By the way, I came across some interesting statistics — when people talk about the Muslim world, the Middle East immediately comes to mind. But in reality, it's quite different. Most of the largest Islamic countries are actually not there, but in Asia — specifically in South and Southeast Asia.

See for yourself. Indonesia tops the list with 242 million believers, which is simply a huge number. For comparison — that's more than the population of any other Islamic country in the world. Followed by Pakistan with 235 million (96% of the population) and India with 213 million, although that’s only 15% of the total population. Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt — all are in the top in absolute numbers.

If you look at the percentage of believers in a country, the picture is even more telling. In Iran, 99.8%, in Afghanistan 99.7%, in Yemen 99.1% — these are almost homogenous societies in terms of religion. Interestingly, even in China, there are 25 million Muslims, although that’s only 1.4% of the population.

Asian Islamic countries simply dominate in terms of numbers. If you take the top 20, half of them are precisely Asian states. Egypt and Nigeria lead the African contingent, Turkey and Iran hold positions at the regional crossroads, but in absolute numbers, Asia is clearly ahead.

Data from Pew Research Center 2025, Visual Capitalist. Honestly, such statistics help better understand how the world's population is actually distributed and which regions are truly centers of influence in the Islamic world.