Islam in Mauritania: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Mauritania

The Islamic Republic of Mauritania has an area of 1,030,700 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.1.6. It was occupied by France in 1900 and gained its independence from France in 1960. Islam entered here in the eleventh century Abdullah bnu Yassin and Abu Bakr bnu Omar, the founders of the Almoravid Dynasty. As shown in Table 3.1.6, after independence, the entire population is and remains Muslim. Thus, assuming that the total population remains Muslim, then the Muslim population is expected to increase to nine million by 2050 and fifteen million by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Mauritania

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.