ISLAM IS THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION IN THE WEST

Al Masjid al-Haram, is the largest Mosque in the world located in Mecca.

ISLAM IS THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION IN THE WEST AND THE WORLD

by Syarif Hidayat

Despite Islamophobia that is still prevailing strongly in the western countries, Islam proves to be the fastest growing religion in the Western World including Russia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Cyprus. Conversion to Islam has nearly doubled in the past decade, according to one of the most comprehensive attempts to estimate how many people have embraced Islam.

And despite the often negative potrayal of Islam, thousands of Britons are adopting the religion every year. In the previous estimation, there were 60,699 converts living in Britain in 2001. With no new census planned, the researchers polled mosques in London to try to calculate how many conversions take place in a year.  The results gave a figure of 1,400 conversions in the capital, which when extrapolated nationwide, would mean approximately 5,200 people adopting Islam every year.

The figures are comparable with the studies in Germany and France which found that there were around 4,000 conversions a year. In America, throughout the 1980's and 1990's, Islam had seen much growth. Today there are many Muslims across the country who are holding elected offices as local city council members, state repre­sentatives, mayor and judges. And there are many Muslims in every profession, such as Doctors, scientists, engineers, lawyers, teachers, among others. Islam is the second largest religion in the United States and the fastest growing religion in America.

A nationwide survey conducted in 2003 by the Pew Research Centre and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported that the percentage of Americans with a favorable view of Islam increased to 34 per cent in 2003. At the same time, the percentage responding that Islam was more likely than other religion to encourage violence fell from 44 per cent in July 2003 to 36 per cent in July 2005. According to the German Central Institute Islam Archive (de), the total number of Muslims in the western countries in 2010 were around 48 million. Few of this are as follows:

Country                    Muslim population (2010)

Russia                        16,379,000

France                         4,704,000

Germany                     4,119,000

United Kingdom      2,869,000

United States            2,600,000

Italy                             1,583,000
Canada                          940,000

Netherlands                  914,000

Belgium                         638,000
Australia                        476,291

Austria                           475,000

Switzerland                   433,000

Cyprus                           200,000

But if one could ask, what are the reasons behind this adoption of Islam by the West. The reason cannot be far fetched. Harun Yahya said, 'During the last 20 years, the number of Muslims in the world has been increasing steadily. Today, every fourth person is a Muslim. It is probably that the Muslim population will continue to increase and that Islam will become the world's largest religion.  The reason for this steady rise is not only the increasing population in Muslim countries, but also the growing numbers of people who are turning to Islam, a phenomenon that has gained momentum, especially after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (9/11 attacks). This attack, deplored by everyone, especially Muslims, has suddenly turned the attention of the people of West to Islam.

After the attack, people in the West started talking on what kind of a religion Islam is, what Al-Qur’an says, what obligations come with being a Muslim and how Muslims are to conduct their affairs. This research work carried out by Western people, has naturally brought about a rise in the number of people in the west turning to Islam. So, the commonly heard prediction after the attack that this attack will change the course of world history' has indeed started to come true. The process of returning to religious and spiritual values, which the world has been experiencing for a long time has become a turning point for Islam. Indeed, Islam is the only religion of Allah.

Remember the story of Malik Tyson, who converted to Islam upon the reading of translated Al-Qur’an three times. Another notable convertee is Maryam Jemila, who saw English Qur’an on her sick bed, in a hospital. She read it and later accepted Islam. If people of the world, could create or find time to study this religion (Islam), they will discover that Islam is the religion which all the prophets came with as stated in Al-Quran.

More so, the uniqueness and universality of the way of our worshipping, makes it to be the true religion of Allah in which no other religion has such quality (Q30 verse30). Finally, Allah says in Quran chapter 3 verse 85 that "Whoever takes any other religion beside Islam, it will not be accepted from him or her. And he or she will be among the losers on the day of judgement." May Allah save us from this.

Islam Is Also The World's Fastest-Growing Religion

From Muslims in Europe to evangelical Christians in Africa, it is religious believers who are shaping the early 21st Century. Charismatic movements are sweeping throughout the Southern Hemisphere, while high birth rates among immigrants are provoking soul-seeking in the historically Christian West. For this List, FP looks at the fast-growing faiths that are upending the old world order.

Islam

Growth rate: 1.84 percent

Adherents: 1.3 billion

Behind the trend: High birthrates in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe

Areas to watch: The worlds largest Muslim populations are in fast-growing countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Iran. Islam also happens to be the fastest growing religion in Europe, where an influx of Muslim immigrants from North Africa, Turkey, and South Asia has sent shock waves into a mostly Christian and secular population whose birthrates have stagnated. The Muslim question has empowered anti-immigrant parties in France, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, while sparking a fierce debate over the place of women in Islam and symbols of faith like the Muslim head scarf.

Moshe Milner/GPO/Newsmakers

The Bahai Faith

Growth rate: 1.70 percent

Adherents: 7.7 million

Behind the trend: High birthrates in India

Areas to watch: Bahais are spread throughout the world, but a good chunkaround 1.8 millionlive in India. The Bahai faith was founded in 1863 in Iran by Bahullh, who claimed to be the latest in a line of prophets stretching from Abraham to Jesus Christ to Mohammed. The world headquarters of the Bahai faith are in Haifa, Israel. Today, Bahais often suffer persecution elsewhere in the Middle East, especially in Iran.

RAVEENDRAN/AFP/Getty Images

Sikhism

Growth rate: 1.62 percent

Adherents: 25.8 million

Behind the trend: High birthrates in India

Areas to watch: Thousands of Sikhs were killed during the bloody partition between Pakistan and India in 1947, and at least 3,000 Sikhs were killed by Hindu mobs in New Delhi following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by a pair of Sikh extremists in 1984. Today, Sikhs are prospering. The prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is Sikh. Over 90 percent of the worlds Sikhs live in India; of those, a large majority are concentrated in the northern Indian state of Punjab. Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States host growing Sikh minorities of several hundred thousand people each. In several isolated incidents after 9/11, turban-wearing Sikh men in Britain and the United States were mistaken for Muslims and attacked.

AFP/Getty Images

Jainism

Growth rate: 1.57 percent

Adherents: 5.9 million

Behind the trend: High birthrates in India

Areas to watch: Jains are a small but relatively powerful minority in India, making up about half of one percent of the population. They tend to be concentrated in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Outside of India, some of the largest concentrations of Jains are in Leicester, UK; Mombasa, Kenya; and major cities in the United States.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Hinduism

Growth rate: 1.52 percent

Adherents: 870 million

Behind the trend: Surprise! High birthrates in India

Areas to watch: Most of the worlds Hindus live in India, and, to a lesser extent, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Significant Hindu minorities also live in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. Since the 1960s, Hindus have become a growing presence in the United States, with as many as 1.5 million generally well-off adherents spread across the continent and prevalent in Texas, New Jersey, and Ohio. There are also several hundred thousand Hindus in the United Kingdom and South Africa, and there is a small Hindu minority in Russia, where its presence has aroused controversy in the Russian Orthodox Church.

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images

Christianity

Growth rate: 1.38 percent

Adherents: 2.2 billion

Behind the trend: High birthrates and conversions in the global South

Areas to watch: Pentecostal movements in Latin America, Africa, China, and India. The fastest-growing individual church in the world is Misin Carismtica Internacional in Colombia; the Pentecostal denomination began in 1983 in Bogot and now boasts 150,000 members. Then theres Orissa Baptist Evangelical Crusade in India, which reports some 670,000 adherents. And in China, tens of millions of Christians practice their faith under the watchful eye of a very suspiciousand often hostileChinese government.

The world's second largest religion after Christianity

Islam is the world's second largest religion after Christianity. According to a 2010 study, Islam has 1.62 billion adherents, making up over 23% of the world population. Islam is the predominant religion in the Middle East, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, and some parts of Asia. Large communities of Muslims are also found in China, the Balkans, and Russia. Other parts of the world host large Muslim immigrant communities; in Western Europe, for instance, Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity, where it represents 6% of the total population.

According to the Pew Research Center in 2014 there were 49 Muslim-majority countries. Around 62% of the world's Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia, with over 1 billion adherents. The largest Muslim population in a country is in India, a secular nation home to 12.7% of the world's Muslims, followed by indonesia (11.0%), pakistan (10.9%), and Bangladesh (9.2%). About 20% of Muslims live in Arab countries. In the Middle East, the non-Arab countries of Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim-majority countries; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world. The study found more Muslims in the United Kingdom than in Lebanon and more in China than in Syria.

The Grand Mosque of Rome

Growth of Islam and World Religions

(This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 License.)

According to statistics from the U.N., Islam is now the worlds second  largest religion after Christianity. The U.N. statistics state that the Islam annual growth rate of Islam is around 6.40% compared to 1.46% during the same time period for Christianity. Also according to these statistics, one in five people on the planet are Muslim (by birth or geographical reference).

Other statistics from the U.N.:

Islam in North America since 1989 increased 25%

Islam in Africa since 1989 increased 2.15%

Islam in Asia since 1989 increased 12.57%

Islam in Europe since 1989 increased 142.35%

Islam in Latin America since 1989 decreased -4.73%

and Islam in Australia and Oceania / Pacific since 1989 increased 257.01%

Major Religions of the World

Christian – 2,038,905,000 – 32% (dropping)

Roman Catholics – 1,076,951,000

Protestants – 349,792,000

Orthodox – 217,522,000

Anglicans – 81,663,000

Other – 537,135,000

Muslims – 1,226,403,000 – 21% (growing)

Hindus – 828,130,000 – 13% (stable)

Chinese folk religionists – 389,543,000 – 6%

Buddhists – 364,014,000 – 6% (stable)

Sikhs – 23,821,000 – < 1%

Jews – 14,535,000 – < 1%

The largest mosque in Europe, Grozny, Chehnya.

Islam - A Spiritual Fix In Europe

Angela Lu in her article titled “Europe finding a spiritual fix in Islam” published in Worldmag.com, writes In secular Europe, countries are starting to see a blowback, not toward their historic Christian roots, but toward Islam. Islam has been growing in European countries—especially the urban areas of France, the U.K., and Spain—through increased immigration and higher birth rates. But native Europeans also are converting to Islam, either to fit in to Muslim-dominated neighborhoods, for marriage, or to counter the spiritual emptiness in the secular countries, according to an article in the New York Times.

During the past 20 years, the number of Muslims in Europe has increased by nearly 50 percent, from 29.6 million in 1990 to 44.1 million in 2010, according to a 2011 Pew Forum study. By 2030, the number is expected to climb to 58 million, making up 8 percent of the entire European population. About 100,000 of the six million Muslims in France are thought to be converts, the New York Times article reports. French prisons are considered fertile ground for conversion to Islamic radicalism, with Muslims making up a third of the inmates.

One imam in the southern coast of France told the New York Times that French conversions have “increased at an incredible pace in the last three years.” He signed 130 conversion certificates last year. “Secularism has become antireligious,” Hassen Chalghoumi, an imam near Paris, told the newspaper. “Therefore, it has created an opposite phenomenon. It has allowed people to discover Islam.”

The increase of immigration also has created Muslim communities in cities like Paris, London, and Barcelona. France had an influx of 66,000 Muslim immigrants in 2010, mostly from North Africa, making up two-thirds of all new immigrants to France. Spain saw 70,000 Muslim immigrants that year, while the U.K. had 64,000. The large migration of a different culture has created problems in London.

The largest mosque in Austria is located in Vienna.

The European reverting to Islam

In 2011, Abu Izzadeen, the self-proclaimed director for Waltham Forest Muslims declared the borough a Sharia-law zone and put up fliers that banned drinking, gambling, immodest dress, music, smoking, and homosexuality. His group, Muslims Against Crusades, said on a website that “what was once a predominantly Christian country has now been overwhelmed by a rising Muslim population … the entire infrastructure of Britain is changing.

Mosques, Islamic schools, Sharia courts, Muslim-owned businesses and banks have now become an integral part of the British landscape.” Another small extremist group, “Muslim Patrol,” recently posted videos on YouTube of the group harassing East Londoners for “breaking” sharia law. They approached a women in a short skirt and said she could not “dress like that in a Muslim area.” They also attacked a gay man and a man drinking beer.

While the extremist groups represent a small part of the British Muslim community, the youth of those involved is representative of a British study group’s claim that second and third generation Muslims are having a harder time integrating than their parents. Policy Exchange found more than 70 percent of Muslims over 55 felt they had as much in common with Muslims as with non-Muslims, while only 62 precent of 16 to 24 year olds feel that way.

Izzadeen also claims scores of young Britons have converted to Islam, and according to U.K’s Daily Mail, many of the girls in hijabs and activists putting up flyers were of white descent. One girl the newspaper interviewed said, “I was a Christian of sorts, but now I have, like a lot of my friends, embraced Islam. It makes me feel better about my life.”

Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, believes this Islamization of Europe has its roots in the weakening of Christianity.

“The receding influence of Christianity in Switzerland can be traced directly to theological liberalism in its churches and the increasing secularity of Swiss culture,” Mohler wrote in a 2009 blog post about Switzerland’s decision to ban minarets. “Islam now enters the void created by the decline of Christianity and Christian culture in Switzerland, and throughout much of the continent as well.”

View of the mosque and Islamic centre on Whitechapel Road, London

More Britons are converting to Islam

According to an article titled “Study indicates more Britons are converting to Islam” published in Al-Arabia, A new study found that the number of Britons converting to Islam is growing, a London-based newspaper reported. The Independent newspaper said that the estimated number of British converts has always been difficult to count because “census data does not differentiate between a religious person that has adopted a new faith or was born into it.”

According to a new study by the inter-faith think tank Faith Matters, the real figure could be as high as 100,000, with as many as 5,000 new conversions nationwide each year. Previous estimates have placed the number of Muslim converts in the UK at between 14,000 and 25,000. The study used data from the Scottish 2001 census, the only survey to ask respondents what their religion was at birth as well as at the time of the survey; researchers broke down what proportion of Muslim converts there were by ethnicity and then extrapolated the figures for Britain as a whole, the newspaper said. In all they estimated that there were 60,699 converts living in Britain in 2001.

The researchers polled mosques in London to try to calculate how many conversions take place a year. The results gave a figure of 1,400 conversions in the capital in the past 12 months, which, when extrapolated nationwide, would mean approximately 5,200 people converting to Islam every year. Meanwhile, the figures are comparable with studies in Germany and France, which found that there were around 4,000 conversions a year in each country. “This report is the best intellectual ‘guestimate’ using census numbers, local authority data and polling from mosques,” Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters, told the newspaper. “Either way, few people doubt that the number adopting Islam in the UK has risen dramatically in the past 10 years.”

Asked why people were converting in such large numbers, he replied: “I think there is definitely a relationship between conversions being on the increase and the prominence of Islam in the public domain. People are interested in finding out what Islam is all about, and when they do that they go in different directions. Most shrug their shoulders and return to their lives, but some will inevitably end up liking what they discover and will convert.” Hundreds of Britons are converting to Islam every month. Many youngsters in prison are becoming attracted to Islam by the prospect of getting better food and superior treatment. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in England and Wales, according to new census data that the British government says "describes the defining characteristics of the population, who we are, how we live and what we do."

The latest tranche of data from Britain's 2011 Census was released on December 11. The statistics are for England and Wales only; the census in Northern Ireland and Scotland is separate and the government will release those figures at a later date. The census data shows that the number of Christians in England and Wales declined by 11% (4.1 million) during the past decade, from 37.3 million in 2001 to 33.2 million in 2011. During the same period, the Muslim population in England and Wales increased by 80% (1.2 million), from 1.5 million in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2011, making it the second-largest religion in Britain.

The largest mosque in the United States, located in Warrendale, Detroit.

Islam Is The Fastest Growing Religion In The US

Michael Snyder in his article titled “The Fastest Growing Religion In America Is Islam” published in Endoftheamericandream.com on May 3rd, 2012, asks: “Do you know what the fastest growing religion in America is?” He says:  It isn’t Christianity.  According to the latest U.S. Religion Census that was just released on May 1, 2012, the fastest growing religion in America is Islam.  The data for the census was compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, and the results were released by the Association of Religion Data Archives. 

From the year 2000 to the year 2010, the census found that the number of Muslims living inside the United States increased by about 1 million to 2.6 million – a stunning increase of 66.7 percent.  That is an astounding rate of growth.  Meanwhile, most Christian denominations had rates of growth that were far below the overall rate of population growth in the United States, and some Christian denominations actually lost members. 

Sadly, when Barack Obama once said that “we are no longer a Christian nation” he wasn’t too far off the mark.  Christianity is rapidly losing influence and other religions such as Islam are rapidly gaining members and building new places of worship.  As other major religions such as Islam continue to grow in the United States, it is inevitable that this will reshape America in many different ways in the years ahead.

So what about other religious groups?

How did they fare according to the U.S. Religion Census?

Well, the following are some of the growth rates for major religious organizations from the year 2000 to the year 2010….

Mormons: +45.5%

Evangelical Protestants: +1.7% (far behind the overall rate of population growth)

Catholics: -5.0%

Mainline Protestants: -12.8% (an astounding decline)

Masjid An Nabawi – The Prophet's Mosque , Madina

But it was Islam that experienced the most explosive growth.

According to Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky, there were about 1,200 mosques in America back in the year 2000. According to this new census, there are now 2,106. All over the United States we are seeing “mega-mosques” being constructed, and in many cases the funding is coming from overseas. And these mega-mosques are not going unused.  In some areas of the country, Islamic communities are experiencing absolutely explosive growth.

The following example comes from a recent USA Today article….

Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, saw growth explode by a whopping 473 percent in and around Orlando’s Orange County, according to the RCMS study, and he thinks the growth is actually double the 10,000 new Muslims reported by the study. He said Muslim growth has been fueled by a wave of post-9/11 converts, American-born children of immigrants having kids of their own, and jobs in the booming medical industry. In central Florida, he said, Muslims are just following everyone else in search of “better weather, cheaper prices, cheaper homes.”

A lot of this growth is being fueled by immigration.  A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center back in 2007 discovered that 39 percent of all adult Muslims living in America were immigrants that had arrived in the United States since 1990. This rapid influx of Muslims is reshaping communities all over America.  For example, Muslim students now account for approximately 10 percent of the total number of students in the New York City School District. And all over the country many school districts are now changing their school calendars to observe Islamic holidays.

In fact, in Dearborn, Michigan football practices are actually scheduled around Ramadan.  The following is from a Fox News article….: In Dearborn, Mich., where schools are closed on both the day before and the day of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the predominantly-Muslim football team has switched its two-a-day summer practice schedule to 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. during Ramadan, so that Muslim players — who fast while the sun is up – won’t be forced to practice in the heat without drinking water. The move received little backlash in Dearborn, because most of the football players are Muslims.

Dearborn is located just outside of Detroit, and it contains one of the densest Arab communities outside of the Middle East.  Each day, the local mosque’s call to prayer can be clearly heard all over the city.  Dearborn is a clear example of why we can no longer call America a “Christian nation”.

But Islam is not the only non-Christian religion that is growing rapidly in America. The latest U.S. Religion Census found that non-Christian groups grew by 32 percent overall from the year 2000 to the year 2010. Meanwhile, the decline of Christianity in America is accelerating. Back in 1990, one survey found that 86 percent of all Americans identified themselves as “Christian” of one sort or another. By 2008, only 76 percent of all Americans identified themselves as “Christian” of one sort or another.

Meanwhile, atheism and the “not religious” are experiencing huge gains in numbers.  For example, the U.S. Census Bureau says that the number of Americans with “no religion” more than doubled between 1990 and 2008.

Even many of those that still apply the label of “Christian” to themselves are not very committed.  The latest U.S. Religion Census found that approximately 150 million Americans are not actively engaged with any religious community at all.  That is nearly half of the population.

So America is changing.

It is becoming less religious and it is becoming less Christian.

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. “Those who listen to the Word [good advice Lâ ilâha ill-allâh — (none has the right to be worshipped but Allâh) and Islâmic Monotheism] and follow the best thereof (i.e. worship Allâh Alone, repent to Him and avoid Tâghût) those are (the ones) whom Allâh has guided and those are men of understanding.” (Al-Qur’an, Surah Az-Zumar, Verse 18)

“And indeed We have sent down for you Ayât (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) that make things plain, and the example of those who passed away before you, and an admonition for those who are Al-Muttaqûn (the pious and righteous persons - see V.2:2).  Allâh is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is as (if there were) a niche and within it a lamp, the lamp is in glass, the glass as it were a brilliant star, lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east (i.e. neither it gets sun-rays only in the morning) nor of the west (i.e. nor it gets sun-rays only in the afternoon, but it is exposed to the sun all day long), whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself), though no fire touched it. Light upon Light! Allâh guides to His Light whom He wills. And Allâh sets forth parables for mankind, and Allâh is All-Knower of everything.  In houses (mosques), which Allâh has ordered to be raised (to be cleaned, and to be honoured), in them His Name is remembered [i.e. Adhan, Iqamah, Salat (prayers), invocations, recitation of the Quran, etc.]. Therein glorify Him (Allah) in the mornings and in the afternoons or the evenings.” (Al-Qur’an, Surah Al-Noor, Verses 34-36)

What is your opinion about all of this?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….

(HSH)

Bibliotheque:

1.http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

2.http://www.siasat.com/

3.http://endoftheamericandream.com/

4.http://muslimvillage.com/