Islam in Maldives: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Maldives

In 1153, the king of these islands accepted Islam after his encounter witha Moroccan visitor named Abu al Barakat Yusuf al Barbari (Berber), whoremained in the Islands and buried in the capital Malé. His name wasDhovemi Kalaminja and ruled the islands from 1141 to 1176. He changedhis name to Sultan Muhammad bnu Abdullah when he became Muslim.His population followed suit, and the Islands were predominantlyMuslim since then.

The Republic of Maldives was occupied by the British in 1887 andgained its independence from the UK in 1965. It has an area of 298 sq km,consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped into 26 atolls. Of these islands, 193are inhabited while 91 have been developed as tourist resorts. Thelargest of the islands are Huvadu (39 sq km) but only a tenth of thepopulation, Haddunmathi, Milandunmadulu (26 sq km each),Thiladunmathi (25 sq km), Addu (16 sq km) and South Maalosmadulu(15 sq km). However, a third of the population lives in the Island of Malé(11 sq km), where the capital Malé is located. A map of the Maldives ispresented in Figure 2.5.4 and by the end of this century; the wholecountry is expected to be under sea level.

The first census was conducted in 1911 while the first census tocollect religious data was in 2014. The total population quadrupled since1960 as shown in Table 2.5.4. The data did not include foreign populationthat was only included in the census of 2014, which recorded 0.38 millionor 94.2% of the total population as Muslim. The entire indigenouspopulation is Muslims, while the non-Muslim population comprises thethird of the foreign workers.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims remains constant;then the Muslim population is expected to remain around half millionthroughout the second half of this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Maldives

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.