A MAP THAT purports to show how many Muslims are living in large regions of the world uses figures that are not backed up by official data. This results in an overestimate of the number of Muslims in the world by hundreds of millions.

The map was originally shared by social media accounts that post infographics on various topics (e.g. imports, obesity, consumer spending), though has been cited online as evidence that there are too many Muslims in certain regions.

“It is non-compatible with Ireland,” political activist Ben Gilroy wrote on a 29 November Facebook post showing the map entitled: “Muslim population by region”.

“We are too small a nation for the numbers already here,” Gilroy continued. “It must be reversed now lawfully and peacefully.”

(The Journal has previously debunked numerous claims spread by Gilroy).

However, the map appears to massively overestimate the Muslim populations of many of the world’s regions.

If you add the figures on the map together, it results in a global estimate of 2.44 billion Muslims in the world. But most estimates put the global Muslim population at about 2 billion.

The map also appears to significantly exaggerate the Muslim population of Europe. It gives no specific number for Ireland alone. 

Data sources

The map was published on the social media pages of accounts called “Nazar” and “The World in Maps”.

Both of these accounts publish graphics describing the state of the world — in some cases in a lighthearted manner, such as one that asks “How people react when you try to speak their language”.

Helpfully, many of their maps cites sources. In the case of the map showing the number of Muslims across the world, it cites a website called MuslimPopulation.com.

The homepage of that website, which includes moving text and flashing animations, looks like this:

The homepage of MuslimPoplation.com

The website says that it is run by the Iqra Foundation, an Islamic educational group.

The data on the site, however, is contradictory.

For example, a section called American Muslims 2025: A Brief Profile begins: “The 2020 United States Religion Census estimates that there are 4.5 million Muslims in the United States.”

This is correct.

However, in another section, which appears to be cited on the map spread on social media, it gives the Muslim population of the United States as 6.7 million.

A section of the website on Muslims in the Americas.

It cites a source for this that reveals how the mistake was made. The source, a 2011 article, says that the Muslim population of the United States is “at the highest estimates” about 2% (it’s usually estimated at about 1.3%).

The MuslimPopulation.com website then calculated 2% of the entire US population to come up with an inflated figure (though it should have been rounded slightly down to 6.6 million, not 6.7 million).

Other mistakes are evident elsewhere.

For Ireland, it says that there are 100,000 Muslims in Ireland. But its source is a Wikipedia page that says Census 2022 recorded 81,930 Muslims living in Ireland.

In fact, for the European estimates, almost all the references cited are for Wikipedia entries.

And many of these entries have similar problems: for example, the website lists the population of Muslims in Spain as 2.57 million. However, the Wikipedia page it links to has conflicting figures, either 2.5 million or, elsewhere on the same page, 2.1 million.

It should be noted that these Wikipedia pages may have been edited since the MuslimPopulation.com website first cited its figures, which is one reason why Wikipedia should not be cited as a definitive source.

The actual Muslim population of Europe is hard to discern, given that some countries count differently than others, or in many cases, don’t count religious affiliation at all.

The Pew Research Centre estimated that there were 45.5 million Muslims living in Europe in 2020, about 27% fewer than the map implies.

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