Islam has emerged as the world’s fastest-growing major religion, steadily increasing its share of the global population over the past decade – a period that also saw a notable rise in religious disaffiliation, particularly among Christians.
According to a new report by the Pew Research Center, released on Monday, Islam’s share of the world population rose by 1.8 percentage points to 25.6% between 2010 and 2020.
“Muslims grew faster than any other major religion,” said Conrad Hackett, lead researcher on the study.
“It’s just striking that there was such dramatic change in a 10-year period. During this time, the Muslim and Christian populations grew closer in size.”
The report, based on more than 2,700 censuses and surveys, attributes Islam’s growth to several key demographic factors.
Muslim populations tend to be younger – with an average age of 24, compared to the global average of 33 for non-Muslims – and have higher fertility rates in certain regions.
Perhaps just as significantly, Islam is experiencing far lower levels of disaffiliation than other major religions.
Christianity, while still the largest religious group globally, is not keeping pace with the world’s population growth. Although the number of Christians grew in absolute terms to 2.3 billion, their global share fell by 1.8 percentage points to 28.8%.
This shift is largely driven by people leaving the faith – a trend particularly evident among younger generations.
“Among young adults, for every person around the world who becomes Christian, there are three people who are raised Christian who leave,” Hackett noted.
Sub-Saharan Africa now hosts the largest share of the global Christian population – around 31% – overtaking Europe, which has traditionally been Christianity’s stronghold.
This, Hackett explained, is down to Africa’s high birth rates, youthful population, and general population growth, contrasted with Europe’s ageing demographics, lower fertility, and increasing religious disaffiliation.
The rise in those unaffiliated with any religion has also been significant. In 2020, nearly a quarter of the global population (24.2%) identified as religiously unaffiliated – up from 23.3% in 2010. Contrary to earlier predictions that this group might shrink due to ageing and low birth rates, the trend has instead been fuelled by people, especially former Christians, stepping away from organised religion.
China accounts for the largest number of unaffiliated individuals, with an estimated 1.3 billion people out of its 1.4 billion population. The United States follows with 101 million unaffiliated out of 331.5 million, and Japan with 73 million out of 126.3 million.
While formal affiliation may be low, the report notes that many people still hold spiritual or religious beliefs or attend religious services, even if they do not identify with a specific denomination. In China, for instance, religious belief is common, but only about 10% of the population formally aligns with a religion, according to Pew’s 2023 findings.
Buddhism, by contrast, saw a notable decline. It was the only major religion to experience a drop in total adherents – from 343 million in 2010 to 324 million in 2020 – a decrease driven by disaffiliation and low birth rates. The populations of those identifying as Hindu or Jewish remained relatively stable in line with overall population growth.
“Sometimes we hear rumours of religious revival, and it’s certainly possible that in particular places religion could grow,” Hackett said. “But in this careful 10-year study that we’ve done, the broad trend is that in many places people are moving away from religion.”
Looking ahead, the data suggests that the global religious landscape is shifting – and that shift is narrowing the gap between the world’s two largest faiths. Based on current trends in fertility, age demographics, and patterns of religious switching, Islam is on course to surpass Christianity and become the world’s largest religion in the coming years, unless there is a significant reversal.
“The next step of our ongoing work in this project will be to do some demographic population projections to provide new estimates of sort of exactly when they might converge,” Hackett added.
Source: Daily Sun
Bd-pratidin English/ Afia
