Pew survey finds most Muslims deeply committed to their faith

The Pew Research Center today released an extensive survey on attitudes and beliefs of the world’s Muslims. Religion News Service reports:

A new Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe finds that most adherents of the world’s second-largest religion are deeply committed to their faith and want its teachings to shape not only their personal lives but also their societies and politics. In all but a handful of the 39 countries surveyed, a majority of Muslims say that Islam is the one true faith leading to eternal life in heaven and that belief in God is necessary to be a moral person. Many also think that their religious leaders should have at least some influence over political matters, and many express a desire for sharia – traditional Islamic law – to be recognized as the official law of their country. But the percentage of Muslims who say they want sharia to be “the official law of the land” varies widely, from fewer than one-in-ten in Azerbaijan (8%) to near unanimity in Afghanistan (99%).

At the same time, the survey finds that even in many countries where there is strong backing for sharia, most Muslims favor religious freedom for people of other faiths. In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of Muslims say that non-Muslims are very free to practice their religion, and fully 96% of those who share this assessment say it is “a good thing.” Yet 84% of Pakistani Muslims favor enshrining sharia as official law. These seemingly divergent views are possible partly because most supporters of sharia in Pakistan – as in many other countries – think Islamic law should apply only to Muslims. Moreover, Muslims around the globe have differing understandings of what sharia means in practice.

See RNS story here. Links to the Pew Forum’s full report are here.

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