India will overtake Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world by 2050, claims a study by the Washington DC-based Pew Research Center. About 62 per cent of the world’s Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region that includes some of the countries with the largest population globally, such as Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, and Turkey.
The study also said the global demographic trends indicate that Islam will overtake Christianity to become the most popular religion in the world by 2070. Islam is currently the world’s second-largest religion after Christianity. Migration will create a surge in the Muslim population of north Europe and North America, it said. The think tank claims that both Islam and Christianity will have an equal percentage share of the global population at 32 per cent each in 2070 before Islam overtakes Christianity.
As per the research study, the world’s population may grow by 35 per cent in the next decades, but the global Muslim population may rise by 73 per cent.
“The growth and regional migration of Muslims, combined with the ongoing impact of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIl) and other extremist groups that commit acts of violence in the name of Islam, have brought Muslims and the Islamic faith to the forefront of the political debate in many countries,” the think tank’s report said.