Islam Only For Arabs?



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

One common myth among non-Muslims is that all or most Muslims are Arabs. This is untrue. While it is true that the last Prophet, Muhammad (saws) was born in Arabia and the Islamic faith spread from there, it is also true that the Muslim community is a global community, alhamdulillah and its largest portion is in the Far East rather than in Arabia. Also, there are more Muslims in China than in Syria and in Germany than in Lebanon.

Approximately 62% of the world’s Muslims live in Asia with the largest Muslim country by population being Indonesia. Indonesia has approximately 200 million Muslims and accounts for 13% of the world’s Muslim population.

Arab Muslims account for only 20% of the entire Ummah and in the Middle East, two non-Arab countries, Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim majority countries. Islam is also the predominant religion of North Africa. Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities in Africa.

The following figures are based on the demographic study by the Pew Research Center report of Mapping the Global Muslim Population, as of 8 October 2009:

Asia Pacific: 972,537,000
Middle East-North Africa: 315,322,000
Sub-Saharan Africa: 240,632,000
Europe: 38,112,000
Americas: 4,596,000
Total: 1,571,198,000.

The top twenty Muslim countries by Population are as follows:

1. Indonesia.
2. Pakistan.
3. India.
4. Bangladesh.
5. Egypt.
6. Turkey.
7. Iran.
8. China.
9. Nigeria.
10. Ethiopia.
11. Morocco.
12. Algeria.
13. Afghanistan.
14. Sudan.
15. Saudi Arabia.
16. Iraq.
17. Uzbekistan.
18. Yemen.
19. Syria.
20. Tanzania.

And that puts that particular myth to rest.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

Wa'laykum Salam.