Islam Around The World

After Prophet Muhammadﷺ, the very first Muslims were people from his own circle of family and friends, as well as the poor and needy in Mecca. During the life of Muhammadﷺ, this small band of followers grew by tens and slowly into thousands. As centuries passed, Muslims have only grown in number. Today, Muslims account for about one quarter of the entire world population. 

There are between 1.3 and 1.6 billion Muslims across the world. It is estimated that there are around 8-10 million Muslims in the United States. A huge amount of them in America are African American converts. One of the reasons is many of them have found that their ancestry dates back to Islam and their ancestors found the Islamic way of life as a light in times of darkness.

Most of the Muslims are concentrated in Muslim-majority countries, such as Azerbaijan and Albania in Europe, Mali and Tunisia in Africa, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the Middle East, Pakistan and Bangladesh in Southeast Asia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and Indonesia and Malaysia in Asia Pacific. At the same time, a growing Muslim diaspora has taken root in many areas as well, such as China, Australia, Europe, America and Canada, Latin America, and parts of western, central, and southern Africa. The common belief that most Muslims are Arabs is a misconception. In fact, the majority of Muslims in the world are non-Arabs.