(ANTIMEDIA) To the likely dismay of President Trump and his voter base, Islam is set to become the world’s largest religion by 2070. The United States-based Pew Research Center analyzed demographic changes among the world’s major religions and found the world’s population of Muslims will grow by 73 percent between 2010 and 2050, compared to 35 percent for Christians.
The report revealed that in 2010 there were 1.6 billion Muslims, amounting to roughly 23 percent of the world’s population. The report notes that by the year 2050, Islam and Christianity will be more or less equal in terms of adherents to the two faiths.
The Pew analysis suggests one of the reasons for the growth in adherents to Islam is that Muslim women have on average 3.1 children compared to 2.3 children for other faiths.
The results also indicate the median age for followers of Islam is becoming younger; it is seven years younger than the median age of non-Muslims.
“As a result, a larger share of Muslims already are, or will soon be, at the point in their lives when they begin having children. This, combined with high fertility rates, will fuel Muslim population growth,” Pew reports.
This means Christian populations may soon be outnumbered in some traditionally Christian countries. The report notes that in Europe, a continent grappling with a rise in far-right politics and anti-Islamic sentiment, Muslims will make up 10 percent of Europe’s population. However, as the Independent notes, Islam is the only religion growing faster than the world’s population, which suggests there may be other factors to take into consideration.
The report predicts that around 40 million people will adopt Christianity globally, while 106 million are predicted to abandon it, further reducing the number of members of the Christian faith.
The implications of Pew’s findings are still unclear. India is predicted to surpass Indonesia as the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, which may or may not further fuel the religious conflict currently engulfing the region.
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