Lugz jackets, and hip-sagging Tommy Hilfiger jeans. Chador-clad mothers bought their kids pink cotton candy and tried not to worry about the competence of the carnies wearily operating the miniature merry-go-round and the ferris wheel. The longest lines were for a gyroscope ride: Teenagers with scraggly beards and decorous skullcaps were strapped in place, and they grinned wildly as their world spun around and around. For these kids and their friends and classmates, it was just another all-American day at the mall. Faith in Allah Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is monothistic, and it views practitioners of these faiths

as fellow "people of the book." Members of all three religions worship the same deity: "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God." Islam holds Jesus, Moses, and other biblical figures as prophets. Teachings. The holy book of Islam is the Koran )often spelled Quran or Qur'an), believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. The Islamic calendar begins in the year 622, with the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. Practice. Every observant Muslim must uphold the "Five Pillars"" of the faith: shahada, the acceptance of the unity of God; salat, prayer five times a day; hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca; sawm, fasting during the month of Ramadan; and zakat, charity. Conversion. One become a Muslim by reciting a simple credo: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet." Such belief must be unforced: One of the most quoted verses of the Koran reads, "There is no compulsion in religion." Laws. Muslim tradition forbids the use of alcohol, the consumption of foods such as pork that are not "halal," and accepting or charging interest payments. Limited polygamy is permitted but practiced very seldom in most Muslim societies. Faithful. There are two major denominations of Islam: Sunnis make up about 90 percent of the world population, while Shiites form the overwhelming majority in Iran. This story appears in the July 20, 1998 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.

Original Source : http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/980720/archive_004363.htm

Hadith(Prophecy)
Thauban reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake. And I have seen its eastern and western ends. And the dominion of my Ummah would reach those ends which have been drawn near me and I have been granted the red and the white treasure and I begged my Lord for my Ummah that it should not be destroyed because of famine, nor be dominated by an enemy who is not amongst them to take their lives and destroy them root and branch, and my Lord said: Muhammad, whenever I make a decision, there is none to change it. Well, I grant you for your Ummah that it would not be destroyed by famine and it would not be dominated by an enemy who would not be amongst it and would take their lives and destroy them root and branch even if all the people from the different parts of the world join hands together (for this purpose), but it would be from amongst them, viz. your Ummah, that some people would kill the others or imprison the others. Reference: Sahih Muslim (Hadith # 2761). Also there in Sunan Abu Dawud, Jami Tirmidh, Sunan Ibn e Majah and Masnad Ahmed. Al-Albani brought it out in As-Saheeha as Hadith