The Muslim Mainstream
Islam is growing fast in America, and its members defy stereotypes
In the polished wooden pews of a white-steepled New England church, the weekend congregants sit with heads reverently bowed. The town of Chelmsford, Mass., is Yankee to the core, and so are most of its inhabitants. Like the sober, strait-laced Pilgrims 300 years before them, the worshipers here shun liquor, dress modestly, and feel uplifted when they call out, "God is great!" Unlike their Puritan predecessors, however, those gathered here address their Maker in Arabic: "Allah-u Akhbar!" they chant, in a call offered five times each day by Muslims from Maine to Alaska.
Five to 6 million strong, Muslims in America already outnumber Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Mormons, and they are more numerous than Quakers, Unitarians, Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists, combined. Many demographers say Islam has overtaken Judaism as the country's second-most commonly practiced religion; others say it is in the passing lane.
Yet while Muslims make up one of the fastest-growing religious groups, largely because of immigration, they are among those least understood by their neighbors. Over half the respondents to a recent Roper poll described Islam as inherently anti-American, anti-Western, or supportive of terrorism--though only 5 percent of those surveyed said they'd had much contact with Muslims personally. And according to a draft report scheduled to be released this week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, although the incidence of violence and harassment directed at Muslims declined 58 percent last year, discrimination reports increased 60 percent.
In part, such statistics reflect attitudes shaped by Muslims who live across the globe rather than those who live across the street. Militant fundamentalists such as the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran (and a tiny minority of American Muslims) come from an extreme wing, rather than the more moderate center of the world's 1 billion Muslims. But TV cameras and international showdowns raise the militants' public profile. They overshadow the mass of American Muslims, who tend to vote Democratic on issues like immigration and affirmative action, veer Republican on "traditional family values," including such topics as abortion and sex education, and live comfortably within the mainstream of society.
The statistics also suggest that the United States must wrestle with a question that has challenged France, Germany, and other European nations as their Muslim populations have grown: Is America a nation based on Judeo-Christian values or on something more universal? Do we value cultural diversity, or merely tolerate it? As the country begins thinking about how the expanding Muslim population might change the nation's sense of itself, the challenge will be to see Islam as it really is, rather than as people wish or fear.
One of the most widespread misconceptions about Muslims here or abroad is that they are primarily Middle Eastern. Fewer than 1 out of 8 American Muslims (12.4 percent) are of Arab descent; other Middle Eastern groups like Iranians and Turks account for only a few additional percentage points each. On a global basis, there are about 100 million more Muslims on the Indian subcontinent alone than in all Arab countries combined. The two largest Muslim groups in the United States are native-born African-Americans (42 percent) and immigrants from South Asia (24 percent).
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