Islam in Guyana: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Guyana

The Cooperative Republic of Guyana has an area of 214,696 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 5.4.9. It was conquered by the British in 1815 and gained its independence from the UK in 1966, when it changed its name from British Guiana. It has the second largest percentage of Muslims in the Americas after Suriname. Muslims entered the country in 1838 under the indenture system that was introduced by the British Empire in 1835. Accordingly, the British brought slave like labor force from India to exploit the British dependencies. Accordingly, 406 East Indian labor was brought in 1838, but 235 were sent back in 1843.

Ethnic censuses were carried out since 1841. Later religious censuses carried since 1891. The 1891 census showed that 11% of the East Indian population was Muslim. This ratio was used to estimate the Muslim population from the censuses prior to 1891. Thus, based on census data, the Muslim population increased from none in 1831, to 35 or 0.04% in 1841, to 845 or 0.6% in 1851, to 2,552 or 1.6% in 1861, to 5,000 or 2.6% in 1871, to 9,000 or 3.6% in 1881, to 12,000 or 4.2% in 1891, to 18,000 or 6.2% in 1911, to 18,000 or 6.2% in 1921, to 22,000 or 7.0% in 1931, to 29,000 or 7.9% in 1946, to 49,000 or 8.8% in 1960, and then peaked to 64,000 or 9.1% in 1970. It continued decreasing since then however due to migration to more prosperous countries. Thus, the Muslim population decreased to 66,000 or 8.9% in 1980, to 58,000 or 8.0% in 1991, to 55,000 or 7.3% in 2002 and 51,000 or 6.8% in 2012. According to DHS survey data, the percentage of Muslims was 7.07% in 2009.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to decrease by a quarter of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to decrease to 50,000 or 5.8% by 2050 and 25,000 or 4.5% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Guyana

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.