Pew's Muslim-Americans survey

(Finally, a non-immigration post).

The Pew Center has produced the first truly independent, comprehensive survey of American Muslims and their beliefs. The results are surprising, and mostly encouraging. It finds that most US Muslims are middle-class, assimilated or assimilating, and far less alienated than their co-religionists in Europe or elsewhere. The social mobility offered by America really is working, it seems. I was startled to read that just over half of US Muslims report little or no participation in mosque activities. Zuhdi Jasser says (in the "Islam vs. Islamists" film that PBS suppressed) that there are large numbers of US Muslims who want nothing to do with mosques because so many mosques are controlled by Islamists who politicize the faith. This survey suggests in several ways that he's right.

On a more troubling note, the survey finds that young Muslim adults (aged 18 to 29) are more religiously involved, and more sympathetic to radicalism, than older Muslims. Still, the numbers are fairly small, but worrying nonetheless. I was relieved to find that only five percent of Muslims surveyed expressed sympathy for al-Qaeda -- until I realized that that number corresponded to about 125,000 people! (But a significant number of Muslims -- 19 percent of 18-29s, 29 percent of over 30s -- declined to answer that question one way or the other; if you held an unfavorable opinion of al-Qaeda, why wouldn't you say so?)

Still, the survey is mostly good news. It does suggest to me, though, that American mosques -- which Muslims like Dr. Jasser and Sheikh Hisham Kabbani have been warning are largely under the control of Islamists -- ought to be viewed much more skeptically. Similarly with Islamist-run organizations like CAIR and ISNA. These groups claim to be the spokesmen for American Muslims, but the Pew survey would appear to indicate that they are the spokesmen only for a portion of the Islamic community. The moderate silent majority needs to find its public voice.

For what it's worth, the survey found that most Muslims heavily identify with the Democratic Party, and are big-government social conservatives. Also, four in 10 believe that someone other than Arabs carried out 9/11. That's wack.