Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
For Immediate ReleaseJanuary 25, 2011 Washington, D.C. — In a 10 a.m. EST conference call forjournalists on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011,the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life will discuss thefindings contained in its new report, TheFuture of the Global Muslim Population. This comprehensive demographic study seeks toprovide up-to-date estimates of the number […]
The following factors are not direct inputs into the projections, but they underlie vital assumptions about the way Muslim fertility rates are changing and Muslim populations are shifting. Education As in the rest of the world, fertility rates in countries with Muslim-majority populations are directly related to educational attainment. Women tend to delay childbearing when […]
Most of the preceding discussion focused on differences in religious knowledge among members of different religious groups. But what other religious and demographic factors are linked with differences in religious knowledge? The survey shows that religious knowledge is most closely linked with years of schooling. In addition, a variety of religious traits – including overall […]
Most people in sub-Saharan Africa now identify with either Christianity or Islam. In most of the 19 countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, 90% or more of the respondents say they belong to one of these faiths. This is in sharp contrast with the religious composition of the […]
The argument over the Park 51 Islamic center continued in the blogosphere last week, but this time, mosque supporters dominated. Bloggers also reacted to a poll that more Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. On Twitter, an article declaring "The Web is dead" was No. 1. And on YouTube, an obscene gesture drove a popular video.
As of 1900, both Muslims and Christians were relatively small minorities in the region. Since then, however, the number of Muslims living between the Sahara Desert and the Cape of Good Hope has increased more than 20-fold, rising from an estimated 11 million in 1900 to approximately 234 million in 2010.
The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life held a conference call with journalists to discuss the findings of a new 19-country survey, “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The study finds that the vast majority of people in many sub-Saharan African nations are deeply committed to Christianity or Islam, […]