The Wardman Wire

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Gallup has just published a the results of a long-term detailed poll about attitudes and values in the Muslim World, with some research about the recently fraught questions of Sharia Law.

This is an interview looking on this morning’s Radio 4 Sunday Programme looking at a poll just done by the Gallup Organisation’s Centre for Muslim Studies. The interview is with Dalia Mogahed, the Centre’s Executive Director, and is about 4 minutes long.

The interview opens with Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali - correctly - refusing to be silenced in the public debate. All views deserve to be heard.

The Poll - entitled “Who Speaks for Islam” - involved 50,000 interviews in 35 countries:

The result is Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims who reside in more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90% of the world’s Muslim community, it makes this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

…

What the data reveal and the authors illuminate may surprise you:

* Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.
* Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution AND they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.
* Muslims around the world say that what they LEAST admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values — the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.
* When asked about their dreams for the future, Muslims say they want better jobs and security, not conflict and violence.
* Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims and respect Islam.

Lots of food for thought there for an intelligent and open debate, even if we disagree with some of the conclusions.

Press Reports came there none?

However, I may have gone blind, but I don’t think I have yet seen any reports on this huge polling exercise in the British Press - just a couple of blog reports and a couple of items in European papers. The British papers are, however, reporting on the Bishop’s assertion (Telegraph, BBC) - even the regional press (Peterborough Today).

I find it quite painful that the only British outlet I have seen reporting this is the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (with a book review copied from Middle East Online) - who are hardly mainstream. I hope I’m wrong on this point.

If anyone can help with finding British reports - or if you are a blogger and write one - I’ll include any reports you can point out in the article and link back to your blog from the Wardman Wire article.

List of Press Reports

I’ll create a log of reports here, since this is one is important, but is clearly going to need an extra push from someone.
David Keen reports an article on the BBC London website:

Muslim London

Kurt Barling looks at the evidence presented in a new Gallup poll which challenges the idea that Muslims are torn between Islam and Britain.

As part of what is claimed to be the most comprehensive survey yet of European Muslim attitudes the Gallup organisation last week released the results of its British part of the research. In fact the pollsters only spoke to Londoners. But the evidence offers a new public perspective on how the attitudes across capital-dwellers differ between Muslim and non-Muslim.

and one from Islamica Magazine:

Listening to the Voices of a Billion Muslims

More than a year ago, I was asked by Gallup to be a Senior Scientist for the Gallup World Poll. To my astonishment I discovered a plan not only to poll 95 percent of world’s population, but to also focus on the Muslim world. In terms of the Muslim world, between 2001 and 2007, Gallup had conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have substantial Muslim populations. A sample representing more than 90 percent of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, young and old, educated and illiterate, female and male, living in urban and rural settings, makes this the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever done. Gallup posed questions on the minds of millions of people: Is Islam to blame for terrorism? Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists? Where are the moderates? What do Muslim women really want? And many, many more.

Tags: gallup, who speaks for islam, dilia mogahead, who speaks for islam[tags]gallup, who speaks for islam, dilia mogahead, who speaks for islam[/tags]