Islam in Germany: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Germany

Currently, the Federal Republic of Germany has an area of 357,022 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 4.5.3. The first Muslims were part of the Ottoman embassy in Berlin in the eighteenth century. Indeed, the 1843 Prussian census indicated the presence of 9 Muslims or less than 0.00% of the total population of 15,536,734. At the time, Prussia consisted of Germany and half Poland. The 1880 Prussian census indicated that there were 285 or less than 0.00% of the population of 27,279,111 belonging to religions other than Christianity or Judaism. Table 4.5.3a presents the number of Turks living in Berlin from 1878 to 1945, which shows that until the middle of the twentieth century, Muslims remained at 0.00% of the total population.

As German economy boomed, the country needed more manpower, many of whom came from Muslim countries, especially Turkiye. The first agreement to supply Germany with “Guest Workers” was signed with Turkiye in 1961, then Morocco in 1963, and Tunisia in 1965. In 1970s, unification of the guest workers with their families was allowed, which further increased the number of Muslims in Germany. In 1990s the number of naturalized people accelerated as immigration laws were relaxed, and by 2001, those born in Germany were given the German nationality. Table 4.5.3b presents the evolution of Turkish nationals living in Germany from 1961 to 1996, which shows multiplicative increase between 1961 and 1981 due to immigration. The decrease in the 1990s is due to the fact that more and more Turks were able to obtain the German citizenship.

According to census of West Germany, the number of Muslims increased from 788,643 (out of 60,651,000) in 1970 to 1,650,952 (out of 61,077,042) in 1987. Considering that the number of Muslims was negligible in East Germany during the same period (less than 2,000 according to [KET]), then the percentage of Muslims increased from 1.0% in 1970 to 2.2% in 1987 of the total population of the current Germany. According to the 2011 Census, the Muslim population decreased to 1,524,174 or 1.9% of the total population. The latter data however, is deemed unreliable by the census organizers due to the format of the question and the fact that one-sixth of the population did not respond to the religion question [DE11]. The format of the question consisted of two parts, the first was compulsory, while the second was voluntary:

• What religious society do you belong to? Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical, Evangelical Free Churches, Jewish communities, other religious societies under public law. Or no religious society under public law, for which the respondent is referred to the second voluntary question:
• Which of the following religions, persuasions or beliefs do you adhere to? Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, other, or no religion.

66.8% were Christians (3.8% Christian not under public law society), while 17.4% did not answer the second question. To adjust the under-estimate of Muslims, [DE70] subtracts the number of those who did not answer (17.4% or 13,958,227) from the total population 80,219,695, to obtain 66,261,468, then divide the number of Muslims who responded 1,524,174, by the latter to obtain the ration 2.30%. This approach does not take into account the two-step questionnaire. Here, we would like to determine how many of those who did not respond were Muslim. To do this, we subtract 66.8% and 17.4% of the total population 80,219,695 to obtain 12,674,712 as the number of those who answered the second question. We then divide the number of Muslims (1,524,174) by the latter to obtain the ratio 12.03%. We multiply it by the number of those who did not answer (17.4% or 13,958,227) and add it to the number of Muslims to obtain 3,202,695 which is 3.99% of the total population. We take this as the estimate of the number of Muslims according to the 2011 census.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by half of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to near five million or 6% by 2050 and six million or 8.5% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Germany

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.