Africa is a massive continent with diverse religious traditions, to the extent that within the same tradition there have been variations. The three main religious traditions—African traditional religion, Christianity, and Islam—constitute the triple religious heritage of the African continent.
This, combined with high fertility rates, will accelerate Muslim population growth. More than a third of Muslims are concentrated in Africa and the Middle East, regions that are projected to have the biggest population increases.
Nigeria is home to Africa's largest Muslim population.
Christianity came first to the continent of Africa in the 1st or early 2nd century AD. Oral tradition says the first Muslims appeared while the prophet Mohammed was still alive (he died in 632). Thus both religions have been on the continent of Africa for over 1,300 years.
Forms of polytheism was widespread in most of ancient African and other regions of the world, before the introduction of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. An exception was the short-lived monotheistic religion created by Pharaoh Akhenaten, who made it mandatory to pray to his personal god Aten (see Atenism).
Islam came to root along the East African coast some time in the 8th century, as part of a continuing dialogue between the people on the East coast and traders from the Persian Gulf and Oman. Like early Christianity, Islam was monotheistic, that is, Muslims worship only one God.
In the 15th century Christianity came to Sub-Saharan Africa with the arrival of the Portuguese. In the South of the continent the Dutch founded the beginnings of the Dutch Reform Church in 1652. In the interior of the continent most people continued to practice their own religions undisturbed until the 19th century.
Modern growth. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. In 1990, 1.1 billion people were Muslims, while in 2010, 1.6 billion people were Muslims.
Hindus by state or territory
Hinduism is one of the fastest growing religion in absolute numbers in every state and territory of Australia.
Sometimes called the official religion of ancient Persia, Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest surviving religions, with teachings older than Buddhism, older than Judaism, and far older than Christianity or Islam. Zoroastrianism is thought to have arisen “in the late second millennium B.C.E.
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians. Islam developed in the 7th century CE.
The most widely spoken languages of Africa, Swahili (200 million), Yoruba (45 million), Igbo (30 million), and Fula (35 million) all belong to the Niger-Congo family.
Hinduism is the largest religion in Asia with about 1.3 billion followers, mainly in South and Southeast Asia.
Cush, Cushitic and Cushi
In the Major Prophets, the terms used to refer to Africa and Africans appear more than 180 times. Cush appears also as a geographical location.
For centuries, Judaism coexisted with paganism until the institutionalization of Christianity in 330 CE. Christianity first reached Ethiopia through the Kingdom of Aksum - a mighty state that succeeded the early D'mt Kingdom - through two boys, Frumentius and Aedesius.
In the ancestral stories in Genesis of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob and his family, Egypt is a part of the setting, with these biblical characters moving in and out of Africa.
Slovakia is the only member state of the European Union without a mosque. In 2000, a dispute about the building of an Islamic center in Bratislava erupted: the capital's mayor refused such attempts of the Slovak Islamic Waqfs Foundation.
The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the Philippines.
Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6 to 2 percent of the total population (21-28 million people) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most numerous group, the greatest concentration of Muslims are in Xinjiang, which contains a significant Uyghur population.
There are many reasons why Islam spread so quickly. First Mecca was connected to many global trade routes. Another important reason was their military conquered lots of territory. A third factor was the Muslims fair treatment of conquered peoples.
Trade routes jumping from city to city across the Sahara desert brought Islam into central Africa and then into the southern part of the continent. The trade routes through the Nile Valley helped Islam spread from Sudan through Uganda.
Millions of Africans and their New World descendants became Christians, but there were marked differences between slave societies, notably in those dominated by the Catholic and Protestant churches. Catholics tended to welcome Africans, and to convert them simply and with little fuss.