9781422281093

P OLLING THE I SLAMIC W ORLD

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As this map of the world’s major religions shows, the largest concentrations of Muslims can be found in the Middle East, North and East Africa, and Central Asia. However, Muslims can be found in every country in the world today.

2001 and 2002 by the Gallup Organization, which interviewed more than 10,000 people in nine predominantly Islamic coun- tries—Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Gallup interviewers asked each person approximately 120 questions about their views on things like politics, culture, and family life. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, both very important Islamic religious centers, this may have been the first time a public-opinion poll was ever taken on these sensitive questions. Gallup’s unprecedented study provided interesting insights into the attitudes and beliefs of people through- out the Islamic world. Over the next six years, Gallup continued to poll the Muslim world, eventually interviewing over 50,000 people. The result was analyzed by scholars that included John L. Esposito, a prominent American expert on Islam, and published in a 2008 book, Who