Excerpt:
Religious fundamentalism among Muslim immigrants in Western Europe is dramatically greater than that among Christian Europeans, according to a recent study by Ruud Koopmans from the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin discussed on the Monkey Cage last Friday. On the surface, these findings legitimize concerns surrounding the incompatibility of Western and Islamic values.
Like Europeans, Americans express fear over Muslim integration and Islamic fundamentalism, although very little is known about beliefs among Muslims living in the U.S. A recent nationwide survey of U.S. Muslims, which I designed, provides some insight — the Muslim-American National Opinion Survey (MANOS) reveals that levels of religious fundamentalism among Muslims and Christians in the U.S. are nearly identical.
As one of the few nationally representative surveys available of Muslim Americans, MANOS provides insight into the degree Muslim Americans hold fundamentalist views, as defined by Koopmans. Data from existing surveys of the general American population allow me to assess where Muslims stand relative to other Americans in believing that religious rules are more important than the laws of the country and the degree individuals hold literal interpretations of holy scriptures.