You know, I've long wanted to understand this issue because most people have a completely wrong idea of the geography of the Muslim population. Everyone thinks about the Middle East, but in reality, the main Muslim countries are concentrated in very different places.

Take Indonesia, for example — there are 242 million Muslims living there. That's more than the total population of most European countries combined. Just staggering numbers. Pakistan, Bangladesh, India — the majority of the world's Muslim population is concentrated in this region.

For clarity: the top 5 Muslim countries by population are Indonesia (242M, 87%), Pakistan (1.9B, 96%), India (213M, 15%), Bangladesh (760M, 91%), and Nigeria (124M, 54%). Already, these five countries total over 760 million people. That's about 10% of the world's population just in these five countries.

Next come Egypt (104M), Iran (88M), Turkey (84M), Sudan (46M), and Algeria (43M). Each of these Muslim countries is a whole civilization with its own history and culture.

Interestingly, if you look at the full list of 24 countries, a clear pattern emerges: most of the largest Muslim communities are located in South and Southeast Asia, not in the Middle East. Africa also plays a significant role — there are Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Somalia, and other countries with millions of believers.

Data from Pew Research Center shows that the total Muslim population in these 24 countries exceeds 1.9 billion people. That's roughly a quarter of the Earth's population. Quite impressive statistics that challenge stereotypes about where the Muslim population is actually concentrated.