According to India's last census in 2011, about 14.2 percent of the total population identified as Muslims. This was an increase from about ten percent in 1951. Overall, India has been a religiously pluralistic and multiethnic democracy with people of several faiths.

Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Chhattisgarh data was reported at 514,998.000 Person in 03-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 409,615.000 Person for 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Chhattisgarh data is updated decadal, averaging 462,306.500 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 03-01-2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 514,998.000 Person in 03-01-2011 and a record low of 409,615.000 Person in 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Chhattisgarh data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE003: Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim.

It was estimated that by 2050, India's Muslim population would grow by 76 percent compared to 2010. For followers of the Hindu faith, this change stood at 33 percent. According to this projection, the south Asian country would be home not just to the world's majority of Hindus, but also Muslims by this time period. Regardless, the latter would continue to remain a minority within the country at 18 percent, with 77 percent or 1.3 billion Hindus at the forefront by 2050.

Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Kerala: Female data was reported at 2,449,452.000 Person in 03-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 1,031,549.000 Person for 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Kerala: Female data is updated decadal, averaging 1,740,500.500 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 03-01-2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,449,452.000 Person in 03-01-2011 and a record low of 1,031,549.000 Person in 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Kerala: Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE003: Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim.

As of 2010, Christianity was the religion with the most followers worldwide, followed by Islam (Muslims) and Hinduism. In the forty years between 2010 and 2050, it is projected that the landscape of world religions will undergo some noticeable changes, with the number of Muslims almost catching up to Christians. The changes in population sizes of each religious group is largely dependent on demographic development, for example, the rise in the world's Christian population will largely be driven by population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, while Muslim populations will rise across various regions of Africa and South Asia. As India's population is set to grow while China's goes into decline, this will be reflected in the fact that Hindus will outnumber the unaffiliated by 2050. In fact, India may be home to both the largest Hindu and Muslim populations in the world by the middle of this century.

Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Uttarakhand data was reported at 1,406,825.000 Person in 03-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 1,012,141.000 Person for 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Uttarakhand data is updated decadal, averaging 1,209,483.000 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 03-01-2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1,406,825.000 Person in 03-01-2011 and a record low of 1,012,141.000 Person in 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Uttarakhand data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE003: Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim.

In 1800, the population of the region of present-day India was approximately 169 million. The population would grow gradually throughout the 19th century, rising to over 240 million by 1900. Population growth would begin to increase in the 1920s, as a result of falling mortality rates, due to improvements in health, sanitation and infrastructure. However, the population of India would see it’s largest rate of growth in the years following the country’s independence from the British Empire in 1948, where the population would rise from 358 million to over one billion by the turn of the century, making India the second country to pass the billion person milestone. While the rate of growth has slowed somewhat as India begins a demographics shift, the country’s population has continued to grow dramatically throughout the 21st century, and in 2020, India is estimated to have a population of just under 1.4 billion, well over a billion more people than one century previously. Today, approximately 18% of the Earth’s population lives in India, and it is estimated that India will overtake China to become the most populous country in the world within the next five years.

According to India's last census in 2011, the Muslim population had about 24.6 percent of decadal growth rate, while Hindus had a decadal growth rate of 16.8 percent. India, a secular nation provides religious freedom as a fundamental right under the constitution to its citizens.

In 2020, Indonesia recorded the largest population of Muslims worldwide, with around 239 million. This was followed with around 226.88 million Muslims in Pakistan and 213 million Muslims in India.

The Sundarban, spread across India and Bangladesh constitutes the world’s largest and only mangrove habitat of the Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris). Together, harbouring around 202 tigers, it is also infamous as the worlds most severe human-tiger conflict hotspot. Despite this, very fragmentary and inconsistent information exists on the nature and extent of human-tiger conflicts (HTC) in this landscape. To fill this lacuna, a pan landscape survey was undertaken with the aim to mine information on HTC and explore various facets of HTC occurrence in this landscape. The survey was conducted across 76 villages distributed in the eight administrative blocks on the entire fringe of the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve in India between August 2018 to November 2019. On the whole, human-tiger conflicts (HTC) were reported far more commonly than cases pertaining to conflicts with crocodiles and sharks (species unidentified). The number of cases of human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) recorded were highest in the Gosaba administrative block, followed by Kultali and Patharpratima, which together account for 74% of the recorded cases. This is interesting as in earlier published records almost no consolidated information exists for the south-24-Parganas Forest Division, although it appears that the two administrative blocks here experience the second highest level of HTC in this landscape after Goasba, in north 24 Parganas. Across the forty-year period span of the recorded information, the overall conflicts between humans and tigers appeared to have witnessed a significant increase after 1987. However, this is most likely a result of poor documentation and relatively low probability of people recalling older incidents accurately. The time series change also shows a significant lowering of human-tiger conflicts post year 2000 (Ref. Figure 1.3), which is suggestive of changes brought about by stronger enforcement as well as the beginning of the arrangements for barricading the fringes with nylon nets (Tiger Conservation Plan, STR, 2012; also see, Mukherjee et al., 2012). The level of conflict between humans and crocodiles and humans and sharks, however, did not show significant changes across the same period. The significant lowering of HTC cases held statistically, even when the data was compared across decadal periods. Post completion of the survey, between 1st December 2019 and 31st October 2020, another 22 cases have been recorded, 21 of which resulted in the death of the victims involved. However, these could not be included in the analysis due to the absence of detailed information, which could not be collected due to the paucity of time (and subsequent Covid-19 driven restrictions). Most victims of HTC were males (92%), across all age categories of victims, and the majority of the victims belonged to the working age-class, i.e. 19 to 60 years. On average, HTC victims had at least 5 dependent family members, with majority below the poverty line (BPL, as per classification of Govt. of India), earning on average Rs. 25000 (~ USD 336) per annum. Majority of the victims belonged to classified Schedule Caste groups (~69%) and Other Backward Classes (~13%), while only about ~8% belonged to classified Scheduled Tribal groups (indigenous people). This, however, could simply be reflective of the proportional distribution of the various categories in the region. However, a deeper analysis suggests that across the villages surveyed, those with a higher population of Scheduled Tribes experienced a lowered level of HTC, probably indicating that Scheduled Tribes’ are not engaged extensively in natural resource collection compared to other ethnic populations. 90.14% of the victims were Hindus, and only 9.9% of the victims were Muslim and Christian. Compared to the distribution of different religious groups, where Muslims constitute around 30% of the population of south 24 Parganas, their representation in the sample of victims was relatively low at 9.5% of the total number of victims recorded. Irrespective of the religious background of victims, the majority of HTC victims were illiterate (64 – 77.8%), and around 79% of the victims were dependent on forest-based livelihoods, primarily fishing, crab and prawn collection and honey collection as the primary source of their income. Although around 52.4% of the victims/victim’s family, reported to be owning tillable agriculture land, the average land holding was 0.2 acres, which is extremely small to provide sustainable income from traditional agricultural practices. Further, during interviews, several people reported an increased salinity in their lands due to the inundation of bunds/dykes during natural calamities, leading to saline water inflow into their lands. Such increased salinity of land often renders the land unfit for agriculture. Only 15.6% of the victims or their families owned a fishing boat, indicating that even the majority who were forest-based resource dependent,...

Islam is the major religion in many African countries, especially in the north of the continent. In Comoros, Libya, Western Sahara, at least 99 percent of the population was Muslim as of 202. These were the highest percentages on the continent. However, also in many other African nations, the majority of the population was Muslim. In Egypt, for instance, Islam was the religion of 79 percent of the people. Islam and other religions in Africa Africa accounts for an important share of the world’s Muslim population. As of 2019, 16 percent of the Muslims worldwide lived in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 20 percent of them lived in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Together with Christianity, Islam is the most common religious affiliation in Africa, followed by several traditional African religions. Although to a smaller extent, numerous other religions are practiced on the continent: these include Judaism, the Baha’i Faith, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Number of Muslims worldwide Islam is one of the most widespread religions in the world. There are approximately 1.9 billion Muslims globally, with the largest Muslim communities living in the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically, Indonesia hosts the highest number of Muslims worldwide, amounting to over 200 million, followed by India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Islam is also present in Europe and America. The largest Islamic communities in Europe are in France (5.72 million), Germany (4.95 million), and the United Kingdom (4.13 million). In the United States, there is an estimated number of around 3.45 million Muslims.

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Bangladesh was estimated to be just over 19 million, a figure which would rise steadily throughout the 19th century, reaching over 26 million by 1900. At the time, Bangladesh was the eastern part of the Bengal region in the British Raj, and had the most-concentrated Muslim population in the subcontinent's east. At the turn of the 20th century, the British colonial administration believed that east Bengal was economically lagging behind the west, and Bengal was partitioned in 1905 as a means of improving the region's development. East Bengal then became the only Muslim-majority state in the eastern Raj, which led to socioeconomic tensions between the Hindu upper classes and the general population. Bengal Famine During the Second World War, over 2.5 million men from across the British Raj enlisted in the British Army and their involvement was fundamental to the war effort. The war, however, had devastating consequences for the Bengal region, as the famine of 1943-1944 resulted in the deaths of up to three million people (with over two thirds thought to have been in the east) due to starvation and malnutrition-related disease. As the population boomed in the 1930s, East Bengal's mismanaged and underdeveloped agricultural sector could not sustain this growth; by 1942, food shortages spread across the region, millions began migrating in search of food and work, and colonial mismanagement exacerbated this further. On the brink of famine in early-1943, authorities in India called for aid and permission to redirect their own resources from the war effort to combat the famine, however these were mostly rejected by authorities in London. While the exact extent of each of these factors on causing the famine remains a topic of debate, the general consensus is that the British War Cabinet's refusal to send food or aid was the most decisive. Food shortages did not dissipate until late 1943, however famine deaths persisted for another year. Partition to independence Following the war, the movement for Indian independence reached its final stages as the process of British decolonization began. Unrest between the Raj's Muslim and Hindu populations led to the creation of two separate states in1947; the Muslim-majority regions became East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (now Pakistan), separated by the Hindu-majority India. Although East Pakistan's population was larger, power lay with the military in the west, and authorities grew increasingly suppressive and neglectful of the eastern province in the following years. This reached a tipping point when authorities failed to respond adequately to the Bhola cyclone in 1970, which claimed over half a million lives in the Bengal region, and again when they failed to respect the results of the 1970 election, in which the Bengal party Awami League won the majority of seats. Bangladeshi independence was claimed the following March, leading to a brutal war between East and West Pakistan that claimed between 1.5 and three million deaths in just nine months. The war also saw over half of the country displaced, widespread atrocities, and the systematic rape of hundreds of thousands of women. As the war spilled over into India, their forces joined on the side of Bangladesh, and Pakistan was defeated two weeks later. An additional famine in 1974 claimed the lives of several hundred thousand people, meaning that the early 1970s was one of the most devastating periods in the country's history. Independent Bangladesh In the first decades of independence, Bangladesh's political hierarchy was particularly unstable and two of its presidents were assassinated in military coups. Since transitioning to parliamentary democracy in the 1990s, things have become comparatively stable, although political turmoil, violence, and corruption are persistent challenges. As Bangladesh continues to modernize and industrialize, living standards have increased and individual wealth has risen. Service industries have emerged to facilitate the demands of Bangladesh's developing economy, while manufacturing industries, particularly textiles, remain strong. Declining fertility rates have seen natural population growth fall in recent years, although the influx of Myanmar's Rohingya population due to the displacement crisis has seen upwards of one million refugees arrive in the country since 2017. In 2020, it is estimated that Bangladesh has a population of approximately 165 million people.

In 1800, the population of the area of modern-day Pakistan was estimated to be just over 13 million. Population growth in the 19th century would be gradual in the region, rising to just 19 million at the turn of the century. In the early 1800s, the British Empire slowly consolidated power in the region, eventually controlling the region of Pakistan from the mid-19th century onwards, as part of the British Raj. From the 1930s on, the population's growth rate would increase as improvements in healthcare (particularly vaccination) and sanitation would lead to lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancy. Independence In 1947, the Muslim-majority country of Pakistan gained independence from Britain, and split from the Hindu-majority country of India. In the next few years, upwards of ten million people migrated between the two nations, during a period that was blemished by widespread atrocities on both sides. Throughout this time, the region of Bangladesh was also a part Pakistan (as it also had a Muslim majority), known as East Pakistan; internal disputes between the two regions were persistent for over two decades, until 1971, when a short but bloody civil war resulted in Bangladesh's independence. Political disputes between Pakistan and India also created tension in the first few decades of independence, even boiling over into some relatively small-scale conflicts, although there was some economic progress and improvements in quality of life for Pakistan's citizens. The late 20th century was also characterized by several attempts to become democratic, but with intermittent periods of military rule. Between independence and the end of the century, Pakistan's population had grown more than four times in total. Pakistan today Since 2008, Pakistan has been a functioning democracy, with an emerging economy and increasing international prominence. Despite the emergence of a successful middle-class, this is prosperity is not reflected in all areas of the population as almost a quarter still live in poverty, and Pakistan ranks in the bottom 20% of countries according to the Human Development Index. In 2020, Pakistan is thought to have a total population of over 220 million people, making it the fifth-most populous country in the world.

As of July 2024, 70.4 percent of the Malaysian population were classified as Bumiputera, 22.4 percent were classified as ethnic Chinese, and 6.5 percent as ethnic Indians. Those who do not fall under these three main ethnic groups are classified as ‘Other’. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society with three main ethnicities and language groups. Who are Malaysia’s Bumiputera? Bumiputera, meaning sons of the soil, is a term used to categorize the Malays, as well as the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia, also known as orang asli, and the indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. As of July 2023, the Bumiputera share of the population in Sabah was 89 percent, while that in Sarawak was 76.1 percent. Thus, the incorporation of the states of Sabah and Sarawak during the formation of Malaysia ensured that the ethnic Malays were able to maintain a majority share of the Malaysian population. Bumiputera privileges and ethnic-based politics The rights and privileges of the Malays and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak are enshrined in Article 153 of Malaysia’s constitution. This translated, in practice, to a policy of affirmative action to improve the economic situation of this particular group, through the New Economic Policy introduced in 1971. 50 years on, it is questionable whether the policy has achieved its aim. Bumiputeras still lag behind the other ethnic two major groups in terms of monthly household income. However, re-thinking this policy will certainly be met by opposition from those who have benefitted from it.

In 2024, almost 140,000 Indians proceeded to Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. This was a slight increase compared to the previous year. Furthermore, until 1994 Hajj pilgrims travelled by ship and air. Later, air was the dominant means of transport for Indian Hajj pilgrims.

As of the first quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate for people of white ethnicity in the United Kingdom was 3.7 percent, the lowest of the provided ethnic groups in this quarter. By contrast, the unemployment rate for people in the Pakistani ethnic group was 13.1 percent.