[Graphic News] Islam is world's fastest-growing religion

Muslims were the fastest-growing religious group over the past decade and are now the second-largest in the world after Christians, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.

An analysis of 2,700 censuses and surveys conducted between 2010 and 2020 revealed that the global Muslim population increased by nearly 350 million, more than all other religious groups combined. By 2020, the number of Muslims surpassed 2 billion, accounting for 25.6 percent of the global population.

Although Christians remained the largest religious group globally, their growth lagged behind that of the overall global population during the decade. Their share of the global population declined by 1.8 percentage points, while the Muslim share increased by the same margin.

Buddhists were the only major group to experience a population decline over the decade, while the global Jewish population remained steady, representing about 0.2 percent of the world’s people, or 14.8 million individuals, as of 2020.