Islam vs Cell Phones: Down 25% In 10 Years

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins examine the rapid secularization underway in many Muslim-majority countries—often at a faster proportional rate than Christianity’s decline in the West. They walk through Arab Barometer and related data showing sharp rises in secular identification from 2012–2019 in Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt, followed by a partial rebound in the early 2020s.

The conversation covers declining trust in Islamist parties (Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, Justice and Development Party), sub-replacement fertility across much of the region, and existential water scarcity in Egypt and Iran. They then dig into the drivers of deconversion: smartphone access to historical sources, the Islamic slave trade’s scale and character, Muhammad’s documented ownership of slaves (including Black slaves), Aisha’s age in the hadith literature, key Quranic verses on women, violence, sexual slavery, apostasy, and internal inconsistencies.

Malcolm ranks the most common reasons people report leaving Islam, notes the heavy influence of modern egalitarian (“urban monoculture”) values, and offers a Techno-Puritan perspective on whether the tradition can be reconciled with reality-affirming religion. Simone adds her view on the ethical implications. The discussion is candid, data-driven, and frequently interrupted by family life.

Based_Camp_-_Islam_Shiftsmp4 (1)

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Simone, I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a fascinating phenomenon, which is the collapse of Islam- Hmm ... in the Muslim world. And a lot of people are unaware that Islam has had as, as bad of a time as Christianity has had in the West.

[00:00:21] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:00:21] Malcolm Collins: it’s taken a beating.

[00:00:21] At least proportionally, Islam is having a worse time in Muslim majority countries- Is it

[00:00:29] Simone Collins: really? ...

[00:00:30] Malcolm Collins: in terms of the speed of the collapse. So if you go from 2012 to 2014, all right?

[00:00:38] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:00:39] Malcolm Collins: In Tunisia, you had 22% of people were secular. If you go to 2018 to 2019, so this is just less than a decade... Yeah, le- about...

[00:00:52] What is it? Yeah, less than a decade later, it jumped up to 46%.

[00:00:56] Speaker 3: Huh, huh.

[00:00:57] Malcolm Collins: Okay. 22% to 46%. If you go to Libya, it’s 18% in the 2012 to 2014. Okay. 2018 to ‘19, it goes from 18% to 36%. Algeria, it goes from 13% to 24%. Morocco, it went from 4% to 22%. Stop. And in Egypt, it went from 3% to 18%. Now, I want people to understand that these are countries where you can be killed for deconverting from Islam.

[00:01:32] Simone Collins: And- In... Wait, in which of these countries is that ki- like, in, in... ‘Cause I thought, like, caliphates only really existed in, at roughly, like... Okay, this is my uneducated, super unedu- it... I wanna say, I wanna say, like, Afghanistan and Iran Right? Like- Okay,

[00:01:48] Malcolm Collins: countries that will kill you legally, not mob justice. In these other countries it can be mob justice.

[00:01:53] But legally- But like ruled

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: by Sharia law.

[00:01:55] Malcolm Collins: Like- It’s the death penalty in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, the Maldives, Brunei, and some parts of Nigeria, and certain states in Malaysia.

[00:02:08] Simone Collins: For what? For proselytizing Christianity or just being an unbeliever?

[00:02:10] Malcolm Collins: No,

[00:02:11] Simone Collins: for

[00:02:11] Malcolm Collins: deconverting.

[00:02:13] Simone Collins: How... How do they track that? And keep in mind,

[00:02:16] Malcolm Collins: Iran appears to have a massive secular population now-

[00:02:19] Simone Collins: Yeah. No, that- ... even

[00:02:20] Malcolm Collins: though it’s the

[00:02:20] Simone Collins: death

[00:02:21] Malcolm Collins: penalty ... Oh, it’s,

[00:02:22] Simone Collins: So wait, so like everyone like goes to the mosque regularly? Like how do they track... I mean, I’m just trying to figure out like how you make a case for having someone-

[00:02:32] Malcolm Collins: The p- the point I’m making here is the numbers are almost certainly worse.

[00:02:35] Now, what is interesting is many of these places many of these places have had a a boost post this happening.

[00:02:44] Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Where did I, where did I post the, I’ll have to open it

[00:02:47] Simone Collins: in Chrome again. Wait, did you get kicked again by a ghost? What, what, what was...

[00:02:50] Malcolm Collins: No, something fell over.

[00:02:52] Simone Collins: Wait. Shut up Was it a ghost?

[00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: Was it

[00:02:55] Simone Collins: a ghost? I’m so excited for ghosties. Ghosties. Spooky. Or... Oh, no, I should say jinn, because << this is our Islamic episode, so instead of ghosties, it’s jinn >>. Jinn, jinn, jinn, jinn. So, if

[00:03:11] Malcolm Collins: we look at wave three, we’ve seen a bit of a reduction. So 2021 to 2022. What is wave three?

[00:03:16] Simone Collins: What...

[00:03:17] Malcolm Collins: Oh. So if you go to Tunisia, it’s to 31% now.

[00:03:21] If, if you go to Libya, it’s 24% now. You s- also saw a five-point drop in Algeria, a seven-point drop in Morocco, and a six-point drop in Egypt. So you-

[00:03:34] Simone Collins: A drop in the number of atheists, in the percentage

[00:03:36] Malcolm Collins: of atheists. A drop in the number of atheists. So you’ve had a

[00:03:39] Simone Collins: slight drop- Wait, and over what year, over what year period, Malcolm?

[00:03:42] Malcolm Collins: This is 2018 to ‘21, 2021 to 2020, so a fairly short time. Mm-hmm. So basically you had a big wave out, and a small wave back in, and we’ll see where the net is. But it’s worse than that, because you also have the problem of low [00:04:00] support of Islamic parties. So, If we look at the various things here, like the Egyptian Brotherhood, sorry, the, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

[00:04:10] Mm-hmm. In 2011, it had a trust rate of 44%. By 2018 to ‘19, it had a trust rate of only 17%. In the Tunisia, the Ennahda had a decline of 24 points since 2011, roughly down from a 40% range. And now with one detailed team survey showing it being at only 11 to 16% now. Wow. And in Morocco, the Justice and Development, the main Islamic party, went from 44% in 2013 to 25% in 2019.

[00:04:42] A 20-point decline were reported for Muslim Brotherhood, Brotherhood groups in Jordan and Morocco as well. So You are basically seeing a lower degree of trust in the institutions that were meant to bring sort of Islam to everyone. And on top of all of this, we’re seeing fairly low fertility rates or extremely low fertility rates for the poverty in these regions across these regions as well.

[00:05:11] Generally below the United States fertility rate. So Tunisia has a fertility rate of 1.53 to 1.58. Iran has a fertility rate of 1.6. Saudi Arabia has a fertility rate