Muslims around the world
Islamic Studies · Key Stage 1 · The School
Everywhere
There are around two billion Muslims — roughly a quarter of the world. The country with the most Muslims is Indonesia, not an Arab country at all. There are large Muslim populations in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, and communities in every country in Europe including Britain.
Different clothes, different food
A Muslim in Senegal, one in Malaysia and one in Bosnia will eat different food, wear different clothes and speak different languages. None of that is more or less Islamic than the others. Culture and religion are not the same thing, and mixing them up is how people get told wrongly that their culture is un-Islamic.
What is shared
The same qiblah — everyone faces the Kaaba. The same Quran in the same Arabic. The same five prayers, the same Ramadan, the same two Eids. Stand in a masjid anywhere in the world and the prayer will be one you can join without being told how.
INDONESIA has more Muslims than any other country, prays in Arabic, eats rendang at Eid, and mosques often have tiered wooden roofs. NIGERIA: Hausa and Yoruba spoken, mud-brick mosques in the north. TURKEY: Ottoman domes and minarets. UK: converted terraces and purpose-built masjids. Different languages, food, clothes and buildings; the same salah, the same Quran, the same qiblah.