According to official data, Muslims make up 0.6% of the US population, which in absolute terms is 1.82 million people. These numbers have remained stable year after year. However, the results of a study conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) back in 2000 indicated that six or even seven million Americans consider themselves Muslims. Representatives of CAIR explained this discrepancy with data from other organizations by the fact that Muslims are reluctant to participate in such surveys.
True, many were skeptical of the CAIR study. First, the professor from the University of Kentucky who led the study, Ihsan Bagby, is not a specialist in demography. Second, he cannot be called an independent expert – Bagby is part of CAIR's leadership. And third, the research methods were not trustworthy – the results were largely based on guesswork.
The 2000 study was conducted as follows: Bagby's assistants sent official requests to 416 of the 1,209 officially operating mosques in the United States. The mosque imams were to report how many people were part of the local Muslim community. The answers varied noticeably. For example, two imams stated that more than 50,000 people were associated with the mosque in one way or another, while in the largest mosque in the country, located near Washington, only 3,000 people pray.
On average, there were 1,625 Muslims per each of the 416 mosques. From this, researchers concluded that at least 2 million people are associated with all mosques together. And if two million people attend official mosques, then, as Ihsan Bagby explained, one must add those who gather in private homes or offices, and that gives six or seven million people. In subsequent years, CAIR representatives said that the Muslim community had reached eight or even ten million, but did not substantiate these claims. Naturally, sociologists find it difficult to accept conclusions built on such reasoning.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations was accused of the so-called 'Wahhabi lobby' and attempts to Islamize the United States. In 2007, an article appeared in Investor's Business Daily explaining CAIR's attempts to exaggerate the size of the US Muslim community as the desire of the organization's leadership to exert pressure on government authorities, corporations, and the media. Meanwhile, Ihsan Bagby did make statements about the need for fuller participation of Muslims in the country's social and political life.
Information about newly converted Muslims is also virtually unsubstantiated. According to the 2000 CAIR study, an average of 16 people per mosque converted to Islam each year. But according to experts at Investor's Business Daily, even taking into account converts, high birth rates in Muslim families, and the influx of migrants, by early 2007 there could be no more than 4 million Muslims in the United States.
Meanwhile, this time the council's representatives intend to count more than ten million. First, they promised to carefully check where else, besides official mosques, adherents of Islam gather. According to Bagby, who, by the way, will again lead the count, the study participants will literally 'hunt' for Muslims. Naturally, it is impossible to double-check the data that researchers obtain as a result of such a 'hunt'.
Second, as the same Ihsan Bagby said, this time even adherents of para-Islamic sects such as 'Ahmadiyya' and 'Nation of Islam' will be counted as Muslims. Particularly notable is the 'Nation of Islam,' which is often classified as an extremist anti-Semitic organization. The current leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, claims that the organization unites several million black Muslims. The sect is indeed numerous, but how many is unknown. It is worth noting that only they themselves can call their followers Muslims: those belonging to the Nation of Islam recognize both the Quran and the Bible, are supporters of black separatism, and call unidentified flying objects 'Ezekiel's wheels.' Orthodox Muslims do not consider followers of the Nation of Islam and various movements of the Ahmadiyya organization as coreligionists.
Interestingly, one of the main goals of the organization, according to CAIR's leadership, is to debunk stereotypes. For example, the organization recently launched a series of videos in which men and women call themselves 'American Muslims' and talk about the benefits they and their ancestors have brought to the country. These videos are intended to dispel the perception of Muslims as dangerous extremists or unemployed refugees. In addition, CAIR runs an anti-terrorism propaganda program in which young Muslims are explained the difference between religion and extremist groups.
The results of the new study will be announced in early 2009. Whatever the statistics turn out to be – ten, twelve, or fifteen million Muslims – Ihsan Bagby will certainly be accused of exaggeration, and CAIR will again be suspected of pursuing its own interests.
Yulia SAVITSKAYA.
