One ummah, nearly two billion people (today)

Part oneWho the Muslims are today

In 2020 there were about 1.9 billion Muslims in the world, roughly a quarter of all people. Most of them do not live in the Middle East. The largest Muslim populations are in Asia: Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh each have well over a hundred million Muslims. Nigeria and Egypt are the largest Muslim nations of Africa. About fifty countries have a Muslim majority, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, founded in Rabat in 1969 after an arson attack on al-Aqsa Mosque, now has fifty-seven member states. Millions more Muslims live as minorities, in India, China, Russia, Europe, the Americas and Australia.

The ummah is young. In many Muslim countries most people are under thirty, and the Muslim population is growing faster than the world as a whole. It speaks hundreds of languages, from Arabic, Urdu and Bengali to Malay, Hausa, Turkish, Persian, Swahili, English and French.

Part twoOne qibla, one Hajj

What joins them is older than any border. Five times a day, Muslims everywhere turn toward the Ka'bah in Makkah and recite the same words of the Quran in Arabic. Each Ramadan they fast together. Each year, in the days of the Hajj, around two million pilgrims gather at Makkah and Arafat, wearing the same plain white cloth, rich and poor, from every country on earth.

From the Quran

إِنَّ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةً وَٰحِدَةً وَأَنَا۠ رَبُّكُمْ فَٱعْبُدُونِ ۝٩٢

˹O prophets!˺ Indeed, this religion of yours is ˹only˺ one, and I am your Lord, so worship Me ˹alone˺.

From the hadith

Narrated An-Nu`man bin Bashir:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "You see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it."

Part threeChallenges and hopes

The modern ummah faces hard problems. Many Muslim lands have known war, occupation and dictatorship. Millions of Muslims are refugees. Some communities, from Palestine to the Rohingya of Myanmar and the Uyghurs of China, live under great pressure. Poverty and weak education hold back many countries, and Muslims are often divided by politics, sect and nationality.

There are also signs of strength. More Muslims can read than ever before. More are memorising the Quran, studying the faith and building schools, charities and businesses. Muslim relief organisations work around the world. New Muslims are found in every country. In the West, a generation of Muslims born there is finding confident ways to live their faith.

Part fourThe caravan goes on

The story told on this site began in Makkah in the seventh century and reached Damascus, Baghdad, Cordoba, Cairo, Timbuktu, Istanbul, Delhi and Melaka. It has known golden ages and dark ones, victories and losses. Each generation has received the faith from the one before and carried it a little further.

That task now belongs to us. The caravan has not stopped. It goes on in every home where the Quran is read, every mosque where people pray, and every heart that tries to live by what the Prophet ﷺ taught.

The caravan has not stopped. It goes on in every home where the Quran is read.

More on How to Muslim

• guide.howtomuslim.orgLearn about IslamWhat nearly two billion people believe, in six short parts.

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The mapWhere it happened

• Makkah
• Madinah
• Jerusalem
• Jakarta
• Karachi
• Delhi
• Dhaka
• Cairo
• Lagos
• Istanbul
• Tehran
• London
• New York

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter