Islam in Poland: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Poland

Muslim Tatars moved to Poland and its vicinity in the early thirteenth century as the Tatar Golden Horde Empire was converting to Islam. The Kingdom of Poland later used Muslim Tatars as part of its army power, and they were given formal permission to construct mosques and schools in 1569. Their number was estimated at 70,000 or 1.4% in 1591, which increased according to a census to 100,000 or 1.9% in 1631. However, their number was severely reduced later to 2,000 or 0.04% in 1867.

According to the 1897 Russian Empire census, the Muslim population Russian part of Poland was 5,191 or 0.05% of the total population. This part covered a third of current Poland and consisted of the following nine governorates: Kalish (Kalisz), Kielce (Keltsy or Kaletskaya), Lomza (Lomzha or Lomzhinskaya), Lublin (Lyublin), Petrokov (Petrokovskaya), Plotsk (Plock), Radom, Sedlets (Siedlce or Sedletskaya), and Warsaw. It also included Bialystok, Belsky and Sokolsky Uyezds of Grodno Governorate, where the rest of it is in Belarus. And included Augustow, Seinsky and Suwalki Uyezds of Suwalki Governorate, where the rest of it is in Lithuania. About half of current Poland (north and east) was under Prussia, which did not have many Muslims in the nineteenth century. The rest of Poland was under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which in 1880 census recorded only one Muslim in the city of Neu-Sandec (Nowy Sacz) near the border with current Slovakia.

Currently, the Republic of Poland has an area of 312,685 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 4.5.8. The 2002 census provided ethnic data from which 3,537 belonged to Muslim majority ethnicities including 495 Tatar, 459 Arabs, 312 Syrians, 273 Algerians, 232 Turks, 229 Palestinians, 186 Iranians, 174 Lebanese, 132 Egyptians, 113 Moroccans, 111 Afghan and 102 Tunisians. The 2011 recorded 1,242 Muslims registered with the following organizations: Muslim Religious Union in Poland (1,132 members), Association of Muslim Unity (sixty members) and Islamic Assembly of Ahl-ul Bayt (fifty members). By 2013, the membership changed to 826, 63 and 51, respectively. According to the European Values Survey (EVS), the percentage of Muslims was 0.03% in 1999 and 0.09% in 2008. Hence, the Muslim population increased from 12,000 or 0.03% in 1999 to 35,000 or 0.09% in 2008.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.05 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain around 0.1 million throughout the second half of this century, comprising 0.3% of the total population by 2050 and 0.6% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Poland

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.