Islam in Rwanda: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Rwanda

The Republic of Rwanda has an area of 26,338 sq km and its map is presented in Figure 3.4.9. It was occupied by the Germans in 1900, but lost it to the Belgians in 1916, and became part of Ruanda-Urundi; the predecessor of Rwanda and Burundi. They both gained independence from Belgium in 1962 as separate countries.

Islam entered here during the nineteenth century through commerce. By 1861 these lands were under the Muslim Sultanate of Zanzibar. According to census data, the Muslim population decreased from 302,000 or 8.5% in 1970, to 40,000 or 0.8% in 1978 due to turmoil between Tutsi and Hutu ethnicities between 1972 and 1973, which led to a military coup in mid-1973. The Muslim population then increased to 87,000 or 1.2% in 1991, to 145,000 or 1.8% in 2002 and 211,000 or 2.0% in 2012.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by a fifth of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to reach 0.6 million or 2.8% by 2050 and 1.3 million or 3.8% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Rwanda

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.