The Middle East-North Africa region, which includes 20 countries and territories, is home to an estimated 315 million Muslims, or about 20% of the world’s Muslim population. Of these, approximately 79 million live in Egypt, meaning that about one-in-four (25%) Muslims in the region live in Egypt. More than half the countries in the Middle […]
The Pew Forum’s Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population seeks to provide the most up-to-date and comprehensive demographic estimate of the number of Muslims in the 232 countries and territories for which the United Nations Population Division provides general population estimates.1 In order to […]
The public continues to express concern about the rise of Islamic extremism in the United States and abroad, but a survey taken shortly after the deadly Nov. 5 shootings at the Fort Hood Army base shows only a modest increase in these concerns since 2007. Just more than half (52%) of Americans say they are […]
For the purposes of this report, sectarian differences among Muslims were simplified into two categories: Sunni and Shia. It should be noted, however, that both these groups contain self-identified Muslim communities that may be considered heterodox or nonmainstream by other Muslims. Unlike estimates for Muslim populations overall, almost no censuses and relatively few surveys ask […]
For information about how data for each country or territory were collected and analyzed, see Data Sources by Country. Sources include national censuses, demographic and health surveys, and other general population surveys and studies. Population figures for previous years have been projected forward to 2009 based on the assumption that the Muslim population of the country […]
Summary of Findings Americans followed the health care debate more closely than any other news story last week as Senate Democrats struggled to find a compromise that would allow them to move legislation through their chamber despite strong Republican opposition. About three-in-ten (31%) say the health care debate was the story they followed most closely, […]