Blogging Religiously

Assimilated, happy and moderate.

That’s how the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life describes Muslim Americans, based on a “new study”:http://pewforum.org/surveys/muslim-american/ that Pew says is the first-ever nationwide, random survey of the Muslim community.

According to the survey: 51 percent of Muslims say they are “very concerned” about Islamic extremism in the world; 63 percent do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society; 62 percent say that life is better for women in the U.S. than in Muslim countries; and 71 percent agree that people who work hard can get ahead in the U.S.

I’ve only read a summary of the study, and not the study itself (it’s just out this morning). But one strange and unsettling finding is that only 40 percent of Muslim Americans say that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks. I’ll have to look deeper into this point.

Pew says that it conducted “more than 55,000 interviews to obtain a national sample of 1,050 Muslims living in the United States.” Interviews were conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu.

One very interesting point: Estimates of the number of Muslims in the U.S. vary widely. I’ve seen everything from 1 million to 7 million. Pew says that the total Muslim population is about 2.35 million, which rings true to me.

About two-thirds of Muslim Americans were born elsewhere. About 20 percent of all Muslims are African-American.

Fifty-three percent say that life has gotten harder for Muslims since 9/11. No surprise there.

I’m printing out the study and will read it as soon as I can find an hour.

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