Three in four people now live in the shadow of Islam.

A recent Pew Report revealed that Muslims now constitute 25% of the earth’s population. While that number isn’t surprising due to the Islamic world’s high fertility rates, what is surprising is where most of this Muslim fecundity is occurring, and it’s not in the Middle East or Eurabia (as some cynics would suggest).

With 2 out of every 3 Muslims now living in the Orient (specifically in an arc stretching from Turkey to Indonesia), the balance of power is again slowly shifting from the Arabian peninsula to the more populous fringes of Central and Southeast Asia. Why this is significant is that the interests and concerns of the Middle Eastern Gulf States are not shared by countries such as Indonesia and Bangladesh, and increasingly it will be the oil-and-Arab-free Islamic nations that will transform the old international order through conflict and confrontation rather than with crude oil supplies and gasoline prices, particularly as industrialized nations begin transitioning to alternative sources of fuel.

What this may mean for the future is an Islamic world that is less concerned about international relations and more interested in imperialist pretensions. For example a more populous, aggressive and assertive Turkey seeking to reclaim its lost Islamic territories in the Balkans or leading an invasion of Israel could easily unite Muslims behind its powerful military in imperial adventures reminiscent of those once embarked upon by the Ottoman Sultans. However dreams of a revitalized Caliphate and resurgent Islamic prestige will remain mere illusions as, unlike the oil-rich nations of the Persian Gulf, these nations are poor (often disconcertingly so) and therefore incapable of fielding conquering armies and maintaining occupying forces.

Click here to enlarge.

The irreconcilable contradictions between an abundance of population and a poverty of economic opportunities inherently results in civil instability, a fact frequently demonstrated throughout modern history. But when a pernicious ideology (such as Communism or Islam) is added to not just an atrophied economy but a non-existent one, then the result transcends mere social dysfunction and becomes a destabilizing force not only for an entire region but, in this era of globalization, for the entire world (see “Onward Muslim Soldiers” below). One merely needs to observe what has happened in such Islamic countries as Somalia, Afghanistan, and the Sudan to understand the acute effects that failed states have had globally and the influence that Islam (though the politically correct would argue Salafism in general and Wahhabism in particular) has had in rendering those particular countries so dysfunctional.

At one time, “Wahhabism” (which I would argue is orthodox Islam) was relegated to the deserts of the Arabian peninsula; but following the establishment of the Saudi kingdom in 1932 and the subsequent discovery of oil in 1938, the resultant petro-dollars that have sustained the Saudi state have also permitted the Saudi monarchy to embark on an ambitious program of Wahhabifying the entire Islamic world through an aggressive mosque-and-madrassa building campaign.

Yet the staggering wealth Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia have realized from their oil reserves has proven to be a curse as well as a blessing. The U.N.’s own 2009 Arab Human Development Report details the growing decay within nations whose only merits are that they possess a universally coveted commodity, but who are neither temperamentally nor ideologically inspired towards social, intellectual, artistic, industrial or technological innovation or achievement. Therefore the triumphalism of “Islam Ascendant” is both spurious and propagandist in nature as Islam’s growth has been accomplished through the auspices of a population boom (now waning) rather than through conversions and it’s claims of cultural superiority have been belied by its lack of scientific and artistic accomplishments and the barbarity and primitiveness of many of its adherents.

Christianity, in comparison, has become the fastest growing religion in the world through a combination of demographics and, more importantly, conversion (particularly in Africa and, ironically, Asia where it is now estimated that almost 350 million Chinese are Christian, a group larger than even the 70 million strong Communist Party). It is also in these regions where Islam is experiencing its greatest rate of apostasy as, when permitted a choice, increasing numbers convert to either Christianity or atheism (an estimated 6 million per year) and where the greatest conflicts and episodes of civil unrest are being instigated by a violently militant Islam.

The Islamic Caliphate, 622-750 AD.

Historically Islam has always been bloodiest at its borders, where it’s subjugated populations were the largest and its inherent militancy found further opportunities for expansion as the dar al-Islam (Place of Islam) was required to war against the kuffar (the unbelievers) in the bordering dar al-Harb (Place of War). Eventually by the 10th century, through the brutal and dehumanizing process of dhimmitude in the occupied territories and conversion of warlike tribes such as the Seljuq Turks who found Islam complementary to both their own tribal warrior culture and the imperialistic legacy of the Persian empire they would eventually subsume, the larger non-Islamic populations residing in the Caliphate’s fringes eventually converted to Islam and the precursor to the modern Islamic world had been established. Following the advent of the nation-state with the dawn of the modern era, the boundaries between Islam and Europe, and later between Islam and Asia, had been fixed.

The Ottoman Empire from 1300-1683. Click here to enlarge.

Today, in the 21st century, the principle sources of conflict for Islam are essentially due to Islamic colonialism as countries that have seen a large influx of Islamic immigrants (almost every European country) or that have indigenous Islamic minorities (India, Russia, Thailand, and China) are experiencing civil strife or war due to their Muslim populations’ demands for autonomy or independence. While the 1400 year jihad by those Muslims residing in or adjacent to the dar al-Harb is, to the amazement of multiculturalists and liberals throughout the West, the fulfillment of a main tenet of Islam, it is nonetheless becoming increasingly difficult for Islam to maintain its dark age ethos in an increasingly globalized age.

Decline of the Ottoman Empire after 1683. This map shows the period of its most precipitous collapse between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Click here to enlarge.

So what does the Pew Report’s findings mean? In the short term, it thematically confirms what historians have always known: that while Islam’s heart is in Arab Mecca and Medina, it’s muscle is in non-Arab countries far away from the spiritual center of Islam. This  means that India, Russia, and China will have to deal with increasingly aggressive Muslim populations on as well as within their borders. This also means that Afpakistan has now become the most important war for the West since World War II and the curtailment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions the most significant goal of international diplomacy since the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If NATO fails in Afpakistan and the West acquiesces to Iran’s nuclear desires, the catastrophic results will most likely be an emboldened Islamist movement spreading throughout Asia…armed with nuclear weapons.

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