Islam in Qatar: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Qatar

The State of Qatar’s area is 11,586 sq km and its map is presented inFigure 2.3.8. It was taken by the British from the Ottoman Empire in 1913and gained its independence from the UK in 1971. The entire population was estimated to be Muslim before 1970, increasing from 26,000 in 1922,to 111,000 in 1970, when the first census was conducted. As shown inTable 2.3.8, previous estimates show that the Muslims increased innumber but decreased in percentage from 0.35 million or 95% in 1986, to0.42 million or 80.5% in 1997, to 0.58 million or 78.5% in 2004. The reasonof this decrease is the discovery of oil and the subsequent import offoreign workers, some of which are non-Muslim. Assuming thepercentage of Muslims remains fixed; then the Muslim population isexpected to be around three million throughout the second half of thiscentury.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Qatar

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.