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Just something to think about.
This report speaks for itself, so I am going to get out of its way.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging anywhere from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.
The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia
has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
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The arduous task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analyzing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, the report says. In cases where the data was a few years old, researchers projected 2009 numbers.
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The report provides further evidence that while the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 percent of the world’s Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 percent are in Europe and 0.3 percent are in the Americas. While the Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
While those population trends are well established, the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren’t as scrutinized. The report identified about 317 million Muslims — or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population — living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries — from India to Nigeria and China to France — divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
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Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about five percent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims — almost as many as North and South America
_ Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States although they only make up 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim, or about 2 percent of the total population.
President Obama has made a huge deal about how eager he is to extend his hand in peace to those who were traditionally considered the enemies of the United States. It seems to be his belief that but for the strength, and aggressiveness of the United States, countries such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia would be America loving democracies. Although the Obama Administration has famously stated that they are expecting Iran to unclench their fist, it seem that instead Iran would rather punch the U.S. in the face.
