Q for British Muslims

[Muthaofcats]

https://henryjacksonsociety.org/2024/04/08/only-one-in-four-british-muslims-believe-hamas-committed-murder-and-rape-in-israel-on-october-7th/

I was really curious (and shocked) to read news reports of the recent research canvassing the views of British Muslims in this country, it covers things like support for Hamas and anti semitism, but also extends to views on women’s roles in British society and subjects like homophobia too.

These views are quite at odds with public sentiment and our law and social policy generally, so I was quite shocked by them and what they mean for social cohesion and education in this country.

I am very conscious of the limitations of any study like this, and also that there is no one ‘Muslim’ identity, but would love to hear from Muslim women on here to see what you made of these reports / the findings ?

Do they broadly reflect your views or that of your community ?

If so, how does that impact on your life day to day and do you see a way that such values can peacefully coexist alongside those who do not share the same view point as you?

I am asking this out of genuine curiosity and in good faith, I am inviting respectful discourse only.

I do not want any hateful or racist language about ANY group in this thread please.

I am not Muslim or living in the UK so I will not answer for them but I would suggest that any survey with any particular ethnic/ religious group would probably uncover views that are:

Views are quite at odds with public sentiment and our law and social policy generally,

I am amazed that anybody thinks these findings are a surprise

@Muthaofcats , thank you for asking this question, I too was really shocked by the responses to this survey. I look forward to the responses to your question.

I would urge you to read up on the Henry Jackson Society and its agenda.

https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/167838132/GriffinettalHenryyJacksonSocietyyspinwatchreporttweb.pdf

It is incredibly easy to generate 'data' to fit a narrative and smear an entire group of people.

Or it could just be correct? Even if you allow for a pretty big margin of error, the results still come out shocking.

They asked 1000 of the approx 4 million Muslims who reside in the UK. Methinks this survey is probably not very representative

Also noted in the survey - ime general prayer rooms are provided in most schools and hospitals (i graduated mid 00s and classrooms were available for prayer every lunchtime).

That’s absolutely untrue and not how qualitative research works. A much tinier sample than 1000 would be enough to understand prevailing patterns and trends. They would have hit data saturation long before 1000 with the same answers coming up. It is actually more than enough to draw conclusions.

Agree definitely worth checking out the provenance

Even Wikipedia describes them as an 'extreme right wing think tank'

So it'll likely be an attractive survey for frothing by like minded individuals

I have only skim read but as far as I can see it isn’t surprising that being Muslim would entail a person answering those questions along the lines they have, just as someone of strongly held Christian,
Jewish, Hindu, or Buddhist beliefs might also answer with bias towards their own ideas.

For example why is it surprising that there were many answers wanting a public holiday? Or a place to pray ( hospitals often do, though the question did not seem to reflect this.) Some practising Christians also have reservations about homosexuality. Buddhists in the U.K. would no doubt have liked funeral pyres to be allowed. Etc

Also, people answering honestly to indicate they would like something mentioned in the questions, is not necessarily the same as expecting it as a right.

However the present situation where there are so many deaths in Gaza means many people, not only Muslims, feel the government should not continue arming Israel, and some people are becoming demanding in the wrong sort of way imo. This is a worrying element where there have been threatening behaviour or intimidating demands towards MPs ( even murder in the past). Those answering the question may not see the line between protest and intimidation.

I think the questionnaire seems rather biased towards making Muslims in the U.K. seem like outliers though.

A lot of modern social ‘liberalism’ can expand into being rather extreme too, and if broken down as questions, lots of people of varying social or religious backgrounds might be found to disagree with various ideas. Other people other than Muslims could be found who are prejudiced against someone not sharing their own views.

In practice aren’t most people of all sorts of beliefs just keeping them to themselves and rubbing along?

I think many Christians are also uncomfortable with ideas like gay marriage. Any survey of any religious group is likely to produce findings that are at odds with liberal values and norms. The issue with Islam is that it isn’t just a matter of private spiritual belief. Muslims believe that Islam is the solution for everything - that includes political arrangements and governance structures.

I'd be interested to see the actual questions asked. You ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers.

I would disagree that Muslims are a homogenous group and think in this way. Muslims communities in the UK tend to organise themselves across 'ethnic' or common language groups. The British Bangladeshi communities tend to have their own cultural norms and their own mosques, as do the British Pakistani communities, the British Turkish communities, British Iranian communities, British Moroccan communities, and the Arabic speaking comminities. The so called 'Muslim community' is made up of quite disparate groups in reality.

Yes of course. But there will be similarities as well as differences across different Muslim groups. For example, no Muslim data sample, even if you break it down per country, is going to show a majority approval for gay marriage.

A sample of 1000 would be representative IF they took a sample across many different types of mosques and ethnic groups. As with Christianity there are vastly different views held in different communities. If they wanted a 'shocking' result which they clearly do, being a extreme right think tank, it would be very easy to pick a few v conservative communities to survey. I'm hardly an expert but in my teaching I have found certain open minded and hugely compassionate and thoughtful students go to a particular mosque in my area.

That’s a reasonable point and it would be worth digging down into their methodology but surely there’s no survey, however you did it, that would show results consistent with liberal values. Even the most mainstream mosque is not going to be teaching that gay marriage is a good thing, or that it’s ok to show a picture of the Prophet Muhammad. These are inconvenient truths we have to live with about what a significant percentage of our population think.

Also pretty telling that the only newspaper that seems to have picked this up as a news item is the daily mail

I agree. Our liberal culture has made a (in my view, cowardly) decision to prioritise some liberal values over others, and that requires a considerable amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes, for example, to the way that the agency of girls in many Muslim households are dramatically curtailed. Where liberal values clash, it is usually women who are pushed to the back of the liberation queue.

One way to deal with the disjunct is to make it more or less unsayable if one wishes to remain within the liberal tribe. We liberals are more or less told to look the other way. The fact that the Mail is the only paper reporting on the issue probably says bad things about the source of the data - but it equally says bad things about the willingness of the liberal press to face difficult subjects.

I speak as what most people would likely describe as a died in the wool liberal /'progressive'.

As another pp mentioned, gay marriage and homosexuality is likely to generate 'extreme' views among many religious groups. It's still relatively new in its acceptance even in western countries/ liberal western values.

'Studies' like this generate sensationalist headlines in the papers which do not reflect the reality on the ground.

I don't know the methodology or how they did the sampling for this study but @CaterhamReconstituted mentioned it was 'qualitative', in which case it cannot be held up as a 'representative'. Qualitative research, by its very nature, is not robust and is not used to obtain data that is representative.

Why is anyone shocked? Have any of those expressing shock actually lived in a Muslim country? I live in MENA and have heard way more shocking things than in that survey LOL.

'Think Tanks' like the Henry Jackson Society also use dubious and deliberately leading questions, sometimes offering extreme multi choice options, forcing respondents to pick options that are not necessarily in line with how they really want to answer.

We can quibble over the study but my concern is that instinctive reaction by some is that the results must have been deliberately engineered for nefarious purposes to smear Muslims. Can it really be dismissed entirely? As a previous poster said, we are urged to look away rather than engage with truths about some of our communities. It is prioritising not offending anyone over paying attention to what people believe and the impact this has on our society. Even the most generous reading of the data shows some pretty damning results.

It's easy to manipulate data like this, simplified it's like pointless. 'We asked 100 people to name a song by Travis Scott'. Ask in a school and most would know, ask in a supermarket and some would know. Ask in an OAP home and I suspect very few would. Without the data of who and where people were surveyed it's meaningless unless you are a naive mail reader.

I think you are urging us to look the other way.

The efforts to discredit the research rather than address its conclusions are striking so far on this thread.

Me too. I suggest anyone who places much faith in surveys watches the “ Yes Minister “ episode which shows how to set a questionnaire so that you get the answers that suit the group setting it .