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 ==Voluntary Muslims== 
 this discussion has been moved here from the Talk:Islam page: 

 This article includes multiple estimates of how many Muslims there are worldwide.  What I've never seen  but would like to see  is the number of Muslims who are free to follow another religion, or none, without being punished by the government of the country in which they live. 

 A transparent and fair method of deriving this figure would be to use a country-by-country breakdown of Muslims and then add the numbers who live in countries which allow religious freedom.  This, of course, requires determining which countries permit religious freedom and which do not.  The US State Dept. produces an annual report on the matter: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/ 

 It seems to me spurious to count every citizen as a devotee of a religion in countries where the person would be killed or jailed for pursuing anything else.  We know every Iranian is a Muslim; we don't know how many Iranian Muslims there would be if Iranians were not forced to follow Islam.  The situation cries for context.  One short sentence would provide it: ""Approximately X number Muslims [or X% of Muslims] live in countries where they are legally free to choose another belief system."" 

   Alyoshevna 

 Not every iranian is muslim, in fact I think the number is 90%. also, this would be more appropreate in the critisisms on islam article. it seems very much to me to be a sneeky way to bash islam. saying ""islam would have waaay less folowers if they had any choice in the matter!"" is hardly NPOV. it's like including a note in the article on atheism that some countries force you to be atheist.   

 I was not accurate about Iran.  The figure from the State Dept. report is that Iran is 97% Muslin.  It also states, ""The Government restricts freedom of religion. The Constitution declares the 'official religion of Iran is Islam and the doctrine followed is that of Ja'fari (Twelver) Shi'ism.' All laws and regulations must be consistent with the official interpretation of the Shari'a (Islamic law). The Constitution states that 'within the limits of the law,' Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians are the only recognized religious minorities who are guaranteed freedom to practice their religion; however, members of these recognized minority religious groups have reported imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on their religious beliefs. Adherents of religions not recognized by the Constitution do not enjoy freedom to practice their beliefs.""  It also says, ""In December 2003, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 58/195 on the human rights situation in the country that expressed serious concern about the continued discrimination against religious minorities by the Government. In the fall of 2004, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Iran.""  I wouldn't call Iran a country with freedom of religion. 

 The figure representing Muslims who have a choice would not be ""a sneaky way to bash Islam"" any more than figures on religious participation in the Soviet Union are ""a sneaky way to bash religion.""  It is fact that the USSR had atheism as its official policy and suppressed religious expression.  In that context, religious participation was unsurprisingly low.  The number of Muslims who would suffer no ill treatment for changing their beliefs is similarly a fact, at least, one that can be reasonably approximated (as religious participation in the USSR is).  To cite the fact is not to disparage the faith of Muslims in countries like Iran but to give a clear-eyed reckoning of the very different political contexts in which Islam exists.   

 :That would indeed be an interesting statistic. But I'm afraid if we actually tried to pin down exact numbers we'd end up in endless debates as to whether a country has religious freedom or not. After all, what do you do if the rights are there on paper, but aren't really enforced? And just because it might be illegal in certain countries to be anything but Muslim, that doesn't mean that a lot of the population wouldn't also choose Islam if it were a true option. So it'll probably be pretty much impossible to get any real numbers. 
 :But a brief disclaimer - that not everybody counted as a Muslim has the option not to be one - might be appropriate.   

 This would probably be original research too.    

 :Adding numbers that come from reputable sources is not Original Research: ""[[Wikipedia:No_orig