The Muslim population is not only large; it is growing faster than the world as a whole. In its landmark study The Future of the Global Muslim Population, the Pew Research Center projected that the number of Muslims would rise from about 1.6 billion in 2010 to roughly 2.2 billion by 2030. If those trends hold, Muslims would make up around 26% of a projected world population of some 8.3 billion, up from about 23% in 2010. This article explains what is driving that growth, and why it is expected to slow.
Growing faster, but decelerating
According to Pew, the global Muslim population was projected to grow at roughly 1.5% a year over 2010–2030, compared with about 0.7% for non-Muslims. Yet the pace is easing. The Muslim growth rate averaged 2.3% a year in the 1990s, dipped to about 2.1% in the 2000s, and was projected to fall further to around 1.4% by the late 2020s. So while Muslims are a growing share of the world, they are growing more slowly than they once did.
What drives the growth
Pew identifies a few main factors, and it is worth stating them carefully.
- A younger age structure. A larger share of Muslims are in, or about to enter, their prime childbearing years. The median age in Muslim-majority countries rose only to about 24 by 2010, well below the mid-30s to 40 typical of Europe and North America. Younger populations tend to grow.
- Higher fertility, but falling. Pew put the average fertility rate across the 49 Muslim-majority countries at roughly 2.9 children per woman in 2010–15, higher than the world average, though projected to keep declining toward the replacement level of about 2.1 over the following decades.
- Demographic momentum. Because past fertility was high, a large generation is now reaching adulthood, so populations keep expanding for a time even as birth rates fall.
Pew also highlights that fertility is closely tied to women's education: in Muslim-majority countries where girls generally receive little schooling, average fertility was more than double that of countries where girls stay in education longer.
A shifting map
Growth is not even, so the geography of Islam is expected to shift. Pew projected that Pakistan would overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population, and that sub-Saharan Africa's share would rise, with more Muslims eventually living in Nigeria than in Egypt. The broad distribution described in our article on the Muslim population worldwide is expected to hold, with the Asia-Pacific region remaining home to the majority.
Reading the projections wisely
Projections are not prophecies. They rest on assumptions about fertility, mortality and migration that can change. Pew itself stresses that the Muslim growth rate is slowing and may eventually converge with global averages. For the regional detail on one continent, see Muslims in Europe.
Behind every projection are communities that already exist today. Use MosqueFinder to find mosques in your city and meet the people the numbers describe.