What Muslims Really Think (Part I)
By Aiman Reyaz, New Age Islam
October 30, 2013
In 2001, The Gallup
Organization began the most extensive public opinion poll ever taken of
the Muslim world. Gallup, Inc., is a research-based company which
conducts surveys in 160 countries and its site says “and is committed to
doing so for the entire century.”1
In 2001, this global
performance-management consulting company decided to go on a journey in
which they would go door to door and ask the Muslims what they think
about issues like polygamy, gender justice, 9/11, Israel-Palestine and a
range of other issues.
Muslims come from
every country of the world and they speak every language of the world.
Only about 15% of Muslims are Arabs and obviously all Arabs are not
Muslims. The largest percentage of Muslims actually lives in Asia,
especially in South Asia. And a considerable Muslim minority thrives in
the West. That is the reason the survey was mostly carried out in Muslim
majority countries.
John L Esposito,
Professor of Religion and International Affairs or Georgetown
University, says that the poll found that what Muslims actually think is
against the conventional reality that is presented in the media and the
stereotypes prevalent in the Muslim as well as non-Muslim world.
The Clash
The Clash of
Civilization theory is based on some assumptions. The first one,
probably the most important is the idea that Muslims around the world do
not share democratic values; they don’t understand or value freedom of
speech, they don’t value gender justice, they look at representative
government and think that it leads to chaos and corruption.
