In October, GulfNews published in five parts various excerpts from John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed's analysis of the recent Gallup survey of the world's Muslims. The title of the book is "Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think." In fact, the book is based on the largest ever survey conducted of Muslims. Many of the results were surprising. For example, approximately the same percentage of Americans as Iranians want religious leaders to have a direct role in writing constitutions (42%).
The main question behind the analysis is: What can we blame religion for? The premise is that many people in Europe and the United States assume that there is some correlation between mainstream Muslim thought and the extremism surfacing behind acts of terrorism. The first part of the excerpts reflects on "Islam's silenced majority" and the reasons why 44% of Americans may be thinking that Muslims are too extreme in their religious beliefs. Remarkably, the book is based on over 50,000 interviews in more than 35 countries. Another "counter-intuitive" discovery often cited from the Gallup research is that "Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustified." Another interesting statistic is that 9% of Americans believe that the Bible should be the "only" source of legislation. In Iran, the number is 12%. Basically, the data "indicate that faith is not the distinguishing factor primarily responsible for terrorism," but that it can be used improperly to motivate someone to commit atrocious acts of terrorism.
