The Muslim Majority

More than 70 percent of Muslims worldwide practice folk Islam, a syncretistic mix of theologically orthodox Islam and traditional religious beliefs and practices. The Muslim Majority is unlike many published works on evangelism to Muslims, which argue for either apologetic or contextualized “bridge” approaches. These approaches are often ineffective in reaching adherents of popular Islam. Instead, author and missiologist Robin Hadaway outlines a contextual approach that addresses the unique perspective of popular Islam. Hadaway explains the differences between folk Is­lam and orthodox Islam and explores best practices for reaching the vast majority of Muslims with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The birth of Islam over fourteen centuries ago was a monumental event in human history with an everlasting effect on humanity. For centuries, researchers have contemplated the growth and distribution of Muslims throughout the world. This book presents a reliable estimate of the world Muslim population since the inception of Islam at the start of the seventh century to the end of the twenty-first century. In this book, the world is divided into five continents, each of which is further divided into non-overlapping regions, and these in turn are divided into current countries. A centennial data estimate for each region and current country from 600 AD to 2100 AD (approximately 1 H to 1500 H) of the total population, and the corresponding Muslim population and its percentage are provided. Furthermore, the same data in decennial order from 1790 to 2100 (or 1210 H to 1520 H) are provided for each region and country. These data are summarized to be an accurate reference for other studies and discussions related to the Muslim population. Written for demographers, researchers, historians, as well as general readers, this book is an essential reference to all aspects of the world Muslim population.

In the last decade, Islamophobia in Western societies, where Muslims constitute the minority, has been studied extensively. However, Islamophobia is not restricted to the geography of the West, but rather constitutes a global phenomenon. It affects Muslim societies just as much, due to various historical, economic, political, cultural and social reasons. Islamophobia in Muslim Majority Societies constitutes a first attempt to open a debate about the understudied phenomenon of Islamophobia in Muslim majority societies. An interdisciplinary study, it focuses on socio-political and historical aspects of Islamophobia in Muslim majority societies. This volume will appeal to students, scholars and general readers who are interested in Racism Studies, Islamophobia Studies, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Islam and Politics.

Islam is not only a religion, but also a culture, tradition, and civilization. There are currently 1.5 billion people in the world who identify themselves as Muslim. Two thirds of the worldwide Muslim population, i.e. approximately a billion people, live in forty-eight Muslim majority countries (MMC) in the world– all of which except one are in Africa and Asia. Of these MMCs in Africa and Asia, only twelve (inhabited by about 165 million people) have ever achieved a high score on the Human Development Index (HDI), the index that measures life expectancy at birth, education and standard of living and ranks how "developed" a country is. This means that the majority of the world's Muslim population lives in poverty with low or medium level of human development. The contributions to this innovative volume attempt to determine why this is. They explore the influence of environment, space, and power on human development. The result is a complex, interdisciplinary study of all MMCs in Africa and Asia. It offers new insights into the current state of the Muslim World, and provides a theoretical framework for studying human development from an interdisciplinary social, cultural, economic, environmental, political, and religious perspective, which will be applicable to regional and cultural studies of space and power in other regions of the world.

In a world where almost all societies are multi-religious and multi-ethnic, we need to study how social cohesion can be achieved in different contexts. In some geographical areas, as in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, people of different religious belonging have, through the ages, lived side by side, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in dissonance. In other geographical regions, as in Scandinavia, societies have been quite religiously homogeneous but only recently challenged by immigration.In both locations the relations between religious minority and majority are very much on the agenda. In order to discuss the situation for non-Muslims in Muslim majority societies, a consultation was convened with both Muslim and Christian participants from Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Sweden. Some of the participants work in academic settings, others in faith-based organisations, some in jurisprudence and others with theological issues. Non-Muslims in Muslim Majority Societies is the result of thatconsultation. The intention of the book is to trigger reflection and further thinking, through papers that discuss issues such as freedom of religion, minority rights, secular and religious legislation, and inter-religious dialogue in Muslim majority societies. Although the articles are presented as 'works in progress' and remain tentative in many of their conclusions, this book is an important contribution to the global debate over religious tolerance and religious pluralism.

The book discusses the demographic changes in Muslim countries. It thereby focuses on topics such as the demographic dividend and the demographic transition, labour market challenges, health care, universal education and gender issues. These challenges are addressed at a country level and include policy implications for the large majority of the Muslim countries covered in this book. Moreover, political consequences for Europe with respect to the integration of Muslims are presented to the reader.

A look at the developing conflicts in Christian-Muslim relations during late antiquity and the early Islamic era How did the medieval Middle East transform from a majority-Christian world to a majority-Muslim world, and what role did violence play in this process? Christian Martyrs under Islam explains how Christians across the early Islamic caliphate slowly converted to the faith of the Arab conquerors and how small groups of individuals rejected this faith through dramatic acts of resistance, including apostasy and blasphemy. Using previously untapped sources in a range of Middle Eastern languages, Christian Sahner introduces an unknown group of martyrs who were executed at the hands of Muslim officials between the seventh and ninth centuries CE. Found in places as diverse as Syria, Spain, Egypt, and Armenia, they include an alleged descendant of Muhammad who converted to Christianity, high-ranking Christian secretaries of the Muslim state who viciously insulted the Prophet, and the children of mixed marriages between Muslims and Christians. Sahner argues that Christians never experienced systematic persecution under the early caliphs, and indeed, they remained the largest portion of the population in the greater Middle East for centuries after the Arab conquest. Still, episodes of ferocious violence contributed to the spread of Islam within Christian societies, and memories of this bloodshed played a key role in shaping Christian identity in the new Islamic empire. Christian Martyrs under Islam examines how violence against Christians ended the age of porous religious boundaries and laid the foundations for more antagonistic Muslim-Christian relations in the centuries to come.

Islam is not only a religion, but also a culture, tradition, and civilization. There are currently 1.5 billion people in the world who identify themselves as Muslim. Two thirds of the worldwide Muslim population, i.e. approximately a billion people, live in forty-eight Muslim majority countries (MMC) in the world- all of which except one are in Africa and Asia. Of these MMCs in Africa and Asia, only twelve (inhabited by about 165 million people) have ever achieved a high score on the Human Development Index (HDI), the index that measures life expectancy at birth, education and standard of living and ranks how "developed" a country is. This means that the majority of the world's Muslim population lives in poverty with low or medium level of human development. The contributions to this innovative volume attempt to determine why this is. They explore the influence of environment, space, and power on human development. The result is a complex, interdisciplinary study of all MMCs in Africa and Asia. It offers new insights into the current state of the Muslim World, and provides a theoretical framework for studying human development from an interdisciplinary social, cultural, economic, environmental, political, and religious perspective, which will be applicable to regional and cultural studies of space and power in other regions of the world.