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Saudi Arabia calls for moon-sighting ahead of Eid Al Adha 2025

Saudi Arabia calls for moon-sighting ahead of Eid Al Adha 2025

Saudi Arabia has called on people in the Kingdom to look out for and report sightings of the new crescent moon on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court has called upon Muslims across the Kingdom to sight the crescent moon of Dhu al-Hijjah on Tuesday evening, Dhu al-Qi'dah 29, 1446 AH.
The Supreme Court urged anyone who sights the crescent moon with the naked eye or through binoculars to promptly report to the nearest court and submit their testimony.
Saudi Arabia Eid Al Adha 2025

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Islam is world's fastest-growing religion, new Pew study finds
Islam is world's fastest-growing religion, new Pew study finds

Middle East Eye

time5 hours ago

  • Middle East Eye

Islam is world's fastest-growing religion, new Pew study finds

The number of Muslims grew more than all other religions combined, making Islam the fastest-growing religion over the decade between 2010 and 2020, a new study by the Pew Research Center has found. Pew's Global Religious Landscape study, released on Monday, attributed the growth of Islam to natural demographic growth. It also concluded that at the global level, Muslim population change had "little to do with people converting into or out of the faith". "Muslims have more children and are younger, on average, than members of any other major religion," the study said. "Based on data for the 2015-2020 period, we estimated a Muslim woman would have 2.9 children, on average, in her lifetime, compared with 2.2 children per non-Muslim woman," the report added. The study, which examined how global religious composition changed between 2010 and 2020, concluded that while Christianity remained the world's largest religion, comprising 2.3 billion people, the gap between the proponents of Islam and Christianity continued to shrink. According to the study, the world's Christian population decreased by about 1.8 percent since 2010. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Regional changes The increase in the number of Muslims in the world was concentrated primarily in Muslim-majority countries. Islam saw the largest growth relative to other religions in Kazakhstan, Benin, and Lebanon, while the share of Muslims in Oman and Tanzania decreased. The quiet migration: Why Muslims are leaving India in staggering numbers Read More » The percentage of religiously unaffiliated people grew particularly steeply in the US, with an increase of 97 percent from 2010. The majority of religiously unaffiliated people live in China, where 1.3 billion people are not affiliated with any religion. Pew's analysis found that Christians were still a majority in 60 percent of all countries and territories surveyed. However, Christianity decreased by at least five percent in 40 countries, while only significantly increasing in one. Pew attributed part of this decline to people leaving Christianity, by measuring the number of adults who changed their religion to one different than the one they were raised in. Between 2010 and 2020, for every one adult that joined Christianity, three left. For the religiously unaffiliated, the opposite was true. For every one adult who stopped being unaffiliated religiously, three more became religiously unaffiliated. Both Buddhism and Hinduism also saw more adults leave their religion than join it. Islam was the only religion where more adults joined than left. The growth of Islam Islam is the world's second-largest religion, with around two billion people, or around a quarter of the world's population. It grew by nearly 350 million people since 2010, almost three times as much as Christianity and more than all other religions combined. There are also nearly two billion religiously unaffiliated people, an increase of 270 million people since 2010. They were the only category, along with Muslims, to grow relative to other religions as a share of the world's population. Hinduism, the world's third-largest religion, with 1.2 billion people, grew by 126 million people. However, its percentage of the world's population remained unchanged. The number of people belonging to other religions, such as Sikhism and Baha'i, grew to around 200 million people, or 2.2 percent of the world's population. Judaism grew by nearly a million people, and remained around 0.2 percent of the world's population. Buddhism was the only major religion to have fewer people in 2010 than in 2020, with a decrease of 18.6 million people. It fell from around five percent to four percent of the world's population.

'A positive step': School principals, parents hail new Abu Dhabi policy of teaching Arabic in nurseries
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First recorded sighting of fish species in Abu Dhabi hailed as 'biodiversity milestone'
First recorded sighting of fish species in Abu Dhabi hailed as 'biodiversity milestone'

The National

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First recorded sighting of fish species in Abu Dhabi hailed as 'biodiversity milestone'

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Additional sightings have also been made recently of rare species such as the large-scaled triggerfish and the spotted oceanic triggerfish. The sightings came as the EAD also reported an increase in the 'sustainable fisheries index', which measures how healthy fish populations are and how well fishing practices are helping them stay that way. It reached 97.4 per cent by the end of last year – up from just 8.9 per cent in 2018. The EAD said this means nearly all of the 'assessed fish stocks in Abu Dhabi are now being fished at sustainable levels'. 'In other words, they are no longer being overfished and have a good chance to recover naturally,' the EAD said. 'This is a major improvement from 2018, when only 8.9 per cent of stocks were within safe limits.' The development comes as Abu Dhabi continues its efforts to bolster sustainability of the emirate's seas and indicate healthier marine ecosystems as the world marked World Oceans Day on Sunday. 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The gathering seeks to build momentum and money for marine conservation despite the world's seas being affected by pollution, mining, overfishing and other issues. At home, authorities have made concerted efforts over the past few years to ensure the recovery of fish stocks and put the emirate on a path to sustainability. These measures include regulating commercial fishing activities through sustainable methods, as well as implementing new regulations for recreational fishing. There are six marine reserves in Abu Dhabi, for example. In 2019 gargoor, traditional metal dome-shaped traps used by fishermen, were banned in Abu Dhabi following a study that showed declines in hammour and farsh. These efforts have continued since. The EAD in May unveiled a plan to plant millions of coral colonies by 2030. The project builds on the success of restoring one million coral colonies since 2021. 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