>In an interesting article that appeared in the Jewish World Review, published on June 28, 2006, Daniel Pipes summarizes the findings of a survey carried out by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.  This survey, titled “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” reflects the views of Muslims and Westerners in ten countries, six of them with majority Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain).

In the article, Pipes describes what the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press discovered:  a Muslin “proclivity to conspiracy theories.”  Pipes wrote:

In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims. Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these ten Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government, Israel, or some other agency.

Pipes concludes his article by saying: Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world.

Pipes’ article is an article worth reading.

To read Pipes’ article, click here.

To read the Pew survey, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary