Islam to overtake Christianity as world’s biggest religion by 2070

Islam will overtake Christianity to become the world’s biggest religion by 2070 – and India will have the world’s largest population of Muslims by 2050, according to a new report.

According to American think tank Pew Research Centre, India will to home to more than 300 million Muslims by 2050 – overtaking Indonesia.

In 2010, there were 1.6 Muslims in the world – but current trends now show that Islam is the world’s second largest religion after Christianity, and the fastest growing on the planet.

The report states: ‘Muslims are also the youngest (median age of 23 years old in 2010) of all major religious groups, seven years younger than the median age of non-Muslims.

‘As a result, a larger share of Muslims already are, or will soon be, at the point in their lives when they begin having children. This, combined with high fertility rates, will fuel Muslim population growth.’

Specifically, the report also revealed that the 3.3 million Muslims living in the U.S. accounted for approximately one percent of the American population – a figure that is expected to grow to 2.1 percent by 2050.

MORE: ‘Car crash’ Corbyn misses chance to skewer Tories over National Insurance U-turn
MORE: De-icing, middle lane-hoggers and bags on seats: Top 50 commuting bugbears revealed

It is also claimed that that 10 percent of all Europeans will also become Muslims by 2050.

Describing the religion’s continued rise, the report added: ‘Although many countries in the Middle East-North Africa region, where the religion originated in the seventh century, are heavily Muslim, the region is home to only about 20% of the world’s Muslims.

‘A majority of the Muslims globally (62%) live in the Asia-Pacific region, including large populations in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey.’