http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Muslim/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf"This report examines the social and political views of Muslims around the world. It is based on public opinion surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center between 2008 and 2012 in a total of 39 countries and territories on three continents: Africa, Asia and Europe. Together, the surveys involved more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews in 80-plus languages and dialects, covering every country that has more than 10 million Muslims except for a handful (including China, India, Saudi Arabia and Syria) where political sensitivities or security concerns prevented opinion research among Muslims."
Pants-shitting Summary:
-25% support suicide attacks against civilians in at least some circumstances
-73% think religious authorities should arbitrate domestic affairs
-28% think those who leave (or attempt to leave) Islam should be executed
-90% think homosexuality is morally wrong
-85% think wives should
always obey their husbands, i.e., should be completely subservient
1. Maybe these extreme attitudes are a function of a specific culture/region or set of related cultures within a region which happen to be Islamic and are thus skewing the data (viz., perhaps the Arab cultures in the Middle East and their often regressive ways are skewing the data and overriding positive data from other regions).
No! 93% of Southeast Asian Muslims think wives should be utterly subservient and never disobey and 84% think religious authorities should judge domestic matters -- both values above the median for Muslims in general. SE Asia also sports almost identical values on the other issues as the Middle East, meaning that the regressivity captured in the poll isn't simply a function of a specific culture or set of cultures. It holds across virtually all Muslim dominant regions.
2. Maybe these extreme attitudes are a function of low wealth/education and not anything inherent to the content of the beliefs that collectively constitute 'Islam.'
Qatar has perhaps the highest per capita GDP on the planet and the lowest illiteracy rates in the Arab (and Muslim) world. Yet homosexuality is still a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, Sunni law rules in the courts, and life sentences are doled out for criticizing the government (enough). But, women can vote (wow!), so it isn't quite as backward as many other Muslim countries. Apparently, then, some modicum of progressive attitudes and Islam can coexist; still, it isn't clear whether the two are completely consistent or whether the education/wealth enables progressivity
despite Muslim dominance.
3. Maybe the regressive attitudes are a function of either (1)
and/or (2) such that progressivity and Islam are consistent once the negative influence of low wealth/education and/or regressive cultures is nullified.
http://www.muslimamericansurvey.org/pdf/march82011.pdfThe above survey finds that the more religious a Muslim American is, the more likely they are to deem the American political system antithetical to Islam. 24% of devout Muslims in the country, as measured by mosque involvement and how much one follows the Koran and Hadith, feel this way.
http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/muslim-americans-no-signs-of-growth-in-alienation-or-support-for-extremism/Meanwhile, this survey indicates that in 2011, a full 13% of Muslim Americans support suicide bombing against civilians in at least some circumstances. Lovely!
4. In short, we can't blame Arab culture for the regressive attitudes present among Muslims, since these attitudes hold across the Muslim world regardless of culture. We can't blame wealth/educational deprivation because the wealthiest Muslim countries (I used Qatar as an example) still exhibit the same regressivity (albeit less of it). Finally, even when we control for the disjunction of these variables (i.e., we take both of them out of the picture) by looking at relatively wealthy (globally speaking) and well-educated (globally speaking) Muslims in the U.S., opposition to democracy and support for killing civilians increases as a function of one's devotion to Islam.
The common variable in this brainstorm is Islam itself. The regressive attitudes follow it everywhere like an odor, regardless of wealth/education or culture (though these variables do affect how much regressivity is present, no doubt). The best explanation for this (i.e., the proposition an abductive inference compels us to accept, since it would lead to the things we've observed) is that Islam itself either is in part constituted by these regressive, primitive beliefs, or otherwise fosters them in people.
To the extent that that is true, and to the extent that progressive beliefs more or less improve the human condition, Islam itself is liable to worsen the human condition.
