Ihsan Bagby presents his findings
Here is a pdf of a survey entitled “The Detroit Mosque Study: Muslim Views on Policy and Religion,” by Ihsan Bagby of the Institute for Social Policy Understanding, a Muslim group.
On page 37 of the report is this:
Mosque participants were asked, whether they agree or disagree with the statement, “Shari’ah should be the law of the land in Muslim countries?” Shari’ah refers to Islamic law.
Apply Islamic Law in Muslim Lands
Strongly Agree “” 59%
Somewhat Agree “” 22%
Somewhat Disagree “” 8%
Strongly Disagree “” 3%
Don’t Know “” 8%
If accurate, this is extremely disturbing. It means, in effect, that most survey participants oppose democracy in Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world, and want to see Sharia oppression of women and non-Muslim dhimmis instituted throughout Muslim lands.
It also raises questions, unanswered by the survey, about what kind of government these survey participants would like ultimately to see in the United States.
Daniel Pipes raises other serious questions about this survey here. Among many other problems, he points out that the survey results are being spun in a misleading way. At FrontPage are numerous links to the sources Pipes cites.
A Detroit-area Islamic organization, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, released a survey of Detroit Muslims, A Portrait of Detroit Mosques: Muslim Views on Policy, Politics and Religion, on April 6, 2004. Written by Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, and conducted in mid-2003, the survey”s key thesis, according to the sponsoring organization itself, is that “The vast majority of Muslim Americans hold “˜moderate” views on issues of policy, politics and religion.” Bagby also emphasized this point in a newspaper interview: the results, he said, show that “the mosque community is not a place of radicalism.”
Bagby”s study received fair media coverage and some headlines dutifully reflected the official line:
“¢ Detroit Free Press: “Muslims’ goals: Be active, be moderate.”
“¢ Detroit News: “Metro Muslims eschew radicalism: Study shows most hold moderate views, want to integrate.”
“¢ Scripps Howard News Service: “Survey Finds Muslims are Moderates.”
In addition, before the study”s release, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the leading militant Islamic organization in the United States, trumpeted the results on its website; and its spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, lost no time exploiting the alleged results of Bagby”s study. One article describes him pointing “to a new survey of the views of mosque leaders and congregants in Detroit “¦ as an example of the fundamental moderation of U.S. Muslims.”
I don’t see 81% supporting Sharia as moderate. Sharia law contains numerous provisions that deny tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Conversion from Islam is punishable by death; non-Muslims are second-class citizens; a woman’s testimony is not admissible in her own rape case, and on and on. I document these and more in Islam Unveiled and Onward Muslim Soldiers.
If these Detroit Muslims were truly moderate, they would renounce Sharia.