This was the week when British Muslims became experts in research methodology.
Trevor Phillips, who led the Equality and Human Rights Commission, presented the Channel 4 show What British Muslims Really Think on Wednesday night, which was based on an ICM survey — and it has created quite a debate.
The ICM surveyed 1,000 Muslims face-to-face and found that:
One in 25 Muslims (four per cent) said they felt at least some sympathy with people who took part in suicide bombings, while a similar proportion said they had some sympathy with “people who commit terrorist actions as a form of political protest”.
A quarter – 25 per cent – said they could understand why British school girls could be attracted to become “jihadi brides” overseas.
Less than half (47 per cent) agreed that Muslims should do more to tackle the causes of extremism in the Muslim community.
52 per cent believed homosexuality should not be legal in Britain, 39 per cent agreed “wives should always obey their husbands”, and 31 per cent said it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife.
78% said the media had no right publish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Rather than addressing the important issues raised from this poll, the usual suspects — including left-wing commentators — are either downplaying the worrying responses or dismissing this entirely as ‘Islamophobic’. We don’t like it when our dirty laundry is aired in public. There are either absolutely no problems, or if there are, it’s everyone else’s fault but ours.
This poll didn’t really tell us anything new. It is a fact that British Muslims, on the whole, do tend to be more conservative. As writer and lecturer Kenan Malik points out: [Sedaa.org] Read more
