ABSTRACT

Across the world the Human Immunodefi ciency Virus (HIV) has continued to spread, particularly in Africa, which has the highest prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS in the world (UNAIDS 2006). From the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, researchers noted a lower HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in countries that had a high proportion of Muslims (Drain et al. 2006; McIntosh and Thomas 2004). In his multivariate analysis of 38 sub-Saharan African nations Gray (2004), for example, shows that the percentage of Muslims within countries negatively predicted HIV prevalence. Likewise, in their analysis of over 94 countries McIntosh and Thomas (2004) found that along with Orthodox Christian nations, predominantly Muslim nations had a lower prevalence of HIV/AIDS.