Islam in Singapore: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Singapore

The Republic of Singapore was occupied by the British in 1819 whoseparated it from the Johor Sultanate. It then gained its independencefrom the UK by joining the Malaysian Federation, and then opted out in1965. It has a total area 697 sq km consisting of 63 islands. By far thelargest is the Main Island or Pulau Ujong (536 sq km) where most of thepopulation lives. The largest of the remaining islands are Jurong (32 sqkm), Tekong (24 sq km), Ubin (10 sq km) and Sentosa (5 sq km).

Censuses inquiring on ethnic affiliation were conducted here since1819. Religious adherence question was included for all ages of thepopulation in the censuses of 1849, 1911, 1921 and 1931. Censuses since1980 collected religious affiliation from resident population aged 15 andover. The ethnic distribution of the population was split into Malays,who are all Muslim, Indians, whose fifth to third are Muslim, Chinese,0.2% are Muslim, and others, whose tenth to third are Muslim. Thereligious census data also distributed the religion among ethnicities,making inference of religious adherence from ethnic affiliation morereliable. These data are provided in Table 2.4.8a. These tables show thetotal ethnic affiliates (T) for each ethnicity and the number of Muslims(M) who belong to that ethnicity, and the percentage (%) of eachethnicity that is Muslim.

The data in 1990 onward are from the census results, as well as thedata for Malay in 1980 and for Indians in 1980 and 1931. The data for1849 and 1911, 1921, 1931 and 1980 are estimated based on the recordedtotal Muslim population and the percentage of Muslims in the closestcensus. The data in 1990 is based on the population ten years and over.

The Muslim population is increasing steadily since 1819; however,the percentage of Muslims decreased constantly until 1947 as a result ofnon-Muslim migration to Singapore when it reached 14.9% of the totalpopulation. Accordingly, and as summarized in Table 2.4.8b, the Muslimpopulation increased in number but decreased in percentage from 120 or80.0% in 1819, to 7,000 or 65.8% in 1824, to 8,000 or 53.8% in 1928, to 9,200or 55.1% in 1830, to 10,900 or 55.2% in 1932, to 14,900 or 49.6% in 1836, to16,000 or 45.1% in 1840, to 22,000 or 41.6% in 1849, to 23,600 or 28.8% in1860, to 32,500 or 34.3% in 1871, to 40,200 or 29.2% in 1881, to 44,500 or24.5% in 1891, to 45,400 or 20.0% in 1901, to 53,600 or 17.7% in 1911, to 69,600 or 16.6% in 1921, to 86,800 or 15.6% in 1931, to 0.14 million or14.9% in 1947. The Muslim population then increased to 0.24 million or16.3% in 1957, to 0.35 million or 17.0% in 1970, but decreased inpercentage to 0.32 million or 16.3% in 1980, to 0.35 million or 15.4% in1990, to 0.37 million or 14.9% in 2000, to 0.46 million or 14.7% in 2010,then increased to 0.54 million or 15.6% in 2020. Thus, assuming that thepercentage of Muslims will increase by half of a percentage point perdecade; then the Muslim population is expected to exceed one million inthe second half of this century, reaching 17% in 2050 and 20% in 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Singapore

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.