Who Speaks For Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think.

Apparently there is a book which is due for publication next month (not that far away really) entitled "Who Speaks For Islam? What A Billion Muslims Really Think."

It's amazing what responses I have had when "discussing" the book - well really just the title and what little we know about it from the advertising on the BBC

Apparently, some 50,000 people who are of the Muslim faith in some 35 countries were surveyed by the Gallop organisation, on the instructions of its chairman Mr Jim Clifton way back in 2001, after President Bush asked "Why do they hate us?"

On the basis of the data obtained, an extrapolation has been made which claims to be able to, in effect, speak for Islam or at least adequately represent the points of view of some 1 billion of the faithful.

If you think this is a stretch you may be right - after all if you do your sums and see what 50,000 people mean statistically from a population of 1 billion and then ask how many were polled in each of the 35 countries and then make some sense of the relationships between the numbers polled and the total population in each of the countries then you will have sufficient data to begin to evaluate whether the poll and the book are useful or not.

Until then - all we have is the propaganda, by those who want to sell the book or more appropriately want us to buy it.

At least we can explore some of the more interesting 'leaks' that have been revealed about the contents of this book, so that we can determine whether it's worth spending money to find out more.

Apparently:

1. Those polled also said the most important thing the West could do to improve relations with Muslim societies was to change its negative views towards Muslims and respect Islam
2. the vast majority want Western democracy and freedoms, but do not want them to be imposed
3. many of the 7% classing themselves as "radical" - in fact admire the West for its democracy and freedoms. However, they do not want such things imposed on them.
4. most wanted the West to focus on changing its negative view of Muslims and Islam
5. most Muslims want guarantees of freedom of speech

As is usual with such leaks, any reader who is familiar with statistical analysis techniques would want to see the questions and actually ask how and where they were administered and how the choice of those surveyed was arrived at and loads of other questions about methodology and the population surveyed.

I guess that at present all we have are the leaks and the views or should I say opinions of certain people mentioned in the article who appear to have been given access to the poll and its results.

The rest of us I am afraid will have to buy the book to be able to read all about the survey and then hopefully have sufficient information to enable us to reach some conclusions about the validity of both the survey and the way it was administered and also the analysis of the results and the conclusions that have been derived from it.

One thing that has been revealed though, I think is or at should be taken at face value and actually listened to by all. This is in the first item listed in the leaks I have gleaned from the publicity:- "Those polled also said the most important thing the West could do to improve relations with Muslim societies was to change its negative views towards Muslims and respect Islam."

I really have no problem with this conclusion, indeed I support it 100%, with one teensy weensy proviso and that is that those who want us (ie non Muslims) to change, need to understand that positive attitudes and mutual respect are what is required on their part as well and not a one way street.

If we could look forward to all the relevant leaders standing up and pledging mutual respect and positive attitudes and agreeing that while there are different religious beliefs with different requirements about and for behaviour, there is also to be tolerance of others and their views and acceptance that those others can practice their views in peace.

When we can have that form of tolerance and mutual understanding and respect, then we can finally have a world community that wants to and is capable of working collectively towards securing all of humanity from the colossal dangers that it faces from environmental changes brought about by the residue of our existence on the planet, and by the fact that as time passes and there are more and more human beings on the planet there needs to be some careful management of the finite resources we have on above and in this planet so that we can all continue to exist on its surface in a state of relative well being.

To my mind THAT should be the goal of all - but when I say that I realise that I merely stating the thoughts I had in a dream and that reality is unlikely to produce anything like this view while human beings do not realise that we are all living in a closed and finite environment. Further that unless we start to respect and manage our environment, some of us and more likely many of our children and grandchildren and their descendants will have to 'carry the can' for our short sightedness now!