Survey: Muslim-Americans happier with conditions in US than broader public

The new Pew survey was sparked, in part, by a desire to know whether recent concerns about home-grown terrorism had led to increased alienation among Muslim-Americans and support for extremism.



By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer / August 30, 2011

For the most part, Muslim-Americans disavow Islamic extremism, are happy with the way things are going in the country and in their lives, and are about as religious and educated as the general American public.

Those are a few of the lessons from a new report from the Pew Research Center that surveyed Muslim-Americans and paints a detailed portrait of their demographics, experiences, opinions, and perceptions.

Pew’s last survey of this group was in 2007, and the current one was sparked, in part, by a desire to know whether recent concerns about home-grown terrorism and other pressures had led to increased alienation and anger among Muslim-Americans and support for extremism, says Scott Keeter, Pew’s director of survey research and a co-author of the study.

The result, he says, was the opposite. “There’s been no increase in favorable views of Al Qaeda, of suicide bombing, or Islamic extremism,â€