[Songbird]

US Muslims 'mostly middle-class and mainstream'
After Christianity, Islam is the second largest religion in many European countries and one of the fastest- growing religions in the US. A survey published in May by the Pew Research Center, the influential American polling group, states there are 2.35m Muslims living in the US. Like many issues concerning American Muslims, this figure is a contentious one. Muslim groups have accused non-Muslims of releasing low numbers to marginalise Islam, while Muslims are accused of inflating the number for political gain. The Pew Muslim American study, regarded as the first independent survey on Muslim life in the US, admits "it is possible that the number of Muslim Americans is higher". The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, says there are 7m Muslims in America.

Pew data indicate that American Muslims are mostly "middle class and mostly mainstream". The south Asian Muslims I grew up with falls into this category. Many of us, like our parents, work in typically white-collar industries as doctors, engineers, information technology specialists and, increasingly in post-September 11 America, as lawyers.
The survey, which conducted more than 55,000 interviews with Muslims living in America, tells us: we are happy with our lives; moderate on issues that typically divide Muslims and westerners throughout the world; have a positive view of the larger society; are generally better off financially than Muslims in Europe; and, although two-thirds of us were born elsewhere, do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.

On the issue of terrorism, the study says American Muslims "reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in western European countries".

Perhaps more surprisingly, according to the survey, younger Muslims in America "are both much more religiously observant and more accepting of Islamic extremism than are older Muslim Americans". This statistic corresponds with other Pew research about Muslims in western Europe. Muslims in the Middle East, the Pew survey says, "do not show greater tolerance of suicide bombing among young people".

My own experience could not be farther from the Pew results regarding younger Muslims in America. As a child in Sunday school, my friends and I competed to see who could get thrown out of class the quickest. The Islamic centre we attended in suburban Kansas City had both a basketball court and a large backyard that made a great football pitch. The challenge was getting enough people out of class to field teams before noon prayers. This practice ended for me when my mother became principal of the Sunday school.