Support For Terrorism In The Muslim World

[AisA]

The Pew Global Attitudes Project has released a new survey of attitudes toward "Islamic Extremism". You can view the entire survey HERE.

The survey included six predominantly Muslim countries: Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and Indonesia. The study does not say why these Muslim countries were included as opposed to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Libya or Algeria.

At any rate, here are some questions from the survey -- exactly as they are worded in the survey -- that reveal the extent of support for terrorism among these six Muslim populations:

Question: Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

18.6% of the respondents, representing some 89 million Muslims, answered that such attacks are either "sometimes justified" or "often justified".

This is quite disturbing. If 18.6% of all Muslims believe suicide bomb attacks against civilians are acceptable, even just sometimes, we have an enormous problem. However, it gets worse.

Consider this question:

What about suicide bombing carried out against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq?  Do you personally believe that this is justifiable or not justifiable?

I again calculated a weighted average: 29.1%, representing nearly 140 million Muslims, consider such attacks "justifiable".

Consider one more question from the survey:

How much confidence do you have in Osama bin Laden to do the right thing regarding world affairs– a lot of confidence, some confidence, not too much confidence, or no confidence at all?

Again, I summed the "lots of confidence" and "some confidence" and calculated a weighted average. 35.7% of the respondents, representing over 170 million Muslims, have "lots of confidence" or "some confidence" in bin Laden.

Admittedly this last question is a little vague. It's possible some respondents think that OBL might "do the right thing" and call off his jihad. Unlikely, in my opinion. I think to have "some confidence" or "lots of confidence" means one endorses his methods.

There is a great deal of variation in the support from country to country. However, I cannot imagine that the support for terrorism in the other Islamic countries is lower than these numbers. I would guess that in Iran, Syria and Egypt the support is at least as strong as Pakistan and Indonesia.

This data indicates that the support for terrorism in the Muslim world -- at least to the extent that Muslims are willing to admit to in a survey -- is in the minority; but it is by no means a fringe element.

[Tikkun]

Oddly enough, that actually improved my opinion of Islam in the middle eastern world.

[BurgessLau]

Oddly enough, that actually improved my opinion of Islam in the middle eastern world.

How did you reach this conclusion -- especially since the survey applied to three countries (out of six) that are not part of the "Middle East"? Indonesia, for example, is the largest Muslim country in the world (as measured by number of Muslims in it), according to news reports I have seen.

Also, when you say "Islam," do you really mean the religion, rather than the population of people (Muslims) who say they follow Islam as their guide in life (and death)?