Americans are heeding President Bush’s call for tolerance toward Muslims, and as a result favorable views of Muslim-Americans have risen from 45% in March to 59% December 18, finds a survey by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
The prestigious Pew Center is an independent opinion research group that studies public attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues. The Center’s main purpose is to serve as a forum for ideas on the media and public policy through its research.
The survey entitled ‘Post 9-11 Attitudes: Religion More Prominent, Muslim-Americans More Accepted’ says that the public has a better opinion of Muslim Americans than it did before the Sept 11 attacks. Despite the improving image of Muslim-Americans, few Americans know much about the Muslim faith and even fewer feel their religion has much in common with Islam, the survey’s findings said.
According to the survey, roughly four-in-ten (38%) say they know something about the Muslim religion and its practices, while 31% see common ground between their own religion and Islam.
The nationwide survey of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center, in collaboration with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, finds broad agreement among all demographic and religious groups that religion now occupies a more important place in American life. Yet this dramatic shift has not been matched by an increase in attendance at religious services nor is there much evidence that religion is playing a larger role in Americans’ personal lives at this time. Attendance stands at the same level as it did in March. More important, the number of Americans who say religion is very important to them personally stands at 61%, virtually the same level as eight months ago.
The rise in favorability for Muslim-Americans has occurred among all religious groups. But differences in age and education are significant factors, with better-educated and younger people holding more favorable opinions toward Muslim-Americans, the survey says. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of college graduates have positive impressions of this group, compared with 51% of those with a high school degree or less. About six-in-ten Americans (62%) under age 30 have favorable opinions of Muslim-Americans compared with just under half (48%) of people age 65 and over, it said According to the survey, Islam remains largely unknown to most Americans, especially older and less-educated people. While 44% of those under age 30 say they know at least something about the Islamic faith, just 27% of those 65 and older say this. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) college graduates feel they know at least something about Islam, compared with 42% of those with some college education, and 25% of those who never attended college.
Half of respondents living in the East and 43% of those in the West say they know a great deal or something about Islamic beliefs and practices, compared with a third of those in the Midwest and three-in-ten of those in the South. And more Republicans than Democrats say they are at least somewhat familiar with the Muslim faith (45% to 34%).
The report on the survey, published on December 6, says that familiarity with Islam is generally associated with more positive views of Muslim-Americans, even when the respondent’s education and age are taken into account. Roughly three-quarters (73%) of those who feel knowledgeable about Islam say they have a favorable view of Muslim-Americans, compared with just over half (53%) of those who say they know little or nothing about the Muslim faith. Moreover, people who say they know at least something about Islam are more than twice as likely (48% to 21%) to see Islam as having a lot in common with their own religious beliefs a pattern, again, which holds up even among respondents of similar generations and educational backgrounds.
Among Americans who have a religious preference, 52% feel Islamic beliefs are very different from their own religious beliefs, while roughly three-in-ten (31%) think Islam and their own religion have a lot in common. Both religious denomination and education are strongly related to these views.
Roughly half (51%) of college graduates see more similarities than differences between Islam and their own religion, with 38% disagreeing. By comparison, just 21% of those who never attended college think Islam has a lot in common with their own faith, while 58% think it is very different. Among white Protestants who consider themselves born-again or evangelical, 62% believe their religion is very different from Islam, while only 44% of those who are not evangelicals say this. Interestingly, while young people are more likely to feel that they know something about the Islamic faith, they are just as likely as their elders to think their own religion is very different from the Islamic faith.
To read more on the survey, please go to the following the website: http://www.people-press.org/