Faith and country: Key demographics of Muslim-Americans

"The significant proportion of native-born converts to Islam is a characteristic unique to the United States.  More than a quarter call themselves white, while nearly one in five identified as Asian and about as many classified themselves as "other."" [Gallup]

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Around the net
Credit: USA Today | April 15, 2010
Source : Gallup | USA Today

Gallup Organization interviews with a random sample of 946 Muslim Americans in 2008 shed light on the demographics of this rarely studied group:

RACE: Muslims are the nation's most racially diverse religious group. At least a third of Muslim-Americans are black mostly converts or children of converts to Islam. "The significant proportion of native-born converts to Islam is a characteristic unique to the United States," Gallup said. More than a quarter call themselves white, while nearly one in five identified as Asian and about as many classified themselves as "other."


RELIGIOSITY: Muslim-Americans are more religious than other Americans, but less likely than those in predominantly Muslim countries to say religion plays an important part in their lives 80% of Muslim-Americans compared to virtually all in Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Morocco, for example.

IDEOLOGY: Muslim-Americans are the U.S. religious group most evenly spread out along the political spectrum 29% liberal, 38% moderate, 25% conservative.

PARTISANSHIP: 49% of Muslim-Americans called themselves Democrats, 8% Republican and 37% independent. Gallup found that among all Americans in 2008 34% identified as Democratic, 26% Republican and 33% independent. But voter registration was relatively low among Muslim-Americans.

OTHER DEMOGRAPHICS: Muslim-Americans skew young, with 36% age 18-29, double the rate for the general population. They're more likely than other Americans to be single. Forty percent have at least a college degree, compared to 29% of Americans overall. Muslims may be slightly more likely than other Americans to report low household income.

Results were subject to sampling error of +/- 4 percentage points for Muslim-Americans, 0.2 points for all Americans.

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