The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Nimer Islam Statistics

2.560,000 to 4,390,000 -- Minimum Muslim total range, Nimer 2002

"[T]he government of Canada, unlike that of the United States, tracks its population by religious affiliation …The 1991 [Canadian] census counted 253,000 Muslims … reflect[ing] an increase of 263 percent in just one decade … If this pattern of growth remained constant throughout the 1990s, Muslims could have reached more than 665,000 by 2002. ..."

"... By law, the U.S. Bureau of the Census is not allowed to compile religious data on the nation's people, but it has traced their ethnic ancestry … [S]tudies break Muslims into their constituent ancestry groups and attempt to use available statistics to construct a total number ..."

"...The number of immigrants increased rapidly after 1965, when Congress abandoned racial and national origin restrictions in immigration laws … [Immigration and Naturalization Service] figures show that from 1966 to 1980 emigration from Muslim world regions jumped to 865,472 … From 1966 to 1980, the average of yearly arrivals increased to 57,698; in the following ten years, it rose again to 99,700; and in the past seven years it peaked at 131,586...."

"...[Between 1820 and 1997, the] total number of estimated Muslim immigrants was 1,188,810. Now the task is to determine the extent to which these waves of immigrant populations have multiplied. Studies show that the natural growth rate of the American Muslim population is much higher than that of the rest of the nation … In all, by 2002 the number of Muslim immigrants and their descendents may have reached a minimum range of 2.1 to 3.6 million."

"...Estimating the number of indigenous Muslims in the United States, especially African-American Muslims, is even more difficult. …The College Board, which develops placement tests for American high school students, has maintained data on the ethnic and religious profile of students who take the SAT test every year … If one assumes that the proportion of Muslim high school students represents their weight in the general population, then by 2000 Muslims numbered 2.8 million of America's 281 million people. The College Board data, however, may represent an underestimation because (1) more than 17 percent of the students did not indicate any religious preference; and (2) the sensitivity of the question may have led many minority students, Muslims included, not to disclose their faith. ..."

"... On the basis of the College Board data, one can assume that Muslims from the major American population groups represent roughly 18 percent of the total Muslim population. Their number, then, could be somewhere from 460,000 to 790,000, which raises the minimum Muslim total to a range of 2.560,000 to 4,390,000-or an average of 3.5 million, representing less than 2% of the United States population."

Nimer, Mohamed. The North American Muslim Resource Guide: Muslim Community Life in the United States and Canada. New York: Routledge, 2002. 21-22, 26-27.