Talk:Islam in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Conflicting statistics

There have long been inconsistencies in the perceived percentage of muslims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The statistic in the CIA world factbook has been doubted by just about everyone. As someone who has lived in the Congo and subsequently visited lots of times, I would comment as follows. In the provinces, there is hardly a noticeable Muslim presence. In Kinshasa, the capital city, there is a mosque on the Blvd 30 juin which is well established. There are one or two smaller mosques which are recent and reflect the businesses run by Lebanese businessmen. If there was a presence of 10% in Kinshasa, it would be more evident ... more mosques, Islamic dress, etc. Given, therefore, that it is nowhere near 10% in Kinshasa, and that it is at a negligible level in the provinces, it cannot possibly be 10% for the whole country. The people of Maniema, carry Islamic names - but are not Muslim ... they are Christian. The names are part of a tradition from the time of Tipu Tip, but do not reflect the religion of the people. I admit that I don't know the religious make-up of the extreme east of the country - except from the people I have met from there ... and they were Christian. All in all, there is no possibility of 10% ofthe population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo being Muslim. My experience points firmly in the direction of the Pew Foundation's statistics, of 1.5%. Francis Hannaway (talk) 17:55, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I've re-written this article since the comment but I think it's worth adding that we need to work with the data from WP:RS only.—Brigade Piron (talk) 09:40, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The statistics are still conflicting. In the article "Christianity in the Democratic Republic of Congo" the same source says 95.7% are Christian. How can 12% be Muslim? I have met a lot of people from Maneima who have Muslim names but who are Christian, their names being a legacy of the Tipo Tip era. Kinshasa is quite a melting pot of all Congolese society and perhaps has 0.5% - or 1 in 200. I don't believe there are any parts of the Congo with more than 10% and so probably no more than 5% nationally if that. The French page quotes the Pew Research Centre (Quoted in this article) as 1.5% ... and this is probably more accurate. Francis Hannaway (talk) 20:05, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Our job on Wikipedia is to report the conclusions of published sources, not to try to speculate - that would be original research. In this case, two sources (including a major government and an academic peer-reviewed article) quote the 10% figure so that is the consensus. As for the Pew Center, they are also clearly divided - their own 2012 study (already cited) gave an estimate of 12%. The 1.5% is quoted as a 2007 figure derived from the Demographic and Health Survey - I will add that to the article too, but it clearly doesn't have the acceptance that the 10% figure does.—Brigade Piron (talk) 23:14, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

The US Embassy in Kinshasa cites a figure of 9% here too.—Brigade Piron (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I understand your point about speculation and original research. The problem is a lack of reliable sources. When I wrote the page about the Congolese town of Basankusu there were practically no sources apart from me ... and then \i wasn't allowed to be a source of course. DRC is problematic because of such lack of information. Francis Hannaway (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I sympathise, but there are actually quite a few sources if you can dig deep enough. Whether they're available on the internet is different though! In these cases though, it's better to have an accurate, verifiably-sourced stub than a long, uncited article which the reader doesn't know whether to believe.—Brigade Piron (talk) 20:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC)