Religion and politics among Western Muslims

Among Muslims living in the West, does an interest in politics go hand-in-hand with religious commitment?

Using World Values Survey data, I put together a sample of 120 Muslims living in Western countries. They were asked about frequency of religious attendance and "how important is politics in your life?" Of those who attend at least weekly, 46.9% say politics is very or rather important. The corresponding number for those who never or practically never go is 26.9%.

So for Muslims in the West, religion and politics tend to go together. 

On the other hand, there is a similar tendency among Americans in general. Of those who attend at least weekly, 59.4% say politics is important, compared to 41.3% who never attend. (Notice also how Americans as a group are more interested in politics than Western Muslims.) 

Religion and political involvement--again

To improve my recent analysis of the worldwide relationship between religion and political activism, I looked at the percent who ever participated in a boycott and the percent who ever participated in a demonstration.

To control for education, I limited the analysis to only those with a university degree. The World Values Survey sample was almost 5,000 people from countries all over the world. The table shows the results by religion--religions with fewer than 20 respondents were omitted. Overall, Jews are the most politically active. (Israel did not participate in this survey).

Mexican Americans are least politically active

GSS respondents were asked if they have ever attended a political meeting or rally. Here are those who answered yes by ethnicity (sample size = 1,146):


Percent ever attending political meeting or rally


Jewish 52.7
Asian Indian 45.5
English/Welsh 44.6
German 37.9
Irish Protestant 36.6
Irish Catholic 34.4


All Americans 33.6


Scottish 32.1
Amerindian 27.9
Black 25.4
Muslim 25.0
Italian 15.0
Mexican 14.9

Jews and Asian Indians--two smart and economically successful groups--are the most politically active, while Italian and Mexican Americans are at the bottom. Historically, these two groups have been apathetic about politics. Notice how American Muslims are low on the list. Currently, they don't seem to be very political.