The 25 nations with the largest Muslim populations are profiled here. You may skip our in-depth discussion on the Islamic world and go straight to our list of the top 10 countries by Muslim population.
Over 1.8 billion people, or over 24 percent of the world’s population, identify as Muslim, making Islam the second biggest religion after Christianity. Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population, at 229 million, of any nation in the world. Fertility rates, the number of young people in different religious groups, and conversions all contribute to a rapid shift in the religious landscape around us. The PEW Research Center reports that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. By 2050, the percentage of Muslims worldwide will be similar to that of Christians; Muslims will make up 10% of Europe; and India, which now has a Hindu majority, will overtake Indonesia as the nation with the greatest Muslim population.
With 57 member nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the world’s second-largest intergovernmental organization. Forty-eight of these nations have Muslim majorities, while the others have large Muslim minorities. In 2017, Salaam Gateway, a key platform for monitoring the Islamic economy, stated that the economies of OIC members contribute 8.51 percent to global GDP. In terms of nominal GDP, Indonesia has the biggest economy in the Muslim world at $1.31 trillion. By 2050, it is expected to have the world’s fourth-largest economy. In our article 20 Largest Economies in the World by 2050, we detail our forecasts for the global economy in the next decades. According to the World Bank, in 2022, the typical resident of Qatar will earn $114,648, making it the richest Islamic nation in terms of GDP per capita.
In relation to their population, Muslims contribute a small fraction to global GDP, but their region has tremendous promise because to its abundance of untapped natural resources. Although Iran’s estimated 1,133 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves places it second only to Russia, seven of the top 10 nations with the biggest proportion of oil reserves are OIC members. Some of these oil producers are located in Africa and the Middle East. One of them is Saudi Arabia, a founding member of OPEC and one of the world’s top oil exporters. Fortune’s Global 500 list includes Saudi Aramco as one of the world’s biggest firms. More than three times as much money was made in 2022 as was made by Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM), at $161 billion. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Iraq are all major oil exporters.
