British Muslims
European Muslims
Originated From
Age & Sex
Places of Worship
Ethnic Groups
Defining Identity
What they Say
Profession of Faith
Praying
Social Responsibility
Fasting
Pilgrimage
Muslims in Britain
Impact of Media
Islamophobia
Identity
British & Muslims
Surveys
Interviews
Auto Photography
Facts
Statistics on British Muslims
There are a lot of misconceptions about British Muslims on issues such as population and the number of mosques. In this section, the following statistics aim to show the true facts.
This data was primarily taken from the United Kingdom 2001 Census, carried out by the Office for National Statistics and the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life • The Future of the Global Muslim Population, 2011.
History
The British Museum in London contains an 8th century gold coin minted by King Offa of Mercia. The coin is unusual because it contains Arabic writing. On one side it says: ‘There is no deity but God, without partners.’ On the reverse it reads: ‘Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’ Little is known about why Offa chose to inscribe a coin with Arabic text, but the coin represents one of the earliest known connections between Islam and Britain.
There are other links, too, from the past, including those made through the Crusades, a series of military campaigns to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule between the 11th and 13th centuries. Other contact, during the Middle Ages, came through learning and the transfer of knowledge from the Middle East to Europe, often through the translation into Latin of Arabic scientific and medical manuscripts. Diplomacy and trade deepened contacts and, in the 17th century, the universities of Cambridge and Oxford established chairs in Arabic. The British Empire contained very large numbers of Muslims. Lord Salisbury, the Victorian Prime Minister, once commented that Britain was the greatest Muslim power on earth. Small but growing numbers of Muslims came to Britain. In the 19th century Muslim seamen from Yemen settled in small communities in Liverpool and Cardiff, but it wasn’t until the late 1950s that significant numbers of Muslims began to come to Britain to make up for the post-war shortage of man power in British manufacturing industry, healthcare, education and transport.
Today in Britain there are now at least 1.6 million Muslims according to the 2001 census. The census tells us that most Muslims live in and around London. They number some 600,000 and speak more than 50 languages. In all, 35% of all British Muslims live in the capital. Ten London boroughs have Muslim populations that exceed 20,000. The highest density is in Tower Hamlets on the edge of the City of London, which is home to at least 70,000 Muslims, mostly of Bangladeshi origin.
