Around 1% agreed with the statement: “I do not think that Islamophobia exists in the UK”. It has not been possible to confirm whether they spent most of their time trolling websites.

The writing gets worse and worse. Do you even remember why you are doing this anymore?

Another question by ComRes asked whether people thought the Qur’an justified use of violence against non-Muslims.

That’s a really weird question. I would read it as asking what it literally says, in which case if you aren’t a Muslim the answer is necessarily no – “of course it doesn’t, it’s not true”.

(Before people jump in with a faulty piece of logic, the fact I think the answer is necessarily no if you are a non-Muslim doesn’t mean I think the answer is yes if you are. It might be an interesting opinion poll question to ask Muslims – which makes it a shame that the survey only included 22 Muslims, who overwhelmingly answered ‘no’, but it seems like a futile one to ask in those words to the population in general).

Another question by ComRes asked whether people thought the Qur’an justified use of violence against non-Muslims.

Around 14% thought it did, while around 65% disagreed.

An odd question that. Does it mean that violence against non-Muslims can be justified because of what is written in the Quran, or that the Quran itself contains passages that seek to justify violence?

You’d expect a thumping majority no for the first one, but the vast majority of the population in the UK won’t have a clue what’s written in the book itself.

@Dave #1

Ten out of ten for that piece of performance art, sir. Bravo.

@sensible people

This is genuinely heartening news. Looking at the PDF it seems that the study was quite large, but do you know anything about the sample size(s)?

What are peoples opinions of mixed religion partnerships? I.E. agnostic raised CofE man with an atheist Muslim raise woman?

@2 & 3 As no-one has yet quoted the exact question – “Some people think that the Islamic holy book, the Qur’an, justifies the use of violence against non-Muslims. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this?”

Yep badly phrased requires “tries to justify” or “attempts to justify” otherwise it could be interpreted either way. I suspect most did interpret it as ‘tries to’, but it does leave a question mark hanging over it.

My guess is that most folk don’t know that the Moors invaded Spain and introduced Islam there in 711 AD, whereas the Pope didn’t call the first Christian Crusade until 1095, more than three hundred years later. The fact is that Islam was spread by invasions. In western China, the prevailing faith there of Buddhism was suppressed by Islamic invaders.

On the evidence of history, Islam was not a “peaceful religion”. Arguably, Christianity wasn’t either – hence the behaviour of the Crusaders was disgracefully savage and the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in France in August 1572 and theThirty Years War in Europe 1618-48 are hardly testimony to the peaceful intentions of Christians – but let’s not pretend about Islam. The last attempt at introducing Islam into Europe by invasion was repelled at the Battle of Vienna in 1683:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna

Modern Jihadism and al-Qaeda probably owe more to Sayyid Qutb than to the Koran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb

See too this BBC2 doc by Adam Curtis: The Power of Nightmares (Part 2):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XmPJhurB0k&NR=1

@4

First figure in the first table: 1,004.
Margin of error of about +/- 3%.

And the headline is wrong.

29% of those asked blame the media
54 % of those asked blame something else
1% of those asked refused to answer
16% of those asked said they didn’t know who was to blame.

‘My guess is that most folk don’t know that the Moors invaded Spain and introduced Islam there in 711 AD, whereas the Pope didn’t call the first Christian Crusade until 1095, more than three hundred years later.’

Sure, but violent conquest did not mean violent conversion. By modern estimates Muslims only became the majority of the population in the Middle East by the eleventh century, four hundred years after the Islamic conquest. The religion was actually spread by encouraging conversion and cultural integration in conquered territories. Forced conversion is in any case explicitly forbidden by the Qur’an (2:256: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion’).

‘They were asked: “Which one of the following groups, if any, do you think is most to blame for Islamophobia, fear of Islam, in the UK?”’

Islamophobia is the *irrational* fear of Islam.

A rational fear of any authoritarian belief system – and I include all religions here, including Statism – is not a ‘phobia’.

If you are gay and live in Tower Hamlets there’s nothing irrational about your fears.

I read here on LoonWatch that there have been more fanatical Jewish terrorism between the year 1980 and 2005 than there were Muslim Terrorism! This surprises me even though I have never believed the Muslim-fear the media was cultivating in our minds. Don’t you then think that the media, the eyes and the ears of the masses, have made the Muslims seem more violent than reality tells? Still there is hope though : “I do not think that Islamophobia exists in the UK”.

@10: “The religion was actually spread by encouraging conversion and cultural integration in conquered territories.”

Try these links on the persecution of Christians in Islamic countries in recent years:
http://www.persecution.org/2011/01/09/islamic-countries-are-top-persecutors-of-christians/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians#Muslim_world

Athelstan,

Sure, but violent conquest did not mean violent conversion. By modern estimates Muslims only became the majority of the population in the Middle East by the eleventh century, four hundred years after the Islamic conquest. The religion was actually spread by encouraging conversion and cultural integration in conquered territories. Forced conversion is in any case explicitly forbidden by the Qur’an (2:256: ‘Let there be no compulsion in religion’).

And a poll tax on non-Muslims made conversion seem more sensible. The local nobility in Egypt and the Levant both seem to have become Islamic within a hundred or so years (helped perhaps in the former by tax riots), as there was more access to power that way. There was clear incentive to convert, but there are still substantial Christian minorities in all the former provinces of the Roman Empire that were conquered by Islam.

It is interesting that Islam has not normally managed to do well in countries without Islamic rule (in the way Christianity has done much more often, although for a country to convert almost always requires top-down conversion) – it is akin to Judaism that it generally does best in countries where its structures are reinforced by the state (even in a negative way). Draw your own conclusions about how this works in Britain…

Bob,

Every religion has those who misinterpret it and persecute others. I take it you believe that represents the core beliefs of every religion?

And not simply local disputes, clan wars, inter-community struggles for resources or any number of other things which can be ‘justified’ by religion (often after the event).

‘Every religion has those who misinterpret it and persecute others. I take it you believe that represents the core beliefs of every religion?’

Religions only exist in the minds of those who believe in them so can’t be ‘misinterpreted’ by their believers.

How believers interpret their religion defines that religion.

@11 Shatterface – the suffix phobia just means fear not irrational fear. That’s reserved for the word phobia which was derived later.

As for the comments regarding the historical spread of Islam – I can’t force you to convert, but I can make life very difficult for you if you don’t. Which of course was completely different to the Christian version which was – I can force you to convert and will make your life very difficult and probably very short if you don’t.

Shatterface,

Religions only exist in the minds of those who believe in them so can’t be ‘misinterpreted’ by their believers.

How believers interpret their religion defines that religion.

A religion is a recognised collection of commonly held beliefs, which generally have some form of way of approving or disparaging novelty – for Islam this is the tradition of Quranic scholarship and jurism (for most Christian churches this is simply the church itself).

So it is fair to say that it is possible to have views that are deviant from those of the religion, as the religion as a whole will have views decided by the system it has developed, but which will generally actually reflect the interpretation of the majority of socially active members. Those who have these views will still count themselves as members of that religion, but their interpretation will not define the religion – although it may lead to an alternative version of that religion (but violent sub-sects tend not to last historically – they are too dangerous).

Which is to say that where the majority of a religion have a clear point of view and a small number of extremists vary from it (generally to excuse actions that are little to do with religion, like preserving their tribal strutures) then we can safely say they are outside the norms of their religions, regardless of what they believe. If they claim for themselves a totally new faith, we cannot do that, but to allow them to define a religion held by many others, the clear majority does not have to be tarred with the same brush.

@11 Shatterface – Exactly

‘@11 Shatterface – the suffix phobia just means fear not irrational fear. That’s reserved for the word phobia which was derived later.’

No, ‘phobias’ are anxiety disorders characterised by an irrational and disproportionate reaction to the object of that fear.

Bob B: “My guess is that most folk don’t know that the Moors invaded Spain and introduced Islam there in 711 AD, whereas the Pope didn’t call the first Christian Crusade until 1095, more than three hundred years later.”

Correct. Most folk do not know this. However, events over a thousand years ago are totally and utterly irrelevant to whether an average Muslim family represents a threat to the continued existence of the United Kingdom, as Islamophobes would have us believe.

@jungle: “Correct. Most folk do not know this. However, events over a thousand years ago are totally and utterly irrelevant to whether an average Muslim family represents a threat to the continued existence of the United Kingdom, as Islamophobes would have us believe.”

Irrelevant? C’mon, the Jihadists often make adverse references to the Crusaders.

Admittedly the Crusaders did behave very badly – in modern terms, they could probably qualify for indictments as war criminals and for acts of genocide. But I’m making comparisons with the invasions of Spain, as well as Portugal, by the Moors in 711 AD to show the Christian Crusaders didn’t start the process of conquests of foreign lands to install their particular faith.

As for current threats to Britain – or to Europe – recall the Madrid bombings in 2004 and the London bombings on 7/7 in 2005 as well as the calls for Sharia Law to prevail in Muslim communities in Britain. More than a few Islamic countries don’t even permit Christians residents to evangelise their faith and recall the oppressive enforced dress codes and chastity laws in Islamic countries:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaBoI2oKGwk

There would be a public outcry here if attempts were made to introduce into Britain the oppressive restrictions commonly found in Islamic countries.

Anyone who has worked in market research will tell you it is not too difficult to get the results you want by the design of the questionaire and the wording of the questions.

Those who responded that the Media is to “blame” might have been thinking, Yes that’s where I get my information from! And perhaps they believe what they read most of the time. Islam makes its followers, believe, do and say many things, that annoy, puzzle or repulse non-Muslims

Also, I think this quote from a Muslim journalist is relevant:

“I think the press has been pretty fair to Muslims. They don’t really need to stitch people up, they do a good enough job of that themselves. My view is Muslims have got to address issues themselves, things like anti-semitism and homophobia that seem to be unchangeable within Muslim communities. As far as I’m concerned newspapers just report them as they are.” (Journalist B, p242)

Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media, Edited by Julian Petley and Robin Richardson. Published by Oneworld Publications, 2011.

See review here: http://nottheappg.wordpress.com/the-media/pointing-the-finger/

Which one of the following groups, if any, do you think is most to blame for Islamophobia, fear of Islam, in the UK?

Isn’t that somewhat suspect – using an appositive noun phrase in this manner? Do most people actually construe it as such? And a neutral phrase should be used, such as “responsible for” rather than “to blame”. “To blame”, by semantic association/syntactic selectional restrictions, introduces an evaluative element, thus suggesting that dislike of Islam is in some way undesirable, inappropriate or inadmissable. Dislike of any phenomena, is, of course, as equally as valid as dislike.
And I’ve read otherwise, that Islamophobia is a “fear of Islam”, “irrational dislike of Islam”, “dislike of Islam”, “fear of Islam” etc etc etc. Methodologically, you cannot pose a meaningful question about something which is variously defined in different contexts. So which is it?
And in the interests of impartiality and fairness, the question “who is responsible for Islamophilia, a liking for Islam . . . ” should also be asked in conjunction with the above.

“Dislike of any phenomena, is, of course, as equally as valid as dislike”.

Should read, of course: “Disliking any phenomena is equally as valid as liking it”.

After all, I can like or dislike rice pudding, Dostoyevsky, Ron Jenkins at No. 78, capitalism, socialism, raw onions, malt whisky, fish paste sandwiches or any other phenomenon in the universe. How peculiar to imagine that out of all myriad phenomena in the universe, one – namely Islam – should only be liked. Crazy or what?

@22. LibertyPhile: “Anyone who has worked in market research will tell you it is not too difficult to get the results you want by the design of the questionaire and the wording of the questions.”

Indeed.

@23. Trofim: “Which one of the following groups, if any, do you think is most to blame for Islamophobia, fear of Islam, in the UK?”

On the Comres site, this survey is reported in two tables, in response to two questions. The question to which Trofim refers is number one in the Ahmadiyya survey.

What Ahmadiyya purchased were two questions in a 1,000+ respondent interview. Given that there is no other published survey of political opinion conducted by them during that period, we have to conclude either:

1. The questions were asked alongside a private survey of political opinion.

2. The questions were asked alongside private surveys of undergarment purchasing, coffee consumption, with respondents sampling a new slice of cheddar.

Me duck, that cheese and pickle was very fine, but what is that Islamo stuff about?

Well perhaps bombs going off in cites, 30- young people left dead, at youth camps, yes yes not all people are bad.

People in market research will also tell you that they often deal with clients who already know the answer and the result they want.

The client doesn’t have the patience or motive to develop a set of objective questions or the inclination to spend the money to ask enough questions or sample in the right way to get near the truth.

As @25 Charlieman points out paying attention to two questions in an omnibus-multiclient survey is laughable.

Of course, it is all dressed up to look like authoritative research, cross analysed this way and cross analysed that way.

Why is Liberal Conspiracy giving credence to what is essentially a PR exercise by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association prior to their annual get together?

Is anyone from ComRes reading this?

To be fair I personally don’t think Islamophobia exists. However I do think cultural imperialism and racism exist. Both of those should be combatted, the accusation of Islamophobia on the other hand tends to a wide enough net to be able to snave valid criticism of Islam too.

@ Robert, #26:

‘Well perhaps bombs going off in cites, 30- young people left dead, at youth camps, yes yes not all people are bad.’

The person who conducted these attacks was a white Christian with ties to far right political groups. Of course it took the media some time to get their heads round this, despite the evidence to the contrary – namely that the perpetrator was an ‘Aryan’ who attacked a young socialists retreat, hardly the modus operandi of ‘al Qaeda’. Facts, however, rarely get in the way of a racist assumption…

As for the poll cited in the article, seems such a poorly produced and ambiguous piece of research that one may as well just make up some results, and then pretend to have conducted a survey.

Who in their right mind would admit to being a bigot to a pollster on the street? That’s what the anonymous comments sections on websites are for…

I still think there should be a question relating to the aetiology of Islamophilia. What is it about Islam that has led to the extraordinary love affair between the left and this bizarre medieval cult, and the consequent huge gulf between the left and ordinary people? I guess Muslim societies are highly controlled. That authoritarian component of Islam is naturally attractive to the left.

Don’t forget to help those brave souls who have had the guts to become ex-Muslims.

http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/

@20 – I’m not disagreeing with you just that the usage of phobia as a standalone term was derived from its use as a suffix. So a person that suffers from a phobia about Islam has an irrational fear of Islam. A person who suffers from Islamophobia has a fear that can be rational or irrational.

I know pedantic, but you’re the one who started it

BobB @22:

Admittedly the Crusaders did behave very badly – in modern terms, they could probably qualify for indictments as war criminals and for acts of genocide. But I’m making comparisons with the invasions of Spain, as well as Portugal, by the Moors in 711 AD to show the Christian Crusaders didn’t start the process of conquests of foreign lands to install their particular faith.

There’s a fairly good argument to say you’re wrong, here; about Christianity, not about the white-versus-brown racist exercises we now call Crusades [1]. Christianity in its modern form takes shape as an explicitly imperial religion under Constantine and has been ossified by the Nikean Creed and associated catechism every since. The emperor adopted the monotheistic and metropolitan religion for purely political reasons. Identifying himself as the second coming of the Messiah allowed him to re-establish the extraordinarily successful geographical administration methods of the Roman Empire. This included a spirited attempt to wipe out all competing versions of the religion, of which there were quite a few (cf. Nag Hammadi, etc.).

Of course, in order to actually achieve this when he didn’t own most of the Empire, he had to go and conquer all the pagans and make them convert to his new version of Christianity. I’ve looked about quite a bit, and that really is the first time I can see a systematic war of conquest used as a vehicle for mass religious conversion. Anyone know of an attested earlier one?

Beyond that, your description of the Moorish conquest of Iberia misses a lot, including how quickly the culture became secular, and how the desert ascetics whose sects now dominate the modern interpretation of Islam as Arabic Hegemony were constantly fulminating against the Alhambra.

Outside of Arabia and before the 80s it was only really the Christian world who bought into this idea that Islam == Arabic Cultural Imperialism. Malay muslims I have known get pretty upset by it, as do Pakistanis. It’s only since the US started funding Arabic Imperialist factions (mujahedin) that this view of one half of YHWH’s cult became pluralised. There are almost as many interpretations of Islam as there are of Christianity (38,000 at the last count I saw) and it is only the very narrowly supported, Arabic and politicised vision of the religion that any Western commentators seem to focus on these days.

The Ghanaian muslims I grew up around would be very, very pissed off to discover they were suddenly supposed to identify with modern Arabic politics; they think of the Arabs as the original slave traders.

[1] Bear in mind that it was a Crusade which destroyed the Sephardic Jews, who’d been coping just fine in Moorish Spain, driving most of them to Turkey. And that it was the 4th Crusade which sacked Byzantium, ending the defense of Christendom and allowing the Turks to launch a war of vengeance which ended, to quote the recent nut-job, at the Gates of Vienna. The Crusades used religion as an excuse; what they were about was money, power, and killing brown people.