After 9/11 and two wars, I'm skeptical of that claim, but until recently I had nothing but anecdotal evidence to lean on. This week, I went looking for facts to help me evaluate CAIR's assertion. I originally thought that in the worst case, as many as 10% of Muslims might support suicide bombing. It turns out I'm a starry-eyed optimist. Over 270 million Muslims (that's consistent with the over one third of all Muslims surveyed) approve of suicide bombings, if the data's accurate.

I hope I'm overestimating, but unfortunately I think I'm right.

First, my sources. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press recently conducted two surveys of Muslim attitudes, one called "What the World Thinks in 2002" (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=165, 12/4/2002) and the other called "A Year After Iraq War" (http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206, 3/16/2004). Both reports listed the percentage of Muslim respondents who thought suicide bombings were acceptable. The pertinent part of the 2002 report covered Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan. The pertinent part of the 2004 report covered Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco, and Jordan. I also looked through the CIA's World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/) to get demographic information on each country.

Next, my assumptions and biases. I'm assuming that the folks at The Pew Center and the CIA have published accurate information. I pray the Pew folks got wildly overstated results ... but the pessimist in me doubts that. My bias has long been decidedly unfavorable toward Islam, and it's been worse since 9/11. I'm an evangelical Christian conservative, a registered Republican, and a military veteran. I judge individual Muslims on their own behavior, and have known several quite nice ones. Nevertheless I consider Islam in general to be a threat to the Judeo-Christian culture and liberties that we enjoy here in America.

That said, let's crunch the numbers. Approval rates for suicide bombing range from Uzbekistan's 7% up to Jordan's 86%. With 710,884,350 Muslims in these sixteen countries, an average of 38.3% approve of suicide bombings. That comes to 272,564,884 potential Muslim suicide bombers.

How many suicide bombers are there?

 

 
 

Country	Population	% Muslim	Number of Muslims	% Muslims who agree with Suicide Bombing	Potential Suicide Bombers
Bangladesh	138,448,210	83%	114,912,014	44%	50,561,286
Ghana	20,467,747	16%	3,274,840	30%	982,452
Indonesia	234,893,453	88%	206,706,239	27%	55,810,684
Ivory Coast	16,962,491	35%	5,936,872	56%	3,324,648
Jordan	5,460,265	94%	5,132,649	86%	4,414,078
Lebanon	3,727,703	70%	2,609,392	73%	1,904,856
Mali	11,626,219	90%	10,463,597	32%	3,348,351
Morocco	31,689,265	98.7%	31,277,305	74%	23,145,205
Nigeria	133,881,703	50%	66,940,852	47%	31,462,200
Pakistan	150,694,740	97%	146,173,898	47%	68,701,732
Senegal	10,580,307	94%	9,945,489	28%	2,784,737
Tanzania	35,922,454	35%	12,572,859	18%	2,263,115
Turkey	68,109,469	100%	67,973,250	31%	21,071,708
Uganda	25,632,794	16%	4,101,247	29%	1,189,362
Uzbekistan	25,981,647	88%	22,863,849	7%	1,600,469
16-Country Total	914,078,467	77.8%	710,884,350	38.3%	272,564,884

Country	Population	% Muslim	Number of Muslims	% Muslims who agree with Suicide Bombing	Potential Suicide Bombers
Afghanistan	28,717,213	99%	28,430,041	1%	284,300
Egypt	74,718,797	94%	70,235,669	1%	702,357
Gaza Strip	1,274,868	98.7%	1,258,295	1%	12,583
Iran	68,278,826	99%	67,596,038	1%	675,960
Iraq	24,683,313	97%	23,942,814	1%	239,428
Israel	6,116,533	14.6%	893,014	0.1%	893
Libya	5,499,074	97%	5,334,102	1%	53,341
Saudi Arabia	24,293,844	100%	24,293,844	1%	242,938
Syria	17,585,540	90%	15,826,986	1%	158,270
Turkmenistan	4,775,544	89%	4,250,234	1%	42,502
United States	290,342,554	2.4%	7,000,000	0.1%	7,000
West Bank	2,237,194	75%	1,677,896	1%	16,779
12-Country Estimate	548,523,300	45.7%	250,738,931	1.0%	2,436,352
Combined Total	1,462,601,767	65.7%	961,623,282	28.6%	275,001,236

Anybody got a flak jacket I can borrow?

I can hear the protests already. "But that's not a representative sample!" Alright, point taken. Perhaps the good folks at The Pew Center should ask people in more countries about their attitudes (assuming those dictatorships allow them in to begin with). Ask them about their chosen venues, not me. I just run their numbers. But fine, I'll humor the Muslim apologists. Let's cast a wider net right here and now.

Let's add in twelve more places with significant Muslim populations: Afghanistan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, the USA, and the West Bank. We have demographic information from the CIA as before, but the Pew studies didn't cover those countries, so we don't know how many of these Muslims think suicide bombing is acceptable. For the sake of argument I'll be insanely generous and estimate that it's a mere 1%. I'll go even further; in the USA and Israel I'll call it just 0.1%, since Muslims in these two countries are presumably enlightened and moderate. I'll even use CAIR's very optimistic estimate of a U.S. Muslim population of seven million (http://www.cair-net.org/asp/aboutislam.asp), just to show I'm a nice guy. With those estimates, what shakes out for these twelve countries/territories? We have 250,738,931 Muslims ... 2,436,352 of whom are in favor of suicide bombing. Israel has only 893 of its own to watch out for. How many in America, land of the 99.9% peace-loving Muslim? Seven thousand.

Better get crackin', Team Ashcroft.

Merge my incredibly low-ball estimates with the original Pew data, and we get 275,001,236 suicide bombing fans (28.6% of the total). Keep in mind that these figures are drastically skewed toward the low end because of my concession to the "99% peace-loving" meme. Any takers on whether the Saudis, Syrians, Iranians, and Palestinians show a smidgen more than 1% approval?

So, is this The Religion of Peace? You be the judge.

Puddle Pirate describes himself as "a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer and graduate of the USCG Academy and recent law school graduate. I'm pro-life, pro-gun, pro-capital punishment, anti-big government, pro-military ... and an Israel-boosting Christian conservative. I blog regularly on the War on Terror, the military, politics, law, bioethics, and pop culture." This essay appeared April 11, 2004 on the Brain Shavings weblog website (http://cga94.com/brainshavings/). It is archived at http://cga94.com/brainshavings/archives/000065.html

_________________________End of Story___________________________

 

HOME

May-Jun.2004 Featured Stories

May 2004 blog-eds

Background Information

News On The Web