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| New Survey Analyzes Muslim Americans: “America’s Most Diverse Religious Community” |
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Category: Muslims in America
Posted: Monday, March 30, 2009
Anas Coburn
March 7, 2009
It is worth noting the new survey of Muslims in America. “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait: An in-depth analysis of America's most diverse religious community” was undertaken by the Muslim West Facts Project, a partnership between Gallup and the Coexist Foundation. Summaries of the results were reported in the Christian Science Monitor, here, and in the New York Times, here, among others.
As Jane Lampman reports for the Christian Science Monitor,
“A "national portrait" of Muslim Americans, released Monday by Gallup, depicts the youngest and most racially diverse religious community in the country as striving for a secure place in American society and an active role in public life. The report describes a group that has achieved successes and shares much in common with other Americans, yet struggles for a sense of belonging in a country where some citizens harbor post-9/11 suspicions about the Islamic faith. Drawing on data from three distinct Gallup surveys, the report compares Muslim Americans with other religious groups and the general US population, as well as with Muslims in other countries.”
As always with surveys, one must look closely at the methodology in order to gauge the accuracy of the results. The results of Gallup’s survey differ significantly from the results of a poll the Pew Research Center conducted in 2007. Pew published a response to the Gallup poll pointing out differences in methodology of the two surveys. Scott Keeter and Greg Smith of the Pew Research Center write,
“Muslim Americans are a population of great interest to scholars, journalists and policy makers in the U.S. Yet because Muslims make up a very small percentage of the total U.S. public, it is extremely difficult to interview a large enough sample to provide a reliable picture of their views, experiences and demographic characteristics. This week the Muslim West Facts Project, a partnership between Gallup and the Coexist Foundation, released a survey of American Muslims. Like the Pew Research Center's 2007 survey of Muslims in the U.S., "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream," the Gallup study is based on a nationally representative probability sample. But there are important differences in the methodological approach and findings of the two studies.”
Whatever the actual percentages are, Gallup’s survey that of the Pew Research Center are welcome contributions to the dominant culture’s process of understanding the meaning of the presence of Muslims in America, as well as to the process by which the Muslims in America come to understand themselves as a collective and their position within the dominant culture.
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1. According to the Sunan of Abu Dawud, the Prophet said, “I prohibit killing four creatures in this earth: ants, bees, hoopoes and sparrow-hawks.” 2. See Nora Belfedal, “Honey: the Antibiotic of the Future, part 3: Healing ‘Bee Venom.’” Islamonline, November 15, 2001. 3. See Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger: the Veneration of the Prophet is Islamic Piety (UNC Press, 1985), p. 285. 4. Ibid., p. 102-104. The latter idea is attributed to the twentieth-century Indian poet Nabibakhsh Baloch. 5. See, for example, the section on medicine in Sahih Bukhari. Among other things, the Prophet Muhammad prescribed honey for abdominal trouble. 6. See Belfedal, “Healing Bee Venom.” 1. Found in Imam Malik’s Muwatta'
and Imam Ahmad’s Musnad 1. Both these ahadith, and the quote from Imam Nawawi, are taken from Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misr’s Reliance of the Traveller; in Arabic with facing English text, commentary and appendices edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller,
Revised edition, 1994. Beltville, Md: Amana Publications in the section on Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong and the section on Holding One’s Tongue. 2. Moustafa Styer’s translation, except I have replaced his translation the technical term fuqara as poor, with the word ‘devout’, for the sake of clarity in the context of this article.
The term ‘poor’ does not denote actual financial destitution, rather, it means one who has abandoned attachments to worldly things and become rich in their attachment to Allah.
This state cannot be achieved except through sincere devotion.
See Moustafa Styer “Reflections of the Beloved”. 3. The legal rulings of Islamic law are generally
that a thing is considered obligatory,
recommended, neutral, disliked, or prohibited. 1. Consumers Union Education Series. (1995).
Captive Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids at School.
Yonkers: Author. 1. Quoted in Keller, Nuh Ha Mim; translator and editor.
The Reliance of the Traveller:
The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law cUmdat al-Salik
by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri. 1994.
Beltsville, MD. Amana Publications. Page 41.
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