Inside the Numbers: Muslim America’s $700B in Wealth That Can Be Put to Work
Our first Dhow Dispatch on Muslim American wealth sparked a lot of interest. Many people were surprised by the numbers, and others wanted to see how we got there. This community is both young and growing fast, yet there has never been a serious deep dive into just how much financial power it holds.
Today we’ll walk through the math step by step, explain what it means, and share why this moment is a turning point.
📊 The U.S. Wealth Picture
Let’s start with the national baseline. According to the Federal Reserve:
The average American household is worth about $1 million.
The median household is worth about $193,000.
The key difference: the average gets pulled up by the super wealthy, while the median shows what the “middle” household actually looks like.
Most of that wealth is split between two buckets:
Homes (about 30 percent of total wealth).
Investible assets (about 70 percent) — things like retirement accounts, stocks, small businesses, and savings.
So the average American household has about $580,000 in money that can be invested.
🕌 The Muslim American Snapshot
Now, let’s zoom into Muslim America. Pew and other studies give us the profile:
1 in 4 households makes over $100k per year.
31 percent of Muslim adults have a college degree or higher, right on par with the U.S. average.
The median age is 35, compared to 47 for the overall U.S.
That means the community is younger, well-educated, and earning solid incomes. Add to this a strong culture of saving and business ownership, and you have the building blocks of real wealth.
🚀 Crunching the Numbers
Here’s how we get to the $700B figure:
Estimate household wealth. Given income, age, and education levels, it’s fair to say, using a conservative estimate, that the average Muslim household has around $450,000 in investible wealth (stocks, retirement accounts, savings, and businesses).
Count the households. With about 1.6 million Muslim households in the U.S., that multiplies to roughly $720 billion.
Keep it conservative. We round down to $700 billion to avoid overstating.
Even if we run lower estimates for fewer households or smaller average wealth, the floor is still well above $500 billion.
💡 Why This Matters
Wealth is only powerful if it’s put to work. Right now, much of this money is locked up in traditional places, such as retirement accounts, savings, or businesses. But private markets (startups, real estate, alternative assets) remain mostly out of reach.
For context:
Muslim Americans own a lot of small businesses but often lack access to early-stage investment opportunities.
Investors want to support founders who share their values but don’t have an easy way to find them.
This is the gap Dhow is building to close: creating trusted rails that connect community capital with aligned opportunities.
🔮 What the Future Holds
The future only makes the story stronger.
Population growth: Muslim Americans are projected to grow from 5 million today to 8 million by 2040.
Younger households: At 35, the median age means decades of saving, compounding, and investing are still ahead.
Global tailwinds: Around the world, individual investors are expected to control two-thirds of all wealth by 2030, with trillions flowing into alternative assets. Muslim Americans will be part of this wave.
The combination of growth, youth, and values-driven investing points toward a future where this community’s financial influence is far larger than what we see today.
🧭 The Bottom Line
The $700 billion figure is a conservative snapshot of where Muslim American wealth stands right now. The real story is what comes next: a young, ambitious community that will only become wealthier and more influential in the U.S. economy.
At Dhow, our mission is to make sure that wealth is activated , flowing into the founders, businesses, and opportunities that align with community values. The gap is real. The opportunity is here. The time to build is now.