Muslims in America

In the new Pew report, Mapping the Global Muslim Population, the Pew Center claims that there are 2.45 million Muslims in America. In my year long (plus) research into radical Islam in the prison system, I examined the question of how many Muslims there are in the U.S.


There is no official figure for the Muslim American population. Estimates from various sources calculate the population to be as few as two million or as many as seven million individuals, or roughly 2% of the total U.S. population. The very highest estimates place the number of American Muslims at eight or nine million. Despite the lack of authoritative data, the most commonly cited figure for the Muslim American population is somewhere between six or seven million.

But even if the Muslim American population does not exceed four million, this number still represents a six-fold increase since just 1970.

Muslims in the U.S. represent everything but a monolithic block, and are as diverse in perspective as any other racial, religious, or ethnic group in America.

Although more then half of U.S. Muslims are immigrants, no single national group comprises more then 12% of the total Muslim population, within which more then seventy different countries are represented. As a group, American Muslims represent a geographical and cultural microcosm of the world at large.

No single racial group dominates the Muslim community either; in fact Muslims represent an almost equal proportion of White, Black, Asian, and mixed race individuals, with Black Muslims usually cited as representing a slightly larger majority.

The Hispanic Muslim population in America is also beginning to swell and, over the past seven years, the population of Hispanic converts has grown into a significantly noticeable minority. Hispanics make up 12.5% of the U.S. population but it is estimated that Hispanic Muslims represent 10% of all native-born Muslims but only 1% to 6% of all Muslim Americans.

Estimates have placed the entire community of Hispanic Muslims anywhere between 40,000 and 200,000 individuals, most whom are women. The growing number of Hispanic Muslims have not gone unnoticed by Muslim American organizations (some created by Hispanic converts exclusively for Hispanic converts) and the national Muslim leadership who have undertaken efforts to “attract” curious Hispanics to Islam after 9/11.

Hispanic Magazine claims there are almost 400,000 Hispanic Muslims in the U.S. based on estimates made by “Muslim organizations,” although these organizations are not named.

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The following was an excerpt from my 2009 piece entitled, Prislam: The Recruitment and Radicalization of Terrorist Operatives in the Prison System and the Threat to the American Homeland.