Gallup poll shows that Muslim Americans are patriotic and optimistic about the future

Muslim American children

A newly released Gallup poll shows that American Muslims are an optimistic group and are  loyal to the U.S. in-spite of the fact that they have been facing a lot of discrimination and negative stereotyping in recent times.

The Gallup poll which was released on Thursday showed that 93% of American-Muslims affirmed their loyalty to America. About 57% of them said that they have confidence in the integrity of the U.S. elections, the highest among all groups polled. 60% of Muslims polled also expressed their confidence in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the body in charge of counterterrorism in the U.S.. About 48% of Muslim Americans report having experienced racial and religious discrimination and this makes them the group which feels most discriminated against among Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Atheists and Agnostics.

American-Muslims are very optimistic about their future as Americans, with about 64% of them reporting that their standard of living improved in 2011, as against 48% in 2008. According to Dalia Mogahed, director of the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, "Muslim Americans are happier and more optimistic today than at the end of 2008."

Much of the positive attitude of Muslim Americans to the nation seems tied to the election of Barack Obama as President. About 80% of Muslims give President Obama high approval ratings. This is the highest among all major religious groups in America, with Jews coming second at 65%. This is in sharp contrast to the number of Muslims who gave George Bush high rating in 2008–7%.

According to Mohamed Younis, senior analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies,

The prejudice and discrimination are definitely there, and that's something we have consistently seen in the data. But at the same time many of the people in the Muslim-American community seem to be doing relatively well, and part of their doing well is being able to be full-fledged Americans, to participate in the American experience.

About 9 out of 10 Muslims surveyed said that their  Muslim friends do not sympathize with Al-Qaeda and they showed a higher aversion to violence against civilians than all other groups polled, with 89% of them saying that violence against civilians is never justifiable.

JohnThomas Didymus

Transmodernist writer and thinker. Author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohnThomas Didymus"

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