WASHINGTON (ABP) — One of the most comprehensive studies of its kind suggests that Muslims in the United States are better assimilated into the nation's culture – and less likely to espouse extremist beliefs — than their counterparts in Europe.
The contrasts between the two groups may have something to do with the American traditions of religious freedom and church-state separation, according to experts in the field.
However, the Pew Research Center survey also found that some subgroups of America's Islamic community — specifically, younger Muslims and African-American Muslims — are somewhat more likely than the group as a whole to be open to extremism. African-American Muslims are also far more likely to feel alienated from the culture and suspicious of the government.
And a majority of all American Muslims surveyed believe it is harder to be a Muslim in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Overall, the study of more than 1,000 Muslims living in the United States found that 78 percent of adult Muslims think suicide bombings are “never justified” in defense of Islam — a far higher percentage than among European Muslims or Muslims living in several majority-Muslim countries. Nearly two-thirds of Muslim Americans believe there is no conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.
The survey, titled “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream,” also found that American Muslims have income and education levels comparable to the population as a whole, despite the fact that two-thirds of adult American Muslims are immigrants.
American Muslims' economic success also distinguishes them from their European counterparts, who on the whole have significantly lower incomes than the at-large populations of their nation. Many European Muslims are concentrated in low-income neighborhoods of large cities, while American Muslims tend to be better distributed geographically.
The survey also found that a large proportion of American Muslims say they have many close non-Muslim friends.
While only 13 percent of all American Muslims believe that suicide bombings could be occasionally justified in defense of Islam, that figure was 25 percent among interviewees under 30 years of age. In addition, native-born African-American Muslims are far more likely than the general Muslim population to have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
And while American Muslims are more likely than the population as a whole to believe that most Americans can be successful if they work hard enough, African-American Muslims are much less likely to agree with that proposition.
Nonetheless, American Muslims' tolerance of suicide bombers is much lower than corresponding figures for European Muslims, according to Pew surveys conducted last year. In the United Kingdom and Spain, about one-fourth of all Muslims said suicide bombings could be justified, while a third of French Muslims agreed.
One significant difference between American Muslims and the population as a whole is their support for the U.S.-led “war on terrorism.” A 55-percent majority of interviewees believes the battle is not “a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism,” while only 26 percent believe it is.
In a similar vein, less than 50 percent of American Muslims believe the United States made the right decision to use force to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. A wide majority of the overall U.S. population believes attacking Afghanistan was justified.
Overall, however, the survey suggests Muslims are integrating into society as rapidly as did previous waves of immigrants, while their European counterparts have encountered much more difficulty in integrating into society.
Diana Butler Bass, a religion scholar who writes for a religion-and-politics blog jointly sponsored by Beliefnet and Sojourners magazine, said the American tradition of religious liberty explains the vast difference between Muslim life in parts of the world that are otherwise culturally similar.
“With its contrast between the U.S. and Europe, the Pew study suggests that the separation of church and state works to create a more generous, open, and safer society in regard to terrorism,” Bass wrote in a May 23 entry on the “God's Politics” blog (www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics).
“At its best, America has a heritage of Christian liberality, intellectually influenced by Christianity but open to a wide range of ideas and peoples through the practice of religious toleration,” she said.
John Green, an expert in American religious life, said that is one plausible explanation for the differences between European and American Muslims — but other factors may contribute to the gap as well.
One is the wide diversity of American Muslim immigrants, whom the survey found hail from more than 50 different countries. “In European countries, most Muslims are immigrants … but they tend to come from one or two countries. So, instead of having a big, diverse Muslim population like the United States has, you might have mostly people from Algeria,” said Green, who is the senior fellow in religion and politics at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The organization is connected to the Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey.
Green also noted that many Muslims who immigrated to America are better educated than their European counterparts. “Many of them came to the United States precisely to get an education,” he said. “It may simply be that people with higher levels of education and professional jobs tend to fit together into any society.”
But Green also said the broad religious diversity of the United States may itself be a major factor in making it easier for Muslims to fit in than they do in Europe.
“If one were an observant Muslim — and as our survey showed, [American Muslims] are, by and large — then this is a society much more open to religious expression, as opposed to Europe, which is a much more secular place,” he said.
Green said Western Europe's religious irony — that most of its nations are increasingly secular on a societal level while retaining some form of Christianity as an official state religion — may contribute to the relative unease Muslims feel there as compared to the United States.
“A Muslim might very well fell oppressed or troubled by an official Protestantism or an official Catholicism in a particular country, and yet at the same time feel ostracized by their neighbors who are not religious,” he said. “A lot of Americans may disagree with Islam and may have some doubts about their Muslim neighbors, but one thing they wouldn't disagree with is Muslims' right to practice their religion.”
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