Asia's Economic Growth Engine: The Muslim Factor

This interesting chart/commentary from the Economist on world Muslim population.
From the Economist, (bold emphasis mine)

``THE total number of Muslims in the world is 1.57 billion, nearly a quarter of the global total, according to a new survey of the world's Muslim population by the Pew Research Center. Almost two-thirds of Muslims live in Asia, with Indonesia providing the biggest contingent (203m), followed by Pakistan (174m) and India (160m). One of the more surprising finds is that the European country with the highest Muslim population is not France or Germany, but Russia, where 16.5m adherents of Islam make up nearly 12% of the total national population. Compared with other studies, the report gives a lowish estimate for the number of Muslims in France (3.6m), as it does for the United States (2.5m); in both those countries, secular principles make it impossible to ask religious questions on a census."

Here is another chart from Pew Research...

To add some comments from Pew Research

``More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.

``Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq....

``The Pew Forum's estimate of the Shia population (10-13%) is in keeping with previous estimates, which generally have been in the range of 10-15%. Some previous estimates, however, have placed the number of Shias at nearly 20% of the world's Muslim population.³ Readers should bear in mind that the figures given in this report for the Sunni and Shia populations are less precise than the figures for the overall Muslim population. Data on sectarian affiliation have been infrequently collected or, in many countries, not collected at all. Therefore, the Sunni and Shia numbers reported here are expressed as broad ranges and should be treated as approximate."

Why do I find this interesting?

Because if emerging markets or Asia will serve as the world's economic growth engine, then the economic framework will emanate from vastly diverse cultures, religions (as the Muslims) and the political regime that underpins this.

This is far from the Western models, which we have been accustomed with, which would also alter the approach to contemporary analysis.

Besides, another very important factor would the character of marketplace in both the real and financial aspects-such as the resurgent Islam bond markets (Shariah compliant).

So the emergence of Asia, which incorporates the biggest segment of the world's Muslim population, will come with challenging heterogeneity and complexity.