One in ten children under five in England and Wales is from a Muslim family, census figures show
Nearly one in ten children under the age of five in England and Wales now comes from a Muslim family, analysis of census figures has shown.
Out of 3.5 million children under five in the UK, 320,000 were identified as Muslim in the 2011 census.
The findings came from a breakdown of Britain's religions by age group produced by the Office of National Statistics and reported by the Times.
Illustrating the impact of birth rate, the near 10 per cent proportion of children under five identified as Muslims is almost twice as high as the fraction of the general population that are Muslims, which stands at less than five per cent. In the over 85 bracket, just one in 200 were Muslim.
Ibrahim Mogra, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he "wouldn't want our fellow citizens to be alarmed by an increase in number," adding that British Muslims "feel very much this is their home".
"It's not about Britain becoming a Muslim country but about Britain enabling the practice of Islam, which gives confidence to the vast majority of Muslims. It's a great country to regard as our home," he said.
David Voas, Professor of Population Studies at the University of Essex said that although it was conceivable that practicing Muslims could one day outnumber practicing Christians in Britain, there is no prospect of Muslims becoming a majority.
Children from Christian families made up by far the biggest group of under fives, with 43 per cent at 1.5 million.
Oxford University demographics professor David Coleman said: "Continuing immigration from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India has been added to by new immigration from African countries and from the Middle East.
"Birth rates of Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin remain quite high, although falling. There seem to be very low levels of falling away from religion among Muslims."
Philip Lewis, author of Young, British and Muslim emphasised that there is a huge variety in the Muslim population across the country, including affluent Arabs in London and Turkish Cypriots.
Ma Sha Allah !! This shows the Rapidly spreading power of Islam. One day, the world will witness the entire world filled with the Believers. May Allah help us keeping the spirit of Islam alive !!
please do not post such things, nor promote it. These kind of statistics are used to justify hatred against us. The media campaign against us is very strong and we should be less naive.
agree. this will increase the xenophobe campaign or sentiments. it'll be as if muslims are trying to take over Britain and make it some Islamic country.
salaams,
these statistics include all those who call themselves muslims meaning shia and qafiyanis etc are included
also many people christians are christian by name, abdolute no other relation to their religion except the name. it's sad to say but there are many muslims like this
another thing is these statistics make us think we are big and powerful whereas thats far from the truth, islam is the fastest growing religion as we reproduce more than others however the christian dawah/missionary work is more than ours and the higher conversion rate belongs to christians.
at the battle of badr muslims were only handful however with the help of allah they were powerful, however at a later battle when the muslims were more in number and better equipped the muslims lost - so numbers aren't the most important thing. don't let these numbers deceive us. shirk, bidah, nifaaq etc is taking place all over.
however lets not just be pessimistic lol this just means we have more work to do e.g dawah, socialwork, schools etc and inshaAllah that means more rewards! may Allah give us all tawfeeq
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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