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Counting Muslims


A nasty dispute recently broke out about the number of Muslims in the United States. One study (available online in pdf format) claims six to seven million. Funded by four Muslim organization and directed by Ishan Bagby of Shaw University, it counted Muslims by contacting mosques and using various assumptions. The American Religious Identification Survey conducted by Barry Kosmin and Egon Mayer through the City University of New York Graduate Center found at most three million Muslims using a telephone survey. About one-quarter of all Muslims make New York State their home, according to Kosmin and Mayer Kosmin is one of the leading students of religious demography, and is co-author of "One Nation Under God," based upon a similar study done 10 years ago. The American Jewish Committee commissioned Tom Smith to assess the available estimates and make one of his own. His independent estimate largely agrees with that of the CUNY Graduate Center team.

Who is right? Why is it so difficult to count the number of Muslims? First, the Census Bureau is actually prohibited from counting Muslims. Islam is a religion rather than an ethnicity or a national origin, and the bureau is barred from asking about religion. Muslims and supporters of civil liberties might be especially thankful for this at this particular moment in American history. In a notorious chapter of their history, the Census Bureau assisted the US government in rounding up the Japanese-Americans at the beginning of World War II by using the agency's very detailed block-by-block tabulations. At a recent conference, a Bureau official said that they had received over 150 requests from other governmental bodies for information about Arabs (which are considered an ancestry) and immigrants from Muslim countries.

Since Muslims, whatever their number, are a small part of the United States population they are hard to count. They are also hard to define. Considering just adults, what does one need to do to be counted as a Muslim? Go to a mosque? Pray several times per day? Observe Ramadan? Have made a pilgrimage to Mecca? Eat Halal foods? Those trying to count Jews face similar problems. One definition of Jewish, for instance, is "Feeling you should go to High Holiday services." By such a definition apparently, it is enough to either go to the services or to feel guilty about not going.

When Bagby released his study in April, many reporters noted that if his figures were right then Muslims outnumbered Jews in the United States. This relatively unimportant fact in April that might add to Muslim bragging rights over Jews took on added significance with the September 11th attack. The American Jewish Committee commissioned Smith, and Egon Mayer is head of CUNY's Center for Jewish Studies, so some suspicion has greeted the release of their reports.

However, when one compares Bagby's methods and assumptions with those of Smith and Kosmin, it is plain that Bagby's is severely and fatally flawed. He enumerates all American mosques (1209 he says) and then interviews mosque representatives from a sample of 631. His response rate is a respectable two-thirds. But plainly big well-organized mosques with a well-staffed office would be much more likely to respond than smaller less well-funded mosques with part-time office staffs. He finds that on the average more than 1,600 people are involved with each Mosque, and then multiples that figure by all 1209 Mosques, claiming that about 2 million are involved. He then asserts that two thirds of Muslims are missing from the mosques, so he multiplies by three and announces that there are between six and seven Muslims in the United States.

Kosmin and Mayer by contrast base their estimate on the 219 Muslims contacted, while they were phoning about 50,000 people. Weighting their estimate appropriately they find 1.1 million Muslim adults, which is double what they found in 1991. Including children this would make the Muslim population about 1.5 million. Since there is sampling error they admit that the total could be as much as three million. Smith by ransacking available data comes up with an estimate of 1.4 million, 1.9 million including children. Looking at standard errors, his upper bound is very similar to that of Kosmin and Mayer. An analysis that my associates and I did for the New York Times of immigrants or children of immigrants from Muslim countries comes up with similar numbers. (It is true, of course that some immigrants from Muslim countries are not Muslim, and other Muslim immigrants come from non-Muslim counties. Other Muslims are native born.)

It seems that Bagby, along with many "ethnic group researchers" is willing to bend every effort to increase the count of his group . Kosmin and Smith, both renowned and careful social scientists, do as much as possible to base their counts on established methods. But even they give the benefit of the doubt to their highest possible count.

No matter how many Muslim there are, all researchers agree that the Muslim community, as with the Arab community (discussed here in September) are doing quite well in America. They are highly educated, many are quite prosperous, and they occupy a wide variety jobs. But it is also the case that they are Americanizing. As one of my students, an American citizen and the son of the Bangladeshi Islamic religious leader, told me: "My brothers and I are very observant, but my nieces and nephews seem much more American. I don't know if they will all continue to be Muslim." So like other groups, being successful in the United States may increase the group's influence and prosperity, while ultimately diminishing its size.

Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since 1993, and provides expert testimony on a range of cases, including housing discrimination. The opinions expressed are his alone.

The Arab Americans In Our Midst


Osama Bin Laden, the man whom many believe is behind the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, is from Saudi Arabia. Many of the 19 hijackers who participated hailed from Arab countries. There also have been reports of celebrations in some Arab and Moslem quarters, not just on the West Bank but also in Arab sections of the United States.

All of this has prompted an outburst of incidents against Arabs, Muslims, Middle Easterners and even South Asians in the United States, some of them in New York. The president of the Moslem Students Association at Queens College (where I teach) was targeted for attack and bursts into tears in class when discussing the bombing.

Both Mayor Rudy Giuliani and President George Bush have been scrupulous in asking the American public to avoid scapegoating innocent Arab and Muslim Americans. But there is some evidence that their calls are not working. In one poll, 34 percent of teenagers say they view Arab-Americans as potential terrorists.

What do we really know about the Arab-American community? Arab Americans seem to be following the pattern of other very successful immigrant groups to the United States. They are balancing their attachment to their new home country with their attachment to the Arab world. As with many immigrant groups some are torn between traditional and customary roles and the opportunities available in the United States. In short, they are becoming American.

According to the Census Supplementary Survey, about 1.2 million residents of the United States say they are of Arab ancestry, up from 870,000 in 1990, an increase of about 40 percent. The largest number of these are Lebanese, at 419,000, with a further breakdown as follows: Egyptian (124,000), Iraqi (41,000), Jordanian (65,000), Moroccan (45,000), Palestinian (64,000), Syrian (137,000), Arab/Arabic (262,000), and Other Arab (93,000). It should be noted that, as with any ethnic groups, the ethnic advocates such as the Arab American Institute and others put the real numbers several times greater than the official numbers.

In 2000, 77,000 Arabs lived in New Jersey and 124,000 in New York State.

Arab Americans seem to be quite successful. A poll done in 1999-2000 found that over one-third of households had incomes in excess of $75,000. Large proportions are employed in managerial and professional jobs. Many are educated.

To get "inside" the Arab American group, Jen'nan Ghazal Read of Rice University carried out a study presented at a recent sociology conference of the attitudes of Arab American women. For Christian and Muslim Arabs alike, Islamic values have shaped many Arab cultural values. The family remains the foundation of the Islamic community, Islamic law (sharia) influences what is considered proper interaction between men and women. Men expect women to be modest, and to content themselves with bearing and rearing the children. Few Arab American women accept these limitations. Many now work outside the home, have married non-Arabs, and support goals of the women's movement. The Arab American women seem to be "Coming to America" in Ghazal Read's words, as they balance their new life in America with their ties to Arab place and culture.

Though a tiny handful of Arab terrorists caused incalculable damage to New York City and the United States, the Arab Americans in our midst are hardworking, largely successful immigrants to the United States, balancing their Arab with their American identity.

Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981. Since 1993 he has done demographic analyses and consulted for the New York Times. He has provided expert testimony in districting and redistricting, housing discrimination, and numerous other civil rights cases in the metropolitan area and elsewhere. The opinions expressed in Topics are his alone.

A White City Council


(August '01) For all the talk of the spectacular diversity in the hundreds of citizen-candidates this year, the truth is that there will be little change in the complexion of city government. White New Yorkers will dominate the "new" City Council, just as they dominated the old.

In the current City Council, 28 members are white. The results of this year's elections will show one or two Asians replacing white incumbents -- the first Asian-Americans to win city-wide elective office. A Latino may replace an African-American. But, when all the levers are pulled, the City Council will still probably have about 26 white members, or more than 50 percent.

How can this be so in a city that is now only 35 percent white?

If represented in proportion to their numbers in the population, there would be 18 council members who are white (there are 28), 14 who are Latino (there are currently nine), 13 who are African-American (there are currently 14), and five who are Asian (there are currently none).

Of course, Council members run in specific districts, not in the city as a whole. But looking at the majority ethnic groups district by district, there would be even fewer Council members who are white, if voters chose exclusively by the race of the candidate. (African Americans would have 11 seats, Latinos 11, Asians none). In the 12 districts where no single group has a majority, two districts have over 40 percent Asian, six have over 40 percent white, and two other districts have white residents slightly outnumbering Latinos.

In two districts where Latinos outnumber whites, District 7 in Manhattan and District 26 in Queens, a white could win anyway.

How can white candidates get elected while being in the minority? The simple is answer: Because whites pull others into a coalition. At the same time, the groups of color do not necessarily coalesce. Ferrer based his mayoral campaign on an alliance of African Americans and Latinos. This has yet to pay off.

Two districts in Queens, expected to result in change are instructive. In District 20 John Liu, the front-runner, lost to Julia Harrison last time. She is the Council member from Flushing famous for saying about Asians: "They have come here to colonize us." She is term limited. Liu reached out to many of the white residents of the district. He received the endorsement of the Queens organization, as well as many unions. He has raised the most money of any council candidate in the city, who is receiving matching funds. To try to win he has gone well beyond his own Asian groups.

In District 21, which is 67 percent Latino, Hiram Monseratte appears to be the front- runner. If successful, he will replace Helen Marshall, an African American, who is term limited and running for Borough President. Some of Monseratte's opponents say that since he is a Puerto Rican, he cannot adequately represent the district that has a large numbers of Latino immigrants. Monseratte, like Liu, has been focusing his appeal on district issues. He has garnered union and other support, and his coalition goes beyond being Latino or Puerto Rican.

Demography may not be political destiny, but it certainly helps shape it. In districts with large majorities of specific groups, those members usually win. Where there are significant numbers of several groups, the ability to form coalitions beyond race and ethnicity becomes important. This gives whites advantages beyond their numbers. Whites are often part of the existing power structure. It is easier for them to bring in members of new groups, than it is for members of the new groups to align with one another and oust the whites. The new City Council may look much like the old. Yet, the coalitions upon which it will be based include many of the newest New Yorkers. It will be up to the new council to serve their needs.

Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since 1993, and provides expert testimony on a range of cases, including housing discrimination. The opinions expressed are his alone.



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