9781422281154

T RADITION AND D IVERSITY

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countries from Mauritania to Somalia, with more than 90 percent of the people living throughout this region professing the faith. Egypt (80 million) and Algeria (40 million) have the largest Muslim populations in this region. The Islamic religion spread throughout eastern and sub- Saharan Africa primarily through trade and missionary work. Today, about 30 percent of all people living in sub-Saharan Africa are Muslims. Nigeria has the continent’s second-largest Muslim population (after Egypt) at about 76 million. Ethiopia, in East Africa, is home to about 24 million Muslims. Although Muslims represent only a small percentage of the total population of western Europe, they may be found in fairly large numbers in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Each of these European countries controlled colonies in the Islamic world during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and they permit- ted Muslims to immigrate. Some Muslims went to Europe in search of work, while others sought to escape persecution in their native countries. However, Muslim immigrants were sometimes permitted only as temporary guest workers in the European coun- tries. The greatest difficulty for the Muslim minority has been to fit in with Europe’s predominantly Christian and secular societies while retaining their own religious identities and Islamic values. Terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists during 2015 and 2016 in places like Brussels and Paris, as well as a wave of refugees fleeing the violence of the Syrian civil war and other conflicts, have led some Europeans to question whether their countries should admit fewer Muslim immigrants. The percentage of Muslims living in South America is small. But there are significant communities of believers in Guyana (about 55,000) and in Suriname (about 85,000). While the United States does not maintain official statistics on religious affiliation, the US Muslim population is widely estimated at between three and eight million. A large percentage of US Muslims are African Americans who have converted to Islam since the 1960s. While Muslims live in every state of the Union, the