A sweeping, 226-page report from the Pew Forum explores attitudes and opinions from Muslim communities around the world. In the process, it turns up some fascinating insights into not just the views held in the “Muslim world” but the wide diversity of those views between Muslim communities. Here, we explore some of those insights using maps and charts.
First, some caveats. The findings here do not represent all Muslims; just as they show diversity of opinion between communities, so, too, is there diversity within communities. After all, a poll of all American Christians would not capture the differences between Baptists and Catholics, much less between New Jersey Catholics and Louisiana Catholics. There is, in other words, no such thing as a monolithic Muslim worldview.
Also, Pew unfortunately did not survey the world’s third-largest Muslim population, which is that of India, and does not include Muslims from Iran, China or Saudi Arabia, much less those who now live in the Western world. But it does offer a wide, comprehensive view of many of the world’s largest Muslim communities and their opinions.