Muslims will be more than one-quarter of the Earth's population by 2030

The number of U.S. Muslims will more than double, so you are as likely to know a Muslim here in 20 years as you are to know someone Jewish or Episcopalian today.

Those are among key findings in " The Future of the Global Muslim Population," the first comprehensive examination of Muslims, whose numbers have been growing at a faster rate than all other groups combined.

MORE: U.S. Muslims try to counter negative perceptions

"We're not surprised. Our mosques and schools are already overflowing," says Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director of a mosque in Falls Church, Va.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life analyzed statistics from United Nations data and census material from more than 200 countries and studies by 50 international demographers.

If immigration patterns and Muslims' comparatively higher birth rates continue, Pew projects:

• U.S. Muslims will go from a tiny minority now, less than 1% of the nation, to 1.7%. That's a jump from 2.6 million people in 2010 to 6.2 million.

• Muslim immigration to the USA and Muslims' share of all new legal permanent residents will continue to rise. Most of the immigrants will arrive from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Muslim population

• Though 64.5% of U.S. Muslims today were born abroad, that percentage will fall to 55% as the number of native-born Muslims rises.

• Worldwide, Muslims will climb from 23.4% to 26.4% of the population, going from 1.6 billion people in 2010 to 2.2 billion in 2030, concentrated in Muslim-majority countries.

Just as now, about 3% of the global Muslim population will live in the world's most developed regions.

In several northern and eastern European nations, the percentage of Muslims will near or pass 10%, raising their political and cultural clout, particularly in urban areas.

Alan Cooperman, Pew Forum associate director of research, says the Muslim rate is "growing but slowing" and political and economic uncertainties can make dramatic shifts in projections.

"The study does not project Muslims' religiosity or their politics," Cooperman says. "People will say, 'I don't care how many Muslims there will be, I care how many radical Muslim terrorists there will be.' But no one knows that."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says, "We Muslims need to redouble our outreach efforts because of growing challenges from the vocal minority who see us as suspect."

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U.S. Muslim population to double by 2030

US Muslim Population

A census of American religions released Tuesday showed the Muslim community in the United States has grown in the past decade.
According to a study carried out by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, the number of Muslims in America rose to 2.6 million in 2010 from 1 million in 2000, fueled by immigration and conversions.
Muslims now outnumber Jews in many parts of the American South and Midwest, but Christians remain the largest group in every state.
The number of Mormons with the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, grew by 45 percent to 6.1 million in 2010.
Among the other major US faiths, the Southern Baptist Convention held steady at 19.9 million over the decade, the United Methodist Church lost 4 percent down to 9.9 million adherents, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lost 18 percent to 4.2 million, and the Episcopal Church lost 15 percent of its adherents to 1.95 million.
Among major religions, the census found the number of Catholics, the largest single faith, declined 5 percent to 58.9 million during the decade. In the New England region, Catholic funerals outnumber baptisms.
However, the overall number of evangelical Protestant congregations continued to grow, albeit slowly, to 50 million adherents. Most of the growth was in urban areas and the vast majority of expanding congregations have fewer than 100 members.
Elsewhere, Buddhists made strong gains in the Rocky Mountain States, where the number of temples and congregations increased markedly. The total number of Buddhist adherents in the United States stands at nearly 1 million. There was no estimate in 2000.
According to the study, 55 percent of Americans attend religious services with enough regularity to be counted. By comparison, most surveys estimate roughly 85 percent of Americans profess religious faith, though they may not attend services.
Some 158 million Americans were classified as “unclaimed” by any religion in the survey.
The survey, which asked 236 religions to count their own adherents, also included family members of adherents in the numbers in most cases.
Jews did not respond to the survey in large numbers, but Jewish organizations in the US have conducted numerous up-to-date studies. The Jewish Population of the United States 2010 study by Prof. Ira Sheskin of Miami University, placed the American Jewish population at 6,543,820.
That number is up from an estimated 6,155,000 in 2000.