# Muslim Populations and Inbreeding **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 17, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042 "2016-05-17T22:42:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/1 "2016-05-17T22:42:02Z")
I’m not really sure what the appropriate forum is for this, I’m asking questions but there is also room for speculation. In a lot of the countries where the majority of the population is Muslim, it seems there is a lot of inbreeding/consanguinity going on. It makes sense to an extent when you look at the culture. In a lot of these countries the men are almost not even allowed to look at a woman who is not in their immediate family and these women are covered up. There is a tradition of marrying first cousins in these populations but this seems to happen over and over again throughout the preceding generations leading to heavy inbreeding and associated medical disorders such as deformity and mental retardation and illness. Even Muslims that have moved from their country of origin remain insular and don’t marry outside their small enclave and appear to keep “keeping it in the family” so to speak. From the BBC > [@](#): > > The BBC’s research also discovered that while British Pakistanis accounted for just 3.4% of all births in Britain, they accounted for 30% of all British children with recessive disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality. This website isn’t a professional news site but I’ve found similar statistics on other websites: [http://pickeringpost.com/story/the-cost-of-islamic-incest/1316](http://pickeringpost.com/story/the-cost-of-islamic-incest/1316) I’m trying to keep this thread from turning into a Muslim bashing one and keep it focused on facts. I’ve tried to research the numbers online without finding slanted or bigoted websites. According to a Danish Psychologist, half of the world’s Muslims are inbred, and some countries have way higher rates: For instance according to this link, the Population of Pakistan is 70% inbred, that seems an incredible rate for a country whose population is over 182 Million. [http://www.dcclothesline.com/2015/07/18/half-of-worlds-muslims-are-inbred-due-to-generations-of-incest/](http://www.dcclothesline.com/2015/07/18/half-of-worlds-muslims-are-inbred-due-to-generations-of-incest/) Honestly I’m kind of surprised this subject hasn’t been brought up in the news more often, I tried to find stories about it on CNN and couldn’t find anything. Are these statistics accurate? I’m not sure what metric or threshold is used to determine the extent of this inbreeding. Is there going to be any attempts to prevent this problem from escalating in the future, it seems surprising that the media has not covered this issue more. Are these people just going to inbreed themselves into oblivion? It seems this issue could be helped if these immigrants assimilated more and intermarried with the populations of the countries they become citizens of instead of remaining so isolated. I’ve also seen where in Iceland they’ve used technology to counter people marrying and having children with people who could be related to them, as they have a very small population at only around 300,000 and thus a small genetic pool to draw from. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/2 "2016-05-17T22:56:49Z")
Yup, you’re just asking questions. Got it. I think to have an actual discussion of the matter, you need to find better sources than a racist pseudo-psychologist and a few anti-Islamic hate sites. Maybe there’s a reason that legitimate scientists aren’t reporting these “facts”. Instead of asking us to prove that these statistics are wrong, why don’t you provide some proof that they are accurate. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/3 "2016-05-17T23:10:44Z")
> [@pool](#): > > In a lot of these countries the men are almost not even allowed to look at a woman who is not in their immediate family and these women are covered up. Not true in the countries responsible for most of the immigration. > [@](#): > > There is a tradition of marrying first cousins in these populations but this seems to happen over and over again throughout the preceding generations leading to heavy inbreeding and associated medical disorders such as deformity and mental retardation and illness. Even doubling a very low chance is still a very low chance. > [@](#): > > This website isn’t a professional news site but I’ve found similar statistics on other websites: Then perhaps ask whether it is the best place to cite, and if you have found more credible websites that say “similar,” cite those instead. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/4 "2016-05-17T23:21:49Z")
I posted a summary of consanguineous (first/second cousin) marriage rates by country here: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16944273&postcount=83](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16944273&postcount=83) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/5 "2016-05-17T23:41:13Z")
Is the BBC not a legitimate news source? They report similar findings: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4442010.stm) ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/6 "2016-05-18T00:10:50Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Is there going to be any attempts to prevent this problem from escalating in the future, it seems surprising that the media has not covered this issue more. Are these people just going to inbreed themselves into oblivion? We should just note that from a population genetic perspective this concern of escalation and “oblivion” is not warranted. The death or infertility of inbred offspring actually improves the average genetic quality of the remaining population by exposing the recessive defective copies of genes to natural selection and removing them from the gene pool. Just to be clear - I’m not for a moment saying that inbreeding is a good idea. Of course, the fate of the afflicted children far outweighs any other factor here. But any notion that this will somehow escalate, cause harm to anyone other than the afflicted children, or lead to some problem with the entire population’s genes, is completely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/7 "2016-05-18T01:36:04Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > We should just note that from a population genetic perspective this concern of escalation and “oblivion” is not warranted. The death or infertility of inbred offspring actually improves the average genetic quality of the remaining population by exposing the recessive defective copies of genes to natural selection and removing them from the gene pool. Not really, since other cousins will still have them - just not expressed, or not as heavily expressed. Neither I nor my mother have light eyes, but we have genes for light eyes (as proved by my father and one of my brothers). ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/8 "2016-05-18T02:07:47Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Not really, since other cousins will still have them - just not expressed, or not as heavily expressed. Neither I nor my mother have light eyes, but we have genes for light eyes (as proved by my father and one of my brothers). I didn’t mean to imply that _all_ copies of defective genes were removed. But the proportionate number of copies of the defective gene in the population is reduced by the death or infertility of the child that’s homozygous for the recessive defect. If inbred offspring are killed by natural selection (or have no offspring themselves), while the overall population remains the same size, fewer defective alleles remain in the population. This is, in population genetic terms, the very definition of evolution by natural selection. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/9 "2016-05-18T14:54:52Z")
For the most part, disappointing responses thus far, I’m going to bump this. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/10 "2016-05-18T14:57:27Z")
> [@pool](#): > > For the most part, disappointing responses thus far, I’m going to bump this. What were you hoping for? ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/11 "2016-05-18T15:03:08Z")
To know whether these statistics are accurate, and if they are how significant a problem it will create in the future, and how it should be addressed. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/12 "2016-05-18T15:04:41Z")
Dr. Eowyn? Did she consult with Dr. Borimir before publishing? Those statistics sound suspicious. I didn’t see a definition of “inbred”. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/13 "2016-05-18T15:25:16Z")
If you insist, I’ll offer two relatively ignorant comments: (1) Sorting the linked table by percent, it does seem there is a strong correlation between Islam and inbreeding. Exceptions include Sri Lanka, India, Portugal with more inbreeding than the Muslim portion would suggest; and Malaysia, with low inbreeding despite Islam. (2) Many webpages can be found discussing that pedigrees of pure-bred dogs should be studied before mating. First cousin is the closest kinship considered acceptable for mates. (Double cousins would be unacceptable.) Note that inbreeding accumulation is only a minor problem — the fact that grandparents and gt-grandparents themselves result from cousin marriage increases the “inbreeding coefficient” only slightly. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/14 "2016-05-18T15:34:41Z")
> [@pool](#): > > To know whether these statistics are accurate, and if they are how significant a problem it will create in the future, and how it should be addressed. I think you have the notion that inbreeding increases the proportion of bad alleles in the population. And pretty soon, since everyone is inbred, everyone will have horrible genetic diseases, and they’ll all die. But inbreeding doesn’t increase the proportion of bad alleles in the population, it just increases the chance that you’ll get two copies of the same bad allele. But drastically increasing your odds of being homozygous for a bad allele isn’t that big a problem if the odds are very low in the first place. If the average person has a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting a genetic disease, and your risk factor is 10 times higher, that’s still only 1 in 100. It isn’t like you have cousins marrying cousins who have children and those cousins only marry their cousins who have children and those cousins marry their cousins. In amount of inbreeding might be greater, but it isn’t like every family is an isolated population. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/15 "2016-05-18T16:59:21Z")
> [@pool](#): > > According to a Danish Psychologist, half of the world’s Muslims are inbred OK, let’s start here then. How did this Danish psychologist reach this conclusion, and what does he base it on? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/16 "2016-05-18T17:12:15Z")
Second cousin marriages are IIRC pretty much the same in having genetic risk as unrelated marriages. In smaller rural communities and in immigrant ones which don’t marry outsiders basically anyone you marry would be a second or third cousin. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/17 "2016-05-18T17:12:26Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But inbreeding doesn’t increase the proportion of bad alleles in the population, it just increases the chance that you’ll get two copies of the same bad allele. To clarify, in case this is misunderstood: it increases the chance that _an inbred individual_ will be homozygous for the bad allele. There is no negative effect for the population as a whole, and the problem vanishes immediately if the practice of inbreeding stops at any time in the future. So, if the phenomenon is real, it is a tragedy limited to the afflicted children themselves. Any notion that this is “polluting the gene pool” or causing any genetic problems whatsoever for anyone else now or in the future is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/18 "2016-05-18T17:13:12Z")
I suspect the issue here is not so much religion as the concentration of some immigrant populations from relatively small rural areas in, particularly, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where family coherence and alliances remain important, much as used to happen over the centuries in other cultures. It will probably decline as an issue as children become more westernised and self-assertive, as in other immigrant communities, and in the wider population around them. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/19 "2016-05-18T17:28:28Z")
I don’t know. I remember one study stated that the rates of cousin marriage was higher in emigrant communities, both ones who went overseas and internal migrant than in the same group in their native lands. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042/20 "2016-05-18T17:32:42Z")
How widespread are the bad alleles in the Pakistani population (or the Pakistani immigrant population) in the first place? If they are very prevalent, then your fourth- and fifth-cousins may be as likely to have them as your first cousins anyway. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-populations-and-inbreeding/755042.md?page=2)