Religion in Eritrea consists of a number of faiths. The two major religions in Eritrea are Christianity and Islam. However, the number of adherents of each faith is subject to debate. Estimates of the Christian share of the population range from 47% and 63%, while estimates of the Muslim share of the population range from 37% to 52%.
Most Eritrean Christians belong to the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, although a minority is affiliated with the Eritrean Catholic Church and various Protestant denominations, respectively. Eritrean Muslims are predominantly Sunni.
Apart from the officially recognized denominations of Christianity and Sunni Islam, all other faiths and denominations are in principle required to undergo a registration process; in practice they are not allowed to register. Among other things, the government's registration system requires religious groups to submit personal information on their membership to be allowed to worship.
Faiths and denominations
There are two major religions in Eritrea: Christianity (four denominations) and Islam (only the Sunni school). However, the number of adherents is subject to debate.
In the 2010 Eritrea Population and Health Survey, conducted by the Eritrean National Statistics Office and the Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies, 61.4% of all survey respondents reported being Christian (56.3% Orthodox, 4.2% Catholic, and 0.8% Protestant), with 38.4% reporting being Muslim, and the remaining 0.2% adhering to traditional faiths. Among women, who made up 87.6% of those surveyed, 60.7% reported being Christian and 39.0% Muslim. In a similar survey of Eritrean women conducted in 2002, 63.0% reported being Christian (57.8% Orthodox, 4.6% Catholic, and 0.7% Protestant), with 36.6% reporting being Muslim. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that, by 2020, 62.9% of the population would be Christian, while 36.6% would be Muslim, with the rest following other religions. Pew based its estimate of Eritrea's religious composition on the 2002 survey referenced above. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2021 annual report states that the country's population is "split in half between Christians (49 percent) and Muslims (49 percent)". In a 2016 report by Aid to the Church in Need, that organization estimated around 50 percent of Eritrea's population adhered to Islam, and 48 percent followed Christianity, with all remaining religions accounting for two percent. According to ACS-Italia estimate, around 52% of Eritrea's population in 2017 adhered to Islam, and 46% followed Christianity, with the remaining 2% of residents practicing other religions, including traditional faiths and animism. The 2011 edition of the Encyclopedia of Global Religion matches the Pew Research Center estimate of 63% Christian, breaking it down further to: 58% Orthodox; 5% Roman Catholic; and less than 1% Protestant. That report further analyzed the regional distribution within Eritrea:
History of religion in Eritrea
The Kingdom of Aksum, covering much of modern-day Eritrea and the Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia, arose somewhere around the first or second centuries. The Aksumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. Over 200 years after the kingdom's formation, it adopted Christianity under King Ezana. Eritrea was also one of the first Islamic settlements in Africa, as a group of Muslims facing persecution in Mecca migrated to the Kingdom of Aksum. Islam spread to Ethiopia and Eritrea around 615 AD with the arrival of Uthman ibn Affan, one of the Sahabah (companions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Uthman had been driven out of Hejaz and found shelter at Axum in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia under the protection of the Axumite king, Aṣḥama ibn Abjar.
Another great power came in the person of the Imam of Harar in Ethiopia, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, also known as Ahmad Gurey or Gragn. Al-Ghazi led Muslim forces consisting of Somali, Harari, Oromo, Afar, Saho, Argobba, Hadiya, Silte and Gurage soldiers from present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia. In 1530 he began to attack the plateau. Within four years he laid waste to the majority of the Christian highlands, including the Tigray Region of Ethiopia and Eritrea. He converted hundreds of thousands of Christians to Islam by force. Only by surrender and conversion could people save their lives. Only the intervention of the Portuguese transformed the flow of events. They landed at Massawa in 1541 and helped the Eritreans and Ethiopians to drive the Imams forces from the plateau. The Muslim forces dispersed, retreated and disappeared.
