Libya and Radical Islam

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Among the public’s many concerns about the current crisis in Libya is a fear that it may result in the country falling under the influence of radical Islam.

That is one of the findings from a YouGov poll conducted online for The Sunday Times between 31 March and 1 April 2011 among a representative sample of 2,226 Britons aged 18 and over. The relevant data will be found on page 9 of the tables available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-st-results-01-030411.pdf

11% of adults said that they were very worried and a further 34% fairly worried about Libya coming under radical Islamic influence. The combined figure of 45% rose to 61% among the over-60s, 52% in northern England, 51% in Scotland, and 51% for electors who had voted Conservative at the 2010 general election.

A mere 8% were not worried at all about Libya falling under the influence of radical Islam, the highest proportion being among the under-40s (11%). 27% said that they were not very worried, while 20% expressed no opinion.

These concerns may be partly informed by the recent suggestion made by a senior NATO commander that al-Qaeda may be involved in the Libyan rebellion against Colonel Gaddafi, an assertion long made by Gaddafi himself.

The results of this latest YouGov poll have echoes in the organization’s earlier survey on 3-4 February, when the focus was on the campaign (eventually successful) to dislodge President Mubarak from power in Egypt.

At that time, 59% of Britons were very or fairly worried about the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East, with just 7% not worried at all. See our earlier post at: http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=871

Posted in Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Places of Worship in England and Wales, 1999-2009

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Siobhan McAndrew

PoW-area-chart

Registered Places of Worship by Faith Community, England and Wales, 1999-2009 (1999=100)

We have spent a little time compiling data on registered places of worship in England and Wales from 1999-2009 and are making a note here on the data, and the caveats you need to bear in mind before interpreting them.

The official data have been incorporated into three spreadsheets by Mark Littler, a young researcher at the University of Manchester with interests in religion and extremism, experimental methods and quantitative approaches more broadly. We have posted the spreadsheets here, including regional breakdowns.

The headline data suggest that ‘mainline’ established denominations are showing a reduction over time in numbers of places of worship, while other world religions, ‘other Christians’, and ‘other’ faith communities are exhibiting a gradual increase.

Note that the data do not cover the Church of England or Church in Wales, which are not required to register.

Taken at face value, these trends fit with a story of secularisation leading to a net reduction in longer-established Christian churches, together with increased ethnic and religious diversity leading to a growth in the number of places of worship for Christian communities outside the traditional categories (‘other Christian’) as well as other world religions and new religious movements, notably Muslim, Sikh and ‘other’.

The line graph above illustrates, using an index where 1999 is the base year (1999=100 for each faith community). By 2009, the figure for Catholics is 98.5, Methodists 94.2, Congregationalists 98.6, URC 93.3, Calvinistic Methodists 97.4, Brethren 99.6, Salvation Army 94.7, Unitarians 97.8, Society of Friends (Quakers) 99.7, Jehovah’s Witnesses 101.2, Other Christians 107.1, Jews 104.5, Muslims 146.5, Sikhs 118.9 and Others 131.7.

The lines for each group are not easy to see so the chart legend additionally ranks the denominations by net growth/loss in numbers in 2009 compared with 1999. The regional data are also of interest: in London, church numbers for ‘Other Christians’ increased by 16% over the 1999-2009 period, while numbers of mosques increased by 42% and ‘other’ places of worship by 91%.

However, these data can’t be used on their own as an indicator of community growth and decline, for a number of reasons. First, not all places of worship are registered, and not all redundant properties are de-registered. In some cases, a denomination may have a ‘clear out’ both in terms of adjusting their property portfolio and with regard to the Register. Secondly, the numbers do not adjust for capacity, so that where (for example) a church is sold or demolished to build a larger church, no net gain is shown in the numbers. A faith group which consolidates its properties – for example, following suburbanisation of its adherents – will show up as declining using numbers of places of worship as the sole indicator of vitality.

Thirdly, communal worship is not central to some belief systems, or worship may not primarily take place in public places of worship. Pagans, for example, do not have any public places of worship in the traditional sense, practising privately whether in- or outdoors, while moots are organised in cafes and pubs.

History of Registration
The registration of places of worship has an interesting history, covered in detail by Clive Field elsewhere on this site (see page 3 of this report, or click here).

In 1689, nonconformists were required to register their meeting houses with the authorities in England and Wales – an obligation which never extended to Scotland. The process also conferred legal (and later, taxation) advantages, so organisations preferred to register even when the obligation to do so lessened after the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855.

Before the mid-nineteenth century licences were issued by county and borough quarter sessions, or episcopal and archidiaconal registries, but the Protestant Dissenters Act 1852 transferred the responsibility to the Registrar General – and the General Register Office still holds this responsibility.

Lists and tables of these registrations have been published occasionally as House of Commons Parliamentary Papers before the First World War (for instance, 1882,Vol. 50); or later (intermittently) in The Official List, Part III and Marriage and Divorce Statistics, in a series currently published by National Statistics as FM2 Table 3.42. Buildings registered for the solemnisation of marriages are identified separately as FM2 Table 3.43. Data for selected years from 1972 have been assembled in the various editions of P. Weller (ed.), Religions in the UK.

Why and How Places Register
Places of worship which have been registered officially are generally exempted from local business rates. Schedule 5 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 provides that the places of worship are exempted if they are Church of England or Church in Wales, or ‘any other recognised religion… and the premises must be used and available for public religious worship’. Church halls and administrative offices also qualify if required for the place of worship to operate. While being officially-registered does not prove that a building is a place of worship, registration is an additional piece of evidence that the property is actively used as a place of worship. It seems likely that non-registered places of worship usually manage to win exemption also, although I haven’t been able to find information about this.

Religious organisations are asked to fill in Form 76, provide a plan or sketch of the building identifying the spaces used for worship, and a timetable of when the building will be used. These are sent to the Superintendant General. The form provides that the faith group name is given in the space after the following: ‘XXXX will accordingly be forthwith used as a place of meeting for religious worship by a congregation or assembly of persons calling themselves XXXX’. Hence it is very simple and non-prescriptive with regard to identifying names.

A Freedom of Information Request made in March 2010 led to a complete list of the extant Register being published online, illustrating the issues at hand. For example, there is one place of worship listed as “Quaker”, 41 as “Quakers”, 314 as “Friends”, and 9 as “Society of Friends”. Most mosques are described as attended by “Muslims” but in some cases “Sunni Muslims” or “Shia” are specified. There are a number of mis-spellings; it is not clear when places of worship were added to the database; and addresses are not entered consistently (many specify the part of the building which is used as a place of worship – e.g. “two rooms on second floor” rather than the postal address).

I am gradually cleaning the file published online to categorise denominations and hope eventually to provide a comprehensible list by local authority.

The form does advise that ‘the description “Christians not otherwise designated” may be used. If the worshippers decline to describe themselves by any distinctive appellation, the words “calling themselves” may be erased and the words “who object to be designated by any distinctive religious appellation” inserted’. Accordingly, of the 29372 listed in March 2010, 1517 identify as Christians not otherwise designated and 53 churches “who object…”. Offering a list of standardised terms would help categorise the raw data and draw further information on the nature of the congregation.

Under- and Over-Registration
What is clear is that not all places of worship register – and equally, places of worship which are sold to residential property developers are not required to be de-registered. A casual check of the March 2010 threw up examples of churches which were for sale, and a number of organisations which may well have ceased to exist. Mehmood Naqshbandi at the excellent Muslims in Britain site and online directory has been running a project for several years to identify every active mosque (masjid) in England and Wales, and has reached a count of 1595 mosques – some way above the officially-registered total of 870.

He suggests that perhaps as many as 20% of the entries for mosques in the official Register are for mosques which no longer exist, while the running total does not capture about half of the actual Muslim places of worship. In some cases, this may be because they are prayer rooms within universities or similar, or exist as facilities within larger community and cultural centres, and therefore there is no financial benefit in registering.

He notes,
‘There is negligible benefit in registering, it being ‘permissive’ since 1852. The process dates to a time when religious dissenters were excluded from many aspects of civil life. Furthermore, the Register is massively out of date, largely from neglecting to de-register congregations’ places of worship that have moved or disbanded. The state-established churches of Britain, e.g. Church of England churches, are exempt from registration, so would add considerably to the 40,000 listed…’.

He is currently working through his own files and the Register to categorise mosques in Britain in as much detail as possible: by administrative boundary, religious tradition, size, location and so forth. The project also aims to uncover where under- or over-registration is most prevalent. The most recent summary of his data is available here.

We will write more in due course on Naqshbandi’s fascinating data later, but provide the link to interested readers now.

Note that the 2008 and 2009 data have been made available to us ahead of National Statistics’ publication schedule (current data online for the FM2 series are only available up to 2007) following a Freedom of Information request. Thanks to National Statistics for providing data early, and to David Buckley and Selwyn Hughes at the General Register Office for enabling the data release.

Posted in Measuring religion, Official data, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Attitudes towards Britain’s Involvement in the Afghanistan Conflict by Religious Affiliation

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Ben Clements

by Ben Clements

As well as looking at behaviour and attitudes in relation to the 2010 general election (participation, method of voting, party voted for, etc.), the EMBES survey contains a wealth of attitudinal data relating to long-standing or more recent political issues in Britain. One of these is the involvement of British military forces in the conflict in Afghanistan, which has been on-going since late-2001.

It clearly represents one of major foreign policy issues of recent times, even though it was never as politically controversial, both here and on the international stage, as was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which engendered divisions with and between the political parties and in wider society. This post reports attitudes towards Britain’s involvement in the Afghanistan war by religious affiliation. It can be read in conjunction with this previous research note on attitudes towards the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by religious affiliation, using data from the British Election Study 2009/10 internet panel survey, which sampled the wider British population.

As with my previous posts this week covering the EMBES (see here and here), the data reported below are based on questions answered as part of the self-completion section (involving 2,787 respondents overall). The EMBES carried seven questions relating to various aspects of Britain’s participation in the war in Afghanistan, one of which is not included here since it asked explicitly about current perceptions of how the war was going. One question asks about approval or disapproval of Britain’s role in the conflict (Table 1) and another about the longer-term prospects of defeating the Taliban (Table 2). The remaining four questions comprise a battery of related items (shown in Tables 3-6). These ask about positive and negative aspects of the conflict.

Table 1 also has two subsidiary tables: Table 1a, which provides responses by Christian denomination; and Table 1b, which gives responses by Muslin tradition. Question wording is provided under each table. To aid presentation of the data in tabular format, the original response options have been collapsed into broader categories (not applicable for Table 3).

Please note that percentages are based on weighted data and sum down each column (except for Table 1a, which sums across the rows). The final column in each table provides the unweighted number of cases. Table 2 provides weighted mean scores for a question using a scale ranging from 0 through to 10 (unweighted cases are reported in the bottom row). As before, the religious affiliation categories are: No religion, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Other. This represents a minor modification of the religious affiliation variable available in the EMBES dataset. The religious affiliation categories are based on two EMBES questions:

‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’

IF YES:

‘Which one?’

Tables 1a and 1b are based on follow-up questions asking about the particular denomination or tradition belonged to if a respondent says that they are Christian or Muslim. Some interesting differences in opinion are noted below.

Tables 1, 1a and 1b
There are clear differences in levels of approval and disapproval of Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan by religious affiliation, as shown in Table 1. Muslims are least likely to approve (7.6 per cent), with Hindus and Sikhs showing the higher levels of support (26.5 per cent for both groups). Muslims show the highest level of disapproval (at 63.1 per cent) followed by those of no religion (at 51.9 per cent). Also, note that the categories vary somewhat in the proportions offering no opinion (from 8 per cent for those of no religion to nearly a fifth of Hindus).

Table 1a, showing responses by Christian denomination, shows the highest levels of approval are expressed by Anglicans, members of Pentecostal churches and those in the ‘other’ Christian category (in the 25-30 per cent range). The highest levels of disapproval reach around 60 per cent, expressed by Orthodox Christians and (Seventh Day) Adventists. Note that the Orthodox category consists of very few cases. Again, the proportions offering no opinion vary across the categories (from 5 per cent to over 18 per cent).

In Table 1b, showing responses by Muslim tradition, Sunni Muslims and those who do not belong to a particular tradition express the highest levels of disapproval (around 64-5 per cent) compared to 44 per cent for Shi’a Muslims and 50 per cent for those belonging to other traditions. The vast majority of Muslims in Afghanistan practice Sunni Islam. Note that the Shi’a and ‘other’ categories are both based on relatively small numbers of respondents. In the EMBES survey, 83.4 per cent of those who said they were Muslim reported belonging to the Sunni tradition in the follow-up question.

 

Embes-Afghan-1

Embes-Afghan-2

Embes-Afghan-3

Table 2
The question on which the figures in Table 2 are based asked about longer-term assessment of whether the Taliban in Afghanistan can be defeated. Responses were provided using a 0 to 10 scale in the EMBES survey questionnaire, where a score of 0 represents the most pessimistic evaluation and a score of 10 would indicate the most optimistic evaluation. In the EMBES dataset, the scale ranges from 1 to 11; so in Table 2, a score of 1 represents the most pessimistic evaluation, and a score of 11 the most optimistic assessment. There are differences in the mean scores by religious affiliation category. Interestingly, those of no religion are most pessimistic of defeating the Taliban over the longer-term (mean score of 3.8), followed by Muslims (mean score of 4.1). Those most optimistic in relative terms are Hindus (at 5.5), followed by Christians (4.8). Sikhs and those in the ‘other’ category share a mean score of 4.6. Standard deviations are provided as well.

Embes-Afghan-4

Tables 3-6
Tables 3 to 6 report attitudes towards a related series of questions, two of which asked about positive aspects of Britain’s participation in the war in Afghanistan (Tables 3 and 5), and two of which asked about negative implications of Britain’s involvement (Tables 4 and 6). The general picture is that, across categories, respondents are more likely to disagree with the positive aspects and more likely to agree with the negative implications. Again, however, there are clear differences in views by religious affiliation categories.

In Table 3, Muslims and those belonging to other traditions are least likely to agree that Britain will benefit in the long term from its involvement (at 9.4 per cent in both cases). For all other categories, nearly a fifth of respondents express agreement with this question. In Table 4, it is Christians and Sikhs who are most likely to agree that Britain’s involvement threatens their safety and that of their families. In Table 5, Hindus and Sikhs are most likely to concur that is a moral case for British involvement in Afghanistan, with Muslims least likely to express agreement with this statement (just 15.2 per cent). In Table 6, there were high levels of agreement with the statement about the war seriously damaging British interests around the globe. Majorities of Muslims, Sikhs and those of another religion agreed. Apart from members of some other religion, less than a fifth in each category disagreed. Across Tables 3-6 there is considerable variation in the proportions in each category refusing to answer or offering a ‘don’t know’ response (combined rather than shown separately). The highest proportions tend to be found amongst Muslims and Hindus (usually in the range of 20-25 per cent).

Embes-Afghan-5

Embes-Afghan-6

Embes-Afghan-7

Embes-Afghan-8

Finally, BRIN readers who are interested more generally in looking at public opinion in Britain and elsewhere towards the war in Afghanistan are directed towards the links for relevant data held by the following opinion poll organisations:

Angus Reid data

Gallup

Ipsos MORI

YouGov data

Dr Ben Clements
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester

bc101 @ leicester.ac.uk

Posted in Religion and Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Searchlight on Religion

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Clive D. Field

A major new source of public opinion data on religion and inter-faith relations has just become available in the form of a Populus poll for Searchlight Educational Trust.

The survey is of unusual importance in terms of the number of questions asked and the large size of the sample (5,054 adults aged 18 and over interviewed online in England on 28-31 January 2011).

The Trust is a registered charity formed in 1992 that works with communities to build responses to racism and hatred, dispel myths and develop greater understanding. It has just established the Together project to explore and tackle the rise of right-wing nationalism and extremism in Britain and Western Europe.

Only a small proportion of the poll’s statistics have been included in Searchlight’s Fear & HOPE report, based on the survey, which concluded that ‘there is not a progressive majority in society and … that there is a deep resentment to immigration, as well as scepticism towards multiculturalism.’

‘There is a widespread fear of the “Other”, particularly Muslims, and there is an appetite for a new right-wing political party that has none of the fascist trappings of the British National Party or the violence of the English Defence League. With a clear correlation between economic pessimism and negative views to immigration, the situation is likely to get worse over the next few years.’

At the same time, ‘there are also many positive findings from the report. Young people are more hopeful about the future and more open to living in an ethnically diverse society. The vast majority … reject political violence and view white anti-Muslim extremists as bad as Muslim extremists and there is overwhelming support for a positive campaign against extremism.’

The document is available, in a somewhat curious format, at:

http://www.fearandhope.org.uk/project-report/

For this post BRIN has ignored the report and drawn upon, but cannot claim to have summarized adequately, the 128 computer tables extending to 395 pages. These provide topline responses, the only ones used here, together with disaggregations by gender, age, socio-economic group, region, employment sector, ethnicity, religion, and a sixfold segmentation by identity ‘tribes’. These tables can be accessed at:

http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-310111-Searchlight-Fear-and-Hope-survey.pdf

Two clusters of questions are briefly considered here, those which sought to enumerate the nation’s general verdict on and participation in religion, and those which assessed attitudes to and engagement with people from the various faith traditions in Britain.

RELIGION IN GENERAL

35% of adults professed no religious affiliation, while 54% were Christians and 7% non-Christians (table 7).

23% said that religion was important to them, with 55% disagreeing and 22% neutral (table 76).

Just 7% said religion was the most important element in their personal identity. This compared with 35% for nationality, 24% for country of birth, 16% for the city, town or village in which they lived, 7% for ethnicity, 6% for their immediate neighbourhood, and 5% for the country of residence, where different from that of birth (table 32). Religion was the second most important influence on identity for 8% (table 33) and the third most important for 10% (table 34).

55% never attended a place of worship in their local community. 8% claimed to go at least once a week, 5% at least once a fortnight, 6% at least once a month, and 26% less than once a month (table 63).

Only 23% thought that, by and large, religion is a force for good in the UK. 42% disagreed and 35% expressed no opinion (table 77).

68% agreed that religion should not influence laws and policies in Britain, with 16% disagreeing and 16% neutral (table 75).

On a scale of 1 (= do not trust at all) to 5 (= trust fully), the mean respect score for local religious leaders was 2.95. This was lower than for the respondent’s general practitioner (3.98), the local headteacher (3.44), women’s institute (3.43), the local scout/girl guide leader (3.41), the local branch of service organizations (3.31), and leaders of local clubs (3.15).

But it was higher than for the local chamber of commerce (2.81), a local trade union (2.72), the local mayor (2.62), the local MP (2.58), local councillors (2.57), and the local council (2.54). See tables 38-51.

INTER-FAITH RELATIONS

62% considered religious abuse to be as serious as racial abuse, but 38% viewed the latter as more serious (table 115).

28% thought religious abuse to be more widespread in Britain than racial abuse. 72% said the reverse (table 116).

71% assessed religious abuse to be on the increase in Britain, 29% disagreeing (table 117). 64% said that racial abuse was growing (table 118).

60% believed that people should be able to say what they wanted about religion, however critical or offensive it might be. 40% thought there should be restrictions on what individuals could say about religion, and that they should be prosecuted if necessary (table 119). Significantly more, 58%, were in favour of limitations on freedom of speech when it came to race (table 120).

44% regarded Muslims as completely different to themselves in terms of habits, customs and values. Just 5% said the same about Christians, 19% about Jews, 28% about Hindus, and 29% about Sikhs (tables 78-83).

42% said that they interacted with Sikhs less than monthly or never, 39% with Jews, 36% with Hindus, 28% with Muslims, and 5% with Christians. There were a lot of don’t knows for this question (tables 84-89).

59% did not know any Sikhs well as friends and family members, work colleagues, children’s friends or neighbours. 55% said the same about Jews, 53% about Hindus, 41% about Muslims, and 8% about Christians (tables 90-95).

32% argued that Muslims created a lot of problems in the UK. Far fewer said this about other faith groups: 7% about Hindus, 6% about Sikhs, 5% about Christians, and 3% about Jews (tables 96-101).

49% contended that Muslims created a lot of problems in the world. Again, this was much less often said about other faith communities: 15% about Jews, 12% about Christians, 10% about Hindus, and 9% about Sikhs (tables 102-107).

25% viewed Islam as a dangerous religion which incites violence. 21% considered that violence or terrorism on the part of some Muslims is unsurprising given the actions of the West in the Muslim world and the hostility towards Muslims in Britain.

49% thought that such violence or terrorism was unsurprising on account of the activities and statements of a few Muslim extremists. 6% dismissed accusations of violence or terrorism by Muslims as something got up by the media (table 126).

On hearing reports of violent clashes between English nationalist extremists and Muslim extremists, 26% would sympathize with the former who were standing up for their country and 6% for the Muslims who were standing up for their faith. 68% would view both groups as bad as each other (table 127).

43% indicated that they would support a campaign to stop the building of a new mosque in their locality, against 19% who would oppose such a campaign, with 38% neutral (table 124).

In the event of such a campaign turning violent or threatening to do so, by the action of either of the disputing parties, 81% would condemn such violence but 19% would continue to support one side or the other (table 125).

Interviewees were asked to react to the possibility of a new political party which would defend the English, create an English Parliament, control immigration, challenge Islamic extremism, restrict the construction of mosques, and make it compulsory for all public buildings to fly the St George’s flag or Union Jack. 21% said that they would definitely support such a party and a further 27% that they would consider backing it (table 122).

Quizzed about a new organization which would campaign against religious and racial extremism, and promote better relations between different ethnic and religious groups, 20% said that they would definitely and another 48% that they might possibly support it (table 123).

Hopefully, this gallop through a veritable mountain of statistics will give BRIN readers some insight into the range of questions posed in this Populus/Searchlight survey, and some sense of the research potential of the dataset.

Posted in church attendance, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Radical Islam in the Middle East

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Recent events in Egypt, with pro-democracy protesters trying to dislodge President Hosni Mubarak from power, have made almost three in five Britons worry that more countries in the Middle East will fall under the influence of radical Islam.

That is the headline finding from a YouGov poll for today’s Sunday Times in which 2,283 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online on 3 and 4 February. The full results can be viewed at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-04-060211.pdf

17% of respondents said that they were very and 42% fairly worried about the rise of radical Islam in the Middle East. 21% were not very worried and just 7% not worried at all.

12% expressed no opinion, increasing to 17% among women and the under-40s, the groups traditionally least likely to follow this sort of news coverage.

The proportion anxious about radical Islam climbed steadily with age, from 41% among the 18-24s to 75% among the over-60s. It was a fair bit higher among Conservative voters (67%) than Labourites or Liberal Democrats. It was marginally more among men than women, manual than non-manual workers, and outside London.

This pattern of demographics tracks British attitudes to Islam and Muslims more generally, suggesting that the replies to this poll about Egyptian developments were being firmly set within a framework of domestic Islamophobia.

Posted in Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Future of the Global Muslim Population

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The long-awaited Pew report on The Future of the Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030 was eventually published yesterday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The Forum, based in Washington DC, is a non-partisan organization delivering timely and impartial information on issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. It is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

This report on Muslim population is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, jointly funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.

The next documents in the series will be on the number of Christians (to be published later this year) and (in 2012) projections for the future growth of Christianity and other world faiths and of the religiously unaffiliated.

The study of Muslim populations covers 232 countries and territories (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), so it is obviously not going to be possible to summarize it succinctly here. Rather, we shall concentrate on the UK data.

Estimates (the medium of three scenarios) of the number of self-identifying Muslims are provided for 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020 and 2030.

Projected figures for each country derive from the application of the well-established cohort-component method to the best available data on fertility, mortality and migration rates, and on related factors such as education, economic well-being and birth control.

The principal sources of the UK information are stated in Appendix B as: ‘1990 estimate based on World Religion Database; 2000 estimate based on 2001 Census; 2010, 2020 and 2030 projections carried out by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis based on the 2001 Census’ (p. 202).

The Institute referred to is located in Laxenburg, Austria, and a number of scholars from it are listed in Appendix C as consultants in respect of the UK: Bilal Barakat, Anne Goujon, Samir KC, Vegard Skirbekk and Marcin Stonawski. Other advisers on the UK were Erik Kaufmann (England) and Erling Lundevaller (Sweden).

The overall size of the UK Muslim population is estimated at 1,172,000 in 1990 (equivalent to 2.0% of all citizens) and 1,590,000 in 2000 (2.7%). The former figure seems somewhat high but is not drastically out of line with other estimates (largely ethnically-derived), while the latter is from the 2001 census, the first in Britain to include a question on religious profession.

The Pew estimate for 2010 is 2,869,000 (4.6% of the UK population). This has been arrived at through the cohort-component method (p. 174). As BRIN noted when this figure was given a preliminary airing by Pew on 16 September last (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=598), it seems a little inflated.

A subsequent BRIN calculation based on the Integrated Household Survey for 2009-10, which interviewed 442,000 individuals in Britain, suggested that there are roughly 2,520,000 Muslims at present (see http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=603).

For a more definitive answer, we shall obviously have to await the results from this year’s census, which will be taken on 27 March, and will again run a (voluntary) question about religious affiliation.

Clearly, if Pew’s 2010 figure is somewhat inflated, this will presumably have impacted on its projections for 2020 and 2030, which could be unduly high. They are, respectively, 4,231,000 (6.5% of the population) and 5,567,000 (8.2%).

The projected UK percentage for 2030 is lower than for France (10.3%), Belgium (10.2%), Sweden (9.9%), Austria (9.3%) and the Western European average (8.6%), but higher than in Switzerland (8.1%), The Netherlands (7.8%), Germany (7.1%), Italy (5.4%) and Spain (3.7%).  

The anticipated rise in the number of UK Muslims between 2010 and 2030 is thus 94%, compared with 145% between 1990 and 2010. Despite this lessening in the rate of growth, the projected UK increase for 2010-30 is still almost three times the global and European figures (35% and 32% respectively).

One of the factors behind the expansion in the Muslim community relative to the non-Muslim population is the higher fertility of the former (3.0 children per woman in the UK in 2005-10) than the latter (1.8).

Although Muslim fertility is declining, and the gap on non-Muslims is narrowing, it is still expected to be 0.8 children per woman in 2025-30 compared with 1.2 in 2005-10.

Greater fertility is linked to the younger age profile of Muslims, meaning that they are disproportionately already in or entering the prime reproductive years (ages 15-29).

Another reason for Muslim growth in the UK is net migration. The net inflow of Muslim immigrants in 2010 is estimated by Pew at 64,000, representing 28% of all immigrants to the UK in the year. There were 70,000 in Spain, 66,000 in France and 60,000 in Italy.

However, the five-year projected Muslim net migration into the UK is set to fall, according to Pew, from 312,000 in 2010-15 to 274,000 in 2025-30.  

No allowance seems to have been made for conversions to Islam, about which we made a post recently (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=813). Pew’s working hypothesis is that ‘future conversions into Islam will roughly equal conversions away from Islam’ (p. 166).

Needless to say, projections such as these could be overturned in the event of unanticipated changes in national or global social, economic or political conditions. Therefore, they should be treated with some discretion.

The 221-page report is available in both hypertext and PDF formats, alongside an interactive map and sortable data tables, thereby providing a truly flexible online resource. All these components can be accessed by following the links at the executive summary page:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1872/muslim-population-projections-worldwide-fast-growth

To view the report alone as a PDF file, go to:

http://features.pewforum.org/FutureGlobalMuslimPopulation-WebPDF.pdf

Pew’s research will inevitably fuel the debates about immigration and Islamophobia in the UK. Early off the starting-block is the article in today’s Daily Mail which claims that by 2030 ‘Britain would have more Muslims than Kuwait and close to the number found in America, even though five times as many people live there’. See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351251/Number-British-Muslims-double-5-5m-20-years.html

Posted in Historical studies, Measuring religion, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Converts to Islam

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Conversion to Islam by Britons is a centuries-old phenomenon but has only become numerically significant in recent decades. Mostly, the process passes relatively unnoticed by the public, but there have been occasional high-profile conversions, including recently that of the journalist Lauren Booth (sister-in-law of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair), which drew significant negative media coverage.

The phenomenon has attracted more attention in the academic literature, with, for example, important books by Ali Köse, Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996) and Kate Zebiri, British Muslim Converts: Choosing Alternative Lives (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008).

There have also been various autobiographies and biographies of converts, some historical, like Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam (Markfield: Kube Publishing, 2010), others more contemporary, such as Lucy Bushill-Matthews, Welcome to Islam: A Convert’s Tale (London: Continuum, 2008).

Yesterday’s edition of The Times (only available online to subscribers) contained a two-page feature by Ruth Gledhill, the newspaper’s religion correspondent, investigating British converts to Islam, largely through a sneak preview of an as yet unpublished report from Faith Matters, an organization which works towards conflict resolution and cohesion through partnership with faith communities in the UK and Middle East.

Entitled A Minority within a Minority: A Report on Converts to Islam in the United Kingdom, the publication is authored by Kevin Brice, a higher education administrator at Swansea University and a convert to Islam himself. He is also General Secretary of the Muslims in Britain Research Network and a member of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. His academic profile is at http://www.mbrn.org.uk/members/bricekevin.html.

The number of converts to British Islam is estimated in the document to have almost doubled in the past decade, from 61,000 in 2001, to stand now at approximately 100,000, or 4% of the British Muslim community. Converts in the UK in 2010 alone are put at 5,200 in the light of a survey of over 250 London mosques. This annual rate is broadly on a par with conversions to Islam in France and Germany.

A separate online enquiry among 122 converts in August and September found that 38% were men and 62% women (although, surprisingly, marriage was not the key driver for conversion in at least 45% of instances).

The average age of conversion was 27.5 years. 44% had converted in 2001 or before and 56% subsequently. 56% of converts were white British, 16% other whites, and 29% non-whites. 7% were actually Pakistani by birth; they are presumed to have been brought up by lapsed Muslims.

Just 12% of converts altered their name officially following conversion, but a majority adopted a Muslim name or used a different name when with other Muslims. Three-quarters, including 90% of female converts, changed the way they dressed.

Converts did not generally regard their new faith as incompatible with Western life, although 39% did see themselves as Muslims first and British second. 84% considered that converts could act as a bridge between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and 64% rejected the notion that there is a natural conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in the UK.

According to Gledhill, Brice further discovered that the converts’ path was not entirely a smooth one. Their conversion occasioned a degree of isolation from their own families and friends, at least initially, doubtless partly reflecting latent Islamophobia in Britain.

At the same time, the new converts struggled to get the support they needed from their local mosque and were often ignored or mistrusted by birthright Muslims. They also came under pressure to comply with some practices which had more to do with culture than Islam.

POSTSCRIPT [7 January 2011]

Another two-page feature about the Faith Matters report appeared in The Independent on 4 January 2011, written by Jerome Taylor and Sarah Morrison. The article is available online at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-islamification-of-britain-record-numbers-embrace-muslim-faith-2175178.html

The full report appears to have been published by Faith Matters on the same day and can be downloaded from:

http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/fm-reports/a-minority-within-a-minority-a-report-on-converts-to-islam-in-the-uk.pdf

Chapters of special statistical interest comprise: chapter 3 on estimating the number of converts to Islam in the UK; chapter 4 on print media portrayals of converts in the UK between 2001 and 2010; and chapter 5 on the survey of converts. 

Some minor changes to the original BRIN post have been made in the light of the availability of the full report.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Today’s News – (1) ‘Islamic Extremism’, (2) Religion at Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The regular weekly YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, published today, includes questions on a couple of topics which will interest BRIN readers. Interviewing was online on 16 and 17 December, among a representative sample of 1,966 adult Britons aged 18 and over. The data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-171210.pdf

‘ISLAMIC EXTREMISM’

On 11 December an Iraqi-born British resident, Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, blew himself up during a suicide bombing on a busy shopping street in Stockholm. He had been a student at what is now the University of Bedfordshire in 2001-04 and had been told to leave the Luton Islamic Centre in 2007 on account of his radical views, although the mosque authorities did not report him to the police. He and his family lived in the town.

Against this background, YouGov posed a number of questions about so-called ‘Islamic extremism’. 51% of respondents considered that the government was doing insufficient to tackle the problem, including 63% of the over-60s, 60% of Conservative voters, 58% of men, and 57% of Northerners. Those least likely to take this line were young people aged 18-24 (31%) and Liberal Democrats (37%).

A further 22% thought that government was doing all it reasonably could to combat extremism, 10% that it was devoting too much effort to the issue, while 17% expressed no clear opinion.

A similar proportion, 52%, argued that universities should be doing more to combat ‘Islamic extremism’, rising to 68% among Conservative supporters and 65% of the over-60s. 13% believed that universities were doing all they reasonably could, 4% that they were already doing too much in this area, with 30% uncertain (including 38% of 18-24s).

Asked whether the Muslim community in Britain co-operated with the police in combating extremism, 7% believed that most or all British Muslims did so, 40% that many did so with a minority not co-operating, 24% that only a minority co-operated and the majority not, 13% that few or none co-operated, with 16% expressing no opinion.

Thus, 37% alleged that a majority of British Muslims failed to work with the police against extremism. The highest figures were for Conservative voters in the 2010 general election (44%), men (42%), the over-60s (42%), Northerners (42%), and the C2DE social group (40%).

Three-quarters of adults were critical of the directors of the Luton mosque for failing to inform the police of al-Abdaly’s views, the over-60s (82%), Conservatives (79%), and Northerners (78%) most inclining to this position. 12% thought the mosque should not have contacted the police, and 14% were uncertain.

78% of the sample agreed that all extremist preachers (whether Muslim, Christian or from another religion) should be banned from Britain, including 86% of Conservatives and the over-60s. The remaining 22% divided equally between don’t knows and those who did not want extremist preachers excluded.

The general nature of the question was presumably intended to subsume the case of Terry Jones, the American pastor with extremist views against Islam, which has been in the news recently.

CHRISTMAS

19% of Britons said that they would be attending a church service this Christmas, 5% less than in another recent YouGov poll for The Sun (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=780). This sub-divided between 8% who regularly attended church throughout the year and 11% who did not normally worship but expected to do so over Christmas. 76% said they would not attend church over the festive period, 2% of whom were otherwise regular churchgoers, and 6% were undecided what they would be doing.

The apparent marginality of religion to the public’s Christmas was underlined by another question in which 75% described it as a predominantly commercial event and only 4% as a religious festival. A further 16% said that it was both and 3% neither. The youngest age cohort (18-24) was most likely to say that Christmas was wholly or partly about religion, followed by Liberal Democrats (24%), and the 18-39s, ABC1s, and Scots (23% each).

Finally, respondents were offered a choice of five guests for their Christmas Day meal. 15% elected for the Queen, 11% for Ann Widdecombe (the former Conservative politician, whose profile has been raised by her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing), 10% Matt Cardle (winner of the X Factor), 5% Liz Hurley and Shane Warne (media celebrities who had left their respective partners to start an affair, although some papers today suggest that it is already over), and just 3% the Archbishop of Canterbury. 55% wanted none of these guests at their dining table.

Posted in church attendance, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clive Field on Attitudes to Islam and Muslim Attitudes in Britain

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Siobhan McAndrew

Last week, the Institute for Social Change (where BRIN is based) hosted a seminar by Clive Field, who co-directs this resource and blogs here assiduously. The title was “Muslim Opinions and Opinions of Muslims: British Experiences”. Clive provided a historical overview of Islam in Britain, followed by a “survey of surveys”, and culminating in an exploratory analysis of a survey of British Muslims sponsored by Harvard and Manchester.

The growing salience of Islam shows up in the number and subjects covered by surveys. Before the late 1980s, Islam and Muslims did not feature per se in national surveys; where diversity was considered it was qua ethnicity and nationality rather than religion. Imposing a survey ‘quality threshold’, Clive found that 15 surveys on Islam and/or Muslims were carried out over 1988-2000, 7 of them in 1990. However, 154 surveys were conducted between 2001 and 2010.

Clive then surveyed the headline findings emerging from such surveys, arguing that

‘[t]here is extensive negativity towards Muslims but no absolute level of Islamophobia, nor are views necessarily consistent between questions’.

More specifically, 9/11 and 7/7 spurred negative perceptions of Muslims’ integration, loyalty and radicalism. Knowledge of Islam and Muslims has improved somewhat but is still limited, and appears mostly to derive from (negative) media coverage). While direct social contact has grown, over one-half of non-Muslim Britons have no Muslim friends, and negative attitudes correlate with lack of knowledge and social distance. Double standards appear prevalent: Muslims are heavily criticised for failing to integrate, and yet little effort is made to bridge the gulf between the Muslim and majority communities.

Looking at surveys of Muslims, the first was conducted by Harris in 1989. It is expensive to survey minority communities and particularly those which are linguistically diverse. This means that such surveys often make methodological compromises, particularly with regard to sample size, which is typically 500 (which limits further breakdown by age or other category). Nevertheless Clive found 39 surveys of adequate quality conducted between 2001 and 2010.

The headline findings from these indicate that Muslims are much more religious than non-Muslims in Britain, and stricter on most aspects of morality. The overwhelming majority are attached to Britain, but there appears to be some ambivalence regarding a perceived clash between British and Muslim values, and a sense that Islamophobia is growing in British society.

Clive then provided an overview of findings from the Harvard-Manchester survey of Muslims, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and conducted over February-March 2009. It was designed to complement the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey where the number of Muslim respondents was too small for analysis of responses. Ipsos MORI ran the survey, providing a questionnaire in English, Sylheti and Punjabi and sampling output areas that had a population that was at least 10% Muslim.

Interviews were conducted face-to-face with 480 British Muslims aged over 18. 85% were South Asian, and 55% aged 18-34 (namely a young demographic profile). There were significant rates of non-response to sensitive questions (for example, on sexual morality), while complex questions such as the position of Sharia attracted a high rate of ‘don’t knows’.

Regarding the questions themselves, seven in eight reported that religion was extremely or very important in daily life, compared with 15% in the BSA 2008 survey. 82% reported that religion was very important to their sense of identity (BSA 16%) versus 55% for ethnicity (BSA 29%). Two-thirds reported that they were very or moderately spiritual (BSA 34%). 84% endorsed a literalist view of scripture (BSA 10%) and 44% creationism (BSA 14%).

Weekly attendance at services was claimed by 30% of those aged 18-34 and 50% of those aged 35 and over (BSA 10%). Praying at least several times a day was claimed by 45% of those aged 18-34 and 60% of those aged 35 and over (BSA 5%). Two-thirds reported that they read the Qur’an at least weekly, compared with 11% of the BSA sample reporting that they read the Bible or equivalent holy book. 71% reported that they observe Ramadan fully, and 17% mostly.

Headscarves worn (by the respondent if female or close female relative if the respondent was male) by 58% of those aged 18-34, and 77% of those aged 35 and over.

Regarding religion and personal morality, 75% reported that there are absolutely clear guidelines about what is good or evil (BSA 37%). 60% of those aged 18-34, and 78% of those aged 35 and over, reported that pre-marital sex was always wrong (BSA 8%). 58% of those aged 18-34 and 74% of those aged 35 and over regard homosexual acts as always wrong (BSA 30%). 45% of those aged 18-34 and 58% of those of 35 and over oppose legal recognition of same-sex relationships (BSA 26%).

Regarding the position of Muslims on religion in politics and society, 60% agree that religion is a private matter which should be kept out of public debates on socio-political issues (compared with 71% in the BSA). 54% disagree that it is proper for religious leaders to influence voting of individuals (BSA 73%). 45% report that religion is very or somewhat important in making decisions on politics (BSA 19%).

With regard to religious diversity, two-thirds acknowledge basic truths in many religions, compared with 74% of respondents to the 2008 BSA survey. 38% agree, while 32% disagree, that Britain is deeply divided along religious lines (compared with 52% and 16% in the BSA).

With regard to national identity, 58% reported that they “very strongly” belong to Britain and 29% “fairly strongly”. 57% support a greater role for Sharia courts. 22% of those aged 18-34 and 14% of those aged 35 and over reported experiencing Islamophobia during the two years before the survey period. However, 87% reported that they were broadly satisfied with their lives as a whole (BSA 83%). These findings are interesting and deserve further research (although the sample size will prohibit very detailed breakdowns). Clive also called for further, methodologically-enhanced survey research to build the evidence base, and provided some thoughts on prospects for integration and accommodation.

When discussion was opened to the floor, seminar participants were keen to probe how far negative attitudes among non-Muslims to Muslims were driven by generalised prejudice rather than something specific to Islam; how far they reflected antipathy to the tenets of Islam but not Muslims themselves; and how far they reflected antipathy to the highly religious and religiously-distinctive. The reliability of media-commissioned opinion polls seeking to create stories as well as reflect public attitudes was also discussed more deeply. It was a lively discussion, indicating appetite and scope for further research.

Clive has published on Islamophobia elsewhere:

C. Field (2007), ‘Islamophobia in contemporary Britain: the evidence of the opinion polls, 1988-2006’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 18: 447-77.

C. Field (forthcoming), ‘Young British Muslims since 9/11: a composite attitudinal profile’, Religion, State and Society.

C. Field (forthcoming), ‘Revisiting Islamophobia in contemporary Britain: opinion poll findings for 2007-10’, Islamophobia in Western Europe and North America, ed. Marc Helbling, London: Routledge.

Accordingly, he is not planning to develop an academic article from this research but is happy for the slidepack to be available here at BRIN. For the full set of slides presented at the seminar, please visit this link: http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/muslims-attitudes-and-attitudes-towards-muslims/

 
 

 

 

Posted in Measuring religion, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Youtube and Radical Muslim Clerics

Posted on November 9, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Last week Roshonara Choudhry, a 21-year-old British Muslim woman, was convicted at the Old Bailey of the attempted murder, on 14 May, of Stephen Timms, Labour Member of Parliament for East Ham, in retaliation for his endorsement of the Iraq War.

During her trial it emerged that she had become radicalized by watching the teachings of extremist Islamic preachers on Youtube, including the Yemen-based Anwar al-Awlaki, dubbed the ­‘spiritual leader’ of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The case prompted YouGov to include a question in its latest online poll for the Sunday Times, conducted on 4 and 5 November among a representative sample of 1,954 adult Britons aged 18 and over.

Noting that Youtube had voluntarily withdrawn al-Awlaki’s speeches from its site, YouGov asked its panelists whether Youtube should also be made to remove all speeches and videos from other Islamic clerics suspected of radicalizing British Muslims.

Three-quarters of respondents felt that Youtube should do this, with 14% saying it should not and 12% having no clear opinion. Conservative voters (82%) were more inclined to favour removal of the speeches than supporters of the other two main parties, and women somewhat more than men.

However, as with most British polls touching on Islam and Muslims, the most significant demographic trend was by age. Whereas 57% of 18-24s backed the removal of the offending speeches, the proportion climbed steadily through the other age cohorts, to reach 87% among the over-60s. Conversely, opponents of the ban decreased from 23% to 7% across the age spectrum.

Full data tabulations for this survey, which also included a battery of other questions relating to security and terrorism matters, will be found at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-051110_0.pdf

Posted in Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment