“But Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion!” Some version of this statement invariably gets trotted out whenever the truth claims of Islam is being questioned. This is often offered as some kind of trump card, as if it is a clinching argument in proving that Islam must be true.
The purpose of this article is to interact with this response and to show that it is essentially fallacious. I will do this in the form of a few brief statements.
Fast Growth By Itself Proves Nothing: A good point of departure is to remind ourselves that the fact that an idea is spreading quickly, does not guarantee its accuracy. Spectacularly bad ideas can spread like wildfire as well. For example, think of the different responses that the statement ‘Gender is but a social construct’ would have elicited in 2000 and in 2022! Our assessment of ideas should, therefore, be rather more sophisticated than looking at statistics. Presumably part of this sophisticated look would include some of the reasons behind the growth of ideas. Is the growth happening because people are convinced through ironclad arguments and evidence, or is there some other factor driving it? In the case of Islam, it turns out that there is indeed another factor: Biology.
Islam’s Global Growth Is Almost Entirely Down to Birth Rates: Fast growth would only be a significant confirmation of Islam’s truth-claims if it came on the back of persuasion. In a word, it does not. In 2011 the Pew Research Center embarked on a major research project on the global state of Islam (the findings has since also been confirmed by follow-up studies). One of the headline findings was that although Islam is growing very fast, according to Pew it is experiencing ‘Zero net growth due to conversion’. In other words, just as many people convert out of Islam as those converting into it. Personally I suspect that since 2011 more people converted out of Islam (including becoming non-religious) than into it, so this trend is probably becoming ever more pronounced. With this in mind, it can be stated that Islam’s fast growth proves nothing more than that Muslim women have more babies than their counterparts following other religions. In the same breath, we can make a similar point about the role of marriage in enticing people into the fold of Islam.
Conversion to Islam in the Diaspora Happens Mainly Through Marriage: It would be foolish to claim that all conversions to Islam are due to relationships, but it is clear that this is the major driver behind conversions around the world, especially in communities where Muslims emigrated to. In fact, if the non-Muslim party in a relationship is a man, Islamic law is unbending on the need to convert before any wedding takes place. In such cases we would, once again, have to conclude that something other than a burning conviction about the truth of Islam is at play! It is, furthermore, interesting that many of the non-romantic conversions that do occur, do not last. In fact, Usama Hasan from the Quilliam Foundation estimates that as many as 50% of converts (or ‘reverts’ as Muslims prefer to call them) will leave Islam again within the first five years.
Islam is not immune from demographic and religious trends: Projections about the fast growth of Islam, including the claim that it will be the world’s largest religion by mid-century, all work on the assumption that current growth rates will continue unchanged. This is, however, wildly optimistic (from a Muslim perspective at least). There are at least three factors that are bound to significantly impact Muslim numbers over the next two decades. They are:
Falling Birthrates: Most people are aware that several Western countries are heading towards a demographic cliff edge, with many European countries maintaining birth rates that are below replacement levels. What is perhaps less well known is that the same pattern is beginning to manifest itself in some Muslim majority countries as well. Birthrates in Turkey and Iran are trending down fast and may fall beyond replacement in the not too distant future. Admittedly this trend is not universal across the Muslim world (e.g. Afghanistan and Yemen have some of the highest birth rates in the world), but the automatic assumption that higher Muslim birthrates will persist is not a given.
Secularisation: As late as ten years ago there was a widespread belief that the Islamic world somehow received a ‘free pass’ when it came to secularisation. It turns out, however, that Islam does not have an ironclad stronghold on its devotees. The rise of ISIS and the failure of Islamism as a workable ideology in several Muslim countries contributed to wide disillusionment with Islam. Add to this the access to a world of ideas through social media and it becomes clear why there is a growing cohort of people identifying as ex-Muslims around the world. While this is still a trickle rather than a flood, it seems logical that there will be many more people who will follow the brave trailblazers (the shari’a penalty for apostasy is death, after all) in declaring their unbelief in Islam.
Conversion to Christianity: This is another trend that would have seemed almost unbelievable only a decade ago. It is possible to site several examples of mass movements out of Islam into Christianity. Perhaps the most notable examples of this can be found in Iran and Bangladesh. However, there is hardly a part of the Muslim world that is exempt from this trend. Even North Africa, where the Christian faith was all but extinct for centuries, now plays home to vibrant and growing Christian communities. Given the intense societal and government pressures ranged against conversion, it is fair to assume that those who openly declare their departure from Islam form just the tip of the iceberg and that there may be farm more secret Christian believers in the Muslim world.
So, is Islam the ‘Fastest Growing Religion in The World’? Maybe. However, that tells us nothing about its truth-claims and this position is almost definitely not guaranteed.
For a fuller discussion of this, and other, claims that are used to ‘prove’ the truth of Islam, see my book ‘Questioning Islam - Tough Questions and Honest Answers About the Muslim Religion’. Please also consider supporting my work by taking out a $6 per month paid subscription.
Kind regards,
Peter
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