Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist

The Economist’s survey of Muslim Americans and the contrast with European Muslims. Same general pattern with Canadian Muslims (about 3 percent of Canada’s population) in terms of the diversity of communities and outcomes, although overall have a higher low-income percentage.

And like the US, we also have that small number of those who radicalize and go off to fight in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere:

America’s Muslims differ from Europe’s in both quantity and origin. The census does not ask about faith, but estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany.

Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart.

Different traditions get squashed together. When building mosques, says Chris McCoy, a Kentucky native who is a prolific architect of Islamic buildings, “the question is usually not whether we should have an Indian- or a Saudi-style dome but, can we afford a dome?”

Mixing breeds tolerance: Pew found that most American Muslims think that their faith is open to multiple interpretations, making them the Episcopalians of the Islamic world.

America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany. Many American Muslims arrived in the 1970s to complete their higher education and ended up staying. Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America, which issues fatwas, or religious opinions, to guide the behaviour of the country’s Muslims, is typical: he was born in India and holds a Harvard PhD in comparative religion.

There is a stark contrast between this group and some of the more recent immigrants from Somalia, who have fewer qualifications and lower wages as do African-American Muslims, who make up about an eighth of the total. This divide, if anything, makes America’s Muslims look more like the nation as a whole.

Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist.