Which countries have the highest Muslim population in the world? Islam is world’s second largest religion having 1.57 billion adherents, and Muslims make over 23% of world’s population. The 11 Countries with Highest Muslim Population cover the main two groups of Muslims – Sunni and Shia. Sunni Muslims make from 87% to 90% of all Muslims in the world. Shia Muslims make from 10 to 13% of all Islam followers worldwide. There is a third group of Muslims called Ahmadis, but they make around 1% of all Muslims in the world. They follow the same beliefs, the same holy book Qur’an but have some differences in practicing their faith. If this is too religious for you and you’re looking for a religion that people don’t actually follow but say they do, check out our 11 countries with highest Hindu population list.
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Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East and North Africa. In some countries Muslims constitute over 99% of the population. Countries like that are Morocco 99.9%, Afghanistan 99.8%, Tunisia 99.8%, Iran 99.7%, Western Sahara 99.6% and Mauritania 99.2%. Large groups of Muslims can also be found in Europe, India, Russia and China. There is a total of 50 countries in the world where Islam is predominant religion, and Muslims are majority making over 50% of its population.
To compile our list and to bring you the correct numbers we used a few sources, most notably Pew Research Center’s study that collected the numbers of Muslim population by country. The study revealed some interesting facts. There are more Muslims in the UK than in Lebanon, and there are more Muslims in China than in Syria, with Syria and Lebanon being majority Muslim countries. They also made a projection to see which countries will have the highest Muslim population in the world by 2050. India will almost double its Muslim population and be the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world. But 2050 is far away, so here are 11 countries with the highest Muslim population in the world right now.
11. Iraq
Iraq has 31,108,000 Muslims, 65% of them being Shia and other being Sunni. Muslims in Iraq consist 1.9% of all Muslims in the world.
10. Morocco
32,381,000 Muslims live in Morocco. They make up to 99.9% of the population in Morocco.
9. Algeria
This country in North Africa is home to 34,780,000 Muslims.
8. Turkey
Turkey has about 74,660,000 Muslims. They make up 4.6% of the Muslim population in the world.
7. Iran
Among the 74,819,000 Muslims in Iran, 90% to 95% are Shia Muslims. This population makes up about 40% of the world’s Shia population.
6. Nigeria
Nigeria has about 75,728,000 Muslims residents. But these Muslims are only 47.9 % of all Nigerians. The rest are Christians.
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5. Egypt
With 80,024,000 Muslims, Egypt is home to 4.9% of the world’s Muslim population.
4. Bangladesh
148,607,000 Muslims live in Bangladesh, making up 89.5% of its population.
3. India
The country with the third highest Muslim population is India, which has 177,286,000. Although Muslims in India consist of only 10.9% of the world’s Muslim population, they add up to just 14.6% of India’s population.
2. Pakistan
India’s neighbor, Pakistan has 11% of the world’s Muslim population, with about 178,097,00 Muslims.
1. Indonesia
Indonesia is number one on our 11 Countries with Highest Muslim Population list. It has 204,847,000 Muslims. That is 88.1% of all Indonesians and 12.7% off all Muslims in the world.
