Islam has become the fastest growing religion in the world

Islam became the world leader in growth rate: the number of Muslims increased by 347 million people over a decade

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, Islam has shown the most rapid growth among all world religions. The share of Muslims in the global population increased by 1.8 percentage points and reached 25.6% during the period from 2010 to 2020.

At the same time, the category of people who do not identify with any religion is actively growing. Their number is already approaching a quarter of the entire planet's population. Against the backdrop of these trends, Buddhism turned out to be the only major religion showing negative growth dynamics.

Christianity, despite an absolute increase of 121.6 million believers (to 2.3 billion people), is relatively losing its position. The share of Christians in the world population decreased by 1.8% and now stands at 28.8%. The reason lies in the fact that the growth rate of Christianity lags behind the overall growth of the Earth's population.

The study, based on an analysis of 2.7 thousand different surveys and scientific works, points to demographic factors as the main cause of the observed changes. Experts attribute the rapid growth of Islam to high birth rates in Muslim countries, while in regions where Christianity and Buddhism predominate, demographic indicators are declining.