ShareThisWith nearly 5 million adherents, Islam is fast becoming America's second religious faith. According to a recent Gallup poll, Muslim Americans are already the most racially diverse group in the nation. African-Americans comprise 35 percent of the total Islamic community in the United States, followed by whites (28 percent), Hispanics (18 percent) Asians (18 percent) and others (18 percent).
In sharp contrast, 88 percent of Protestant Americans are white. So are 76 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Mormons, and 93 percent of Jews.
Muslim American women are among the most highly educated female religious groups in the United States, second only to Jewish American women. At both ends of the economic spectrum there is greater parity of income between Muslim men and women than exists in the general American population.
These revelations contradict the popular impression that Islam everywhere oppresses women. Muslims in America defy stereotyping. In predominantly Muslim countries it is the men who are likeliest to attend mosque every week. But in America, Muslim women are equally religiously observant as men.
Young Muslim Americans (ages 18 to 29) are unaccountably less engaged in civic affairs than their peers from other religious faiths. For example, only 51 percent of young Muslim Americans are registered to vote, surpassed by Protestants (78 percent), Jews (73 percent), Mormons (69 percent), and Catholics (56 percent). In the general U.S. population, two of every three young Americans register to vote.
Young Muslim Americans do not gravitate toward political extremism. Some 39 percent of them consider themselves moderate, 28 percent liberal, and 20 percent conservative in their politics.
When asked to predict their future quality of life, only 41 percent of Muslim Americans told Gallup pollsters that they expect to be "thriving" within the next five years. More hopeful of success are American Jews (56 percent), Mormons (51 percent), Protestants (48 percent) and Catholics (45 percent). Still, Muslims in America tend to have higher expectations of success than their co-religionists in every predominantly Islamic country except Saudi Arabia.
Equal percentages (41 percent) of Muslim Americans and Protestant Americans worship weekly in mosque or church, followed by 37 percent of Catholic Americans who worship together on the Sabbath.
Four of five American Muslims say religion plays an important role in their lives. Some 85 percent of Mormons say the same, followed by Protestants (76 percent), Catholics (68 percent), and Jews (39 percent).
In the Christian Science Monitor, Chris Seiple suggests how Muslims and Americans of other faiths can respect one another. Secularism translates as "godless' to Muslims, he says, adding that most of them welcome integration into American society, but not at the cost of forfeiting their faith and culture. Mere tolerance of Muslims is not enough, Seiple argues.
Rather, "we need to listen and understand each other better, demonstrating respect as a result. But American Christians and Jews should not confine their conversations only to "moderate" Muslims. If someone called me a 'moderate Christian,' I would be deeply offended."
(David Yount's latest book is "Celebrating the Single Life: Keys to Successful Living on Your Own" (Praeger). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount31(at)verizon.net.)
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