Islam in United States of America: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in United States of America

It has an area of 9,629,091 sq km which is divided into fifty states and the Federal District of Columbia, where the capital Washington is located. The area includes the states of Alaska (1,717,854 sq km) and Hawaii (10,931 sq km), however other territories under U.S. control such as Puerto Rico are not included in the area of the U.S. but are included in separate entries. Thus, the United States is the fourth largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada and China. USA however, has a comparable size to China.

Unlike its neighbor to the north, the United States does not inquire about religious affiliation in its census, which occurs at the beginning of each decade. Thus, the estimated Muslim population varies widely. It was estimated by [MAS23] in 1920 at 10,000 or 0.01% of the total population. A. Kettani on the other hand, estimated that it increased from 200,000 or 0.1% in 1950, to one million or 0.5% in 1970, to three million or 1.3% in 1980 [KET76, KET86]. However, the method for coming up with such estimates were not revealed.

According to President Clinton in his 2000 Ramadan Greeting Speech to Muslims [US00], the number increased to six million or 2.1% in 2000. Furthermore, according to President Obama in his 2009 Cairo Speech to Muslims [US10], the number has increased to seven million or 2.3% in 2010. These rough estimates are generally considered an upper bound on the number of Muslim population living in the United States. The last two estimates are also in agreement with estimates by the Council on American Islamic Relation (CAIR), which is based on the number of Muslims affiliated with each mosque, multiplied by three to account for non-practicing Muslims. The study was published by I. Bagby in 2001 and 2011, and also found that almost a fifth (19%) of Muslims in America are converts and almost two-thirds (64%) are foreign-born [USS12]. The number of mosques according to the same study doubles almost every decade, increasing from 105 in 1960, to 232 in 1970, to 527 in 1980, to 962 in 1994, to 1,209 in 2000, to 2,106 in 2011. The number of Muslims who pray at least once a year (Eid) at a mosque were estimated to be half a million in 1994, two million in 2001 and 2.6 million in 2011. In addition, PEW 2011 Survey [USS11] found that the number of Muslims who go to a mosque at least once a year is 81% of the total number of Muslims in the US. Thus, the arbitrary three times factor assumed by Bagby is not valid.

In [US90], J. Weeks estimated the Muslim population based on census ancestry data, and added 2% of African American population, based on another survey. This led to the estimate 2.5 million or 1.0% in 1990 and 3.4 million or 1.2% in 2000. This study clearly overestimates the number of Muslims as children of immigrants may not preserve Islam, especially if a Muslim married a non-Muslim.

Other survey data based on random telephone number dialing deduced that the percentage of Muslims is between 0.3% in 1990 and 0.6% in 2008 (adjusted by excluding from the total those who refused to answer). For instance, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) put the percentage of Muslims as 0.31% in 1990, 0.56% in 2001, and 0.62% in 2008 [USS8]. Yearly Gallop Poll surveys from 2000 to 2011 consistently put the number at 0.5%. PEW surveys put the percentage at 0.76% in 2007 and 0.89% in 2011 [USS11]. PEW surveys also found that nearly two-thirds of the Muslim population in the United States is foreign-born, but this share is constantly decreasing (65% in 2007 and 63% in 2011 and 61% in 2014). These surveys clearly underestimate the number of Muslims since the Muslim population is not uniformly distributed throughout the country.

Here we follow a new criterion to monitor the increase of the number of Muslims in the United States since 1850. It is based on the number of foreign-born population provided by the US Census Bureau [US06]. We record the population born in available countries with Muslim majority as follows:

• For Asia these are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Middle East, Turkiye and one-tenth of the population born in India. The percentage born in the aforementioned countries with respect to the total born in Asia is 17.8% in 2000, 17.6% in 1990, 19.8% in 1980, 22.5% in 1970 and 27.6% in 1960. Thus, we assume that one-sixth (16.7%) of those born in Asia are Muslim.
• For Africa, the countries are Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Tunisia, and from 1980 to 2000: Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and half of those born in Nigeria, and from 1990 to 2000: Gambia and Guinea. The percentage born in the aforementioned countries with respect to the total born in Africa is 38.1% in 2000, 38.8% in 1990, 43.0% in 1980, 40.4% in 1970 and 45.0% in 1960. Thus, we assume that one-third (33.3%) of those born in Africa are Muslim.
• For Europe these are: Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo. The percentage born in the aforementioned countries with respect to the total born in Europe is 3.0% in 2000, 1.2% in 1990, 1.1% in 1980 and 1970, 0.9% in 1960, 0.7% in 1930 and 0.5% in 1920. Thus, we consider this category negligible and therefore not include it in the estimate of Muslims.

Muslim population from 1850 to 1970 was estimated from the foreign-born data as one-sixth of those born in Asia and one-third of those born in Africa.

The distribution of Muslims per state is provided in Table 5.2.5c. For 1980 and 1990, the data was estimated from ancestry data collected in the corresponding census year. In 1980, the ancestry that was considered Muslims were: Arab, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkiye, Middle East, Indonesia and Pakistan. In 1990, these regions were added: Algeria, Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The data for 2000 onward was obtained by a religious census sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). Over 75% of Muslims in USA are found in eight states as follows: New York (16%), Illinois and California (11% each), Texas and New Jersey (7% each), Michigan (5%), Maryland and Virginia (4% each). Other seven states each has 3% of the total Muslim population: Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Hence, as summarized in Table 5.2.5b, the Muslim population in USA remained negligible at 0.0% of the total population until the second half of the twentieth century, likely increasing in number from 400 in 1850, to 9,000 in 1860, to 12,000 in 1870, to around 20,000 in 1880 to 1900, to 33,000 in 1910, to 45,000 in 1920, to 52,000 in 1930. As a result of the United States opening its doors to immigration from parts of the world other than the white race after the Immigration Act of 1965, the Muslim population increased from 0.1 million or 0.1% in 1960 to 0.2 million or 0.1% in 1970, to 0.4 million or 0.2% in 1980, to 0.7 million or 0.3% in 1990, to 1.6 million or 0.6% in 2000, to 2.6 million or 0.8% in 2010, to 4.5 million or 1.3% in 2020.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by a half of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to exceed eleven million or 3% by 2050 and get close to 22 million or 5.5% by 2100.

Historical Muslim population dataset for United States of America

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.