U.S. Muslims reject extremism, poll finds Pew reports a diverse group with a mostly positive view of society

WASHINGTON — Unlike Muslim minorities in many European countries, U.S. Muslims are highly assimilated, close to parity with other Americans in income and overwhelmingly opposed to Islamic extremism, according to the first major, nationwide random survey of Muslims.

The survey by the Pew Research Center found that 78 percent of U.S. Muslims said the use of suicide bombings against civilian targets to defend Islam is never justified. Five percent said it is justified "rarely," 7 percent said "sometimes," and 1 percent said "often."

By comparison, Muslims in France, Spain and Britain were almost twice as likely to say suicide bombing is sometimes or often justified.

Titled Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, the Pew report draws a picture of a diverse population of 2.35 million U.S. Muslims, of which two-thirds of the adults were born abroad and which has a generally positive view of the larger society.

Most call their communities good or excellent places to live, and most report that a large portion of their closest friends are non-Muslims. They are a bit more satisfied than the general public with the state of the nation.

On balance, they believe that Muslims coming to the United States should adopt American customs, rather than trying to remain distinct. And they are even more inclined than other Americans to say that people who want to get ahead can make it in the United States if they work hard; 71 percent of U.S. Muslims agreed with that statement, compared to 64 percent of the general public.

"What emerges is the great success of the Muslim-American population in its socioeconomic assimilation," said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who was a senior adviser on the poll. "Given that for the past few years they've been dealing with the backlash from 9/11, these numbers are extremely impressive."

Native-born black Muslims, who represent about 20 percent of the Muslim population, are its most disillusioned segment, the report shows. Just 13 percent are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., compared with 29 percent of other native-born Muslims and 45 percent of Muslim immigrants.

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said one of the poll's most striking findings is that black Muslims are considerably more likely than immigrant Muslims to express support for al-Qaida.

Nine percent of black Muslims expressed a favorable attitude toward Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization, and 36 percent held a very unfavorable view.

Among foreign-born Muslims, 3 percent voiced a favorable view of al-Qaida, and 63 percent took a "very unfavorable" position.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life surveyed 1,050 Muslim adults in four languages — English, Arabic, Urdu and Farsi. The overall margin of sampling error was five percentage points.