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Fact check: Which European country has the highest percentage of Muslim population in 2025?
Executive Summary
Bosnia and Herzegovina is identified by the provided sources as the European country with the highest percentage of Muslims in 2025, at about 51% of its population, making it the leading country by share rather than absolute numbers [1]. Other sources in the dataset emphasize large absolute Muslim populations in countries such as Turkey and France, and note substantial Muslim minorities in Russia, but these refer to totals or future projections rather than the 2025 percentage ranking requested [2] [3] [1].
1. What the documents claim loudly and clearly about percentages
Several documents in the packet assert a clear, consistent claim: Bosnia and Herzegovina leads Europe by share of Muslims in 2025, with roughly fifty-one percent of the population identifying as Muslim [1]. These items are recent, dated October 2025 in some cases, and frame Bosnia and Herzegovina as the only country in the set where Muslims form an outright majority. That is a percentage-based ranking, distinct from statements about absolute numbers of Muslims in larger or transcontinental countries. The claim is stated as a present estimate for 2025 rather than a projection.
2. Where the packet highlights large Muslim populations but not percentages
Other analyses in the dataset focus on absolute population totals rather than shares: Turkey is repeatedly described as having the largest number of Muslims in Europe in absolute terms (84.4 million cited), while France is noted for having one of the largest Muslim communities in Western Europe (6–7 million, roughly 9–10% of its population) [2] [3]. Russia appears in the packet as having a sizable Muslim minority (about 16 million or roughly 11% by one account), but those items emphasize total counts or contextual notes rather than using those figures to assert a higher percentage than Bosnia and Herzegovina [1] [2].
3. The Kosovo projection versus the 2025 snapshot
A separate, dated projection in the assembled analyses references Kosovo as a future high-percentage case, with Pew-style estimates projecting Kosovo to reach above 90% Muslim by 2050, but this is explicitly a projection and not a statement about 2025 conditions [4]. The distinction between current percentage and long-term demographic projections is critical: Kosovo’s large projected share in 2050 does not contradict Bosnia and Herzegovina’s status in 2025, because the dataset does not provide a 2025 Kosovo percentage that surpasses Bosnia’s reported majority [4] [1].
4. Discrepancies, missing methodology, and why caution matters
The packet contains inconsistently framed data: some items cite percentages, others absolute numbers, and at least one entry acknowledges it does not present percentage information at all [5] [6]. The documents do not uniformly state methodologies, definitions (who is counted as Muslim), or whether transcontinental countries like Turkey are being treated as European for percentage calculations. Those omissions matter because classifications and denominators can materially change percentage rankings; the present assertion that Bosnia and Herzegovina leads depends on the same definitional choices reflected in the cited pieces [5] [6].
5. Reconciling apparent contradictions across the packet
When the varied claims are reconciled by type—percentage share versus absolute counts—the narrative becomes consistent: Bosnia and Herzegovina leads by percentage in 2025, while Turkey (and, in Western Europe, France) lead by absolute numbers of Muslims. Russia is noted for sizable Muslim numbers but not a higher share than Bosnia [1] [2]. Items that seem contradictory tend to be comparing different metrics or projecting forward to mid-century rather than reporting a 2025 snapshot [4] [3].
6. What this synthesis leaves unresolved and why that matters
The principal unresolved items in the packet are methodological: population baselines, the treatment of transcontinental states, and the source datasets behind the percentage estimates are not consistently provided. Those gaps could affect whether another smaller country or territory might rank above Bosnia under alternative definitions. The documents supplied do not present those technical details, so while the best-supported answer in this dataset is Bosnia and Herzegovina at ~51% in 2025, readers should note the dependency on the underlying, unspecified methodologies that produced those figures [1] [5].
7. Bottom-line answer and how to read it carefully
Based on the provided materials, the authoritative 2025 answer is that Bosnia and Herzegovina has the highest percentage of Muslims in Europe (≈51%), as reported in multiple items in the packet [1]. This is distinct from statements about the largest absolute Muslim populations, where countries like Turkey or France appear on top depending on the metric used [2] [3]. The conclusion stands within the limitations of the supplied sources and should be read with the caution that alternative definitions or updated datasets could change rankings.