Islam by country · Africa
Islam in Malawi: history and Muslim population data
Explore CoMPS research on the historical journey of Islam in Malawi, alongside population data and an interactive timeline.
Open Malawi in the interactive map
History of Islam in Malawi
The Republic of Malawi has an area of 118,484 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.5.5. It was occupied by the British in 1891 and gained its independence from the UK in 1964. It used to be called British Central Africa from 1891 to 1907, then Nyasaland until 1963, and then Malawi afterwards. Islam arrived here in 1870 through the Sultanate of Zanzibar and by 1911 the size of the Muslim population was estimated at 50,000 or 5.2% of the total population. According to census data, the Muslim population increased from 0.13 million or 8.0% in 1931 to 1.3 million or 12.8% in 1998, to 1.7 million or 13.0% in 2008 and 2.4 million or 13.8% in 2018.
Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.4 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to near six million or 15% by 2050 and ten million or 17% by 2100.
Historical Muslim population dataset for Malawi
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.
| Year | Total population (thousands) | Muslim population (thousands) | Muslim share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 737.2 | 29.49 | 4.00% |
| 2000 | 11,099 | 1,422 | 12.81% |
| 2100 | 58,418 | 9,931 | 17.00% |
For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.