The Editor
The Guardian
119 Farringdon Road
London EC1R 3ER
United Kingdom

Dear Sir

You refer to Britain's "3 million Muslims" (Muslim home buyers suffer 'raw deal', October 16). Last month the Muslim Council of Britain held a demographics conference, attended by two leading Muslim social statistics experts, Professor Tariq Modood (Bristol) and Muhammad Anwar (Warwick). Both concur that the figure does not exceed 1.8 million and could be lower. Professor Modood's guestimate in 1997 was 1.32 million. The results of the 2001 census religion question are released in February 2003, together, we hope, not just with cross-tabulations of religion with age, gender and geographical distribution, but also health, education, employment, and housing indicators. These will provide us with the first definitive statistical data on British Muslims and will be immensely useful for the planning and delivery of services.

Dr Aziz Sheikh
MCB Research committee