I hear the phrase “moderate Muslim” a lot in the media nowadays. Are there any non-biased statistics or polls on the median beliefs/values of moderate muslims - apart from the obvious one that they don’t believe in terrorism ?
This being GQ, I request factual answers.
Median beliefs? What exactly would those be? Do moderate Christians have median beliefs?
I’ve know Muslims that drink and allow there women to drive, would these be considered moderates? I also have a Mormon friend who drinks and smokes after work, is he a moderate Mormon? I think many people of either faith would say these are not true practitioners of their faiths and need to be dealt with. In fact my Mormon friend was taken aside by his family and church and told to get back in line or be excommunicated (or whatever the Mormons call it).
My Muslim friend has died recently, but he did help out US solders after the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon back in the 80’s and had to leave and come here for fear of reprisals against him and his family for doing so. I wish he were here to ask further questions concerning moderate Muslims. I guess most people would have called him a moderate, but he had to do extreme things to be able to have that label and thus fairly rare.
Define moderate Muslim - aside from outliers like ISIS, I would think that most would assume that their opinions and lifestyle are typical, just like few Christians call themselves extremists, or few atheists, or few Trekkies.
For some examples, support for Sharia law ranges from a low of 8% in Azerbaijan to 99% in Afghanistan. Nearly 100% of people in Lebanon hate ISIS, while 28% of people in Pakistan dislike them (the majority of the rest are “don’t know” though). The most pro-ISIS appears to be Nigeria at 14% asked. Even 7% of Christians there like them!
ETA: Jack Mormon, Si Amigo. Attitudes towards alcohol have a high correlation with country and culture, less so with religion. Turkey and Lebanon have tons of booze, even among serious Muslims, though the more serious might abstain.
Who would compile such statistics ? And how ?
And just to be clear, “Sharia Law” is about as precise a term as is “Moderate Muslim”.
No, there’s only one definition. I read it in Breitbart!
The Pew polls do go into some of this distinction, though I’d like it to be more in depth. E.g. at it’s most basic level, it means religious courts for marriage, divorce, etc. and only applies to adherents of that religion, which is how it works in Lebanon or India. No hand chopping involved.
All these draconian punishments frequently cited as evidence of the barbarity of Islam actually exist in the Law of Moses, the Torah, in what Christians call the Old Testament . Since fundamentalist Muslims, like fundamentalist Christians and Jews, regard it as the law of God, they take it seriously.
The Law has many practical applications. Guys, suppose you are physically accosted by a drunk in a bar, and his girlfriend jumps in and grabs you by the balls. Do you know that you can have her hand cut off? Very useful. There’s so much more. That bratty kid who curses his parents. Hereyou can fix his wagon.
This poll by Pew is an example of what one might use to compile statistics on ‘moderate’ Muslims, with the key caveat as everyone else has mentioned of converting from answers to poll question to an agreed definition of ‘moderate’.
I think that conversion is easiest wrt to questions about favorable/unfavorable view of ISIS (or Al-Q, etc) and the question about whether suicide bombing is ‘rarely or never’ justified. I agree Sharia questions leave more room for disagreement about the ‘moderate’ line. But a favorable view of ISIS or saying suicide bombings are more than ‘rarely or never’ justified isn’t ‘moderate’ by any reasonable definition IMO.
Pew’s Sharia question in this polls is ‘favor making Sharia the official law in your country’. It’s asked in this poll only it seems in Muslim majority or large Muslim minority developing countries. So this is another aspect of the ‘moderate’ definition issue. If a Muslim resident of the US wants to make Sharia the ‘official law’ they are not ‘moderate’, water down the answer any way you like (it’s not about extreme punishments etc but the whole idea): not ‘moderate’ IMO. But when it comes to other countries there’s a conflicting consideration of implied ‘cultural imperialism’ on one hand v whether the Islamic extremism problem can ever be overcome without secularization of public life in Muslim majority countries. That’s a murkier issue than who is ‘moderate’.
The alternatives might also be different in different countries. Would I favor Sharia over the system of law we have in the US? Absolutely not. But it’s still probably better than no law at all, and one can imagine a developing country where there are no other systems of law being proposed at all. In that case, if I were in such a country, I just might support Sharia law being implemented, and I’m not even a Muslim.
Ali Mazrui once made the point that in a country like Nigeria, where support for Shariah law was growing through the 1980s and 1990s, the Shariah-compliant punishment for robbery (mutilation) was actually less stringent than the one dictated by the secular law (death).
Malaysia is ~46th (of 180 some) in listing of countries by GDP per capita PPP and to a significant degree that GDP/c/PPP is generated by a real economy not just oil wealth as is the case with almost all Muslim majority countries that rank higher than that. Sharia as ‘the official law’ is the only alternative to lawlessness in Malaysia? But 86% say yes to Sharia as ‘the official law’ per Pew.
OK my example is among the most economically advanced Muslim majority countries. But you can’t exclude IMO a culture where a large % of people would want Sharia as the official law as among the reasons most Muslim majority countries come out a lot lower on GDP per capita lists, again save some small population/large energy reserve cases.
Anyway few of the countries polled are anywhere near being failed states. I would say those results are evidence of immoderation and illiberalism in broad segments of their populations, and a problem. That said, even if it’s not plausible in most of those countries to say Sharia is the only alternative to lawlessness, there is a serious practical issue from outside POV what to do about how other people choose to run their countries (some people view that in moral terms, some prime directive not to have negative opinions about other societies, unless it’s the US or something 
, I don’t think so, to me it’s more of practical issue what can be done about it from outside, not a lot IMO).
Wasn’t part of the problem in places like Egypt that the Muslim Brotherhood - not moderate - appealed at first more to the population with their version of the Shariah law because they administered it fairly whereas the “normal” (Secular) judges were corrupt? So if the question is Shariah not vs. lawlessness, but vs. corruption, it might seem attractive.
The thing is that today Shariah law gets interpreted so many ways. The above comparison to Old Testament law is apt: most Western countries, esp. the US, base their law on some earlier version of Christian-derived (esp. noticeable in the whole sexual laws, or “forbidden on sunday” local laws). So asking “Shariah as law of the land?” without defining which version of Shariah is like saying “Bible-based law as law of the land?” How many US christians would agree with that, because you can get dozens of different versions from “bible-based”?
I think in GB, in some areas Sharia law is allowed in civil cases - not the chopping-hands variety, but the approach of “mediation first for private problems like divorce or arguments” because it’s not just cheaper on the people and easier on the court system to resolve petty arguments outside court, it’s also less disruptive to the community to find a compromise and heal rifts instead of a judge handing down a sentence one party will be unhappy and angry about. (There were some articles on how this had started with orthodox Jews wanting their own private divorce laws, and the Muslims using that exception, and how it disadvanted women in the Orthodox Jewish communities by giving them less rights today in divorce and child rights than in secular courts, and how to solve that, how to balance religious freedom with women/ children rights.)
Unless the question gives some idea of what the person means by Shariah law it is not telling you anything very useful.
so to respond to Costanze:
It is exactly like that.
The possible responses might be saying “I want a less corrupt legal system and more public morality” to people who want a Saudi type organization.
Since the actual practical pushing for the Saudi type approach is very limited, the the Salafiste fringes, and in my own experience, many Muslim people in the Islamic world have a very fuzzy unclear idea of what they mean by Sharia, and it is very often an expression of objection to what is viewed as corrupt systems.
But this is the personal experience, in any case, it is clearly the case that unless the actual meaning of the idea of Sharia is elicited, no it is not telling you anything about supposed “moderation.”
While I don’t have the link available, there are often cited surveys not about Sharia law, but that over 90% of Muslims worldwide just want to live in peace, raise their children, earn enough to eat and have a roof. Just like almost everybody else wants. Esp. since the hard statistics show that most victims of Islamistic terrorists … are other Muslims, because contrary to the fearmongering of Western Media, most bombs are in already unstable, unsafe countries like Iraq, Afghanistan (Taliban and others) Pakistan and so on.
So if we use the very loose definition “moderate Muslims = don’t want to spread Islam in a “crusade” but rather want to be left alone from bombs and drones, and have enough to eat” then the overhwelming majority of Muslims are that.
Just like the overhwelming majority of Christians, even in the US, doesn’t bomb abortion clinics or kill gays, or want to introduce full theocracy, just live along in peace. (How much that works in practice when dark-skinned strange-looking foreigners who behave differently move next door is another question. But at least in theory people don’t activly want to kill their neighbours for having the wrong faith).
to correct some incorrect ideas and stereotypes.
drinking has not much to do with ‘moderation’ as anyone who has ever encounterd the Saudis on vacation outside of their country can say and know the same ones behavior inside.
and indeed the Takfiri terrorist who have committed the suicide attacks have many of them been drinkers, drug abusers with the criminal convictions
I will take any day the old traditional Tijani sufi of the Maleki sunni school who will never touch the alcohol as a moderate over the Salafiste takfiri
So all Islamic countries outside of the Saudi Arabia then are moderate.
No, there is not an idea of excommunication in the standard Islamic practice, the attiude of the religion is close to Judiasm, like in many theological points.
The only people who say that a sinner - that is for example someone who drinks alcohol - is outside of the community and not “a true practioner” are the Takfiri salafists.
That is the Al Qaeda and the DAESH types.
It is alien to the theology otherwise.
Your ideas about Islamic practices are not well informed.
Here is for example an article 5 Things You Need To Know About Sharia Law | HuffPost Religion that Sharia is not just chopping hands off, and why wanting Sharia to (also) valid does not automatically mean “replace the constitution with a theocracy”
https://www.indy100.com/article/abc-news-jacqui-lambie-australian-islamic-mission-offensive-comments-sharia-anti-islam-7583151 A muslima explaining how she follows Sharia without violating Australian law
Here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sharia-councils-uk-muslim-women-stuck-abusive-marriages-warning-naz-shah-islam-a7390471.html are both sides on how helpful or not Sharia councils in the GB are for women.
And that reminds me of many articles on www.patheos.com about how abused women in traditional/ fundamentalist marriages in the US are “pressured” by their Christian community to go to the pastor, who will encourage them to keep the marriage even with abuse (because marriage is holy), and the many individual testimonies of girls being abused by male relatives, and the Christian pastor not being required to report, brushing it under the table - “forgive and forget; children are liars; it’s her fault for leading the men astray” as culture.
Making Sharia “official law” doesn’t equal making it “the only kind of law”; it equals making it part of the legal system. I’m perfectly fine with religious “officers” (for lack of a better word) and tribunals being able to decide in some aspects of non-criminal law, with their decisions being accepted by the government without needing to go through a second round of paperwork. But people yelling about Sharia law never seem to think that deep (and ffs, “that deep” is barely up to my ankles).
Which is kind of my point and why I wish that the friend I worked with was still alive to ask questions to. I actually have known and still work with people of the Muslim faith, I know many people who have never actually had any conversations with Muslims at all and hold even more stereotypical beliefs concerning Islam that I do. I live just 15 miles from the largest community of Muslims in the United States but other than enjoying there wonderfully healthy foods I know little about the actual practices of the religion.
So it’s hard to define what a moderate Muslim may be when the vast majority of the country only hears about the extreme individuals and groups from the news media and not from day to day contact with individuals. What I hear in the Detroit area is that it would help if the Muslim community were more vocal in opposition to the extremist so that they could expose people to the positive aspects of their faith and their communities…
And also Nava saying “Making Sharia “official law” doesn’t equal making it “the only kind of law”; it equals making it part of the legal system.”
I don’t entirely buy this. I think the fact simply is that what’s ‘moderate’ is at some level a matter of opinion, and part of the issue is simply differing opinions. It’s not a failure to understand that religious concepts could be a basis for liberal legal systems, or that religious courts could handle certain types of issues in parallel with a secular legal system, like Orthodox Jewish legal system which doesn’t raise many eyebrows in the US, with the consent of all parties involved, and not criminal cases nor authority to impose imprisonment or even fines per se. I understand that. But I think it’s very debatable if that’s what a lot of ‘yes’ answers in those polls actually mean.
The wordings of some poll questions about Sharia are vague, surely. But the one I linked, by a pretty well respect international polling org Pew, presented the results as yes to “the official law in your country”. And while I don’t speak nearly every language of all the countries where the poll was taken, I recall that what was translated to English as a debate between Sharia being ‘a’ source and ‘the’ source of the law in the new Iraqi constitution was a major political debate there. So that distinction isn’t apparently just an artifact of translation. The simple interpretation of the Pew poll answer is that Sharia would be ‘the’ system, not the arguable inspiration for a liberal secular legal system*, and not just a parallel voluntary mediation system for civil/family matters.
Therefore that poll answer IMO shows a broad tendency in many of those countries to illiberalism and immoderation. It does tell me at least something about ‘supposed’ moderation, the counterpoints notwithstanding. And it would be extremely troubling to me if Muslims who live in my country answered ‘yes’ to that Pew question, though I don’t think a large % would. I think the large % of positive answers in Muslim countries is a problem for them, though as I said it’s whole different issue what outsiders could ever do about that without it being counterproductive. Note I’m not saying ‘moderate’ is absolutely defined, I don’t see how it could be.
The point about people saying ‘yes’ because they want a less corrupt society, sure. Being illiberal and immoderate doesn’t mean you have bad motives.
*Western Christians and anti-Christians can argue all day long whether Western liberalism including the legal system is an outgrowth or rebellion against Christianity…because the relationship is genuinely ambiguous. That relationship is not ‘just like’ anything about Sharia’s role in Islamic societies as of now. The most one could reasonably do is look for a closer parallel in Christianity v legal systems in ‘its’ societies centuries ago, a common but almost always practically useless discussion.