India will have the largest Muslim population in the world by 2050, American think tank Pew Research Centre has predicted in its latest report. The research estimated that India will have more than 300 million Muslims by 2050, while continuing to remain a majority-Hindu country.
A majority of the world’s Muslim population, 62%, live in the Asia-Pacific region, including countries such as Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Indonesia currently has the largest Muslim population in the world.
Islam is currently the world’s second-largest religion after Christianity and is also the fastest-growing major religion. As of 2010, there were 1.6 billion Muslims across the world. “If current demographic trends continue, the number of Muslims is expected to exceed the number of Christians by the end of this century,” the report says.
The report cited two major reasons for Islam becoming the fastest-growing religion. Firstly, Muslims generally have more children than members of other religious groups, the report said. “Around the world, each Muslim woman has an average of 3.1 children, compared with 2.3 for all other groups combined,” it said.
Secondly, Muslims have the youngest median age of 23 years (as of 2010), which is seven years younger than the median age of other religions. As a result, majority of Muslims “already are, or will soon be”, at a point in their lives to reproduce.
“While it does not change the global population, migration is helping to increase the Muslim population in some regions, including North America and Europe,” the report added.
There were 3.3 million Muslims in the United States as of 2015, the report said. Muslims will make up 2.1% of the US population by 2050, the report predicted. Islam is expected to surpass people who identify as Jewish, the second-largest faith group in the country.
The report comes amid massive controversy over US President Donald Trump’s immigration ban against seven Muslim majority nations. The Pew report adds, “About half of Americans (49%) think at least “some” U.S. Muslims are anti-American, greater than the share who say “just a few” or “none” are anti-American... But most Americans do not see widespread support for extremism among Muslims living in the US, according to a February 2017 survey.”
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