Friday, May 3, 2013

New Pew Poll: What Do Muslims Think?

A new Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe reveals once again that Islam is a completely different concept than Judeo-Christianity.

It finds most Muslims want Islam to shape not only their personal lives, but also their societies and politics. Islam has no division of Church and State.

Islam has no division of the Sacred and the Worldly and no division of powers. Many Muslims think that religious leaders should have influence over political matters. And many want Sharia as the official law of their country.

The survey - which involved more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews with Muslims across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa - finds that most Muslims miss the incompatibility of theocracy and modernity.

Nor do they see the inevitable conflict between religion and science. Many favor democracy over authoritarian rule even though Sharia excludes man-made secular law.

In most countries Muslim women as well as men agree that a wife is always obliged to obey her husband. Indeed, more than nine-in-ten Muslims in Iraq (92%), Morocco (92%), Tunisia (93%), Indonesia (93%), Afghanistan (94%) and Malaysia (96%) express this view. At the same time, majorities in many countries surveyed say a woman should be able to decide for herself whether to wear a veil.

Tim Stanley blogging on The Telegraph has more interesting figures