The National Statistics Office also presents a number of other unexpected data. For example, 79 Chinese stated that they are Sikhs by faith, while 127 Bangladeshis, 357 Pakistanis and 665 Hindus named Judaism as their religion. The number of UK residents who identify themselves as Muslims is 1,546,626, and of these, 179,773 people call themselves 'white' - British, Irish and others.
According to Aziz Sheikh, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, the data on the number of 'white' Muslims surprises him. He believes that the majority of them may come from the Turkish part of Cyprus, Bosnia and Albania. He was particularly surprised by the number of Britons among Muslims.
As Muhammad Anwar, a professor at the University of Warwick, noted, the word 'Briton' itself can be misleading. 'Many Muslims consider themselves British, being immigrants in the second or third generation,' he emphasizes.
Although there has recently been a trend towards an increase in conversions to Islam, the total number of converts remains low. According to Anwar's estimate, of the 180,000 'white' Muslims registered in England and Wales, only 15-20 thousand are converts. 'There is a tendency for the number of conversions to Islam to increase in prisons,' he noted. 'This is similar to what is happening in the US. Converts are often considered better Muslims because they perform rituals very zealously.'
According to representatives of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, there is nothing strange in the census data, since the UK is home to Jews originating from places such as India, Iraq and Yemen. However, at the same time, they do not rule out the possibility that errors could have crept into the census forms.
In terms of religion, the largest group in the UK is Christians (35,967,798 people), followed by atheists (7,288,207), and Muslims in third place. More than four million people refused to state their religion. However, the National Statistics Office does not want to talk about any trends, since the 2001 census asked questions about nationality and religion for the first time.