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.
Median levels of government restrictions and social hostilities rose in Europe, Asia and the Pacific, and the Middle East and North Africa.
The number of countries with high or very high social hostilities rose for the third year in a row; government interference in worship also increased.
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.
Every religious group grew in count in the Middle East and North Africa – a Muslim-majority region – between 2010 and 2020.
Read about where religiously unaffiliated populations have had the largest net gains, and how those who’ve joined the “nones” identified previously.
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