Islam in Belgium: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium has an area of 30,528 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 4.3.2. According to census data, in 1890 there were no people from a Muslim majority country. The number of Turkish citizens between 1900 and 1947 summarized in Table 4.3.2a, which shows during that period the Muslim population constituted 0.01% of the total population. The largest population from countries with well over 90% Muslim majority (excluding Iran) between 1961 and 1991 is summarized in Table 4.3.2b and is used to estimate the number of Muslims during that period. Accordingly, a dramatic increase in the number of Muslims occurred in the 1960s when migration agreements were signed with Morocco and Turkiye and then at the end of the 1960s with Algeria and Tunisia, to help with work force shortage in Belgium. This caused the Muslim nationality population to increase from 1,400 or 0.02% in 1961, to 70,000 or 0.7% in 1970, then 0.19 million or 1.9% in 1981 and 0.26 million or 2.6% in 1991.

Towards the end of the second millennium more Muslims obtained Belgian citizenship, rendering estimates based on citizenship from Muslim-majority countries inaccurate. For example, in 1991 the number of up to third generation Moroccan descents was 153,288, while that of Turkish descent was 88,631. Thus by 1991, almost all Turkish descents and 93% of Moroccan descents retained their nationality and did not obtain Belgian citizenship. However, those who declared themselves Moroccans decrease to 140,303 in 1996 and 94,264 in 2001. Similarly, those declaring Turkish nationality decreased to 81,744 in 1996 and 47,725 in 2001. Thus, towards the end of the 1990s a substantial portion of these nationalities obtained Belgian citizenship.

According to the European Values Survey (EVS), the percentage of Muslims was 0.64% in 1981, 0.32% in 1990, 2.81% in 1999 and 5.58% in 2009. Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by one percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach over 1.2 million or 10% by 2050 and 1.7 million or 15% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Belgium

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.