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How Many Islamists?

by Daniel Pipes
Tue, 17 May 2005
updated Sat, 26 Aug 2006

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Germany's interior minister, Otto Schily, spoke today at the release of the 2004 Verfassungsschutzbericht, the annual report by the domestic security agency that surveys Germany's extremist movements, as I have written, in a "frank and constructive way." Schily announced that, at the end of 2004, there were exactly 31,800 Islamist radicals resident in Germany, or 1 percent of the Muslim population of Germany. [May 22, 2006 update: The number has increased to 32,100 Islamists in Germany for 2005, says the Verfassungsschutz.]

This raises, again, that chestnut of a question: how many Muslims support the Islamist project, that is want to live in a state run under the rules of the Shari‘a, Islamic law? The current war clearly has very different dimensions depending on whether the answer is 1 percent or 75 percent. I proffered the estimate of 10 to 15 percent days after September 11, 2001; this figure has been questioned but has also been quite widely accepted.

Others have offered a wide range of numbers. Here is a sampling, in reverse chronological order:

__________

Indonesian poll: A survey conducted by the Indonesian Survey Circle, a private pollster, finds that almost 70 percent of Indonesians (including non-Muslim citizens) back the current secular system of Pancasila. Given that some 85 per cent of Indonesians are Muslims, and presuming that only Muslims would want an Islamic order, that points to about one-third of the country's Muslims wanting something different. The poll also found about 55 percent opposing law, with stronger opposition to some parts of the Shari‘a.

• Object to stoning for adultery: 63.3 percent.
• Oppose the death penalty for Muslims converting from Islam: 71.2 percent.
• Oppose making women wear Muslim dress: 77 percent.
• Against cutting off the hand of a thief: 77.3 percent.

(Australian Associated Press, "Indonesians oppose strict Islam, says poll," August 24, 2006)

British polls: In a survey of ten surveys, I find that "more than half of British Muslims want Islamic law and 5% endorse violence to achieve that end." (Daniel Pipes, "Trouble in Londonistan," July 11, 2006)

Dutch study: The new "Centrum voor Radicalisme en Extremisme Studies" at the University of Amsterdam has researched the radicalization of Moroccan youth and found that 40 percent of the Moroccan youth in the Netherlands reject western values and democracy, while 6-7 percent of them are prepared to use force to defend Islam. (Expatica, "Centre for extremist studies established," June 14, 2006)

Gallup poll: Gallup's Poll of the Islamic World polled over 50,000 Muslims around the wolrd and found in "The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Moderate vs. Extremist Views in theMuslim World" a wide range of percentages of Muslims whose views are consistent with being Islamist. (Islamism is defined by attitudes toward the Shari‘a, not the United States, so this survey offers only a hint about our subject.)

In order to investigate characteristics that distinguish Muslim world residents who are potentially prone to extremist views, we divided respondents from the region into two groups. Classified as political radicals were those who met the following criteria: 1) they felt the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were "completely justified", and 2) they indicate that they have an "unfavorable" or "very unfavorable" opinion of the United States. Those who did not say the attacks were completely justified were termed moderates. The "radical" group represents about 7% of the total population across the 10 countries included in the study, ranging from a high of 26% in Egypt to a low of 1% in Morocco.

(May 3, 2006)

Hamas victory: In Palestinian Authority elections, the Islamist terrorist group Hamas won 44 percent of the popular vote. (January 26, 2006)

Margaret Nydell: "The militant Muslim groups cannot represent even 1 percent of Muslims in the United States (that would be 50,000) or the world (that would be 15 million). If that were true, we would be overrun with wild-eyed fanatics. Islamists who resort to violence add up to less than one tenth of 1 percent." (Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times, 4^th ed., International Press, 2005, p. 104) Comment: Nydell makes the inexplicable mistake of equating Islamists with terrorists, as though all of the former are the latter. And this from a professor at Georgetown University. Some unsolicited advice for her: stick closer to linguistics, in which you got your degree, and stay clear away from politics.

British polls: Two just-released opinion surveys of British Muslims suggest a very substantial Islamist percentage. Of the many questions asked, perhaps the most revealing in this regard is the one whether the respondent agrees that "Western society is decadent and immoral and that Muslims should seek to bring it to an end." An astounding 1/3^rd of those asked did agree with this statement. (Anthony King, "One in four Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists," The Daily Telegraph, July 23, 2005)

John O'Sullivan: "Estimates of the number of (generally young male) Muslims who are actively sympathetic to Islamism are inevitably … speculative. The usual guess is that 15 percent of the Muslim population is sympathetic to Islamism and a much smaller percentage, say 4 percent, actively so." ("The Islamic Republic of Holland," National Review, July 18, 2005)

Hisham Kabbani, head of Islamic Supreme Council of America: 5 to 10 percent of American Muslims are extremists. (Steven Vincent, "Where Are the Moderate Muslims?" The American Enterprise, April/May 2005, p. 27).

Kamal Nawash, head, Free Muslims Against Terrorism: "as many as 50 percent of Muslims around the world support the goals of the extremists." ("O'Reilly Factor," Fox News Channel, Aug. 5, 2004)

Daniel Yankelovich, pollster: At one extreme of Muslim society "are the hate-America Islamist fundamentalists, who are the most militant and totalitarian. The magnitude and influence of this group varies enormously. For example, in Indonesia this group has doubled, tripled, or quadrupled over the last few years. I would estimate that this group averages about 10% of all Muslims, with enormous variation from one Muslim country to another and particular strength in Arab nations." ("Cutting the Lifeline of Terror: What's Next After Iraq?" July 14, 2004, p. 20) (May 17, 2005)

Jordanian elections: In the Jordanian parliamentary elections of 1989, the Muslim Brotherhood "attained 30 percent of the seats, in addition to independent Islamists who won 10 seats. This was the highest percentage of seats ever gained by Islamists in Jordan or anywhere else in the region." (Angel M. Rabasa, et al., The Muslim World After 9/11, Santa Monica: RAND, 2004, p. 116)

B Raman, former head of counter-terrorism for Indian intelligence, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW): The U.S. government should focus on reforming Islamist madrasas; there are currently up to one million madrasas in Pakistan , a minority of which, perhaps 15 percent, indoctrinate their pupils with Islamist vitriol and militancy. ("Expert tells US to focus on Pak madrasas," Times of India, October 31, 2003)

Israeli elections: "The northern faction of the fundamentalist Islamic Movement retained its firm control on [the Israeli Arab town of] Umm el-Fahm … in local elections that were otherwise marked by fragmentation in the Arab sector. The movement's candidate in Umm el-Fahm, Sheikh Hashem Abdel Rahman, won 75 percent of the votes compared to around 23% for Said Agbariya, who headed a coalition of predominantly secular political groups." (David Rudge, "Strong Islamic sentiment drives Arab elections," The Jerusalem Post, October 30, 2003)

Indonesian data: "Survey and election results show that the number of Islamists, Muslims who want an Islamic state, is no more than 15 percent of the total Indonesian Muslim population of 200 million. The remaining 85 percent are moderately or strongly opposed to an Islamic state. Most important and least recognized in the current climate of fear in the non-Muslim world, Islamism as a political ideology appears to be losing ground in Indonesia, not gaining it." (R. William Liddle and Saiful Mujani, "The Real Face of Indonesian Islam," The New York Times, October 11, 2003)

Related Topics: Islam, Muslims in the West, Public opinion polls, Radical Islam

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