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Muslims & Islam:
Lesson 2
What Do Muslims Around The World Believe?
Muslims have varying perspectives on Islam’s relationship with politics and public life. Between 2008 and 2012, Muslims in 39 countries were surveyed in more than 80 languages. Although somewhat dated, the survey questions still provide a useful guide to the beliefs and practices that unite more than a billion Muslims, as well as the wide range of opinions that show that this group is far from monolithic. The world’s Muslims not only display tremendous ethnic and linguistic diversity, but they also have varying perspectives on Islam’s relationship with politics and public life.
Muslims Are United By Belief In One God And The Prophet Muhammad.
Religion is central to the lives of many Muslims around the world. For example, 94 percent of Muslims in Pakistan and 93 percent of Muslims in Indonesia and Nigeria said in the survey that religion is very important in their lives. Even in Turkey, with a history of secularism, two-thirds of Muslims said religion is very important to them. There are also places where Muslims are much less religious: Just 18 percent in Kazakhstan and 15 percent in Albania said religion is very important in their lives, for example.
Muslims around the world are, however, almost universally united by a belief in Allah and the Prophet Muhammad. For example, 100 percent of Muslims surveyed in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Tunisia said there is only one god and Muhammad is his prophet (a declaration known as the shahada). Even in some of the less religious Muslim-majority countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, overwhelming majorities of Muslims affirmed their belief in the shahada, while most also express belief in the concepts of angels, heaven, hell and fate.
Many Muslims Participate In Daily Prayer, Ramadan Fasting And Charitable Giving.
The shahada is one of five practices known as the Five Pillars of Islam. Some of the other pillars also unify many Muslims around the world, particularly fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and giving zakat, or annual donations to help the poor and less fortunate. Both practices are widespread among Muslims across Southeast Asia, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in the Middle East-North Africa region. Praying five times a day also is very common among Muslims in many parts of the world, although not everywhere — for instance, just 2 percent of Muslims in Kazakhstan said they pray all five salah (prayers) daily.
Most Muslims around the world said they have not performed the pilgrimage (or hajj) to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, perhaps due to the financial burden involved in traveling to Saudi Arabia. (The hajj is required only of Muslims who are able.)
More Muslims are Sunni than Shiite, but many say they are just Muslim.
Muslims are broadly divided into two major branches: Sunni and Shia Islam, which originally split in a dispute over leadership succession after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. While the two groups share many core beliefs, their differences are sharp enough that many Sunnis said in our survey that they do,not consider Shai’ites to be Muslims.
Some differences may be political; Iran is overwhelmingly Shi’ite, while some of its regional rivals (such as Saudi Arabia) are heavily Sunni. But there are also some religious differences, including the fact that Shi’ites in some countries were more likely than Sunnis to say that it is acceptable for Muslims to visit the shrines of saints or appeal to deceased relatives.
Muslims are predominately Sunni in the bulk of the countries surveyed, but Shi’ites have a strong presence in parts of the Middle East — not only in Iran but also in Lebanon and Iraq, two countries where half or more of all Muslims said that Sunni-Shi’ite tensions were at least a moderately big problem in their country at the time the survey was conducted. At the same time, many Muslims around the world identify with other sects, such as Ahmadiyya, and many others do not identify with any sect, saying they are “just Muslim.
One way to think of Islam’s more than forty denominations is to look at its two primary denominations, Sunni and Shi’a, and Christianity’s two major groupings of Catholic and Protestant. Each of the four has many minor divisions connected to it. For more information on Islam’s denominations, see Section 500: Religions Of The Middle East — Islamic Religion Flowcharts.
Shari’a Has Wide Support Among Muslims In Some Countries, But Interpretations Vary.
When asked whether they want Shari’a, which is a set of ethical principles based on the Qur’an and Sunnah (sayings and actions of the prophet), to be the official law of the land in their country, responses varied widely. Nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99 percent) and most in Iraq (91 percent) and Pakistan (84 percent) supported Shari’a as official law. But in some other countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central Asia — including Turkey (12 percent), Kazakhstan (10 percent) and Azerbaijan (8 percent) — relatively few favored the implementation of Shari’a.
Even those who did support Shari’a did not always share the same ideas about what that means. Many of these Muslims said Shari’a should only apply to Muslims, while others (including, for example, 55 percent of all Egyptian Muslims) said Islamic law (Shari’a) should apply to people of all religions. And, overall, some Muslims said there are multiple interpretations of Shari’a, while others said there is only one interpretation.
Muslims Hold Varying Views On What Shari’a Should Entail.
The specifics of how Shari’a should be applied also are open to debate. Muslims who want Shari’a to be the law of the land in their country usually support religious judges deciding family and property disputes, but there is less consensus about corporal punishments associated with Islamic law, such as cutting off the hands of thieves. Support for these types of punishments ranges from 88 percent of Shari’a-supporting Muslims in Pakistan to 28 percent in Kosovo.
There also is wide variation on questions about whether adulterers should be stoned and whether people who leave Islam should face the death penalty, with majority support for these punishments among those who support Shari’a as the law of the land in some countries (such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt) and less in others (including Indonesia and Tunisia).
There is little support for terrorist groups among Muslims around the world.
For some non-Muslims in the West, the first exposure to Islam may have come through news reports about terrorist groups that use Islam to justify their actions, such al-Qaida on 9/11 or the self-described Islamic State, also known as ISIS. But most Muslims around the world reject these groups and the violent methods they use.
A 2011-2012 survey found that relatively few Muslims believed that suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified as a means of defending Islam against its enemies. For example, just seven percent of Muslims in Iraq and Indonesia said these tactics are often or sometimes justified, although this figure was higher among Muslims living in some places, such as the Palestinian territories (40 percent), Afghanistan (39 percent) and Egypt (29 percent).
There also was much disdain for ISIS among Muslims surveyed in a 2015 global poll. Likewise, 2010 and 2013 surveys of Muslim nations found little support for Al-Qaida. In general, surveys have found far more concern among Muslims about extremism within their countries than support for extremist groups.
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Up Next: Lesson 3
Who Are U.S. Muslims And What Do They
Believe?
Muslims make up just one percent of the U.S. population, but their numbers and share are growing. Surveys have found a highly diverse U.S. Muslim population that hails from at least 75 different countries but is almost universally proud to be American.
The Institute for the Study of Islam (ISI) is a nonpartisan fact-think-tank. Discerning-Islam.org is a current project of ISI. As a neutral source of data and analysis, ISI does not take or make policy positions.
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MUSLIMS & ISLAM: LESSON 1
3000 – 002
04/2022
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