{"id":19574,"date":"2010-04-28T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:45:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:45:07","slug":"christianity-and-islam-in-sub-saharan-africa","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2010\/04\/28\/christianity-and-islam-in-sub-saharan-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a little more than a century ago, most Africans (76%) practiced traditional African religions. According to historical estimates from the World Religion Database, in 1900, just 14% of the people living in Sub-Saharan Africa practiced Christianity; even fewer were Muslim (9%). Today, however, Africa is overwhelmingly populated by followers of these two religions. The number of Christians has grown 70-fold, and now a majority of Sub-Saharan Africans are Christian (57%). The Muslim population has grown 20-fold, and now nearly three-in-ten (29%) Sub-Saharan Africans are Muslim. Just 13% are followers of traditional African religions. Sub-Saharan Africa now is home to about one-in-five of all Christians in the world (21%) and more than one-in-seven of the world\u2019s Muslims (15%). Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Practiced by relatively few in 1900, Christianity and Islam are now dominant religions in Sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_api_pending":"1713064212","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_hidden":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[],"bylines":[791],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"collection":[],"class_list":["post-19574","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-pew-research-center-staff","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":112,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2010\/04\/28\/christianity-and-islam-in-sub-saharan-africa\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"prc_checklist":{},"watchChildPosts":false,"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Christianity and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa","description":"Practiced by relatively few in 1900, Christianity and Islam are now dominant religions in Sub-Saharan Africa.","og_title":"Christianity and Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa","og_description":"Practiced by relatively few in 1900, Christianity and Islam are now dominant religions in Sub-Saharan Africa.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":0,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"4bfae7bb-604e-45a3-8ec6-9e1010d118ca","termId":607}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107429,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/19574\/revisions\/107429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=19574"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=19574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}