The Truth About Muslims in America

by Jeanna Bryner

Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, but if he were of the latter faith, more than half of all Americans would have no idea what that affiliation meant beyond stereotypes, a new study finds.

Like nearly all social groups, Muslim Americans are a diverse group both politically and socially.

While some have tried to clarify Obama's religious affiliation, others have gone further and condemned the negative use of the label Muslim to elicit prejudice and fear.

Most recently, former Secretary of State Colin Powell rebuked the claims that Obama is a Muslim and said, "What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is 'No. That's not America.'"

The new results based partly on national surveys suggest Americans think the Islamic religion is associated with violence and religious extremism, and perhaps even terrorism. Along with these negative views, which have spurred a general fear of Muslims, seven in 10 Americans admit they know very little about the Islamic religion.

"Clearly, many Americans are convinced Muslim Americans pose some kind of threat to American society," Duke University sociologist Jen'nan Ghazal Read writes in the fall issue of Contexts magazine, published by the American Sociological Association. "Two widespread assumptions fuel these fears. First, that there's only one kind of Islam and one kind of Muslim, both characterized by violence and anti-democratic tendencies. Second, that being a Muslim is the most salient identity for Muslim Americans."

Overall, Muslim Americans are, well, American. They have similar levels of career and educational attainment as the general American public; their political beliefs are just as varied as the general public; and their typical level of religious devotion is on par with that of many other religious groups, the research shows.

Fear of the unknown

The results come from interviews with more than 3,600 Muslim Americans in 2001 and 2004 by the Georgetown University Muslims in the American Public Square (MAPS) project and with 1,050 Muslim Americans in 2007 by the Pew Research Center. Information was also harvested from the General Social Survey run by the University of Chicago. And Read has conducted research for the past 10 years on the economic, political and cultural integration of Muslim and Arab Americans.

Some of the findings include:

- Four in 10 Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam.
- Five in 10 believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence.
- Six in 10 believe Islam is very different from their own religion.

These views stem from misperceptions and just not knowing the facts, said Read, who volunteered that she is not Muslim.

More: http://www.livescience.com/culture/081030-muslim-americans.html

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Religions of the World: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/religion/
More about Islam: http://islam.about.com/od/jihad/f/jihad.htm

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Post-9.11 hate crimes against hundreds of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and Sikhs are not "isolated incidents." They are eruptions of a nation's intolerance. - from Teaching Tolerance website