4. Religious switching into and out of Islam
Find out what percentage of adults have joined or left Islam, or remained Muslim since childhood, in 13 countries.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Find out what percentage of adults have joined or left Islam, or remained Muslim since childhood, in 13 countries.
In a number of countries with sizable Muslim and Jewish populations, we asked Muslim and Jewish adults for their views on religion and governance – specifically, whether religious law should be the official or state law for people who share their religion, and whether their country can be both a democratic country and a Muslim […]
In 2022, global median scores on the Center’s Government Restrictions and Social Hostilities Indexes mirrored 2021. But some regions saw change since 2021.
In many places surveyed, 20% or more of all adults have left their childhood religious group. Christianity and Buddhism have had especially large losses.
The vast majority of Chinese Muslim adults come from 10 ethnic minority groups that traditionally practice Islam, the two largest being the Hui people and the Uyghur people. Most of China’s Muslims live in the country’s northwestern region, particularly in the areas of Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. Because there is heavy overlap between religion […]
Government restrictions on religion, by region The global median score on the Government Restrictions Index (GRI) rose from 2.8 in 2020 to 3.0 in 2021, the highest it’s been since Pew Research Center created the index in 2007. Both Europe and the Americas saw increases in their regional GRI scores, though their median scores remained […]
About 6% of Asian Americans now say their religion is Islam. An additional 3% say they feel close to Islam for reasons such as family background or culture, rather than religion.[10. numoffset=”10″ For more on the difference between religious identity and religious affinity, read the Overview.] Some 13% of Indian Americans express a connection to […]
Across the 36 countries surveyed, people’s views on the importance of religion to national identity vary widely. Large shares in middle-income countries say being a member of the historically predominant religion in their country is very important to truly sharing the national identity – for example, to being truly Filipino or truly Nigerian. In high-income […]
Of the 198 places analyzed, 24 scored “very high” in our measure of government restrictions, up from 19 in 2021. For social hostilities, “very high” score totals were unchanged.
In 2021, government restrictions on religion – laws, policies and actions by state officials that limit religious beliefs and practices – reached a new peak globally. Harassment of religious groups and interference in worship were two of the most common forms of government restrictions worldwide that year.
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