By 2050, India will have world’s largest Muslim population

According to American think tank, Pew Research Centre, by 2050 India will have the largest population of two of the three largest religions in the world—Islam and Hinduism. The country is projected have 311 million Muslims by 2050, constituting 11 per cent of the global trend. Currently, at 249 million, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population. Meanwhile, India, which already has the world's largest Hindu population, will have 1.3 billion Hindus in 2050.

The number of Muslims in the country is projected to rise from 14.4 per cent of India’s 2010 population to 18.4 per cent in 2050. The report says that, in India, Muslims are expected to grow faster than Hindus because they have the youngest median age and the highest fertility rates compared to people from other major religious groups in the country. The report statistics reveal that in 2010, the median age for Indian Muslims was 22, compared to 26 for Hindus and 28 for Christians. Also, Muslim women have an average of 3.2 children per woman, compared with 2.5 for Hindus and 2.3 for Christians.

The research also said that despite Muslims being the fastest growing religious group in the country, in 2050, three in four Indians—constituting 76.7 per cent population—will still be Hindus. In fact, the number of Hindus in India would still be larger than the five largest Muslim populations in the world's largest Muslim countries—India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh—combined.

About global figures, indicating that Muslims are the fastest growing religious group in the world, the report says that between 2010 and 2050 the Muslim population will grow much faster, almost twice the rate of growth of the overall world population, and would surpass Christians as the world’s largest religious group by the end of this century. The report said: “While the world’s population is projected to grow 35 per cent in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 73 per cent – from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050.”

Globally, almost 62 per cent of the total Muslim population live in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, among others.