by Lori Peek
methodologically irresponsible and inappropriate to have behaved other-
wise.spending time with the respondents helped me verify and better under-
stand the experiences and information that came to light in the qualitative
interviews. For instance, one of the greatest fears that the participants
expressed immediately following 9/11, particularly among the women,
was traveling on public transportation alone. As i walked through subway
stations and sat on trains with these young women, it quickly became clear
that the suspicious and angry looks they reported were not exaggerations.
interest in the size and characteristics of the muslim American population
has risen sharply in the aftermath of 9/11. However, estimating the number
of muslims in the United states has proven difficult. The U.s. Census Bureau
and the immigration and naturalization service are not legally allowed to
collect data on the religious affiliations of citizens or immigrants—due in
large part to the principle of church-state separation—and therefore precise
figures for the number or demographic characteristics of muslims living
in the United states do not exist. moreover, because muslims represent a
very small percentage of the overall American population, figures drawn
from general population surveys tend to be unreliable or overlook muslims
altogether.26 Additional difficulties in counting the number of American
muslims emerge from the diverse nature of the population itself. muslims
can be of any race or geographic origin, and immigrants from dozens of
different countries, native-born muslims, and converts to the faith make up
the muslim American community.27
10 / Chapter 1
As a result of these and other barriers to reliable data collection, estimates
vary widely regarding the size of the population, and at times disagreement
develops concerning who should be identified and counted as muslim. The
media, drawing on a variety of sources, commonly characterize the size of
the muslim population in the United states as ranging somewhere between
three and nine million persons.28 The Hartford institute for religious
research coordinated a 2001 study that estimated a population of between
six and seven million muslim Americans.29 more recently, the pew research
Center conducted a 2007 study that concluded that approximately 2.35
million muslims lived in the United states. The pew study, which was based
on a nationwide survey of a representative sample of muslim Americans,
found that roughly 65 percent of adult muslims living in the United states
were born elsewhere and that slightly more than half of all native-born
muslims converted to islam.
One thing that is certain is that the size of the muslim American
community is increasing steadily. islam is the fastest growing religion in the
United states, and some scholars predict that by the middle of the twenty-
first century it will become the nation’s second-largest religion—surpassed
only by Christianity in terms of its number of adherents.30
The growth of the muslim population in America can be divided into
several distinct phases. The first muslims in north America may have
been seafarers who made the perilous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean
before Christopher Columbus.31 later, between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries, an undetermined number of African muslims were brought to
America under the brutal slave trade. These individuals were largely forced
to abandon their faith, their traditions, their native languages, and their
friends and families.32 The adoption of islam by some twentieth-century
African Americans has been linked, in part, to an emotional tie to this early
new World history.33
The earliest voluntary migration of muslims to the United states began
during the late 1800s and consisted mostly of individuals from eastern europe
and parts of the Ottoman empire, including modern lebanon, syria, Jordan,
and palestine.34 Around the middle of the twentieth century, significant
numbers of muslim students from developing countries began attending
American universities.35 These individuals, many of whom eventually settled
in the United states, helped establish some of the first national muslim
organizations and major islamic centers and mosques in American cities.
Three primary factors drive the more recent and rapid expansion of
the muslim American community: (1) birth rates, (2) religious conversion
(especially among African Americans and whites), and, most significantly,
(3) changing immigration trends and patterns.36 in 1965, the U.s. Congress
passed the immigration and nationality Act, which repealed highly restrictive
Introduction / 11
country-of-origin quotas established in the 1920s that favored Western
european, mostly Judeo-Christian, immigrants. This post-1965 change in
federal immigration policy led to an unprecedented diversification of the
American population over subsequent decades, as millions of immigrants
and refugees arrived from around the world, pulled here by economic and
educational opportunities or pushed from their homelands as a result of
political turmoil, wars, revolutions, and environmental disasters.37 These and
other social, political, and economic forces have made the United states the
most religiously diverse nation on earth, and muslim Americans represent
an increasingly important segment of society.38
in the aftermath of 9/11, the media and public officials often used the
terms “muslim” and “Arab” interchangeably. This conflation of categories
led to the perception among many that all muslims are Arab and that all
Arabs are muslim.39 This is certainly not the case. muslim is an identifier
used to describe those who believe in the religion of islam, and thus muslims
can come from any nation and be of any racial or ethnic background. An
estimated 1.57 billion muslims live in countries spanning the globe, and
only about 20 percent of the world’s muslims reside in Arabic-speaking
countries.40 in fact, the four nations with the largest muslim populations—
indonesia (203 million), pakistan (174 million), india (161 million), and
Bangladesh (145 million)—are all located outside the Arab world.41
Approximately 300 million Arabs live in the world today. Arabs
represent a heterogeneous ethnic population that shares a cultural and
linguistic heritage and includes people who live in or trace their ancestries
to countries in northern Africa and southwestern Asia where the primary
language is Arabic.42 The 2000 U.s. Census identified 1.2 million Americans
who reported ancestry in one of the 22 Arab countries, but Arab American
advocacy organizations claim the population may be three times that size.43
Arabs may be of any religious background; in the United states, an estimated
two-thirds of all Arab Americans are Christian, with the remaining one-
third being muslim.44
The muslim American community is strikingly diverse. muslim im-
migrants to the United states, who make up nearly two-thirds of the entire
muslim American population, come from at least 68 countries, and these
/>
individuals have different traditions, practices, doctrines, languages, and
beliefs.45 According to the pew research Center, more than one-third (37
percent) of all foreign-born muslims are from Arabic-speaking countries.
An additional 27 percent emigrated from south Asian countries, including
pakistan, india, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. A substantial number of
muslims have also arrived from iran (12 percent), europe (8 percent), and
sub-saharan Africa (6 percent). even with the heavy presence of immigrants
among the muslim population, more than three-quarters (77 percent) of
12 / Chapter 1
all American muslims are U.s. citizens. Just over one-third of all muslim
Americans were born in the United states, and, of these individuals, most
identify as black or African American (56 percent), white (31 percent), or
Hispanic (10 percent).46
muslims live in every state in the United states, although they tend to be
concentrated in large cities and traditional immigrant-receiving centers. The
ten metropolitan areas with the largest populations of muslim Americans
include los Angeles; new york City; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Chicago;
Orange County, California; Houston; Oakland; san Diego; and Boston.47
Despite their predominantly immigrant and ethnic minority status, muslims
are actually less residentially segregated than many other groups. most
muslims live in neighborhoods where they form a distinct minority amid
a mostly white majority (notable exceptions exist in such places as Detroit
and new york City, and, as their numbers continue to grow, it is likely that
muslims will begin to create enclaves elsewhere).48
socioeconomic factors may help explain the high rates of residential
integration among the muslim population. With the exception of African
American muslims, America’s muslims are generally better educated and
more affluent than the nation as a whole. nearly 60 percent of muslim
Americans hold college degrees, which is more than double the national
average.49 muslim American women are one of the most highly educated
female religious groups, second only to Jewish American women.50 muslim
Americans also have the highest degree of economic gender parity—
meaning that men and women tend to be more on “equal footing” in terms
of earnings—of any religious group in the United states.51
muslim Americans experience lower poverty rates than most other
religious or ethnic minority groups in the United states, which is not
surprising given their generally high rates of educational attainment. more
than half of all muslims have incomes in excess of $50,000 a year, and their
average overall annual income is about $55,000.52 These statistics reflect the
fact that nearly 50 percent of all muslim Americans earn their living in such
professions as engineering, medicine, teaching, and business management.53
muslims also represent a relatively young segment of American society:
Three-quarters of adult muslims are younger than fifty years old.54
religion plays an important role in the lives of many Americans, and this
is especially true for muslim Americans. A nationally representative survey
found that 80 percent of muslim Americans acknowledge the importance
of faith in their lives.55 About 60 percent of muslim Americans say that
they pray every day,56 and just over 40 percent attend services at a mosque
at least once a week.57 younger muslim Americans (those under age thirty)
report attending religious services more frequently than do older muslims.58
muslim American women are as likely as muslim American men to attend
Introduction / 13
mosque at least once a week.59 This is in sharp contrast with the gender
pattern observed in many muslim majority countries, where men are more
likely than women to regularly attend religious services.60
in 2003, the Washington-based Council on American-islamic relations
(CAir) launched a national “islam in America” ad campaign. in running the
series of advertisements, CAir, which is one of the largest and most active
islamic civil-rights and advocacy organizations in the United states, hoped
to address common misperceptions about islam while also underscoring the
significant diversity of its followers. The campaign kicked off with a full-page
ad in the New York Times, headlined with the words, “We’re all Americans.”
Just below the headline, the ad featured photographs of a white man, an
African American girl, and an Asian man and asked the question “But, which
one of us is a muslim?” The response, “We all are. . . . [W]e’re American
muslims,” was followed by three paragraphs of text that outlined a number
of basic facts about islam and muslims. Other major islamic organizations,
including the msA national office, the islamic Circle of north America, and
the islamic society of north America, have embarked on similar campaigns
to educate the public regarding the basic tenets of the faith.
even before the 9/11 attacks, muslim Americans faced an uphill battle in
their quest to enlighten a mostly non-muslim public. For decades, Americans
have been bombarded with derogatory images of muslims in film and
television. On the big and the small screen, the islamic faith is regularly linked
with the oppression of women, holy war, and terrorist attacks. Jack shaheen,
who reviewed more than 900 Hollywood movies for his book Reel Bad Arabs,
notes that when mosques are displayed onscreen, the camera inevitably cuts
to men praying and then gunning down civilians.61 mainstream American
and Western print and broadcast media also regularly, and unapologetically,
reinforce the worst stereotypes about islam—that it is a violent, primitive,
and imminently hateful religion.62
since 9/11, negative perceptions of muslims have been on the rise. For
example, an ABC News poll found that four months after the terrorist
attacks, 14 percent of Americans believed that mainstream islam encourages
violence. A year and a half later, that number had jumped to 34 percent.63 in
the same ABC News follow-up survey, 43 percent of Americans expressed
the view that islam does not teach respect for the beliefs of non-muslims. in
2004 and 2005, CAir commissioned two national surveys to gauge public
sentiment about islam and muslims. Both surveys concluded that about
one in four Americans harbors prejudice against muslims. specifically, in
2004, the survey found that 26 percent of respondents agreed that islam
teaches violence and hatred; 27 percent agreed that muslims value life less
than other people; 29 percent said that muslims teach their children to hate
nonbelievers; and just over half, 51 percent, agreed that islam encourages the
14 / Chapter 1
oppression of women.64 These numbers remained virtually unchanged in the
2005 survey.65
in 2006, ABC News conducted a survey of 1,000 adults across the United
states. The results showed that nearly six in ten Americans think islam is
prone to violent extremism, almost half regard the religion unfavorably, and
about one-quarter of respondents openly admitted to harboring prejudicial
&nb
sp; feelings against muslims and Arabs alike.66 A USA Today/Gallup poll,
also conducted in 2006, found that more than one-third of Americans (39
percent) feel some prejudice against muslims. The same percentage favored
requiring muslims, including those who are U.s. citizens, to carry a special
identification card “as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the United
states.” About one-third said American muslims were sympathetic to al
Qaeda, and 22 percent indicated that they would not want muslims as
neighbors.67 By 2009, a majority of Americans had a negative impression
of islam, with 53 percent of Gallup survey respondents reporting that they
viewed islam unfavorably.68
Americans’ attitudes toward islam and muslims are undoubtedly
shaped, at least in part, by their lack of familiarity with the faith and its
followers: Approximately six in ten Americans acknowledge that they do
not have even a basic understanding of islam.69 in addition, many of those
who report some knowledge of islam actually hold incorrect beliefs about
the faith. For example, about 10 percent of Americans think that muslims
worship a “moon god,” a notion that most muslims would find not only
false but also offensive.70 These issues are further compounded by the fact
that most Americans have no close relationships with muslims. According
to one study, only about one in five non-muslim Americans has muslim
friends or colleagues.71 several surveys have shown that those who are more
knowledgeable about islam—either through education or personal contact
with muslims—are a good deal more likely to view the faith in a favorable
light.72 research has also found that familiarity and contact with Arabs
and muslims leads to more willingness to defend the civil liberties of these
persons.73
The aforementioned survey data point to two troubling trends: First,
most Americans have very little knowledge of the islamic faith; and second,
public opinion has grown increasingly negative toward muslims in the years
since the 9/11 attacks. if history has taught us anything, it is that ignorance
and hostility make for very dangerous bedfellows, especially during times of
war and national insecurity.
indeed, the United states has a long record of demonizing immigrants
and ethnic minorities from enemy countries during times of conflict. With