Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Religion Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| monolinguals | Persons speaking or understanding only one language, namely their mother tongue. |
| monoreligion | An ethnoreligion restricted in membership to one culture or people. |
| moribund microreligion | A very small organized local religion, rapidly declining, with under 100 adherents. |
| Mormons | Followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and its over 90 schismatic bodies. |
| mosque | (Arabic, masjid). A Muslim place of public religious worship. |
| mother tongue | Main language of a person’s home or childhood; the first language spoken in an individual’s home in his early or earliest childhood; one’s first language or native language. |
| mullah | Among Persians, Pakistanis and North Indians, a Muslim religious practitioner or cleric. |
| multi-counted | Religionists who are counted as adherents by several separate religions, requiring care to avoid overestimation in statistical totals. |
| multilinguals | Persons speaking or using or understanding, or fluent in, more than 2 distinct languages. |
| multimillionaire | An individual worth many tens of millions of USA dollars. |
| multiple_languages | Whether multiple languages were offered to survey participant. |
| multiple-counted religionists | Persons counted as belonging to , or part of, or regarded as in, more than 2 distinct religions. |
| Muslim religious orders | In Arabic, tariqa (qv). |
| Muslims | Followers of Islam, in two primary branches: (a) Sunni; and (b) Shia. Other, significantly smaller, branches include Kharijite, Sanusi, Mahdiya, Ahmadiya, Druzes, and Sabbateans. |
| mysticism | The experience of mystical union or direct communion with God; the doctrine or belief that direct communion with God is attainable. |
| myth | A traditional story explaining some practice, belief, institution or natural phenomenon, parable, allegory, legend, saga, fable. |
| mythology | The myths dealing with gods and demigods of a particular people. |
| Nasoreans | Mandaeans (qv). |
| nation | A politically-organized nationality with independent, self-governing, autonomous existence as a sovereign country or nation-state, hence eligible for membership in the United Nations. |
| native language | Mother tongue (qv). |
| nativistic movement | Among tribal or primitive peoples, a movement advocating or advancing the perpetuation or reestablishment of native culture traits and a concomitant restriction or removal of foreign culture elements often accompanied by a strong messianic or ceremonial cult. |
| natural increase | Births in a population minus deaths within a fixed period, usually one year. Sometimes a figure for net immigration is added. |
| neo-Buddhist | Relating to a new or recent Buddhist sect or movement. |
| neo-Hindus | Followers of new or recent Hindu sects, offshoots, or movements, including Divine Light Mission. |
| neologism | Any new word, or new meaning for an established word, with particular reference to explanation of religion, religions, and religious phenomena. |
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