More than one in 10 Muslims in England and Wales describe themselves as white as the number of conversions to Islam increases, according to the census of 2001. The number of people describing as Muslims in the census, which recorded religion for the first time, comes to a total of 1,546,626 of whom 179,773 claim they are white.
Aziz Sheikh, professor of primary care at Edinburgh University and a British Muslim Council member, expressed surprise at the finding. He said he did not get such sort of feedback. He suggested that many whites, who, claimed to be Muslims could originally be from countries like Turkey, Cyprus, Bosnia and Albania.
The fact is that 63,000 British white recorded their religion as Muslim. The number of conversions estimated by different sources vary. There could be as many as 50,000 but it is said that the figure between 15,000 and 20,000 was more credible.
A series of other surprising figures were thrown up by the Office for National Statistics regarding people's religion by ethnicity. There were 79 Chinese who put down their religion as Sikh and 127 Bangladeshis, 357 Pakistanis and 665 Indians claimed they were Jewish.
The largest religious group was naturally formed by 35,967,798 white Christians, followed by 7,288,207 who claimed to follow no religion. Muslims were the third largest group. Over four million who filled the census formed refused to declare their religion.