VIENNA, Virginia, January 27, 2010 –Today the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life held a press briefing and released a new report entitled The Future of the Global Muslim Population. The report uses primary quantitative and proprietary statistical data on the Afghan Muslim population provided by D3 under a consulting agreement.  Some of the data used come from the D3 sponsored Women In Muslim Countries study.

Pew’s comprehensive demographic study seeks to provide up-to-date estimates of the number of Muslims around the world in 2010 and to project the growth of the Muslim population from 2010 to 2030. Where possible, the report also illustrates trends by providing data from 1990 and 2000. Population projections for each of the world’s 232 countries and territories included in this report are based on four main factors: births (fertility rates), deaths (mortality rates), migration (emigration and immigration) and the age structure of the population (the number of people in various age groups). Related factors — which are not direct inputs into the projections but which underlie vital assumptions about the way Muslim fertility rates are changing and Muslim populations are shifting — include education, economic well-being, contraception and family planning, urbanization and religious switching (conversion).

Pew Forum researchers, in consultation with nearly 50 demographers and social scientists at universities and research centers around the world, analyzed about 1,500 sources, including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, to arrive at these figures – the largest project of its kind to date.