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.

Ask the poster then? I merely responded to it and I was smearing you apparently.

The think tank purports to be anti extremism; so I guess their agenda is certainly with elements of Islamism that they believe should be scrutinised and challenged ? As opposed to Muslim people individually. That’s the distinction I have taken from their publications anyway but haven’t read everything they’ve put out there.

If the poll (if one first accepts it is valid) is reflecting that extreme views are perhaps more widely held than one might otherwise have believed, then that is worthy of discussion no?

Its a separate point if we do not believe it is representative or accurate; but I am still unclear whether you are disagreeing with what the report says or just why it says it ?

Totally understand this - I can see why one might feel paranoid and defensive in the current climate.

I guess what I was keen to know was exactly what my OP asked, if the ‘opinions’ reported accurately reflected how the community (accepting its not a homogenous group) felt and if yes, what that then meant living in a society where the majority opinion was ( for most of those themes) very different.

My comments have been very clear that I'm disagreeing with the apparent methodology of selecting the respondents to represent the groups and therefore questioning the accuracy of it's findings and disagreeing how it's being presented considering that. Very unsure how you could be confused by that.

Those 'results' have significantly more people than the number of Muslims who participated agreeing that introducing Sharia Law in the UK would be highly desirable. (The General Public tab).

And more Muslims agreed that making Christianity a greater part of education would be desirable than not. There's also a bias in favour of not banning abortion, neutral-positive towards LGBT+ and the survey reported that it's absolutely fine-don't care if the local MP has a completely different position on the conflict, more Muslims do not believe Jewish people have too much power than do.

But it was described in a completely neutral manner as 'shocking results' and that 'British integration policy is failing and needs urgent revision'.

It's utter bollocks, all of it - the wording of the questions, the sampling (they've clearly targeted participants from George Galloway's constituency, as nobody else would be able to vote for him), and most of all the shitty comparisons and conclusions.

I guess what I was keen to know was exactly what my OP asked, if the ‘opinions’ reported accurately reflected how the community (accepting its not a homogenous group) felt and if yes, what that then meant living in a society where the majority opinion was ( for most of those themes) very different.

Do you think Muslims on here would know that though? My own mother would have very different opinions on certain issues than me. I wouldn't have a clue what the people down the street thoughts were on certain things so I wouldn't expect one Muslim poster on here to know whether some of these opinions were reflective of a large community. Surveys and all research which aren't interrogated properly are dangerous. We all saw the fall out over the mmr and the hrt exaggerated links to breast cancer because the headlines were reported out of context, not explained properly and off it goes.

Broadly speaking, no, I don't think those results are reflective of views and values among my friends, family and acquaintances.

Personally, I'd love a public holiday for Eid but it would be a bit tricky to implement as the Hijri and Gregorian calendars don't match up so Eid is on a different day each year (and might not be confirmed until the day before, which wouldn't be practical for businesses).

For me, the Israel-Gaza conflict is a major deciding factor in how I intend to vote in a General Election. I will not vote for a party that directly or indirectly contributed to the deaths of people I care about in Gaza. I will not vote for a party which authorised the withholding of potentially life-saving aid funds based on the actions and alleged actions of a small number of people affiliated with a large aid organisation which could have been the difference between life and death for innocent people, but which dismisses concerns, allegations and investigations into the potential commission of war crimes in order to continue supplying weapons to the alleged perpetrating force in those alleged war crimes. To me, that shows both an underlying hypocrisy and that the lives of innocent people mean less to that party than a relatively small financial gain in the grand scheme of things.

I've lived and worked in many places where people don't share my values. I'm responsible for my own integrity and for living my life according to my values. Other people are responsible for their own path and their own values.

As far as pictures go, I think it would or should probably fall under hate crime legislation to use an intentionally offensive picture with the intention of causing fear and alarm, regardless of what group a person was targeting. The issue of pictures of living beings and pictures of The Prophet (peace be upon him) is actually more complex than it might seem, and there are lots of different opinions. I don't have a legal right to not be offended, but I do have a legal right to not be caused to experience fear and alarm.

So let's take the main claim.

24% said yes hamas committed murder and rape.
38% said they didn't know.
39% said hamas didn't.

Let's ignore the wording of the question and available answers, which are limited and prescriptive. Let's ignore the 38% that didn't know. Let's ignore the fact that more muslims agreed or didn't know than disagreed. Let's ignore the fact that when calculating the results and forming conclusions, they knew the muslim people they interviewed distrust the media coverage of the issue.

Let's look at how the findings were presented. It wasn't a neutral statement of "24% (or 1 in 4) Muslims believe Hamas committed murder and rape " nope they added the quantifier of only, of not enough. That already sways opinion.

I can make a statement too based on that data . 1 in 12 of the general public(non muslim) think Hamas did not commit murder and rape . How does that sound? Extrapolate that to the whole population like the study and OP are doing. Pretty worrying.

@PaperDoIIs , I do find quite a bit in the survey concerning including that 1 in 2 of the general population deny that Hamas committed rape and murder. It deserves discussion.

I agree.

@Lovepeaceunderstanding I agree with that. I'd be happy to discuss that and frankly all the topics and what they mean.

What I have an issue with is how the study was done(including the questions that were exclusive to the general public)the bias of the organisation doing it, how the findings were presented by said organisation and how they were portrayed by headlines in the media and how it is used by various people with an agenda(or without, I'm actually willing to give OP the benefit of the doubt in here).

For example I'm outraged that education was considered the most important issue at general election only(see what I did there?) by 3% of the general public(on par with the Palestine/Israel conflict).

Why isn't that a headline? 97% percent of Brits bla bla bla....

I agree - we have a responsibility to think about the consequences of news stories like this and the power of language to influence and divide us.

It certainly did shock me to read some of the apparent opinions of the majority of the British Muslim population in this report, and i can see how if someone took those reports at face value, it could really erode trust and social cohesion. So I understand your concerns in that respect for sure.

My worry would also be that it could legitimise those who do have problematic views Ie ‘Hamas did not commit murder’ or ‘Jews have too much power’ and therefore think that their views accorded with the rest of one’s community and therefore normalises them and reassures the person that such beliefs are ok and do not need to be challenged. Does that make sense ?

My worry would also be that it could legitimise those who do have problematic views Ie ‘Hamas did not commit murder’ or ‘Jews have too much power’ and therefore think that their views accorded with the rest of one’s community and therefore normalises them and reassures the person that such beliefs are ok and do not need to be challenged. Does that make sense ?

That I can understand and accept. You actually make a brilliant point there that I hadn't considered. It's a double edge sword.

Ironically their poll also showed that nearly half (to use their techniques) of the general public think the impact of cultural diversity has been positive. But again that didn't make the headlines.

To answer the OP, I am a British Muslim. Everyone Muslim I know believes what happened and condemns Hamas for what they did on Oct 7th.
As well as obviously condemning the Israeli government for what they are doing now.
I have seen no denials like this. But I imagine it happens in some groups.

@RightClothesWrongWeather

Thank you for the first open, honest and direct answer to OPs question.

The way you’re quoting the OP here is a bit disingenuous though.
Just before the bit you quoted, she said: “Do they broadly reflect your views or that of your community ?”
So she’s not necessarily implying that just because someone is muslim their views and values are automatically at odds with the wider society.
She’s just saying that the views described in the study on “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” might be an issue.
She’s asking people on this forum what their views are and whether they align with the study results.
I’m an immigrant in the UK, and if a study came out stating that a certain number of people from the same background as me and living in the UK held particular views on essential issues that were at odds with the British general public, I wouldn’t mind it if someone asked me what my position on it was.

Would you be likely to say on here if your views were the wrong ones given the angle of the questionnaire and the assumption that you would be seen as dangerous to a civilised Western society compared to ‘good’ U.K. citizens?

I don’t think I would, especially with Yes/No answers to composite, badly worded questions.

…………….

I have just seen someone thank inamaria for the first ‘honest’
response.

Were other responses ‘dishonest’ for not answering as demanded?

Sorry, inamarina, I spelt your username wrong. Also, by “would you be likely” I meant “you” meaning people in general, not you personally.

@inamarina are you a "good" or "bad" (determined mainly by country of origin) immigrant? Because I am a "bad" one and it's fucking frustrating having to justify myself and prove I'm not like "that".

Personally, I don’t think people’s opinions on whether someone is a “good” or a “bad” immigrant are always based on what country said immigrant is from, but more on their level of integration.
I’m from Eastern Europe originally, is that considered “good” or “bad”?

Would you be likely to say on here if your views were the wrong ones given the angle of the questionnaire and the assumption that you would be seen as dangerous to a civilised Western society compared to ‘good’ U.K. citizens?

I honestly don’t think I have any views that would be considered dangerous to a civilised Western society (unless one considers being gender critical as dangerous), but if for instance I knew several people from my background who thought men were superior to women and were allowed to beat their wives (as an example), justifying it by their cultural norms, I would mention that when asked about general attitudes of men towards women in my community.
That wouldn’t mean that I shared that view or even that the majority of men from my background did.
In the same way, if some study claimed that male on female violence was prevalent in my community, but I personally didn’t know anyone who behaved like that, I would say that.
That’s how I understand OP’s question. I think she just asks people about the attitudes they see in their own circles and whether or not they align with the study findings.

I understand Inmarina, but if a persons views might not be considered reasonable, they are unlikely to say.

If for example a gender critical person were to give gave their true views to a transactivist viewpoint questionnaire for example, any answers ‘Yes’’No’ that seems to go against the presumed to be ‘good’ answer (because the real answer was greyer/ could not be explained that way) would get you labelled a transphobe or even cause you to lose your job.

I answered above, are you saying I've been dishonest?

@ScrollingLeaves I can think of a number of views held by 'good UK citizens' that I would consider actively or passively harmful to a civilised society.

Well none of undesirable answers were answered by 0% (or close to it-bar one or two) of the general public so there's that.

I also found interesting that the general public were more eager to get rid of Christianity than Muslim Brits. The irony.