Fw: More Americans See Islam in Favorable Light: Poll / UK Seeks 'Better Understanding' of Muslims: Report

 

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Subject: More Americans See Islam in Favorable Light: Poll / UK Seeks 'Better Understanding' of Muslims: Report

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Thursday 28 July 2005
More Americans See Islam in Favorable Light: Poll
Source: IslamOnline.net

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-07/27/article04.shtml

A library photo of American Muslims paying tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

 

The percentage of Americans having a favorable opinion of Muslim Americans is on the rise, while the number of Americans believing that Islam was a violent religion is declining, a new poll has showed.

The percentage of Americans viewing Islam in favorable light rose from 45 percent in March 2001 -- before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States -- to 51 percent in July 2003 to 55 percent today, according to the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, MSNBC reported.

It found that the more a respondent knows about Islam, the more likely he or she is to regard Muslim Americans favorably, the survey found.

Forty-four (44) percent of respondents of a high knowledge of Islam said it had a lot in common with their own religion, and 61 percent of them said they have a favorable view of Muslim Americans.

The survey interviewed 2,000 adults by telephone from July 7 to July 17. It was  conducted after the July 7 terrorist attack on three subways and a bus in London killed 56 people, including six Muslims, other than the four suicide bombers.

British Muslims condemned in the strongest possible terms the grisly attacks on fellow citizens.

A statement issued by over 40 leading mosque imams, muftis and scholars representing all sections of Muslims in Britain stressed that "there can never be any excuse for taking an innocent life."

Famed British writer Karen Armstrong said on July 9 in a Guardian piece that terror has no religion, with people calling themselves Muslims, Christians or Jews committing crimes in the name of their great religions.

The spiritual leader of the Church of England, Rowan Williams, has further warned against making Muslims "scapegoats" for the London bombings.

Accepted Islam

Fewer and fewer Americans believe that Islam itself is more violent than other religions, according to the poll.

Two years ago, 44 percent believed Islam "is more likely to encourage violent behavior among its followers," Pew said. That figure dropped to 36 percent in the new poll.

More and more Americans refuse to see themselves as at war with the Muslim faith.

A clear majority, 60 percent, say the conflict is with a small radical element, compared with only 29 percent who see it as a conflict between the West and Islam itself, down from 35 percent in August 2002.

Policies of the Bush administration, coupled with some media campaigns, are widely to blame for increasing hate feelings against the Muslim minority in the United States, following the 9/11 attacks.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Arab Americans and the Muslim minority have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

In interviews with IslamOnline.net in November of last year, many Americans said that they saw Muslims as having "excellent values, are very caring people, family oriented and very sincere in their religious belief."

RELATED

UK Seeks ‘Better Understanding’ of Muslims: Report

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2005-07/27/article05.shtml

"The way local communities responded to this very challenging time is praiseworthy," Goggins said.

CAIRO , July 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – In the aftermath of London terrorist bombings, the government plans to launch a massive program in September 2005 to listen to and understand Muslims as more voices within the society say that dialogue is the only way to end this cycle of violence, according to press reports Wednesday, July 27.

The plan includes up-close dialogues with the Muslim community by its segments, British Minister for Race and Faith Affairs Paul Goggins told a press conference Tuesday, July 26, at the Home Office in London, according to the Daily Star.

"We want to help the Muslims now and set up program for partnership to tackle radicalization of Muslims. We want a better communication with the Muslims, improve their education and mosques," Goggins asserted.

It also includes bringing transparency in what the mosques do and the role of the faith-based educational institutions such as madrasahs, he added.

Networks will be set up in Muslim communities to talk to the people to find out what they think and why they incline to become ‘extremists’, the paper said.

Secular Muslim groups will also be involved in the process, it added.

Civil servants aided by community leaders will listen to the Muslims, try to understand their problems and seek solution from them, the Star said, adding that the exercise will then be put in an activity framework.

Thousands of Muslims did think, at some point, of leaving Britain after the London recent bombings, according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll.

Britain's Muslim population is estimated at 1.6 million, with 1.1 million over 18, meaning more than half a million may have considered the possibility of leaving, according to the poll.

Praiseworthy

Goggins said the government has been watching closely how the local communities are working out the events.

"The way local communities responded to this very challenging time is praiseworthy," Goggins said. "I thank the faith leaders for their solidarity. Police have reassured the faith leaders that they will do everything to protect the communities."

Asked what Britain plans with a number of extremists living there, he hinted that they will be deported soon.

"We have reached an agreement with Jordan last week [for his deportation]," he said in an oblique reference to Omar Bakri, one of the most strident radical Muslims taking refuge in the UK. "We just can't deport anyone, we have to have country to country agreement."

He said the British government is determined to root out the radical Islamists who are involved in terrorism.

"It will take time to have dialogue with the Muslims and bring changes in their minds," he admitted and tried to allay any fear in the minds of the citizen by saying: "The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful. One shouldn't be afraid to see the Muslims.

"Goggins also said Britain will take the issue of terrorism in the country on the international level and so the issue have been discussed with the prime minister of Pakistan .

Dialogue

In a separate-related issue, British writer, Jonathan Glover, wrote in The Guardian Wednesday, July 27, that breaking out of the cycle of violence requires a serious dialogue between the overlapping worlds of the west and Islam before irreversible mutual hatred sets in.

"We need such dialogue internationally, between western and Islamic leaders. We also need it in this country, between those who are not Islamic and those who are," he said.

He added political violence is often a resentful backlash to a group's sense of being insulted or humiliated.

"Dialogue may sound vacuous, but that is misleading. In our own country we need not just any old talk, but some quite deep and sustained discussion of particular issues.

"It could be one of the great projects of mutual education of our time. Two topics would be central. One would be the different systems of belief on each side. The other would be our different narratives of recent history."

Muslim scholars from around the world have gathered in London Sunday, July 24, for a conference addressing the phenomenon of extremism and Islamophobia.

The Metropolitan police-sponsored one-day conference denounced the recent terrorist attacks on London as “barbaric and inhuman,” and called on the public and media to work more closely with the Muslim minority.

The gathering also strongly condemned the mistaken killing of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by British police, as a direct result of adopting a shoot-to-kill policy in their massive hunt for four bombers, who failed to strike London July 21, two weeks after four suicide bombers ripped through three Tube stations and a bus, killing 52 people.

A statement issued last week by over 40 leading mosque imams, muftis and scholars representing all sections of Muslims in Britain stressed that “there can never be any excuse for taking an innocent life.”

The scholars asserted that those behind the July 7 London bombings cannot consider themselves martyrs.