The recent executive order President Donald Trump has issued, banning travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US affected only 12% of the world’s Muslims, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center report on the current and projected size of religious groups. In fact, out of the seven countries being targeted – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – only Iran ranks among the top ten Muslim countries I terms of their population.
According to Pew, as of 2010 (and seven years are an eternity when it comes to Muslim demographics), there were 1.6 billion Muslims on our planet, making Islam the world’s second-largest religion after Christianity.
But here’s the truly scary part: Pew estimates that by 2050 the number of Muslims on our planet will rise to 2.76 billion, or 29.7% of humanity. Sub-Saharan Africa will see their number increasing most dramatically, from 15.5% in 2010 to 24.3% in 2050.
In 2010, according to Pew, 3,480,000 Muslims lived in North America, roughly 0.2% of the World’s Muslims. In the US, Muslims are expected to double from 0.9% of the population in 2010 to 2.1% by 2050, based on recent demographic and migration patterns.
Surprisingly, Arabs are not the largest demographic group adhering to Islam – they are far outnumbered by the folks in the Asia-Pacific region, who constitute 62% of the world’s Muslim population, with 987 million. In fact, according to Pew, more Muslims live in India and Pakistan combined (344 million) than in the entire Middle East-North Africa region (317 million).
As far as majority-Muslim countries go, according to Pew, Muslims are the majority in 49 countries. The country with the largest number is Indonesia, where 87.2% of the population, 209 million, are Muslim. India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population – 176 million), but Muslims are not the majority population there, they make up only 14.4% of India’s population.
