Muslim population in Europe not as high as thought

John Hagan sends a population graph of Muslims in Europe and notes: “Not the huge numbers you hear thrown about, outside of France. Considering that America is now 32% non-white I think we are in more trouble than Europe.” Indeed, most of the countries of Western Europe have two or three percent Muslim populations as of 2005, Netherlands has five percent, France has ten. This does put a different perspective on things. Why do there seem to be so many Muslims then? How can Muslims be such a pre-occupation in, say, Denmark or Sweden, each with a three percent Muslim population? I don’t get it.

Josh writes:

Perhaps the Muslims in Europe are far more radical than the European elite wish the rest of us to know? Like they say it only takes one bad apple, but they never tell us about the really bad apple.

Several commenters point out that the situation is much worse than suggested by the low percentages.

A reader writes:

Those statistics on the Muslim population in Europe are from 2001 at the latest. If you click on each country, you’ll see it’s a website called “Hope for Europe.” They get their statistics from a 2001 source, as it says at the bottom of the page: “Acknowledgements: above religion statistics are from “Operation World 21st Century Edition,” © 1993-2001 Patrick Johnstone and GMI. All Rights Reserved.”

LA says:

I see that the source page for several of the countries says the information was last updated in 2002. So the 2005 figure in the main graph would appear to be incorrect.

Another reader writes:

John Hagan’s graph shows the Muslim population of Europe at 50.9 million (more than half in Russia) which is by any measure substantial. Furthermore, the graph doesn’t show this population and, more importantly, its trends relative to the native population. One is going up, one down. Finally, as many have pointed out, the Muslim population is much younger. Thus, France may have “only” 10 million Muslims, but those 10 million make up a high percentage of the younger replacement population, perhaps as high as 35 percent. That’s the key to the future, and it doesn’t look good. The same is true with non-whites in America.

Tom S. writes:

Three quick comments on Islamic populations in Europe; 1) The numbers cited represent those Islamic immigrants who are there legally, that the government knows about. Many European countries, such as Spain and France, also have substantial illegal Muslim immigrant populations. How many? It’s hard to say, since many European governments seem hesitant to count even legal Islamic residents, but I’d guess that you could increase those numbers by at least 15-20%, possibly much more.

2) Muslim populations are young, and concentrated in urban areas. For example, only about 10% of France’s population is Muslim, but they make up about 30% of the urban population, and 40-45% of the under-30 urban population. Lots of young men in an urban environment can stir up trouble out of all proportion to their actual numbers—just ask any cop…

Derek C. writes:

Muslims have a higher profile than their share of the population warrants because they tend to cluster in central urban areas, which is where most of the print and broadcast media live. We sort of see the same phenomenon with blacks in the United States. They comprise something like 13% of the population, yet wield more political and cultural influence than those numbers suggest because they make up a large share of the population of cultural centers, like New York, Washington, D.C. or the L.A. area (though not the city itself).

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 10, 2007 12:02 AM | Send