Why is President Obama overstating the Muslim population in the United States?
In an interview before his trip to the Middle East he said: "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
And in his speech in Cairo, President Obama repeated an often-used estimate of the American Muslim population that has little evidence to support it. He said:
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"The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores -- and that includes nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today -- who, by the way, enjoy incomes and educational levels that are higher than the American average."
Leave aside the question of opportunity and look at the number. Seven million Muslims? Not likely.
Start by acknowledging the difficulty in estimating the size of any religious group. How do you define a member? Someone on the rolls of a church, temple, mosque? Someone who attends a prayer event? Someone who practices a particular ritual? Holds a particular theology?
Each of those questions will get you different numbers.
Start with the large religious survey known as ARIS: "American Religious Identification Survey." This is a poll that's been taken three times. In 1990, 2000 and 2008. It is, as such things go, a very large poll. The most recent included 54,461 people. Compare that to most national presidential preference polls that question about a thousand people.
ARIS asks people a simple question: "What is your religion, if any?"
Here's the breakdown of the American adult population, based on ARIS: Christians, 76%; no particular religion, 15%; no answer, 5.2%; and all other religions, 3.9%
That last category includes all the Jews, Muslim, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and any other faith you can think of. A total of 8.8 million adults.
Breaking that down, the survey estimates that Muslims constitute about .6% of American adults – 1.3 million people.
Another large survey was conducted by the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life. This poll included an attempt in 2007 to specifically identify Muslims. The Muslim outreach survey included questions in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. Like the ARIS, the Pew survey came up with a figure of about .6% of adult Americans.
Next, let's turn to the Mosque Study Project, conducted by Muslim-American scholars in 2001. It was part of a larger study of American congregations called Faith Communities Today, coordinated by the Hartford Institute for Religious Research.
It estimated that about 350,000 Muslims attended weekly prayer services. And that about 2 million people attend the annual Eid services – the largest on the Muslim calendar by several orders of magnitude. And then the report says, without any additional explanation:
"Estimates of a total Muslim population of 6-7 million in America seem reasonable in light of the figure of 2 million Muslims who associate with a mosque. "
Imagine if the Southern Baptists took the number of people who attend one of their churches on Christmas and Easter -- when just about every church holds many packed services -- and asserted that the real number of Southern Baptists were more than three times as large. Would that seem "reasonable?" Particularly if several major surveys were unable to locate these additional Southern Baptists?
Let's dismiss a few issues: No question that some Muslims don't respond to surveys at all. And that there is a language barrier for many Muslims. And that many Muslim women are harder to locate for surveys than men.
All true. Let's grant for argument's sake that there are half again more Muslims than the surveys find. Or even twice as many.
That still leaves us a long, long way from the 6-7 million "estimate." And a long, long, long way from the United States being "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
To be sure: Muslims are hardly the only American religious group to puff membership numbers. Nearly every group does so to one extent or another. But I am not aware of any other group that puffs so hard.
What the point? Politics. And particularly Jewish-American politics. Muslims in America, rightly or wrongly, see themselves as competing with Jews for political power. And the number of Muslims actually identified by any major survey is between a half and a third the number of people who identify themselves as being Jewish (which is a shrinking demographic, btw), depending on the survey.
Puffing the number up to "6-7 million" boosts Muslims over Jews. Should this matter? Maybe not. But it does, a lot, to many Muslims in the United States and abroad.
Which may explain why, in a week when the president is trying very hard to reach across a political and religious chasm, Obama defies the data.
A new poll of general news knowledge released Friday found only 26 percent of Americans knew that it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate and force a vote on a bill.
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Gee Mr. Weiss, is it possible that Obama has better numbers than a few surveys?
Bottom line, there are ALOT of Muslims in our Country. There are even whole communities, that are mostly muslim, right here in RiverCity even...
I'd be hard pressed to see some more numbers on this, beyond any poll or survey.
I personally, live between 2 muslim households, and they just happen to be, some of the best neighbors Ive ever had, really nice families and very thoughtful.
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Pundit.
4:52AM Jun 6th 2009
I have been a secret muslin for years and am just now coming out of the closet. I said "muslin" because we wear all them sheets and stuff.
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Pundit
8:58PM Jun 4th 2009
"Estimates of a total Muslim population of 6-7 million in America seem reasonable in light of the figure of 2 million Muslims who associate with a mosque. "
Women rarely if ever attend Mosques in protest of Sharia law...
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Dana Seilhan
1:54AM Jun 5th 2009
That's funny. Every time I see extended footage of the insides of American masjids, there are women in them.
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Jeffrey Weiss
9:18PM Jun 4th 2009
michelletx62, if he has better numbers I'd like to know where he found them. And this has nothing to do with your Muslim neighbors are nice people. I'm sure they are. Or whether there are a bunch of Muslims in the US. Around 2 million qualify as a bunch in my book. Just not as big a bunch as the claim.
And Pundit, you must not go to the same Eid services I've attended. In Dallas, the local Muslims rent out an enormous exhibition hall -- tens of thousands show up if it's a weekend. And while women never get the best place to kneel, they attend in great abundance.
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Susan
7:27AM Jun 5th 2009
21% of the world's population is Muslim. Of that population, 55% are under the age of 30.
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Kurt Zaccardo
9:20PM Jun 4th 2009
OUR TERRORIST POPULATION IS GROWING @ AN ALARMING RATE! ISLAM ISNT THE ONLY TERRORIST WE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT. JUST LOOK @ OUR SOUTHERN BORDER. DID I OFFEND ANYONE, TO BAD! (NUMBERSUSA.COM)-(USAWAKEUP.ORG) WAKE-UP AMERICA, BEFORE THERE ISNT ONE! (OBAMADECEPTION.NET)
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Dana Seilhan
1:54AM Jun 5th 2009
Yeah, better kick out all the far-right white Christians too. Unless Dr. Tiller isn't really dead.
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RIChris
9:28PM Jun 4th 2009
Obama is overstating the Muslim population in the US and he understates all of the positive aspects of this country. It's all about where his loyalties lie.
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Dana Seilhan
1:55AM Jun 5th 2009
Nice. Muslims are a negative aspect of this country, then?
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RIChris
10:17AM Jun 5th 2009
I'm certain that space constraints would prevent you from listing all the positive aspects of being a woman in the muslim world.
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bob
9:33PM Jun 4th 2009
Perhaps he's including "secret Muslims" in his count.
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Randy
9:26AM Jun 5th 2009
Maybe the soros puppet was including all the folks in US prisons being converted by the islamic terrorists already there.... Must be they need help in their conversion efforts - why else would the democrat messiah want to send another 240 murdering muslim terrorists to them?
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Carolyn
10:41PM Jun 4th 2009
The speech was theatrical and without substance. It was just another campaign speech. He sounds like he's running for president of the world.
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Carolyn
2:30PM Jun 5th 2009
Tens of thousands?! Sounds like an exaggeration of vast proportion. It will be easy enough to check.
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ggreyspy
11:09PM Jun 4th 2009
No more muslims, period!
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Jeffrey Weiss
11:37PM Jun 4th 2009
My bad. Shoulda checked my own clips. Largest crowds were estimated at about 15,000. Still a pretty big service...
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steve
11:39PM Jun 4th 2009
I find it very interesting that so many Americans don't realize that all Muslims are not non-white. Many are blue eyed and blonde hair. Your neighbor might be a Muslim
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john
11:50PM Jun 4th 2009
I wonder if he counted the muslim guy who killed the soldier in little rock. He never mentioned that did he?
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giles chauvin
12:03AM Jun 5th 2009
I like to pretend that I think they're greek orthodox when I suspect someone is a muslim, just to see what they do.