Islam is world’s fastest growing religion — Study

A new study by the Pew Research Centre has revealed that Islam experienced the fastest growth among world religions between 2010 and 2020, outpacing all others combined.

According to the Pew Global Religious Landscape study released on Monday, the surge in the number of Muslims globally was primarily due to natural demographic factors. The study noted that “Muslims have more children and are younger, on average, than members of any other major religion.”

“Based on data for the 2015–2020 period, we estimated a Muslim woman would have 2.9 children, on average, in her lifetime, compared with 2.2 children per non-Muslim woman,” the report added.

While Christianity remained the world’s largest religion with 2.3 billion adherents, the report found that the gap between Islam and Christianity continued to narrow. It noted a global decline of about 1.8 percent in the Christian population since 2010.

The increase in the Muslim population, the study found, was concentrated largely in Muslim-majority countries. It further stated that “at the global level, Muslim population change had little to do with people converting into or out of the faith”.

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The report also highlighted a sharp rise in the number of religiously unaffiliated people in the United States, recording a 97 percent increase from 2010. It said the majority of the world’s religiously unaffiliated population resides in China, where 1.3 billion people do not identify with any religion.

Despite the shift, Pew found that Christians remain the majority in 60 percent of all countries and territories surveyed. However, it also observed that Christianity declined by at least five percent in 40 countries, with a significant increase in only one.

Pew attributed part of Christianity’s decline to a growing number of people leaving the faith, determined by measuring how many adults changed their religion from the one they were raised in.

The study further showed that both Buddhism and Hinduism experienced a net loss in adult followers, while “Islam was the only religion where more adults joined than left.”

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