Islam in the United Kingdom

Islam in the United Kingdom
The Bradford Grand Mosque is the largest mosque by capacity in the United Kingdom, and the largest in Yorkshire and The Humber.
Total population
  • 3,868,133 (2021)[1]
  • 6.5% of the total population
  • (Figures for England and Wales only)
Regions with significant populations
Greater London1,318,754
West Midlands569,963
North West England563,105
Yorkshire and the Humber442,533
Religions
Majority Sunni Islam with sizeable Shia and Ahmadiyya minorities
Languages
English, Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, Turkish, Somali, Persian[2]
Islam in Europe
by percentage of country population[3]
  90–100%
  70–90%
  50–70%
Bosnia and Herzegovina
  30–40%
North Macedonia
  10–20%
  5–10%
  4–5%
  2–4%
  1–2%
  < 1%

Islam is the second-largest religion in the United Kingdom, with results from the 2011 Census giving the population as 4.4% of the total UK population,[4] while results from the 2021 Census recorded a population of 6.5% in England and Wales.[5][6] London has the greatest population of Muslims in the country.[7][8][9] The vast majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom adhere to Sunni Islam,[10] while smaller numbers are associated with Shia Islam.

During the Middle Ages, there was some general cultural exchange between Christendom and the Islamic world. Nonetheless, there were no Muslims in the British Isles; however, a few Crusaders did convert in the East, such as Robert of St. Albans. During the Elizabethan age, contacts became more explicit as the Tudors made alliances against Catholic Habsburg Spain, including with Morocco and the Ottoman Empire. As the British Empire grew, particularly in India, Britain came to rule territories with many Muslim inhabitants; some of these, known as the lascars, are known to have settled in Britain from the mid-18th century onwards. In the 19th century, Victorian Orientalism spurred an interest in Islam and some British people, including aristocrats, converted to Islam. Marmaduke Pickthall, an English writer and novelist, and a convert to Islam, provided the first complete English-language translation of the Qur'an by a British Muslim in 1930.

Under the British Indian Army, a significant number of Muslims fought for the United Kingdom during the First and the Second World Wars (a number of whom were awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest honour). In the decades following the latter conflict and the Partition of India in 1947, many Muslims (from what is today Bangladesh, India and Pakistan) settled in Britain itself. To this day, South Asians constitute the majority of Muslims in Britain in terms of ethnicity,[11][12] although there are significant Turkish, Arab and Somali communities, as well as up to 100,000 British converts of multiple ethnic backgrounds.[13] Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom and its adherents have the lowest average age out of all the major religious groups.[14] Between 2001 and 2009, the Muslim population increased almost 10 times faster than the non-Muslim population.[15]

  1. ^ "Religious composition, 2011 and 2021, England and Wales". Office for National Statistics. 29 November 2022. Retrieved 29 November 2022.
  2. ^ "2011 Census: Quick Statistics". Retrieved 17 May 2014.
  3. ^ "Religious Composition by Country, 2010-2050". Pew Research Center. 12 April 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2017.
  4. ^ CT0341_2011 Census - Religion by ethnic group by main language - England and Wales ONS.
  5. ^ "Religion, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics". www.ons.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  6. ^ "Religion (detailed) - Office for National Statistics". www.ons.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  7. ^ "2011 Census: KS209EW Religion, local authorities in England and Wales (Excel sheet 270Kb)" (xls). Office for National Statistics. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
  8. ^ "Scotland's Census 2011 – National Records of Scotland Table KS209SCa – Religion (UK harmonised)" (PDF). National Records of Scotland. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
  9. ^ "Religion – Full Detail: QS218NI" (xls). Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Archived from the original on 10 November 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
  10. ^ UK Masjid Statistics Archived 11 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine Muslims In Britain (18 August 2010)
  11. ^ Shaw, Alison (4 April 2011). "Review of Crime and Muslim Britain: Culture and the Politics of Criminology among British Pakistanis by Marta Bolognani". Journal of Islamic Studies. 22 (2). Oxford Journals: 288–291. doi:10.1093/jis/etr020.
  12. ^ Muslims in Britain: an Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.xvii + 318, ISBN 978-0-521-83006-5
  13. ^ Nye, Catrin (4 January 2011). "The white Britons converting to Islam". BBC News. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  14. ^ 'UK Census: religion by age, ethnicity and country of birth' Archived 6 May 2016 at Wikiwix 16 May 2013, Ami Sedghi, The Guardian
  15. ^ Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society' 30 January 2009, Richard Kerbaj, The Sunday Times