Part of a series on the |
Culture of Tanzania |
---|
People |
Languages |
Religion |
Literature |
Music |
Sport |
Christianity is the largest religion in Tanzania, with a substantial Muslim minority. Smaller populations of Animists, practitioners of other faiths, and religiously unaffiliated people are also present. [2] [1]
Tanzania is a secular state and freedom of religion is enshrined in the country's constitution. Christmas and Easter are recognised as public holidays. [3]
Current statistics on the relative sizes of various religions in Tanzania are limited because religious questions have been eliminated from government census reports since 1967. Estimates for 2010 published by the Pew Research Center in 2012 indicated that 61.4% of the population were Christian, 35.2% Muslim, 1.8% practiced traditional folk religions and 1.4% were unaffiliated. [1] However, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), 55.3% of the population is Christian, 31.5% is Muslim, 11.3% practices traditional faiths, while 1.9% of the population is non-religious or adheres to other faiths as of 2020. [2]
According to the 2020 ARDA estimate, 29% of the population was Protestant and 27% was Catholic. [4] According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2012, 40% of the Muslim population of Tanzania identifies as Sunni, 20% as Shia, and 15% as Ahmadiyya, with 20% not specifying a denomination. [5] The ARDA estimates that most Tanzanian Muslims are Sunni, with a significant Shia minority, as of 2020. [2]
For many years estimates have been repeated that about a third of the population each follows Islam, Christianity and traditional religions. [6]
Religion-related statistics for Tanzania have been regarded as notoriously biased and unreliable. [7]
About 99 percent of the population in Zanzibar is Muslim. [8] The largest religion in Dar es Salaam is Islam, comprising around 70% of its total population. [9] There are also active communities of other religious groups, primarily on the mainland, such as Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Bahá'ís. [10]
The Christian population is largely composed of Roman Catholics and Protestants. Among the latter, the large number of Lutherans and Moravians point to the German past of the country while the number of Anglicans point to the British history of Tanganyika. All of them have had some influence in varying degrees from the Walokole movement (East African Revival), which has also been fertile ground for the spread of charismatic and Pentecostal groups. [11]
On the mainland, Muslim communities are concentrated in coastal areas, with some large Muslim majorities also in inland urban areas especially and along the former caravan routes. 30% of the country's Muslim population is Sunni; the remainder consists of several Shia subgroups (40%), mostly of Indian descent and the Ahmadiyya (15%), [12] [13] and a smaller subset of Ibadism and nondenominational Muslim practitioners. [14]
Hinduism is a minority religion in Tanzania.
The government of Tanzania and the semiautonomous government of Zanzibar both recognize religious freedom as a principle and make efforts to protect it. The government of Zanzibar appoints Muslim religious officials in Zanzibar. The main body of law in Tanzania and Zanzibar is secular, but Muslims have the option to use religious courts for family-related cases. Individual cases of religiously motivated violence have occurred against both Christians and Muslims, as well as those accused of witchcraft. [15] The freedom to practice religion is a human right in Tanzania.
In 2023, Tanzania scored 3 out of 4 for religious freedom. [16]
Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The state religion of Egypt is Islam, although estimates vary greatly in the absence of official statistics. Since the 2006 census, religion has been excluded, and thus available statistics are estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. The country is majority Sunni Muslim, with the next largest religious group being Coptic Orthodox Christians. The exact numbers are subject to controversy, with Christians alleging that they have been systemically under-counted in existing censuses.
Christianity and Islam are the two main religions practiced in Nigeria The country is home to some of the world's largest Christian and Muslim populations, simultaneously. Reliable recent statistics do not exist; however, Nigeria is divided roughly in half between Muslims, who live mostly in the northern region, and Christians, who live mostly in the southern region of the country. Indigenous religions, such as those native to the Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, have been declining for decades and being replaced by Christianity or Islam. The Christian share of Nigeria's population is also now on the decline, due to a lower fertility rate relative to the Muslim population in the country.
Sunni Islam is the dominant religion in Jordan. Muslims make up about 97.2% of the country's population. A few of them are Shiites. Many Shia in Jordan are refugees from Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Tanzania is a Christian majority nation, with Islam being the largest minority faith in the country. According to a 2020 estimate by Pew research center, Muslims represent 34.1% of the total population. The faith was introduced by merchants visiting the Swahili coast, as it became connected to a larger maritime trade network dominated by Muslims. This would lead to local conversions and assimilations of foreign Muslims, ultimately causing the eventual formation of several officially Muslim political entities in the region. However, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), 55.3% of the population is Christian, 31.5% is Muslim, 11.3% practices traditional faiths, while 1.9% of the population is non-religious or adheres to other faiths as of 2020. The ARDA estimates that most Tanzanian Muslims are Sunni, with a small Shia minority, as of 2020.
Christianity is the predominant religion in Uganda. According to the 2014 census, over 84 percent of the population was Christian, while about 14 percent of the population adhered to Islam, making it the largest minority religion. Anglicanism and Catholicism are the main Christian denominations in the country.
Christianity is a minority religion in Yemen. The Yemeni constitution mentions religious liberty. There are three churches in Aden.
Christianity is the dominant religion in Kenya, adhered to by an estimated 85.5% of the total population. Islam is the second largest religion in Kenya, practiced by 10.9 percent of Kenyans. Other faiths practiced in Kenya are Baháʼí, Buddhism, Hinduism and traditional religions.
According to various polls, the majority of Kazakhstan's citizens, primarily ethnic Kazakhs, identify as Sunni Muslims. In 2020, Shia Muslims made up 20% of the population.
Islam is the official religion in Kuwait, and the majority of the citizen population is Muslim.
Christianity is the predominant religion in the Republic of the Congo, with Catholicism being its largest denomination.
Christianity is the largest religion in Benin, with substantial populations of Muslims and adherents of traditional faiths. According to the most recent 2020 estimate, the population of Benin is 52.2% Christian, 24.6% Muslim, 17.9% traditionalist and 5.3% follows other faiths or has no religion.
According to the 2012 census, Islam is the most followed religion in Niger and is practiced by 99% of the population. According to Pew, roughly 80% of Muslims are Sunni of Maliki school of jurisprudence, whilst 20% are non-denominational Muslims Other religions practiced in Niger include Animism and Christianity.
Christianity is the majority religion in Cameroon, with significant minorities of the adherents of Islam and traditional faiths.
Christianity is the most widely professed religion in Tanzania, but in the island of Zanzibar most of the population is Muslim.
Islam is the predominant religion in Uzbekistan.
Qatar is an Islamic state with multi-religious minorities like most of the Persian Gulf countries with waves of migration over the last 30 years. The official state religion is Sunni Islam. The community is made up of Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and small groups of Buddhists and Baha’is. Muslims form 65.5% of the Qatari population, followed by Christians at 15.4%, Hindus at 14.2%, Buddhists at 3.3% and the rest 1.9% of the population follow other religions or are unaffiliated. Qatar is also home to numerous other religions mostly from the Middle East and Asia.
The main religion in Morocco is Sunni Islam, which is also the state religion of the country. Officially, 99% of the population are Muslim, and virtually all of those are Sunni. The second-largest religion in the country is Christianity, but most Christians in Morocco are foreigners. There is a community of the Baháʼí Faith. Only a fraction of the former number of Maghrebi Jews have remained in the country, many having moved to Israel.
This article documents the status of various religions in the limited-recognition state of Northern Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots administer approximately one-third of the island.
Sierra Leone is officially a secular state, although Islam and Christianity are the two main and dominant religions in the country. The Sierra Leone Government is constitutionally forbidden from establishing a state religion, though Muslim and Christian prayers are usually held in the country at the beginning of major political occasions, including presidential inauguration.
Freedom of religion in Tanzania refers to the extent to which people in Tanzania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.