A Sobering Report on American Muslims

The Pew Research Center’s summary of its just-released survey of Muslim Americans begins with these reassuring words:

The first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.

Key findings include:

Overall, Muslim Americans have a generally positive view of the larger society. Most say their communities are excellent or good places to live.

A large majority of Muslim Americans believe that hard work pays off in this society. Fully 71% agree that most people who want to get ahead in the United States can make it if they are willing to work hard.

The survey shows that although many Muslims are relative newcomers to the U.S., they are highly assimilated into American society. On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the U.S. should try and adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct from the larger society. And by nearly two-to-one (63%-32%) Muslim Americans do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.

While Pew considers the finding that two-thirds of an estimated 2.35 million Muslim Americans don’t see a conflict between devotion and modernity in a positive light, I find it highly disturbing that about 800,000 of them do see a conflict.

These additional poll results make for sobering reading:

• While nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely. That sentiment is strongest among those younger than 30. Two percent of them say it can often be justified, 13 percent say sometimes and 11 percent say rarely. About 300,000 Muslim Americans aren’t totally unsympathetic to suicide bombings.

• Five percent expressed favorable views of al-Qaeda, though about a fourth did not express an opinion. This suggests there is a reservoir of over 100,000 potential terrorist recruits.

• Three of four (1.8 million) believe that the U.S. war on terrorism is not a sincere attempt to curtail international terror, and just 40 percent (over 900,000) believe Arab men carried out the 9/11 attacks.

• Eighty-five percent (2 million) say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third (800,000) say the same about Afghanistan.

• Sixty percent (more than 900,000) are concerned about a rise in Islamic extremism in the U.S., while three in four (in excess of 1.7 million) expressed similar worries about extremism around the world.

The full report is available here. After reading it, I may have more to say.