Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think

Here readers have finally been given the unglamorous truth, and that is that the US and the West are not engaged in a life and death war of civilization with the East. Instead we are faced with a people that we don't understand, and instead of our media and political leaders providing us with accurate descriptions of the Muslim people we are provided caricatures. These caricatures sensationalize this conflict and ensures that viewers will tune in and voters will turn out, but what it hasn't provided us with is an intelligent, adult conversation in which we the consumers are treated as sophisticated human beings capable of complex thoughts beyond sloganeering. This study hasn't really offered anything revelatory other than to suggest that over a billion Muslims are in fact human beings and are not a monolith. This study confirms what most level headed analysts and experts on the East and Muslims have been saying for years, and that is just like every social, religious or ethnic group a certain percentage is going to be radical and dangerous while the vast majority will then reside somewhere in the middle. This means that, while we still face a significant threat from radical Islam, we face a much more significant threat if we exacerbate this problem by focusing all our efforts on smashing this dangerous minority at the risk of alienating the greater majority. The main thing readers need to take away from this book is that we can win the war of ideas without having to fight real wars on the ground. One of the most important points of this book was that it really verbalized one of the areas that has been a source of misunderstanding for us in the US, and that is, while Muslims may envy our representative governments, they do not want to emulate our society. In my own research I have come across this sentiment many times. What Muslims wish to accomplish is a hybridization of the East and the West. They wish to incorporate those aspects of Western civilization they admire with their own set of values, so what we have to remember in the West is that liberalization for these people will not look like our evolution, but instead will be something wholly new that represents a completely different culture. Our acceptance of this fact will help us win the war of ideas, and will evince some much needed humility from the West. I think another telling aspect of this study is that it shows that education and knowledge of Muslims have in fact not seen a significant increase in the US since Sept. 11. The fact that a large portion of the US population remains quite ignorant of the Muslim faith and its adherents means that those people who wish to preach the war of civilizations find a large and receptive audience for that message. The problem with this is that for us to win the larger war of ideas we need to help Muslim moderates any way we can. This goal will be helped if we in the West moderate our tone, and express in categorical terms that w

This book give a great insight into the versitality of muslim culture and traditions through out the world, in their own words. It is a balanced, statisitical review of what , as the title of the book implies, muslims actually say, millions of them all over the world including US, rather than a maginfied version of one event, totally hyped into a controversy by our powerful, sometimes "not so accurate" media. A book like this was long awaited by a moderately thinking mind like me, who knows the fundamentals of Islam but does not like to be called "fundamentalist" as knowing Islam taught me how fundmantally wrong I am to judge billions, be they muslims, christians, or Jewish, based on the actions of so few... Islam means peace, practical peace, not just a slogan, and reading this book will facilitate understanding of this basic concept ...through words of common people like you and I.

This book summarizes the information gained from the Gallup World Poll's massive multiyear research study of the opinions of tens of thousands of Muslims in more than 35 countries. The information is presented clearly and succinctly, addressing the questions most frequently asked by Westerners unfamiliar with Islam. The authors appear to have no hidden agenda but simply present their findings. An appendix describes the methodology used. An excellent resource for a dangerous period of history.

This book contains an explanation of what Muslims want and why. One size does not fit all in this process. Women are in government in Turkey, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia. Circa 90% of Muslims say that religion is important for an enriched life. Marriage and family are considered the norm. Muslims want economic opportunities, international status and independence. Many Muslims admire the free speech and political freedoms in the West. The lack of education and poverty does not necessarily beget extremism. Among Muslims, the jihad may be interpreted to mean honor and sacrifice, although this has been mis-used by some. The radicals of Islam want respect from the West and an empathy/understanding of Islam. In addition, they do not want Western domination and intervention in Islamic affairs. There is a considerable understanding of Christianity in Islamic literature. For instance, Jesus and mother Mary are mentioned more times in the Quran than the New Testament. Required almsgiving is 2.5% of liquid assets. Muslim women do not want Western women gender purity. The author sees the political radicalism of religion as a problem and not the religion of Islam itself. This book has some excellent advice for the American political establishment in establishing a baseline for dealings in Iraq and elsewhere.

Everybody may have a right to his or her own opinion, but this doesn't mean that all opinions are equally right. What separates mere opinion from reasoned judgment, at least when it comes to empirical claims, is a hard and judicious analysis of available data. The more heated the topic under discussion, the more important it is to have facts that back up positions. Otherwise, those who are most passionate, but not necessarily most informed, can carry the day. Since at least 9/11, American pundits and people in the street (and a President) have made lots of claims about Islam. Everyone who reads the papers or watches television can recite them by heart: Muslims hate Americans because of our freedoms. Muslims despise democracy. Muslims are out to colonize Europe. The more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he or she is to become a terrorist. Muslims want theocratic governments. There's an inevitable and insoluble culture clash between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. And on and on it goes. The extraordinary value of Who Speaks for Islam? is that the authors, John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed appeal to hard data from the Gallup World Poll (GWP) to examine these and other common U.S. opinions about Muslims. For six years, GWP interviewed tens of thousands of Muslims in over 35 nations, collecting a sample that represented 90% of the world's Muslim population (1.3 billion). The results--the hard data--are not just surprising. They're shocking. They suggest that almost every single thing that Americans think we know about Islam and Muslims are distortions. As such, Who Speaks for Islam? is a bracing reality check that, if read by enough of us, can change minds and policies. Let me just mention two sets of data that go counter to two popular opinions about Islam. One has to do with sharia and the other with freedom of speech (and civil liberties in general). The U.S. perception is that Muslims want to establish legal systems based exclusively on harsh sharia, or religious laws. But in fact, polled Muslims indicate something different. In most countries, only a minority of respondants want Sharia as the only source of law. In only 5 countries--Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh--do respondants want Sharia as the only source of law. Most respondants think that an ideal legal system is based in part but not exclusively on Sharia. Ironically, a 2006 survey revealed that a full 46% of Americans think the Bible should a "a source," and 9% think it should be the "only" source, of legislation. 42% of Americans think religious leaders should be directly involved in writing laws, and 55% think the idea is awful--almost exactly the same figures about Muslim religious leaders and the law that come out of Iran (pp. 48-49). Another common assumption is that Muslims dislike free speech, and the worldwide protests against the now infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammed are frequently cited as evidence. But vast numbers of p