Muslim demographics - wikileaks

Among the findings are that the UK Muslim population has jumped in seven years from 1.6 million to 2 million. At that rate of increase, HMG estimates that the Muslim population of the UK at the next census in 2011 will be over 2.2 million. End Summary.

Daily Telegraph article here.

People with Muslim backgrounds are most concentrated in London (38% of the total UK Muslim population) and other large urban areas, including the West Midlands (14% of the Muslim population), the North West (13%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (12%). Within these areas, Muslims are highly concentrated spatially. Muslims make up 8% of the population of London overall, but 36% of the Tower Hamlets area and 24% of the Newham area population.

With 34% of Muslims under the age of 16 in 2001, Muslims have the youngest age profile of all the religious groups in Great Britain. Less than one in ten were aged 65 or older.

The Government estimates the number of mosques in the UK to be around 1,000.

32 percent of Muslims on UK campuses believe killing in the name of religion is justified, 54 percent wanted a Muslim Party to represent their world view in Parliament, and 40 percent want Muslims in the UK to be under Sharia law. Only 2 percent of non-Muslims felt killing in the name of religion could be justified and none believed it was acceptable for Muslims in the UK to have a religious-based party, or to be under Sharia law.

According to MWUK, arranged marriages in the Muslim community are creating unusually large population growth in areas where Muslims predominate, since first-generation families tend to have larger numbers of children (based on published research and a comparison of the 1991 and 2001 census). For example, in the eighties the Bradford (city) Council estimated that the Muslim population would reach 130,000 by 2030 and then level off. Now the projection is for 130,000 by 2020 and rising. Bradford is a West Yorkshire industrial city whose 2001 population of 294,000 included an estimated 75,000 Muslims (25%), predominantly of Pakistani origin. Bradford has the largest Muslim population in the UK outside of London, and no single London borough (neighborhood) has as large a Muslim population.