Islam in Mozambique: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Mozambique

The Republic of Mozambique has an area of 799,380 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.5.6. It was occupied by the Portuguese in 1498 and gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. Islam entered here in 1140, when the ruler of Kilwa Sultanate Dawud II ben Suleiman (ruled 1131 to 1170) conquered the costal line, including the cities of Quilimane and Sofala, and deeper inland including the city of Manica, on the border with Zimbabwe. It remained under Muslim control until the arrival of the Portuguese.

Estimates of the Muslim population increased from 60,000 or 1.9% in 1919, to 0.25 million or 5.0% in 1940. However, based on census data, the Muslim population increased from 0.61 million or 10.7% in 1950, to 1.18 million or 17.8% in 1960, but decreased to 1.11 million or 13.6% in 1970, then continued to increase to 2.70 million or 18.1% in 1997, to 3.63 million or 18.0% in 2007, and 5.09 million or 19.4% in 2017.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by a quarter of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to exceed fourteen million or 23% by 2050 and near thirty or 28% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Mozambique

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.