ISLAM

Muslims in the Netherlands

Islam is one of the world religions represented in the Netherlands. Islam consists of two main movements that are also present in the Netherlands: Sunnism and Shiism. The large majority of Muslims in the Netherlands belong to the Sunni movement.
  • Islam & Muslim

    From the 17th century, small numbers of Muslims came to the Netherlands from the Indian archipelago. In the Netherlands itself, Islam only became an important movement in the second half of the 20th century. According to the CBS Labor Force Survey, an estimated 4.9% of residents aged 18 and older considered themselves Muslim in 2015; According to the SCP, which refers to the same study, the share of Muslims in the category from 15 years of age would be 6% and the percentage in the younger age categories is probably larger. This makes Islam the largest religion in the Netherlands after Christianity.

  • Numbers

    Until 2007, CBS expected that the number of Muslims in the Netherlands would pass the 1 million mark in 2006. It was estimated that there were 944,000 Muslims in the Netherlands at the end of 2004, of which 6,000 were native Dutch. The number of immigrant Muslims was estimated using the percentage of Muslims in the country of origin. In newer estimates, which were drawn up on the basis of POLS surveys, CBS arrived at 877,000 Muslims in 2005 and 837,000 in 2006. The number of Muslims then fell further to around 825,000 in 2008, which is approximately 5% of the population. population. The fluctuations in the figures are probably related to the large reliability margins of the samples. A million Muslims are not expected to arrive until 2022-2023. Estimates of the number of Muslims in 2050 vary depending on the initial values and the migration scenario applied: in 2017, AtlasBridges estimated a growth of up to 15% possible if refugee crises were to occur continuously. The general tenor of these studies is that the number of followers of Islam in the Netherlands is growing.

2014 2020
1. Turkey 396.414 416.864
2. Morocco 374.996 408.864
3. Syria 13.744 105.440
4. Iraq 54.159 64.653
5. Afghanistan 43.183 50.403
6. Iran 36.561 47.797
7. Somalia 37.432 40.251
8. Egypt 22.205 27.504
9. Pakistan 20.653 25.050
Total: 999.347 1.186.826

Top 9 Muslim countries of origin. Source: CBS.

Islam & Muslims!

Top 9 Muslim countries of origin

Data from Statistics Netherlands show that the number of residents with a non-Western migration background increased by 400,000 between 2015 and 2020. An increase of 20 percent. What does this mean for the number of Muslims in the Netherlands as a whole?

Superdiversity is a concept that describes reality

As for the Dutch Muslim community, it has great cultural wealth due to its great ethnic diversity. Dutch Muslims are also super diverse, which means that in addition to culture and ethnicity, they also differ in age, gender, degree and form of religiosity, political preference, education and social class. Dutch Muslims therefore cannot be captured in one category.

Replace the lamps

Dutch Muslims are part of Dutch society, make contributions in various areas and can be found in many layers and (sub)cultures of the population. About 5 to 7% of the Dutch population has a Muslim background, making Islam the second largest religion in the Netherlands (CBS, 2020; Pew Research Center, 2017). The Dutch Muslim community is culturally and ethnically very diverse. Most Dutch Muslims were born in the Netherlands (SCP, 2018). A large number of them have parents or ancestors with a migration background. We also see various backgrounds to this; Some came as expats (labor migrants from mainly Turkey and Morocco), others have a decolonization background (Indonesia and Suriname). Other Dutch Muslims have had to flee (e.g. from Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, Palestine), and still others have come to the Netherlands for study, work or love. Furthermore, there are also Muslims in the Netherlands with, for example, an Indian, Pakistani, Algerian, Tunisian, Sudanese, Egyptian, (native) Dutch or mixed background. Dutch Muslims also adhere to various religious (sub) movements or movements. The largest group of Dutch Muslims consists of Sunnis, but there are also Shiites, Alevis and Ahmadiyyas. Within and beyond this there are all kinds of sub-movements, movements, interpretations and religious experiences, which can vary from very conservative to very liberal, on different aspects of faith and in different combinations. Moreover, there are Dutch Muslims who do not belong to any (sub)movement and there are Dutch people for whom being Muslim is only a cultural element of their identity. In short, the Dutch Muslim cannot be captured in one category. This also applies to other religions in the Netherlands, such as Christianity and Judaism, which are also very diverse internally. And if we go back far enough in time, the vast majority of Dutch people appear to have a migration background. Migration stories remind us of a shared past, with fascinating and sometimes painful stories, and at the same time inspire us to believe in a positive shared future in the Netherlands.