Francis Chartrand for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles

Be careful not to confuse Muslims and Arabs: the Arabs are a minority among Muslims (20 to 25%), and there are Arab Christians (Egypt: 10 to 15% of the population, Lebanon (20 to 40%), Syria ( 10%), Jordan (5%), Palestine (5%), Iraq (3%). There are also Jews Arabic (Morocco, Tunisia ....)

Breakdown by continent

Of a total of 1, 3 billion Muslims around 930 million to almost live in Asia, including 240 million in the Middle East (Fertile Crescent, Iran, Arabian Peninsula and Turkey) and 690 million in South Central Asia, 320 million reside in Africa, including approximately 130 in North Africa and 190 in Sub-Saharan Africa. North America does little more than 5 million Muslims and Latin America a million and a half. For Europe see below.

The majority of Muslims living in Asia.

The Muslim country in Asia with the most Muslims is Indonesia with about 200 million people are Muslim, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh and India (minority of 13% over 1 billion people).

Shiites and Sunnis

The Shiites are the majority faith in Iran (94%), Iraq (62.5%) and Lebanon (34.1%, compared to 23.4% Maronite, Sunni 21.2% and 11.2% Orthodox), while represent significant minorities in Kuwait (30.3% against 45% Sunni) in the United Arab Emirates (15.9%) and Syria (12%). In Oman, against by the majority of the population is Ibadite faith (or kharédjite) (73.6%).

The Sunnis are the majority in all other countries musulmans. Countries with most Muslims:

Indonesia: 200 million

Pakistan: 139 million

India: 130 million

Bangladesh: 112 million

Turkey: 64 million

Iran: 60 million

Egypt: 58 million

Nigeria: 55 million

Europe

The European Union has 15 million Muslims from 466 million; the European continent as a whole about 32 million.

There are 12 million Muslims of European origin in what is called the arc of Muslim Europe: Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia, Bulgaria.

France is the European country which has the most Muslims, about 4 million people are Muslim. Germany has 2.5 million Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin, the United Kingdom 1,600,000 Muslims mostly from the Indian sub-continent. Spain: 1 million, the Netherlands 850,000 or 6% of the population, as in Denmark, there are about 700,000 Muslims around 5.5 million inhabitants.

Converted into Europe

Their number is difficult to establish and statistics are very unclear.

It is estimated that in France around 3500 people convertiraient to Islam each year. The France would consist of 40,000 to 70,000 converts. It is estimated that in the opposite direction, between 600 and 900 Muslims convertiraient annually to Christianity (1 / 3 to Catholicism, 2 / 3 evangelical Protestantism).

Germany: 15,000 to 100,000 converts.

Belgium: between 6,000 and 25,000 converts.

Spain: 5000 to 20,000 converts.

(Source: Le Monde of 12 September 2007)

Other religions (estimated end-2003): Christianity: 2 billion (1131 billion Catholics [source: Pontifical Yearbook], 440 million Protestants and 220 million Orthodox), Hinduism: 840 million, Buddhism: 380 million, Judaism, 14 5 million

Labels: Arab World, Europe, Iba Bouramine, Islam

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 5:00 PM