Muslims around the world
Islamic Studies · Key Stage 1 · The School
Everywhere
There are about two billion Muslims. That is roughly a quarter of the world. The country with the most Muslims is Indonesia. It is not an Arab country at all. There are also many Muslims in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt and Turkey. There are Muslim communities in every country in Europe. That includes Britain.
Different clothes, different food
A Muslim in Senegal, one in Malaysia and one in Bosnia are all different. They eat different food. They wear different clothes. They speak different languages. None of that is more or less Islamic than the others. Culture and religion are not the same thing. Mixing them up is how people get told, wrongly, that their culture is un-Islamic.
What is shared
Some things are the same everywhere. 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. You can join the prayer without being told how.
INDONESIA has more Muslims than any other country. People pray in Arabic. They eat rendang at Eid. Mosques often have tiered wooden roofs. NIGERIA: people speak Hausa and Yoruba. In the north there are mud-brick mosques. TURKEY: Ottoman domes and tall minarets. UK: converted terraces and purpose-built masjids. Different languages, food, clothes and buildings. The same salah, the same Quran, the same qiblah.