Majority Muslim Countries (or Proposed Ones)

Some are bare majorities and these are approximations but the numbers bear thinking about (do unbiased people really want to continue to claim that the religion of so many people is actually evil?) Ethiopia is an interesting one because it has a Coptic Christian flavour at the level of its state. The proposed ones I have included are Turkish Cyprus and Palestine. I have noted especially if the 'country' appears to produce and/or export petroleum crude oil and if it exports very roughly how much mainly because oil is so geopolitically vital for the time being, and if they are members or observers at OPEC, the League of Arab States or the Organization of the Islamic Conference because they may be politically significant groupings.

That gives 50 'countries' (about a quarter of the world's countries) including the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth most populous: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Though not majority Muslim the most and second, third and fifth most populous countries (China, India, the US and Brazil) also contain a total of around two hundred million Muslims (mostly in India but including over two million in the US and over twenty million in China). Incidentally, even Israel has over a million Muslim 'full' citizens.

These three countries are majority Muslim but not Members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference: Ethiopia, Western Sahara and Eritrea.

These 11 countries are not majority Muslim but are Members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference: Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Suriname, Togo and Uganda. Kazakhstan has close to a majority if not a majority.

These four countries are not majority Muslim but are Observers at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference: Bosnia, Central African Republic, Thailand and Russia. Bosnia also has close to a majority. Thailand has recently committed civil war-related atrocities against Muslims so this status is also interesting.


1 Afghanistan – Member of Islamic Conference
2 Albania – Small Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of Islamic Conference
3 Algeria – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State
of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
4 Azerbaijan – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of Islamic Conference
5 Bahrain – Small Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference
6 Bangladesh – May Have Oil Reserves, Member of Islamic Conference
7 Brunei – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of Islamic Conference
8 Burkina Faso – Member of Islamic Conference
9 Chad – Small Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
10 Comoros – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
11 Djibouti – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
12 Egypt – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference
13 Eritrea – Observer State at Arab League
14 Ethiopia -
15 Gambia – Member of Islamic Conference
16 Guinea – Member of Islamic Conference
17 Indonesia – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of
Islamic Conference
18 Iran – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of
Islamic Conference
19 Iraq – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State
of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
20 Jordan – Has been an Oil Producer, Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic
Conference
21 Kuwait – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member
State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
22 Kyrgyzstan – Has been an Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
23 Lebanon – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
24 Libya – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member
State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
25 Malaysia – Large Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of Islamic Conference
26 Maldives – Member of Islamic Conference
27 Mali – Member of Islamic Conference
28 Mauritania – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
29 Morocco – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
30 Niger – Has Oil Reserves, Member of Islamic Conference
31 Nigeria – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of
Islamic Conference
32 Oman – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference
33 Pakistan – Has been an Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
34 Palestine – Member of Arab League, May have been an Oil Producer, Member of Islamic
Conference
35 Qatar – Moderate Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter, Member
State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
36 Saudi Arabia – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil Exporter,
Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
37 Senegal – Member of Islamic Conference
38 Sierra Leone – Member of Islamic Conference
39 Somalia – Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
40 Sudan – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference
41 Syria – Moderate Oil Producer , Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference
42 Tajikistan – Has been an Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
43 Tunisia – Small Oil Producer, Significant Hydrocarbon Exporter, Member State of Arab
League, Member of Islamic Conference
44 Turkey – Has been an Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
45 Turkish Cyprus – Observer at Islamic Conference
46 Turkmenistan – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member of Islamic
Conference
47 United Arab Emirates – Large Oil Producer, OPEC Member Country, Significant Oil
Exporter, Member State of Arab League, Member of Islamic Conference
48 Uzbekistan – Moderate Oil Producer, Member of Islamic Conference
49 Western Sahara -
50 Yemen – Moderate Oil Producer, Significant Oil Exporter, Member State of Arab League,
Member of Islamic Conference

Arabs Today

The next set of ideas that I suggest we consider concern who the Arabs, the people we may think brought Islam into the world and may have negative views of, are. We may think of Arabs as being one race and see the Middle East as the Arab East but we would be wrong on both counts.

Arab is more of a cultural/linguistic term as it describes a person of any ethnicity who makes cultural and general use of the Arab language (Iranians mostly speak Farsi, Jews usually speak Hebrew and Turks generally prefer Turkish). Further to that, as I mentioned in the last post, the Middle East also includes Iran, Turkey and Israel and most Iranians, Turks and Jews don't consider themselves Arabs as they don't tend to speak Arabic.

Please also note that Arab also doesn’t necessarily mean Muslim. The language may come from the Arabian Peninsula and so does Islam but not all Arabs today are Muslim. Arabs at the time of Muhammad, the prophet who expounded the religion now called Islam, were Christians or Jews or humanists or worshipped one or more of various deities. This group’s language came to be used far outside Central Western Arabia (where it was mainly restricted at the time of Muhammad, who lived there) for reasons we will soon discuss, by many others who were not Muslim. Many Arabs today are not Muslim. Arabs today are of various Asian, African and European/Mediterranean 'races'.

So there are Arabs of other races and Arabs who are not Muslim but there are also many non-Arabs in the Middle East (just to reiterate and add yet more groups). There are, besides Persians, Turks and Jews, Circassians and many other groups that speak various other languages. So the ‘Arab’ Middle East is made of much more than one race of Arabs, and non-Arabs besides.

I mention here that today the Jews in Israel are a special case for the Arabs, however, as many Arabs see the Jewish state of Israel as a European colony and so hope it will be disbanded as all the others have been, essentially. I will explore this special relationship with those Jews, and whether Arabs (and Muslims) are anti-Semitic, in due course.

So, the 'Arab' Middle East is not uniquely homogeneous or Arab; in fact it tends to not be. But there is an “Arab World” within the Middle East (excluding Turkey, most of Israel and Iran, essentially) and that term refers to the region where a form of Arabic is the usual official language.

Even this area is far from unified and sub-regions are diverse in many ways (not least in (especially oil) wealth).

The Arab League now has 22 member 'states' (including Palestine). A few of the countries (i.e. Comoros, Djibouti and Somalia) are very border-line as to whether they would truly be considered part of the so-called 'Arab World' but it apparently suits all the Arab League members that they are included in the League.

So the Arab world is not a unified region any more than the Middle East is and probably much less than Europe is today in many ways. Nevertheless it shares an identity and history and heritage (along with a variety of religions, sects and cults). We need to bear this in mind when we consider the view that, for example, there is one powerful enemy in it, or in the Middle East, seeking to destroy the West.