Islamic Studies

Black Muslim Population Numbers

By Tariq Nelson

According to Pew, Black American Muslims – which would include Nigerians, Senegalese and other African Muslims – make up ~1% of the total black population of America or what amounts to around 400,000.

I have heard I have always read that there are around 2 million black American Muslims which would be ~5% of the total population of blacks in this country. Thinking about it, I don’t think that number is correct.

The cities with the largest populations of blacks are:

New York, 2.1 million
Chicago, 1.4 million
Detroit 800,000
Philadelphia 700,000
Los Angeles 600,000

Given ~5% the black Muslim populations would be:

NYC,100,000
Chicago, 70,000
Detroit, 40,000
Philly, 35,000
LA, 30,000

The total in those cities would be around 275,000 black Muslims. Even if we TRIPLED those numbers and assume there are another 200,000 black Muslims in Atlanta (which would be ~5% of metro Atlanta’s total population), in order to arrive at 2 million we’d have to assume there are another 1 million black Muslims throughout America in places like New Orleans, Houston, Gary Indiana and other cities where the population of Muslims is not that high – much less with black Muslims. Personally, I don’t think that is the case.

The question is, where’d this number come from??

http://www.tariqnelson.com/2009/02/population-numbers/

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