ISPU have, created in partnership with Georgetown University’s “The Bridge Initiative”, used an “Islamophobia Index (II), in which it has selected five negative stereotypes that have been linked with a greater acceptances for anti-Muslim policies. It then measures the level of public endorsement of these negative stereotypes, to provide a evidence-based way to predict Islamophobia. The Index calculated levels of agreement with these five statements: That Muslims living in the United States are more prone to violence than others; that they discriminate against women; that they are hostile to the United States; that they are less civilized than other people; and that they are partially responsible for acts of violence carried out by other Muslims.  The poll found that the level of public endorsement of these five negative stereotypes, and therefore the score of Islamophobia among the general public went up from 24 in 2018 to 28 in 2019.

Aside from Muslims, the faith groups scoring the lowest are Jews. The Poll found that 53% of Jews report having positive views of Muslims. White Evangelicals scored highest on the index (35), with 44% holding unfavorable opinions, compared to the 20% who held favorable opinions.

Read the full report here.

Continue reading at: Euro-Islam.info

Through its website, The Bridge Initiative disseminates original and accessible research, offers engaging commentary on contemporary news, and hosts a repository of high-caliber studies, polls, articles, and other informational resources. By wedding rigorous research and analysis with the accessibility and reach of the Internet, the Bridge Initiative seeks to fulfill Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a “well-informed citizenry.”

The mission of Georgetown University’s Center, since its founding in 1993, has been to build stronger bridges of understanding between the Muslim World and the West, focusing on Islam AND the West and Islam IN the West.

Team

– Director: John L. Esposito
– Associate Director: Tamara Sonn

Reports

– A New Era in American Politics: The Trump Administration and Mainstream Islamophobia
June 23, 2017

– Danger & Dialogue: American Catholic Public Opinion and Portrayals of Islam
September 3, 2016

– When Islamophobia Turns Violent: The 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections
May 2, 2016

– The Super Survey: Two Decades of Americans’ Views on Islam & Muslims
November 19, 2015

Contacts

• Website: http://bridge.georgetown.edu
• Email: bridge@georgetown.edu

Other troubling findings include the belief, held by 83 percent of Catholics, that dialogue is undertaken to convert Muslims to Christianity and the disclosure of high quotients for Islamophobia in the Catholic media and among best-selling Catholic authors. The report confirms that face-to-face encounters are key to building positive attitudes between strangers. One-third of Catholics who know Muslims met them in the workplace. Almost a third claim them as friends, and 7 percent say they are family members. But overall only 14 percent of Catholics have a favorable attitude toward Muslims.

Veterans of interreligious dialogue comment that the secret to successful interreligious dialogue is spiritual friendship. While spiritual friendship has been especially prevalent in inter-monastic dialogue, it is also found in gatherings of Catholics and Muslims.

At Saint Paul’s Church in Cambridge, a few blocks from Harvard Yard, a Catholic-Muslim prayer and support group called a Badaliya meets to pray, study and converse with one another. It is part of a renewal of a post-9/11 revival of the Badaliya movement founded by Louis Massignon and his disciple Mary Kahil in the 1930s.

Another Catholic movement that has had enduring relations with American Muslims is Focolare. Its ties with the American Society of Muslims (formerly the Nation of Islam) and its leader Warith Deen Mohammed arose out of Focolare’s charism to unity. In the context of violent persecution of Christians, Muslims and others across the Middle East in 2014, the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs said, “Through building networks of dialogue [we] can overcome ignorance, extremism, and discrimination and so lead to friendship and trust with Muslims.”

The Bridge Initiative is a program of Georgetown University’s al-Alaweed Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. The data was gathered in opinion polls by CARA, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, also located at Georgetown. The analysis and presentation are the work of the Center’s staff and especially of analyst Jordan Denari Duffner.

Continue reading at: The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University