By Gideon Long

LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) Britain's Muslims are more than twice as likely to be unemployed than followers of other faiths and up to five times as likely to live in overcrowded housing, a major survey has revealed.

Published by the Office of National Statistics, the survey has been hailed as the most detailed snapshot taken of Britain's increasingly diverse population.

For the first time, it analyses the country along its religious as well as its ethnic lines.

Britain's Muslims have come under increasing scrutiny since July last year when four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings in London.

Some critics have urged Muslims to do more to integrate themselves into wider British society and to stamp out Islamist extremism in their midst.

Many Muslims and social commentators say the community's problems stem from poverty and discrimination rather than religious intransigence, and have urged the government to do more to address such issues.

Based on data from the 2001 national census, the 162-page study paints a relatively bleak picture of life for Britain's 1.8 million Muslims, most of whom are ethnic Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.

''Of the different religious groups, unemployment rates among Muslims were more than double those in other groups,'' it found.

Some 17 per cent of Muslim men and 18 percent of Muslim women were unemployed compared to just five per cent of Christian men and four percent of Christian women.

''Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African groups had low levels of participation in the labour market,'' the study found.

''Their high unemployment rates suggest that even when active in the labour market they experienced difficulties finding employment.'' A third of Muslims lived in households which, according to the census definition, were overcrowded, compared to just six percent of Britain's Christians.

Some 44 per cent of ethnic Bangladeshi and 26 per cent of ethnic Pakistani households were deemed to be overcrowded, against an average for the country of seven percent.

In a country of nearly 59 million where home ownership is widespread and regarded as a key measure of wealth, Muslims were less likely to own their own houses than followers of other faiths.

Just over half of Muslim households owned their houses compared to a national average of nearly 70 percent.

REUTERS AKJ HT0902