Muslim Statistics (Mosques)

This page contains statistics concerning mosques. For further statistics of a related nature, see Population.

Arab World

Despite a fundamentalist movement in the Arab world, mosque attendance is also dropping in some Arab countries, principally among younger Arabs (Maussen 2005, Zia-Ebrahini 2005).

April 2009

Europe

The great majority of all mosques in democratic countries— not only in North America, but in most of western Europe as well—are controlled by extremists.

Spring 1997

Recent data from the extensive European Social Survey (ESS) show that the number of Muslim immigrants who regularly go to the mosque drops significantly after they've lived in their new homeland for some time.

The ESS figures, which are being published for the first time in Europe in Aftenposten, show that 60.5% of Muslims immigrants who have lived less than a year in Europe regularly go to the mosque. But after they've lived more than a year in their new homeland, the figure drops to 48.8%. More than half rarely or never go to the mosque to pray.
. . .

Ervasti [the famous Finnish religion-sociologist from the University of Turku], who analyzed the ESS figures, emphasizes that this development doesn't happen quickly. "This secularization process will take generations, and for the individual the changes aren't as dramatic. Even it it doesn't happen fast, it's a clear trend," says Ervasti, who says that this same development also occurs among immigrants of other faiths.… [He] points out that the secularization process among Muslim immigrants starts soon after they come to Europe, which he thinks is surprising. "Already after a year in the new homeland, they're clearly less religious. They become integrate into the way we live; they get more education and become more individualistic," he explains.

May 2010

Algeria

Thirty per cent of Algiers mosques have fallen under Salafists' control, an official from the religious affairs ministry told Magharebia on the condition of anonymity.

February 2012

Belgium

Gazet van Antwerpen, a local Antwerp newspaper, published the results of a poll among a representative group of 495 Muslim youths between 15 and 25 years of age, who live in the Flemish harbour town. 89% of these youths respond that religion occupies a “very important” place in their lives. 41% attend the mosque at least once a week (while 12% never does)... and 21% readily admit that they have already heard their imam preach a hate sermon.

December 2005

Cyprus

Newspaper Kibrisli reports that Near East University (YDU) will construct a new mosque in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus.

Editor-in-chief Kartal Harman writes that construction will begin in June. He also comments on the fact that there are far too many mosques in the Turkish-occupied area, even more than schools.

“It is obvious that some do not think that 192 mosques are enough,” he declares and continues, “No one cares that the total number of our schools is 160.”

Harman writes also that there is one hospital for every 66,250 people and one mosque for every 1,380 people. Moreover, there are 187 villages in the occupied area of Cyprus and 192 mosques.

According to the editor, there is one doctor for every 364 people in the occupied area of Cyprus and one religious commissary for every 836 people.

May 2012

France

Mosque attendance is extremely low but rising.

The number of people who go to mosque for Friday prayer is also rising: 25% in 2011 against 16% in 1989. France counts around 2,000 mosques and Muslim places of worship, but most visitors are men: in fact 84% of women say they never go to mosque on Friday.

August 2011

Iran

... no more than 1-1½% attend Friday prayers, and lots of those who do are dragooned into being there. Three years ago one cleric said that 73% of Iranians did not even say their daily prayers.

January 2003

According to Zohreh Soleimani of the BBC, Iran has the lowest mosque attendance of any Muslim country; only 2% of adults attend Friday services.

November 2010

Iraq

Ibrahim Hassan, the imam of Raparin Mosque in Rania, said attendance has dropped among the youth in his congregation. He fears technology has become a hindrance to religious devotion in general... At rural mosques, people regularly attend services but in Rania, Hassan said, even adults are so busy with technology that they neglect their religious duties.

November 2012

Netherlands

Mosque attendance is dropping faster than church attendance (machine translated).

One in five Dutch adults regularly visit a religious gathering. Church attendance was in recent years further back, but the mosque attendance fell hard.

In 1998 was 47 percent of Muslims once a month to the mosque in 2008 that only 35 percent. "Half is rarely, if ever," reports CBS.

The percentage of Catholics who regularly visit services, dropped from 31 to 23 percent.

Again turn Protestants, including but PKN'ers and (experimentally) Calvinists are the most faithful churchgoers. Among them was therefore hardly a drop in sight: 63 percent visit at least once a month worship. Of these, half each week.

Volunteer

Especially the PKN'ers, and to a lesser extent, the Calvinists, show a strong commitment to the community by working as volunteers. People of other denominations and unchurched less so. According to the chart that the CBS does, Muslims are the least involved in the community.

CBS calls it "remarkable" that the church membership in the large cities increased, whereas in all other areas is declining.

July 2009

A research report from Utrecht University shows that young Dutch Muslims are far less religious than their parents. They go less often to the mosque and they pray less, which the researchers think is because they grow up in a secular society. At the same time, a large majority in all age groups say they believe, but an increasing number among the youth say they don't believe in any god at all.

Another large study by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows that more and more Dutch Muslims drop the mosque. The number of Muslims who go to the mosque at least once a month has dropped by 12% in the past decade - from 47% ten year ago to 35% today. Last year, more than half of Dutch Muslims rarely or never went to the mosque to pray, while just a quarter went regularly. 34% of the men go every week, while just 14% of the women do so.

May 2010

Sweden

Six out of ten mosques in Sweden gave women advice about how to deal with spousal abuse and polygamy that contradicted Swedish law, a media investigation has revealed.

Using hidden cameras and telephone recording equipment, two women posing as abused spouses visited ten of Sweden's largest mosques as part of a report put together by Sveriges Television (SVT) investigative news programme "Uppdrag granskning".

The women then asked leaders at the mosques for advice about how to address issues such as polygamy, assault and non-consensual sex.

Six out of the ten mosques visited by the women, who had also claimed that their husbands had multiple wives, told them that they should nevertheless agree to have sex with their husbands even if they didn't want to.

Six of the mosques also advised the women against reporting spousal abuse to the police. Leaders at another mosque were divided on the issue, while women received vague advice from yet another mosque.

Only two of the mosques gave the women clear advice directing them to report their abusive husbands to police.

The women were also told by nine of the ten mosques that men had the right – under certain circumstances – to have more than one wife.

Only one mosque told the women that men didn't have the right to be married to several women at the same time and that their husbands needed to follow Swedish law.

The advice, which in many cases advocated violating Swedish laws, came from imams or family counselors at the mosques.

When "Uppdrag granskning" host Janne Josefsson approached two of the largest mosques featured in the programme to inquire about their official position on matters discussed by the women, the answers he received were totally different than what the women heard.

The chair of the Islamic Association in Uppsala claimed in the story that people should follow Swedish law.

May 2012

Tajikistan

The deputy chairman of Tajikistan's State Committee for Religious Affairs said Friday the country has more mosques than schools.

Mavlon Mukhtorov said official figures show there are 3,425 regular mosques, 344 cathedral mosques, and 40 central cathedral mosques.

Mukhtorov said on February 16 his ministry issued permits for 45 new mosques to be built in different parts of the country.

Tajikistan's Education Ministry reports there are 3,793 schools, most of them overcrowded, and in many cases one classroom has up to 40 students.

February 2012

Tunisia

Some of Tunisia’s radical mosques are calling on young people to fight in a jihad in Syria against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a religious affairs official said Friday.

According to official estimates, about 400 of Tunisia’s approximately 5,000 mosques are now in the hands of radical Islamists. The number has grown since the Tunisian revolution, which started at the end of 2010 and led to the overthrow of longtime dictator Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali.

May 2012

United Kingdom

Channel 4 has commissioned a NOP poll of British Muslims for Dispatches.
. . .
Asked how important religion was to them 78% of British Muslims said very important, but 48% of them also said they never attended a mosque, with another 6% saying they only attended for special occassions. The actual religious observance of Muslims doesn’t seem to match with how important they say religion is to them

August 2006

25% of UK mosques have extremist literature calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain Indoors and forbidding interfaith marriages.

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.

Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.
. . .
The researchers said that they found further controversial works during visits to mosques in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and High Wycombe.

The Times has learnt that five of the books that were acquired by researchers had been also found in searches during Scotland Yard antiterrorist investigations since 2001. About half of the books collected were in English – raising questions about the emphasis placed by the Government in combating extremism by training more English-speaking imams. The other publications were in Arabic or Urdu. The report, The Hijacking of British Islam, is published by the conservative Policy Exchange think-tank and was written by Denis MacEoin, a Fellow at Newcastle University and expert on Islamic issues.

The researchers found hardline material at a quarter of the 100 mosques visited during the project.

The report said: “On the one hand, the results were reassuring: in only a minority of institutions – approximately 25 per cent – was radical material found.

“What is more worrying is that these are among the best-funded and most dynamic institutions in Muslim Britain – some of which are held up as mainstream bodies. Many of the institutions featured here have been endowed with official recognition.”

October 2007

United States

Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, stated before the US State Department:

We would like to advise our government, our congressmen, that there is something big going on and people do not understand it. You have many mosques around the United States. . . . So the most dangerous things are going on in these mosques that have self-appointed leaders throughout the United States. The extremist ideology makes them very active.

We can say that they took over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States. There are more than 3,000 mosques in the United States. This means that the ideology of extremism has been spread to 80 percent of the Muslim population, mostly the youth and the new generation.

January 1999

The report that Dr. Bagby helped write, "The Mosque in America: A National Portrait," revealed that only a fraction of the Muslims in the United States attend weekly prayers in one of the nation's 1,209 mosques. Of an estimated four million to six million Muslims in the United States, the study found, only about 350,000 [approximately 6%] on average attend the Friday midday prayers — congregational prayers expected of men, though not required, and optional for women.

Perhaps the number is small because not every community has a mosque and many Muslims are used to praying on their own, wherever they are. In comparison, about 40 percent of Christians in the United States say they attend church regularly, and 27 percent of Jews say they attend synagogue regularly.

December 2001

A survey of Detroit mosquegoers and officials released last month by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding shows that half of those attending mosque are recent immigrants, many of whom intend to return to their homeland. When asked if they thought America is an immoral society, more than half said yes. Such views - certainly radical in the context of mainstream American culture - are probably a major reason less than 7 percent of American Muslims attend mosque regularly (compared with 38 percent of Americans who attend church weekly).

April 2004

The full 95-page Freedom House report, "Saudi publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques," referred to below, is now available here in pdf form.

Mosques across the U.S. continue to carry books and pamphlets describing non-Muslims as "infidels" and promoting intolerance against Western society, according to a forthcoming study by Freedom House, a U.S. human-rights group.

Despite vows from American Islamic leaders after Sept. 11, 2001, to proselytize peacefully, New York based Freedom House researchers found 57 documents with incendiary material in more than a dozen mosques and Islamic centers in six states and Washington, D.C., visited over the past year.

The materials "demonstrate the ongoing indoctrination of Muslims in the United States in the hostility and belligerence of Saudi Arabia's hardline Wahhabi sect of Islam," says the report, an advance copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

January 2005

Not a single mosque in the US accepts homosexuals

Alam is the founder of Al-Fatiha, an organization that promotes the rights of LGBT Muslims. He founded the group in 1998 after joining Muslim list-serves across the country and writing members e-mails asking if anyone was gay and wanted to join a list-serv to talk. Within minutes, hundreds of people joined. But it took a year for anyone to write back to Alam's post.

"That shows how much silence and fear there is regarding homosexuality in the Muslim community," Alam said.

Alam explained the current status of LGBT Muslims and their stance in the Muslim community, saying how there isn't a single mosque in the United States that openly accepts gay members.

Dane Peterson (senior-computer engineering) asked Alam how gay Muslims fulfill their need for religious community.

After Alam answered the question Peterson said what he now understands is that Muslims do it outside the structure and make their own community.

October 2009

Most US Muslims back the Ground Zero mosque while most Americans do not.

Most Muslim Americans support the proposal to build a mosque and Islamic community centre near Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York, a survey shows.

The Pew Research Center survey found 81 percent of US Muslims have heard about the project, which is strongly opposed by American conservatives, and, of those, 72 percent say it should be allowed to be built.

At the same time, 20pc of the country's Muslims say it should not be allowed to be built, while 15pc say it should be allowed even though they personally believe it's a bad idea to build it near the WTC site, the survey found. The survey revealed a decidedly different view among the general public. Of about 78 percent who heard of the project, only 38 percent said it should be allowed to be built, while 47 percent said it should not. The mosque and Islamic centre would be built just 2 blocks from where the World Trade Center stood before being destroyed in the 2001 terrorist attack.

September 2011

A random survey of 100 representative mosques in the U.S. was conducted to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers. Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51% had texts on site rated as severely advocating violence; 30% had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19% had no violent texts at all. Mosques that presented as Sharia adherent were more likely to feature violence-positive texts on site than were their non-Sharia-adherent counterparts. In 84.5% of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts. The leadership at Sharia-adherent mosques was more likely to recommend that a worshipper study violence-positive texts than leadership at non-Sharia-adherent mosques. Fifty-eight percent of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad. The leadership of mosques that featured violence-positive literature was more likely to invite guest imams who were known to promote violent jihad than was the leadership of mosques that did not feature violence-positive literature on mosque premises.

December 2011

The number of Islamic places of worship in the United States soared 74 percent in the past decade.

While protests against new mosques in New York, Tennessee and California made headlines, the overall number of mosques quietly rose from 1,209 in 2000 to 2,106 in 2010.

And most of their leaders say American society is not hostile to Islam, according to a comprehensive census of U.S. mosques and survey of imams, mosque presidents and board members released Wednesday.

“This is a very healthy community,” lead researcher and study author Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, said Tuesday. “Mosque leaders feel very positive, more positive than they did in 2000” when a similar study was conducted.

February 2012

Previous - Marriage            Persecution‎ - Next