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Global Demographic study by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

by Mritunjay | October 9, 2009 at 06:18 pm

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The Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life has come up with a study which tries to map the global population by religious beliefs. The study indicates that one out of every third human alive is a Christian and one in every fourth is a Muslim today. The top five Muslim countries in the world include only one in the Middle East ‑ Egypt ‑ behind Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, in that order. Russia, the survey shows, has more Muslims than the populations of Libya and Jordan combined. Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon. China has a bigger Muslim population than Syria.The work, the largest of its kind, was the result of three years of research examining data from 232 countries and territories.

The study is supposed to be of particular interest to people and academicians studying demography and religion.

Some of the major highlights the study brings forward are:

These numbers "aren't necessarily unknown," says Pew Forum senior researcher Brian J. Grim. "But to look at the world and see where the large populations of Muslims live is astounding."

While assessing the Muslim population the study points that the Muslim majority nations house 80% of Muslim population. The study also brings out that the nations which house Muslims as minority actually have in certain cases more Muslims than in some Muslim majority nations.

China has almost the same number of Muslims as Saudi Arabia.

Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.

Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon.India has one of the world's largest concentrations of Muslims.

Of countries with Muslim populations, the U.S. has one of the smallest.

The study also targets to do more analysis around other beliefs in coming time. While it may be nor clear how helpful the study would be it is sure that this is going to create some ripples in circles around the estimates. Some people feel that the numbers are either under or over reported.

Brian Grim, the senior researcher on the Pew Forum project said, "If the goal is to create better understanding between the United States and the Muslim world, our focus should be on south and southeast Asia, not the Middle East".

The Report Can be downloaded here: Download the full report PDF (62 pages, 10MB)

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