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Middle East & North Africa

Explore Pew Forum publications—including public opinion polls, demographic reports, research studies, event transcripts and interviews—that focus on religion and public life in the Middle East and North Africa.

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The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project
The Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.
Faith on the Move
This study focuses on the religious affiliation of international migrants, examining patterns of migration among seven major groups: Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, adherents of other religions and the religiously unaffiliated.
Religion in the News: Islam and Politics Dominate Religion Coverage in 2011
The biggest religion stories of 2011 involved tensions over Islam and questions about faith in presidential politics, especially Mormonism, according to an annual review of religion in the news.
Global Christianity
A comprehensive demographic study finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread, and no single region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity.
Global Christianity: Event Transcript
In a conference call with journalists, Pew Forum staff members discussed the findings of a new report, Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population.
Ask the Expert
The Pew Research Center often receives questions from visitors to our site and users of our studies about our findings and how the research behind them is carried out. In this feature, senior research staff answers questions relating to the areas covered by our seven projects ranging from polling techniques and findings, to media, technology, religious, demographic and global attitudes trends.
The Future of the Global Muslim Population
A new Pew Forum report on the size, distribution and growth of the global Muslim population finds that the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, but it is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades.
A Conversation With Tariq Ramadan
European campaigns to ban burqas, the Swiss vote to bar new construction of minarets and attempted terrorist acts in the United States have renewed questions and concerns about the compatibility of Islam with Western society. Swiss-born scholar and philosopher of Islam Tariq Ramadan has written and spoken on the subject, generating widespread debate and reaction.
Little Support for Terrorism Among Muslim Americans
Recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings and the arrest of five Muslim American students in Pakistan have raised questions about the threat of homegrown terrorism in the U.S.  
Global Restrictions on Religion
More than half a century ago, the United Nations affirmed the principle of religious freedom in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, defining it as "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
The Future of Evangelicals: A Conversation with Pastor Rick Warren
The evangelical Christian movement historically has been defined by its members' distinctive doctrinal standards and practices. Yet in recent years many Americans have come to understand evangelicals more by their political, rather than religious, identity. 
Mapping the Global Muslim Population
A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
America and Islam After Bush
Some of the nation's leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December, 2008, for the Pew Forum's biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life.
Ten Years of Promoting Religious Freedom Through U.S. Foreign Policy
Oct. 27 marks the 10th anniversary of the signing of the International Religious Freedom Act, a law that made the promotion of religious freedom a basic aim of U.S. foreign policy.
Global Anglicanism at a Crossroads
When leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion gather in Canterbury, England, in mid-July for their decennial Lambeth Conference, they will deliberate over the future of a church that is experiencing deep, and perhaps irreconcilable, internal conflicts.
The Plight of Iraq's Religious Minorities
The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom put Iraq on its watch list of countries that violate religious freedom in 2007.
Widespread Negativity: Muslims Distrust Westerners More than Vice Versa
In 2006, the Pew Global Attitudes Project set out to explore religious tensions, examining how non-Muslims in the West and elsewhere view Muslims, as well as how Muslims think about people in western nations.
Looking for a Way Out: Rethinking the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Few Palestinian families have deeper roots in Jerusalem than Sari Nusseibeh's. In the 7th century, immediately after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, the caliph Omar the Great entrusted one of Nusseibeh's ancestors with the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization
Seeking to establish dialogue and understanding between Islamic and Western cultures, internationally renowned scholar Akbar Ahmed led a team of dedicated young Americans on a daring and unprecedented tour of the Muslim world.
A Six-Day War: Its Aftermath in American Public Opinion
For six days, beginning June 5, 1967, Israel battled Egypt, Jordan and Syria. As a result of the fighting, Israel won control of the Sinai desert, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream
The Pew Research Center conducted more than 55,000 interviews to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims living in the United States.
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