NRC HANDELSBLAD INT'L: Churches in the Netherlands have been emptying out for some time, but a new study shows that mosque attendance too is declining.
The number of Dutch Muslims who go to mosque at least once a month has dropped by 12 percent from 47 percent ten years ago to 35 percent today.
That is the conclusion of a report, Religion at the beginning of the 21st century, published on Wednesday by the Dutch statistics office CBS. The report is a follow-up to a 2001 study about religion in the Netherlands in the 20th century. It also shows that - contrary to popular belief - the number of Muslims in the Netherlands has not grown in the past few years.
According to the latest statistics there were about 825,000 Muslims living in the Netherlands in the 2007-2008 period. Over the last four years the number of Muslims has remained more or less the same. About 45 percent of all non-Western immigrants in the Netherlands are Muslim. Compared to 1999, Islam has grown from 3 to 4 percent of believers.
The decline in mosque attendance is part of a general trend in the Netherlands. A 2006 report by the Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (Scientific council for government policy) already noted that church attendance was down, even as people were still describing themselves as believers. >>> News Staff | Wednesday, July 29, 2009
