Obama claims America is one of the largest Muslim countries

"If you actually took the number of Muslims [sic] Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
Barack Obama on Monday, June 1st, 2009 in interview with Canal Plus Television

Condensed story from 2009 Pulitzer prize winner, Politifact.com Click here for Full Story.


Obama claims America is one of the largest Muslim countries

By the numbers from the CIA Online World Factbook, a highly regarded government source for global statistics. It's updated twice a month, and we're relying on the latest version. By the World Factbook's count, Muslims in the United States make up about 0.6 percent of the population. That's around 1.8 million.

Coming in first is Indonesia, More than 240 million people live there, and 86.1 percent of the population identifies as Muslim. That means that about 206 million Indonesians are of the Islamic faith.

No. 2 on the list is Pakistan, where 95 percent of the roughly 176 million people identify as Muslim. That means about 167 million residents are of the Islamic faith. India, Bangladesh and Turkey come in next at 156 million, 129 million and 76 million, respectively.

Moving down the list, Morocco takes 10th place with 34 million Muslim residents, and Syria comes in at number 20, with about 18 million Muslims. The No. 60 slot goes to Serbia, home to 236,138 Muslims.

So, of the 60 most populous Muslim states, the United States ranks 58th. If we rely instead on NationMaster.com, which pegs the Muslim population at 6 million, the United States is 37th out of 60. And if we go with 8 million, as the Islamic Information Center estimates, the United States comes in at 29 on the list.

Obama dramatically overreaches by saying the United States would be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.

Ranking 58 out of the world's 60 most populous Muslim nations would not be one of the largest Muslim countries. Indeed, by even the most generous estimate we found of 8 million, the United States still ranks 29 out of 60.

So Barack Obama --- Are you Kidding?


Thanks to Politifact, CIA Online World Factbook, NationMaster.com and Islamic Information Center.