ESPACE. POPULATIONS. SOCIETES. 2003-1 pp. X9-/0/

John R. WEEKS International Population CenterDepartment of GeographySan Diego State UniversitySan Diego. C\ 921 S2--I-I9.\ USAJohn. weeks@sdsu.edu

Estimating the MuslimPopulation in the United StatesUsing Census 2000 Data

Acknowledgments: JenniferPaluch provided valuable research assistance on this project.

INTRODUCTION

There has been a Muslim presence in theUnited States for centuries. It is virtuallycertain that many of the slaves brought tothe Americas from Africa were Muslimbecause western Africa. from which mostslaves came. has a long history of Muslimcivilization (Nyang, 1992), dating back tothe Illh and 12th centuries (Levtzion, 1968).For example. the northern part of Nigeriahas been largely Muslim since at least the1300s. and Nigeria was frequented by slavetraders in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies. According to Haddad (1986a),there is evidence that as early as 1717 therewere Arabic-speaking slaves in Americawho reportedly ate no pork and believed inAllah and Muhammad. There is some evi­dence that as many as ten percent of slavesbrought to North America were Muslim(Austin. 1984), but Christianity wasimposed upon the slave population, andslaves who refused to convert were perse­cuted or killed (Nyang, 1999).

In the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, Muslim (as well as Christian)migrants entered the United States fromvarious middle eastern nations, includingwhat are now Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq(Haddad, 1986b). Although these immi­grants established a clear presence for Islamin American society (Haddad, 1986b;Rashid, 1999), it was not easy to be otherthan a Christian in the United States. Thepassage of the highly restrictive national ori-;gins quota system in the US in the 1920seffectively cut off immigration from all butnorthwestern European and Latin Americancountries. until that law was replaced by theless restrictive Immigration Act of 1965.The post-World War II partition of Palestine,and subsequent political and economicunrest in the region led to refugee migrationto the United States, but the volume ofmigrants and refugees from a number of pre­dominantly Muslim nations has increased

largely because of the liberalization ofimmigration laws in the mid-1960s.Efforts began within the African-Americanpopulation to build a community of Islamduring the Reconstruction period followingthe American Civil War. Initially these acti­vities were outside the mainstream of Islam(McCloud, 1995), but since the 1970s thereappears to have been a steady (albeit largelyunmeasured) increase in the number ofAfrican-Americans who adhere to main­stream Islam (American Muslim Council,1991; Rashid, 1999).Although the number of Muslims in theUnited States is almost certainly large andgrowing, it is not certain how large or at

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what rate the population is increasing. Forthis reason, the geographic distribution ofthe Muslim population also is somewhatuncertain, although anecdotal evidence canbe used to discern the basic patterns thatexist. My purpose in this paper is to reviewestimates that have been made of the size ofthe Muslim population in the United States,and compare them with new estimates thatI derive from proxy measures based onCensus 2000 data. I then use the census­based measures to estimate the geographicdistribution of the Muslim population in theUnited States in 1990 and :WOO, and fromthis I am able to calculate rates of growth bydifferent areas of the country.

1. ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF MUSLIMS IN THE UNITED STATES

In the United States, unlike in Canada andseveral other countries in the world, religionhas never been asked as part of the regulargovernment-funded decennial censuses. TheCensus Bureau did collect information in itsCensus of Religious Bodies from 1906-1936,but Public Law 94-521 prohibits the CensusBureau from asking a question on religiousaffiliation on a mandatory basis and so itcannot be included as part of the decennialcensus. Questions on religion were asked aspart of the March 1957 Current PopulationSurvey, in anticipation that a question onreligion might be included in the 1960decennial census, but ultimately that planwas dropped by the Census Bureau.Surveys can fill in gaps in census data, hutonly recently in the United States have sur­veys begun routinely to include "Islam" or"Muslim" as a category of response when aquestion about religion is asked. Since mostresidents of the U.S. are at least nominallyChristian, even small samples are able toprovide reasonable estimates of the numherof such individuals and many Christianchurches keep membership lists which arecompiled hy various groups to estimate thetotal population of Christians by branch ofChristianity (see, for example, the wehsitehttp://www.adherents.com). For less popu­lous groups, estimation is more problematiceven at the national level and, of course.

relatively small national surveys providelittle information about the geographic dis­tribution of a population. For these reasons,it is necessary to employ indirect methods inthe estimation of the Muslim population.People have been trying to figure out howmany Muslims reside in the United Statessince at least 1973, when Lovell suggestedthat there might be 900,000 Muslims in theUS and Canada, based on "preliminary tabu­lations from a religious census being con­ducted by a committee through the IslamicCenter of Washington, D.C." (reprinted asLovell, 1992:60). The "census" consisted ofa questionnaire sent to Muslim communityleaders throughout the US and Canadaasking for their assessment of the localMuslim population. Since Canada hasapproximately one-tenth the population ofthe US, if we assume that Muslims weredistributed proportionately between the twocountries, it would imply that approximatelyR20,OOO were in the US circa 1970. In 19S0Thomas Phillipp argued that "there are per­haps 200,000 to 300,000 Muslims in theUnited States today; it is impossible toobtain more accurate figures ... This esti­mate however does not include :2 millionAfro-Americans claimed by the Nation ofIslam... Nor does this estimate includeMuslim students in the United States"(Phillipp, 19XO, p. 7:12). If we include those

persons. the number of Muslims in the USby his estimate would have been about 2.3million in 19XO. In a more systematic analy­sis. Ghayur ( 19X I ) estimated that there were1.2 million Muslims in the United States in19XO. His method was to list the immigrantethnic groups that were composed predomi­nantly of Muslims and then to estimate thenumher of persons in each group using cen­sus data and immigration data. He thenadded his estimate of 75.000 African­Americans to reach his total of 1.2 million.A similar method was used by Weekes(19X4) to estimate a total of 1.4 millionMuslims in the United States as of approxi­mately 19XO. The principal differencebetween the estimates of Ghayur andWeekes is that Weekes estimated a largernumber of African-Americans to be Muslimthan did Ghayur.Stone (1991) estimated that in 1980 theimmigrant Muslim population in the U.S.was 2.3 million. To this she added, some­what arbitrarily, one million African­American Muslims. for a total Muslim pop­ulation in 1980 of 3.3 million. She beganwith the 1980 Census of Population andused place of birth and ancestry to estimatethe number of people who were of probableMuslim origin. She then used Immigrationand Naturalization Service data on immi­grants by country of origin to estimate thenumber of immigrant Muslims added to theUS population after the census, applying toeach set of immigrants a fraction equal tothe proportion of persons in each country oforigin who were estimated to be Muslim.She then applied a birth rate of approxi­mate Iy 16 births per thousand per year,added in new immigrants since 1980 andproduced an estimate of 4.0 millionMuslims in 1986. Further updating using thesame methodology generated a 4.6 millionfigure for 1988 which appeared in Timemagazine and was widely quoted at the time(Gatling. 1988).

A much lower. and also highly publicizednumber was published by Kosmin and hisassociates as part of the 1989-90 NationalSurvey of Religious Identification (NSRI)(Goldstein and Kosmin, 1991; Kosmin.1991: Kosmin and Lachman. 1993). Thesedata were from a national probability sampleof households designed especially, although

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not exclusively, to provide estimates of theJewish population in the United States.Based on telephone interviews with 113,000households in the United States. the NSRIinitially concluded that there were 527.000Muslim adults in the US, representing0.3 percent of the total US adult population.Applying that same percentage across allages produced an estimate of 750,000Muslims as of 1990. The researchers weresubjected to considerable criticism for thisfinding and although they defended theirresults (see the Appendix of Kosmin andLachman, 1993), they also acknowledgedthat the overall response rate to the tele­phone interviews was only 50 percent, evenafter four attempts to make contact. Theyalso acknowledged problems with languageand they acknowledged that immigrantsfrom countries like Iran. "with their expe­rience of persecution" (Kosrnin andLachman, 1993, p. 287) might have beenreluctant to reveal their religion, even if theycooperated with the rest of the survey.Ultimately, the weighting for Muslim house­holds was adjusted upward to increase theiroverall estimate of the US Muslim popula­tion to 1.2 million as of 1988 - a numberwell below Stone's estimate of 4.6 million.

Despite its shortcomings, the NSRI studydemonstrated the potential utility of deri­ving estimates of the population of allreligious groups, including Muslims, fromsurvey data. From the mid-1990s through200 I there were several surveys from whichestimates can be drawn of the Muslim popu­lation, including an updated version of theNSRI called ARIS - the American ReligiousIdentification Survey of 200 I. This surveywas based on a random digit-dialed tele­phone survey of 50,281 American resi­dential households in the 48 states of thecontinental U.S. Among these respondinghouseholds, 219 were identified as Muslim.This produced a weighted number ofI, 104,000 Muslim adults. "Allowing for asampling error of +/-0.5 percent. the ARIS­200 I figure maybe adjusted upwards to itsmaximum range of 1.0 percent of all 208million American adults. With such anadjustment, the total national figure for USMuslims is 2.2 million, giving a total nation­al population (including children) of justunder 3 million" (Kosmin and Mayer, 200 I,p. I).

Several other national surveys have collec­ted information on religious identification ofrespondents and included the category ofMuslim in the coded responses. Theseresults are shown in Table 1. drawing upondata made available by the American

~Religious Data Archive (http://www.thear­da.corn). For each survey listed in the table.I have downloaded the data files and calcu­lated the number of Muslim respondents. Allof these surveys are of adults (people aged18 and older) and so the assumption has tobe made that the population under age 18has the same representation of Muslims asdocs the adult population. Accepting this

.

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assumption. I have calculated the percentageof respondents in each survey who indicatedthat they were Muslim and then applied thatpercentage to the total U.S. population forthe year of the study. using the populationestimates of the U.S. Census Bureau. It canbe seen that all numbers hover close to onemillion. They are all within the same rangeas the ARIS. so if we accept the reasoningthat each survey may somewhat underesti­mate Muslims. we can accept the Kosminand Mayer suggestion of an upper limit ofapproximately 3 million Muslims as of theyear :WOO.

Table I. Estimates of the Size of the Muslim Population in the United States Rased on National Survey Data

Implied S; ofMuslims Muslims in Hlack

as fraction US Blacks who areSurvey Total Muslims of total population Muslims Muslim

Religion & Politics survey 1994-1995(weighted) 26.726 XX 0.00.3 X72.72.3 59 ') ')

Religion & Politics Survey 1996(weighted) 4.150 21 0.005 1357.764 U .3.0

God and Society in North AmericaSurvey. 1996 .3.002 10 0.00.3 X9.3.X04 4 2.0

Civic Involvement Survey 1997(run with weight I) .3.267 II o.om lJ14,444 I 0.2

GSS 1998 2.8.32 U 0.005 1.261.716 6 1.5GSS 2000 2.817 12 0.004 I.llJX.722 8 1.9American Religious Identification

Survey 2001 50.281 219 0.004 1.2.3lJ.XX6 59 1.4

AVERAGE I.7

Source . Data courtesy of American ReligIOUS Data Archive Ihttp://www.thearda.coml.

Another study conducted in 200 I of theMuslim population was completed as partof a larger study of American congregationscalled "Faith Communities Today." whichwas coordinated by the Hartford Seminary'sInstitute for Religious Research. The projectinvolved surveying a congregational leaderat each of more than 30.000 congregationsof all major religious groups across thecountry. In this process the study identified1.20l) mosques in the United States and63 I of these were randomly selected to beincluded in the survey. Responses werereceived from 416 (66 percent) of those 631(Bagby. Perl. and Froehle. 200 I ). A leaderfrom each responding mosque provided esti-

mates of the number of people attendingeach Friday's Jum'ah prayer. The averageattendance was reported to be 292 peopleper mosque. which would imply that353.000 Muslims pray at a mosque in theU.S. each Friday. A multiplier of 5.56 wasthen somewhat arbitrarily applied to thisnumber to estimate the total number of peo­ple associated with a mosque (an average of1.(25). This implies that 2 million Muslimsare associated with a mosque even if onlyj X percent of those attend Friday prayer.Another somewhat arbitrary multiplier wasapplied to that number to estimate the totalnumber of Muslims. whether or not asso­ciated with a mosque. This number was

estimated to be 6-7 million. which theauthors called "reasonable" (Bagby. Perl.and Frochle. 200 I. p. 3) although it is ofcourse highly dependent upon the multi­pliers used.Although the estimate from the mosque studywas twice the highest value estimated fromthe ARIS. the mosque study found that about30 percent of people associated with mos­ques were converts and that most of theseindividuals were African-American. TheARIS estimated that 27 percent of Muslimswere black. so both of these studies implythat about 30 percent of Muslims are African­American. Table I shows that the nationwidesurveys implied that an average of 1.7 per­cent of the African-American population wasMuslim. If we round that to 2 percent andcombine it with the estimate that 30 percentof the Muslim population is African-Ame­rican. then once we know the number ofAfrican-Americans. we can solve the equa­tion for the number of Muslims. Census 2000counted 34.7 million African-Americans, and

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2 percent of that number would be 694.000.If that number is 30 percent of the Muslimpopulation. then the number of Muslimswould have to be 2.3 million. In order for theMuslim population to be larger than this, theneither African-Americans must account for asmaller fraction of all Muslims. or else amuch larger fraction of African-Americansmust be Muslim. The data currently avai­lable. as shown in Table I. do not provideevidence of either one of those possibilities.The highest percent Muslim among blacks asshown in Table I is 3 percent. If that were thecorrect number. and 30 percent of Muslimsare black, then the resulting Muslim popula­tion is 3.5 million. In order for the number ofMuslims to be 7 million (the top estimatederived from the mosque study), if weassume that 30 percent are black. then 6 per­cent of blacks must be Muslim. Alternatively.if it is true that 2 percent of blacks areMuslim. then blacks could represent no morethan 10 percent of a population of 7 millionMuslims.

2. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE MUSLIM POPULATION

The available survey data reviewed above(see also Smith. 20(1) suggest that theMuslim population of the United States isprobably around 3 million. None of theseestimates. however, provides enough infor­mation to tell us about the spatial patterningof the Muslim population within the UnitedStates. We need a much bigger database toaccomplish that task, and so I have turned tothe census data to provide proxies for theMuslim population at sufficient geographicdetail so that a spatial pattern can be dis­cerned.

Although others have used census data forthe purpose of estimating the number ofMuslims in the U.S. (see. for example.Stone. 1991). my analysis builds on thePublic Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) fromthe 1990 census. which no one previouslyhas utilized for this purpose. These data pro­vide us with the opportunity to generate esti­mates of the spatial distribution of theMuslim population. The 1990 estimates atthe state level then provide a way to use

regression analysis to estimate the Muslimpopulation by state for 2000, using informa­tion that has just recently become availablefrom Census 2000.

2.1. How can Census Data Be Used toEstimate the Muslim Population?We are in a the midst of a brief historicalwindow of opportunity when census data canbe used to help identify the Muslim popula­tion in the United States because it is stilltrue that most Muslims in the U.S. are eitherimmigrants or are residing in households ofimmigrants. Thus, despite the lack of a ques­tion about religion. we can make inferencesabout the "possibly Muslim" population by ­using information that is derived aboutancestry, country of birth, and language. Inanother generation. when most Muslims willhave been born in the United States, it willbecome more difficult to identify them fromthese kinds of census questions.Other researchers have used census data forthis purpose. as I have already noted, and my

use involves the same caveats offered by previous researchers: Not all people from pre­dominantly Muslim countries are Muslim;not all people who speak the language spokenin predominantly countries are Muslim; noall people who share the ancestry of thosewho are Muslim are themselves Muslim; andsome people who are Muslim will not shareany of the characteristics of ancestry, Ianguage, or place of birth that are being used asproxies for being Muslim. With respect to theconcern that not all people who might seem tobe Muslim are necessarily Muslim, the use ofthe census data works on the "where there issmoke there is probably fire" theory. That isto say, the existence of a large Arab commu­nity, for example, in a particular part of theUnited States probably signals the existenceof a Muslim community even if we acknow­ledge that many Arabs in the United States arenot Muslim. The presence in a region of peo­ple who are Arab, along with people who areIndonesian, along with people who are fromIran, probably increases the likelihood thatthere witl be a substantial Muslim population,even if not all such people are Muslim.

With respect to the existence of Muslimswho are not immigrants and do not share anyof the language. place of birth or ancestrycharacteristics with other Muslims, it turnsout that in the United States most such indi­viduals are African-American, so the taskbecomes one of estimating the percentage ofa local African-American population thatmight be Muslim. The estimating percentagecomes from outside the census data and isbased initially on a national average, butthen is applied to the census data to derive anumber that will be added to the "possiblyMuslim" population identified through thecombination of language, ancestry, and placeof birth. The following sections describe themethodology in more detail.

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2.2. The "Possibly Muslim" Population in1990 Derived from the PUMS data

The estimating process begins with the 5 per­cent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS)from the 1990 census. This file contains all ofthe information collected for each member ofthe household from a 5 percent sample of allhouseholds enumerated in the 1990 census.These are responses to the "long-form" ques-

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tionnaire which was administered to a one insix sample (17 percent) of all households. sothe data represent nearly one in three of alllong-form questionnaires from the 1990 cen­sus. The geographic scale goes down to thelevel of the Public Use Microdata Area(PUMA) which is smaller than a state. butlarger than a census tract. and is designed tobe sufficiently large in area so that privacy ismaintained. but sufficiently small in area soas to provide the possibility of spatial analy­sis of the data. For this analysis. I have aggre­gated data at the state level and the data areweighted to reflect the total population fromwhich they were drawn.

People were assigned to the "possiblyMuslim" category based on ancestry if theiranswer to the first or second ancestry ques­tion indicated a category that is typicallyassociated with Muslims. The 1990 census(long-form) asked "What is this person'sancestry or ethnic origin'?" I coded as havingpossible Muslim ancestry those personswhose ancestry (either Ancestry I or 2) wasfrom a predominately Muslim country (asdelimited in Weeks 19HH: and updated in Belt20(2). The ancestries included as "possiblyMuslim" included (in Census Bureau num­bering order): Turkish Cypriot (019). Alba­nian (100). Azerbaijani (10 I), Turkestan](168), Bosnian (177), most North Africanand Southwest Asian ancestries (400 through499. with the exception of Israelis. Chal­deans. Armenians. Coptics. and a few othernon-Muslim ancestries). Nigerian Fulani(554). Nigerian Hausa (555). Somali (56H).Afghani (600). Bangladeshi (603). Pakistani(680), Indonesian (730), and Malaysian(770). In some instances. people respondedthat their ancestry was "Muslim" or "Islam."but the Census Bureau did not code thoseresponses separately. Instead. they weregiven a code of "998" which we coded inconjunction with the language question.

Language was then examined as a potentialindex of Muslim identification. especially forthe immigrant population. The census asked"Does this person speak a language other thanEnglish at home'?" and if the answer was yes,a follow-up question asked "What is this lan­guage'?" The languages coded as being typi­cally spoken by immigrants from predomi­nantly Muslim countries included (in Census

Bureau numbering order): Yugoslav (649).Persian (6.'ib r, Afghan (657). Kurdish (65H).Kirghiz (bS7). Uzbek (6Sl»). Azerbaijani(bl)O). Turkish (blll). Indonesian and Malaylanguages (n2 through 7.+ I). Arabic (777).Hausa (7S2). Somali (7HJ). Sudanese (7H.+).Swahili (701) and Fulani (794).The third characteristic that might identify aperson who is potentially Muslim is place ofbirth outside the United States. We chosethose countries estimated to have a Muslimmajority t Weeks. 19SH) for inclusion in thiscategory. The countries are predominantly inthe north of Africa. western Asia. and south­east Asia.Overall. this process identified 1.891.959people who might have been Muslim. based ontheir possession of one or more these charac­teristics according to the 1990 PUMS data. Ofthis number. only 23 percent fit all threecategories of place of birth. ancestry, and lan­guage. while another 20 percent fit into two ofthe three categories. and 57 percent fit intoonly one of three categories. of which ancestrywas the most common (3H percent of all of the"possibly Muslim"). In the interest of settingan upper bound on the number of Muslims, Ihave included all of these individuals in thecategory of "Possibly Muslim." To this groupwe must now add the estimated number ofAfrican-Americans who are Muslim.

2.J. Adding African-Americans to thePossibly Muslim PopulationThe only way to determine the likely numberof African-Americans who are Muslim is tousc survey results that cross-tabulate race byreligion. As already shown in Table I, thedata suggest that approximately 2 percent ofAfrican-Americans are Muslim. If weassume that this percentage has remainedstcadv over time. then in 1990 this wouldrepresent a total of 599,729of the 29,986,060blacks enumerated in the census that year.Only a small fraction of those people wouldhave already been included in our estimate ofthe possibly Muslim population since in thatgroup there were only 29.328 blacks whowere born in the United States and, of these.only 16.572 indicated that their ancestry was"Afro-American." If we assume no overlap,then adding 599.729 African-Americans tothe already estimated possibly Muslim popu-

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lation yields a total of 2A91.6HO Muslims inthe United States in 1990. Given the methodsof estimation that I have employed. thisalmost certainly represents an upper limit onthe number of Muslims in that year.

While it may be relatively easy to estimate thetotal number of African-Americans who areMuslim. it is more complex to estimate thegeographic distribution of those individuals.It is unlikely that in every community twopercent of the African-American communityis Muslim. It is more likely that the presenceof a larger immigrant Muslim population willencourage conversion (or reversion as it isusually called within Islam), whereas a smal­ler immigrant population of Muslims willprobably be associated with a smaller numberof African-Americans who are Muslim. evenin the presence of an otherwise large African­American community. I have used these twoconstraints - the size of the African-Americancommunity as enumerated in the census. andthe number of possibly Muslim people as esti­mated by the PUMS data - to estimate thestate-by-state distribution of African-Ame­ricans who are Muslim in 1990. If we assumethat 2 percent of African Americans are Mus­lim and that the total Muslim population is2,491,680, then African-Americans repre­sented 24 percent of all Muslims in the UnitedStates in 1990. This percentage is on the lowend of the estimates assembled by Smith(200I), but that is largely because Smithassumes that there are fewer Muslims than theabove total would suggest. As the estimate ofthe total population of Muslims goes down,then the percentage of those people that areAfrican-American obviously increases in theabsence of any change in the assumptionabout the number of African-Americans whoare Muslim.

Given the above percentages, the populationof African-American Muslims was cons­trained initially to be the smaller of either2 percent of the total state African-Americanpopulation or 24 percent of the total Muslimpopulation in the state (which involved mul- ­tiplying the PUMS possibly Muslim total forthat state by 0.317). However. we wanted thetotal African-American Muslim populationto sum to 599,729. so the totals for each stateare controlled to that value. These numbersare then added to the PUMS estimate of the

96

possibly Muslim population to produce thestate-level estimate of the number ofMuslims residing in that state in 1990. These

data. along with the implied percentage ofthe total population that IS Muslim. areshown in Table 2.

T~bk 2 Estirnarcs of the Muslim Population by State: L'nitcd Stare-, 1l)l)O and 2000

Posslhl~

Muxlimtrom

, Possihl) African- rL'~rt.'SSlon Afncun-Muvhm American TOlal cquauon AIllL'rI(Jn TOlal Uungc Percent

SIJtl'

(rpm ]()40

Pl:\ISMuslims

IQQOMuvhm-,

!QQ(1applied 10

Cen-u-, 21)(j(1Muxlim,

21XXIMu-lims

21XXIfrom 19'-)0

\0 ~OO(l

Percentl·hJn~t.'

I)! allMuxlirn-

Llll' J11Un

Ouotn m

New York 2:;2.704 X:;.4XO :nX.IX4 410..117 7')':;\1 49:;.X:;0 1:;7.oon 40.02 1·1.)Y; 210 ICalifornia 407YIO 00.D)9 47.1.629 40.1.122 :;').7.11 402.X:;3 - 10.77:; -2.2H 13.60',; 1.1.1(1Texav XX.:;98 41.9X:; 1.10':;8.1 21X.905 H44.1 282..14X 1:;I.7M 1/6.22 OW; 1120Michig.m 114.0XS .lX.619 IS2.704 IX5.<KlI .17.274 222.275 6").:;71 45.)0 h.)Y ( I.X50Illinois X6.7X7 41.127 127.914 Ih7.7X2 4").520 217..102 X"!JXX (NXX (J.Y)(.'( 1.447Florida XX..102 41.87.1 110.2.1:; 149.7(j() 61.621 211.411 X1.176 62.1.1 6.21<;; 1.0')4Ncv. Jersey J IX.(40 .10.999 149.0.\9 176.741 .10,120 206.X67 :;7.X2X 18.XO O.OX'; 20.1,Vlrgmia 6.1.210 29.9:;4 9.1.164 I22.:;(K) .1O.OX2 1:;9,IX2 h6.01X 7tl.X6 4.hX',; I.X60Ohio 77.11:; .14.527 111.642 X6.(42 .14..1.14 120..176 X.7.14 7.82 .1.:;4', 0.877Pennvylvania (\4.X40 .10.727 9:;.567 86.906 .12..111 119.217 21.6:;0 24.7.5 .1.:;W; O.XO.1Massachu-cus 70.076 X.971 79.049 X9.969 9.062 '1'1.0.11 19.'1X2 2:;2X 21 ) 1,;; 1.290Maryland 42.471 20.127 62.6(K) 62.664 2X.IlO.1 91.267 2X.on7 4S.7'1 2.Mo\f,( 1.42:;Gcprgia 24.822 11.76.1 .16.5X:; 52.5:;I 2.1.9X7 76':;'1 X 19.9:;.1 10").21 2.2)(,:( 077.1North Carolina 20.667 '1.794 .10.461 4(l.X40 IX.!", I :;9.4XI 29.021 9.5.27 1.7:;'; 0611Connecticut 47.5.19 X.200 :;5.7.19 .16.196 8.m 44..171 -II..16X -20,)0 I ..'W; IonMissouri 111.016 7j')0 2.1.60h 25.(KI6 11.414 .16.420 l2.,~ 14 :;4.2X 1,07'; 11.'18Louisiana I(,..lOS 7.72X 24.0.16 24.2:;0 1[.072 .15J2X 11.292 411.'IS [.(14'; OIl.54Wa-hington 24,X(4 4.479 29.28.1 ;'I).X:; I :;.020 .14.X71 5.5XX II).OS [.02' ( O.4S")Arizona ;' I.':; I .1 ..104 24.8:;:; 2'1.2:;:; 4.192 .1.'.447 8.'<)J .14':;7 O')X'; OJ.1'IIndiana IX.8X7 8.1)50 2H.17 21.X70 '1.l)X5 .11.X61 4.024 1446 0')4'; 04.1.1Tennessee 1.1.-122 6..160 19.782 21.X62 9.1)79 11.X-11 12.058 hII.96 0.94<;; 046.1Minnesota 17..120 2.X19 20.165 20.h07 4.511 .11.1.18 10.'17.1 '-1.42 092<;, 0.521Wrsconsin 1:;.972 7..111 2.1.28.1 18..121 x.(m 2(,J:;6 ,-07.\ l.120 0.77'; 1I.411()Colorado 1(,,2'10 .1.'181 20.271 21.68:; 4.1:;5 26.040 .5.769 2X.411 II.7Y; 11.\111Okl.rhorna 1.1.2XX 6.297 19.585 16..'82 0.XX5 21.267 1.68.' IXXO 1I.6X<;; OJ:;X:\l'\ ada 7.S10 2.'S:; IO.lh:; 14.80.\ 1':;74 IX..179 X.214 811.X I 0.:;4'; 11.761Krntuckv 8..1411 .1.1)52 12.292 12.2:;0 5..\94 17.X50 5.55X '+5.22 0:;2(, tU65Karl.... J" 8')W 4.21X 11.11 X 1.1.7:;2 4.06X IH20 -1.701 3),X:=; Oj2("; 0.5-1S()r,'glln /-1.490 U81 I.5.Xn 11.790 1.4(1) 17.2h5 1..18X X74 0.1 Ic, 11.417r\ labama 10.647 5.045 1:;.(1)2 J 1..11 X 5.lh6 II1.4X4 7<)2 5.14 04X'; 11.107South Carolina lJ.O'i-1 -1.291 1.1..145 111.-165 4.777 15.2-12 1.8")7 14.22 0,).\<;; 11.'14Rh"d,' Ivland 8.010 1.162 9.772 lO.605 1.2.1S II.X4.1 2.1171 21.11) OJ:;', 0"!.1.J"ell Hampshire I1.X II 21:; 7.026 10.47-1 2.1X 10.712 .1.6S6 .\2.40 lUI', 0717W,'vl \lrgll1la 7.-11)9 1.08.1 9.182 S.S71 l.'10 10..181 1.20/ 1.1.0S [1.11'; 0-175Lilah 4.%11 .146 5..112 9j65 4110 10.0.11 -1.719 X8.S' 0.29(, (1.'71\1ISSI'''ppi 1.799 2.748 X.:;47 6.S.16 .1.120 1).9511 1.409 111.4'! (21)'; 1I.2SI1Iowa 7.2:;X ].4.1X X.I19O 7,X1)5 1.6.12 1).527 Xli 'J.50 O.2W; 0.26'1Distrir: of Co 7.51X .1.561 II.OSI O..1XO 2.1) 12 1).292 -I.nx -16.14 11.27' c 1..1-1.1'Jchrd,kJ 7.X7K 1.716 9.594 0.859 I.XIIS X.6h7 -927 -1).1111 1125', 1141")~t:\\ vlcvico 11.279 1)0.1 7.IX2 (1)\IIX 1)1111 7.71-1 512 -.41 02.1', 11.'51Dclaw.irc 'JO-1 IjM -1.8711 4.972 2.209 7.241 2J72 4\.711 1121', 11./114\rkan.va\ 4.1-16 1.9M 6.111 -1.271) 1'1.)") 6.219 lOX IT O.IWr 11.1'12\1:1111[' 4,4.1 1:;4 4.497 -1jO.\ In 4.6S.1 IX7 41.1 11.14(, 11.'[14ILl\\ail 4,XXO 81.1 5Ml 2.411., 581 2.9X9 -2.7115 -1".\ I 11.09' , IUl4\l'mlOnt .1')211 5X .1.'i7X 2.701 XI 2.7X2 -1.1")7 -.111118 II. IIX' , 11..178Idaho 2.(1)(, 1111 2.1")7 1.805 14-1 1.1)4'1 -2-+r; -11.2, (1110' ; 11.125\lavLl 1..1.54 642 1.990 1..157 57':1 1'!.12 -64 - .~.~() II[16'; ().~55

SoulIJ D"kllla 1.1176 97 1.171 1.717 12-1 I.soi OX7 5~,5h 11./15', 11.2114"onh Dakold 1.275 105 I..1XII 1.411, 1111 1.:;00 12(1 "1.1.1 11114', 111")4vlorn.ma 2.022 71 2.(1).1 I.,;' I 71 1.402 -h'll -_~"UJ~ 11114' , 11.12')\\\()mJn~ 'Ilih IIiX 1.111-1 24C l)~ 14\ -609 (1'::;0'; 11[11', II.II\S

1.,\1) 1.95') .\91).721 2.41) 1.6XII 2.7(11).Sl2 111).1.104 .1.40.1.0111 911..1.111 ~b.5\ 111111111',

lA. Estimating the Muslim Population byState for .WOO

The PL'\lS data for Census 2000 were notavailable at the time of this writing. but wecan use the SFJ (detailed long-form) data toderive estimates consistent with the 1990derivation. We do that by generating an ordi­nary least-squares regression model fromthe 1990 census data in which we predict the19l)O state estimates of the Muslim popula­non from 1990 census variables on ancestry.language. and place of birth measured at thestate level. We then apply that regressionmodel to the Census 2000 variables onancestry. language. and place of birth mea­sured at the state level in order to generateestimates of the "possibly Muslim" popu­lation in each state in the year 2000. Toaccomplish this task. we need comparablevariables available from both Census 2000and the 1990 at the state level. We also mustuse only a small number of predictor vari­ables because the relatively small number ofstates (4R continental states) means that theregression model has to be parsimonious inits choice of variables. We also seek to haveat least one variable from each of the threecategories of characteristics - ancestry, lan­guage. and place of birth. Finally, we seek aset of variables that captures some of theregional diversity in the origin of Muslimimmigrants to the United States.

Given the above considerations, threedependent variables were chosen as the vari­ables used to predict the number of possiblyMuslim people in each state in 1990:

(I) the number of people who indicatedthat they were of Arab ancestry (meaningthat they responded 'Arab' or indicatedthat their ancestry was an Arab country)(:-\RAB_ANC):

(2) the number of people who indicatedthat they spoke the Persian language athome (PERS), and

(3) the number of people born in Pakistan(PAKCPOB).

These three variables combined to predictthe number of possibly Muslim people ineach state with considerable precision.Actually. only two of the three variablesremained in the model. Because of the highcollinearity between the number of peopleof Arab ancestry and the number of persons

97

speaking Persian (r .897), the latter varia­ble dropped out of the model. leaving thetwo variables of people of Arab ancestry andthe number of people born in Pakistan as thetwo predictors of the number of "possiblyMuslim" people.

The overall R2 was .996. and there was onlyone outlier beyond 3 standard deviationunits in terms of the standard residuals - thepossibly Muslim population of Texas wasoverpredicted by the regression model. Twostates. New York and Ohio. were slightlyunderpredicted, and each had a standardresidual that was greater than 2. but less than3. It was not clear from the data why thesestates were not more accurately predicted.The regression model that was then used topredict the number of possibly Muslim peo­ple in each state in 2000 was as follows:

N_2000 = -339.849 + (ARAB_ANC 1.35)+ (pAKCPOB * 4.94).

*

Applying this regression to the same predic­tor variables drawn from Census 2000 gene­rated an estimate of the number of possiblyMuslim persons by state for the year 2000,and these results are shown in Table 2. Thetotal number of "possibly Muslim" (exclu­sive of African-Americans) for 2000 was2,709,852. The estimates by state then pro­vide input for the calculation of the numberof African-American Muslims in 2000 andultimately the estimate of the total Muslimpopulation by state in 2000.

African-American Muslims in 2000 wereestimated in the same way as they had beenfor the year 1990. In 2000 the total U.S.African-American population was enumera­ted in the census to be 34,658,190. Thepopulation of African-American Muslimswas constrained initially to be the smaller ofeither 2 percent of the total state African­American population or 20 percent of thetotal Muslim population in the state (whichinvolved multiplying the PUMS possiblyMuslim total for that state by 0.256). Howe­ver. we want the total African-AmericanMuslim population to sum to 693,164, so thetotals for each state were controlled to thatvalue. These numbers were then added tothe regression-based estimate of the possi­bly Muslim population in 2000 to producethe state-level estimate of the number ofMuslims residing in that state in 2000. These

=

data. are shown in Table 2 where it can beseen that the total Muslim population in2000 was estimated by this method to be3.403.016. which is higher than. but stillgenerally in line with most other estimates

98

of the Muslim population in the UnitedStates. Once again. given the methodologythat I employed. this number almost certain­ly represents the upper bound of the numberof Muslims.

3. DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

New York had more Muslims than any otherstate as of 2000. reversing places withCalifornia which had been the home of moreMuslims than New York in 1990, but whichslipped to second in 2000. Nearly half a mil­lion Muslims were estimated to be living inNew York state. accounting for almost IS per­cent of the nation's Muslim population. TheARIS survey also found that New York wasthe state with the greatest number of Muslims(Kosrnin and Mayer, 200 I). although in thatstudy 24 percent of all Muslims were estima­ted to be in New York. That number seemsanecdotally to be too high. and the estimatesshown in Table I seem more reasonable interms of geographic distribution. On the otherhand. if we combine the states of New York.New Jersey and Connecticut, we haveaccounted for 22 percent of the Muslim popu­lation in the United States.New York's increase between 1990 and 2000could have come at California's expense.since the estimates show a slightly smallerpopulation in California in 2000 than in1990. whereas New York's populationincreased more than any other state.Nonetheless. California is estimated to have463.000 Muslims. nearly as many as in NewYork. Texas was a close second in terms ofthe growth in the Muslim population between1990 and :WOO and that increase of more than150.000 pushed it from fifth place in 1990 tothird place in 2000. ahead of Michigan andNew Jersey. which had been third and fourth,respectively. in 1990. These results have tobe tempered by the caution that Texas wasthe only state for which in 1990 the regres­sion model significantly overstated the esti­mated Muslim population. so it is possiblethat growth in Texas was not quite as rapid asthese numbers show. However. if we controlfor that effect hy comparing the predictednumber of Muxlimx in 1990 in Texas with the

predicted number in :WOO. the difference isstill an increase of 130.000 and Texas is stillthe second fastest growing state with respectto the number of Muslims,Michigan and Illinois round out the top fivemost populous Muslim states which whencombined account for 49 percent ofMuslims in the United States. The states thatcomprise the remainder of the top ten are. inorder. Florida. New Jersey. Virginia. Ohioand Pennsylvania. These then states com­bine to account for 73 percent of Muslims.Notably. however. there are four states ­Massachusetts, Maryland. Georgia, andNorth Carolina - that experienced signifi­cant absolute increases in the number ofMuslims between 1990 and 2000 eventhough they are not (yet) among the top tenin terms of the total population of Muslims.The latter of these two states. Georgia andNorth Carolina. were in the top five in termsof the percentage change in populationbetween 1990 and :WOO. Along with Texas.Utah and Nevada the Muslim populationalso increased by more than 80 percent inthat intercensal period. This was substan­tially above the 37 percent increase in theentire Muslim population. which in tum wassubstantially higher than the 13 percentincrease in population size of the whole U.S.population during that period of time.The Muslim population was thus growingalmost three times as fast as the U.S. popu­lation. and that growth was geographicallyuneven. Figure I maps the population ofMuslims by state in 2000. showing propor­tionately the numbers by each state.Muslims are concentrated especially alongthe cast coast (42 percent are in states thatare bordered by the Atlantic ocean). and inthe Great Lakes region. with Texas andCalifornia looking somewhat like geograph­ic outliers on the map.

Figure I. Number of Muslims by Slate: :WOO

.'<i ' ~ ----r-r

!~: .---J \ - . !/ . ( . ~~r--'

"r~. ! . ..---!

_, ! .

II

,L

:t .\~I

r \ . II ' T~• I- - --"-,\'( \\ rJ

' ':- '--.~''"-~.'I.....

Muslims in 2000

0,18379

• - 59481

••18380

59482 - 120376

120377 - 282348 +N

282349 ' 495850

99

•The clustering of Muslims in specific areascannot be discerned from this map, ofcourse, because it doesn't take into accountthe size of the total state population.Location quotients provide us with a quickand easy way to assess the state-by-stateclustering of Muslims. This measure calcu­lates the ratio of the percentage of allMuslims that are in a state to the percentageof the total population in that state, A valuegreater than I indicates that there are moreMusl ims than would be expected if Muslimswere distributed geographically in the sameway that the entire population is distributed,A value less than one indicates that there arefewer Muslims than would be expected, Thefar right column in Table 2 shows the loca­tion quotient, and these values are mappedin Figure 2. In that map, the "hot spots" arethose states with a location quotient that is atleast 1.2. New York and New Jersey bothhave location quotients higher than 2, indi­catin g that both state s have more than twiceas many Muslims as you would expect giventhe total populations of those state s. There isanother concentration in the Washington,D.C. area, where the District of Columbiaand its surrounding states of Maryland and

Virginia all have locat ion quotients wellabove I, A third cluster is in the upperMidwest-Great Lakes region where bothMichigan and Illinois have location quo­tients clearly higher than I.Of some interest is the fact that neitherCalifornia nor Texas has a location quotientthat is very far above I. They are in the"expected" group of states with locationquotients between 0,8 and 1.2, indicatingthat the number of Muslims is roughly pro­portionate to the state's share of total popu­lation, Both California and Texas haveattracted Muslims probably because theywere, in the 1990s, centers of the informa­tion technology boom, and the rapidincrease in the Muslim popul ation in Texaswas actually just bringing that state'sMuslim population up to the number thatmight be expe cted given the total populationsize in Texas. I ment ioned that New York 'sgain in Muslims might have beenCalifornia's loss, but it is more real istic tothink that in the 1990s the higher educatedimmigrant Muslim population was beingattracted away from high-tech firms inCalifornia toward those kinds of firms inTexas. California was hit by a recession in

Figure 2. Location Quotients of Muslims by State: 2000

4 .~~

.;-i.,-

. / :..- _--- --

, ~... ,.. " -- - - ~ -I

:------ ---i\. .__ , r

.r -

, ] __. 1 \ .r'r.. , L.....' i ; · ..·.,.

-- .A' ...,..J'~y

Location Quotient in 2000

:' J 0.000 - 0.799 (Cold spots)

.0.800 ·1 .199 (Expected) N

• 1.200 - 2.161 (Hot spots) +

100

the first part of the decade of the 1990s thatdid not affect Texas, and housing prices inTexa s have been consistently lower than inCalifornia, making Texas a more attractivelocation if salaries are otherwise comrnensu-

rate. Finally, the map shows that most states,especially those in the middle of the country,were "cold spot s," indicating that there werefewer Muslims than would be expected onthe basis of total population.

CONCLUSION

No one can know for certain how manyMuslims there are in the United States, butall but one recent study suggest that thenumber is not currently very far above 3million. None of the previous studies wasable to provide estimates of the populationof Muslims at the state level. but I have doneso in this paper by combining results fromthe 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample withdetailed (SF3 ) data released in Jate 2002 bythe U.S. Census Bureau. [ have combineddata on ancestry, language, and 'place ofbirth to estimate the "possibl y Muslim"population. which is largely exclusive of theAfrican-American Muslim population. Thelatter group has been estimated from cen susdata. but based on survey data from which

one can derive the percentage of the blackpopulation that is Muslim, con strained bysurvey data suggesting the percentage of theMuslim population that is estimated to beAfrican-American. The overall numbers ofMuslims estimated by this method - 2.5 mil­lion in 1990 and 3.4 million in 2000 - areslightly higher than the results from surveydata, and suggest that the numbers for eachstate are reasonable . albeit probably maxi­mum , representations of the actual numbersof Muslims in those states.These estimates provide the most quanti­fiable data thu s far produced of the geo­graphic distribution of the Muslim popula­tion. Those researchers familiar with theU.S. Muslim population may not be sur-

prised to see the clusters of Muslims in theNew York-New Jersey area, the Washington,D.C., area and the upper Midwest-GreatLakes. Nor will they be surprised by thelarge numbers of Muslims in California andTexas. However. the numbers and details areof considerable interest. In particular, thesedata suggest that California has a very largeMuslim population. but it is probably

declining in size rather than growing. Issuesof interfaith relations can perhaps be pro­jected from the fact that the Muslim popula­tion is growing in percentage terms mostquickly in parts of the "Bible Belt" (espe­cially the states of Texas, Georgia, andNorth Carolina) and in the western mountainstates that are increasingly dominated byMormons, including Utah and Nevada.

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101

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