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One third of British Muslim students say it's acceptable to kill for Islam
Last updated at 10:13am on 28.07.08
Survivors flee the terror bomb blasts in London on 7/7
Nearly one third of Muslim students believe it can be acceptable to kill in the name of religion, according to a survey published yesterday.
It also found that 40 per cent want to see the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Britain, 40 per cent think it wrong for Muslim men and women to mix freely together, and 33 per cent want to see a worldwide Islamic government based on sharia law.
The findings were described by researchers at the Centre for Social Cohesion think tank, which commissioned the poll, as 'deeply alarming'.
But a prominent Muslim student group called the report 'weak and unrepresentative' and said it undermined 'positive work carried out by Islamic societies'.
The Centre for Social Cohesion, founded last year to study religion and tolerance, has drawn attention to the extremist influence of Islamic societies and study centres at British universities.
The survey was based on a YouGov poll of 1,400 students, 600 of them Muslims, at 12 universities with influential Islamic societies.
These included eight in London, among them the London School of Economics, Imperial College, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the universities of Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester.
It found that a large minority of Muslim students express views that are strongly socially conservative or which suggest they are open to extremist thinking.
While 32 per cent justified killing in the name of religion if the religion was under attack, 60 per cent of students active in Islamic societies did so. Four per cent thought killing to promote religion was permissible.
More than half, 54 per cent, wanted an Islamic political party to stand up for Muslims at Westminster.
There was strong criticism of the British Government over Iraq - 66 per cent of Muslim students said they had lost respect for it.
But 30 per cent of Muslim students said their respect for British society had grown because of the negative public reaction to the Iraq war.
Report author Hannah Stuart said: 'These findings are deeply alarming. Students in higher education are the future leaders of their communities, yet significant numbers of them appear to hold beliefs which contravene liberal, democratic values.
'These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said that there is no extremism in British universities.'
Miss Stewart also said that ministers should be wary about treating university Islamic societies as representative because their members appeared to be more extreme than other Muslim students.
The Federation of Student Islamic Societies called the survey mischievous.
Its president Faisal Hanjra said: 'This is yet another damning attack on the Muslim community by elements within the academic arena whose only purpose seems to be the undermining of sincere efforts by mainstream Muslim organisations to tackle the threat of terror which wider society faces.
'The report is methodologically weak, it is unrepresentative and above all serves only to undermine the positive work carried out by Islamic societies across the country.'
Concerns over extremism among the 90,000 Muslims studying at British universities have grown alongside the spread of radical groups, including the Hizb ut-Tahrir organisation which Tony Blair said in 2005 should be banned.
Terrorists who have passed through British universities include Kafeel Ahmed, who died after driving a burning vehicle into a Glasgow airport terminal last year, and Jawad Akbar, jailed for life in April 2007 for conspiring to attack shopping malls and nightclubs. He was said to have become involved in militancy while a student at Brunel University.
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Reader views (21)
Why pick on Muslims ? Christians would come up in the same proportion. They've been at it for years in Northern Ireland. Guess they're white so it's different, eh?
- Alan, Islington
I am not surprised that someone would kill to protect his/her religion. Our government even thinks it's okay to kill for democracy!
- Dave, Pontypridd, UK
Dave is right, there is much to admire in the cultural heritage of Islam, as there is indeed Christianity, Judaism, Shintoism etc etc.
It is very depressing though. This is a secular liberal democracy whose ethos allows for this variety of opinion to be expressed. I hope it stays at such. One vote per adult is all that is needed.
We would be treading a dangerous path to change it in anyway.
- Jc, SE1
These sort of polls are totally misleading. Unless the full wording of the question asked is given, a false impression can easily be given. You say 32 per cent of Muslims would kill if their religion was under attack. This is not stated in the headlines and alters the question substantially. The difference between defence and aggression is not made clear. Many Christians and Jews would also answer yes to this question.
- Andrew Lowe-Watson, Norwich, UK
Hopefully some of these students will get jobs when they have finished studying. I would hate to think they are just going to spend their lives living off the state (and my taxes) when they have had an education. I suppose they will demand all Muslim workplaces. Hey, fine. They can work to pay the taxes to pay the benefits for me to live off.
- Jilly, London, England
Has anyone stopped to question where this information was sourced and exactly who was questioned? It says that 600 Muslims from 12 universities with 'influential societies' were sampled. Since when are the views of 300 people considered to be representative of the views of a third of all British Muslim students. I'm not saying there isn't anything to be worried about but this type of scaremongering only serves to isolate communities further than they already are. Think people, think. Don't just gobble up what you read.
- Miss Warner, Nottingham, UK
Not that this will get reported, but the students that join the Islamic societies are the fundamentalist nut-jobs just the same as the Christians that join the CU and the like. I imagine you'd get some equally repugnant views from that lot if you bothered to ask them along with some extra-special Christian specialities such as forcing pregnant rape victims to go through with the birth.
- Derek (Another One), London
Such an attitude towards murder is totally unacceptable to law abiding Brits. As for their attitude towards the other questions, if they don't like the laws and freedom of the UK they should leave and live in an Islamic state.
- Peter M, London, UK
you really do have to take your hat off to them. they've got more front than Brighton.
Keep on Ponsing!
- Jonny, london
And the fundamentalist Diabandi Sect want to build a mega mosque right next to the London Olympic Stadium so visitors flying in will look down and see a huge Muslim dome and minaret - the new symbol of London, forget Big Ben.
- Derek, London
Following their period of brain washing by Islamic Imams, the objective of these Muslims is to replace Western Culture with their own - no doubt about that. Why we encourage these Muslim Saudi financed "Trojan Horses" all over the country (There are now 1600 Mosques) where hate and their alternative way of life are pursued in the instruction delivered to them I cannot begin to understand.
If they continue in this vein, they will experience the Jihad so often talked about - and will surely live to regret it.
- Alan, Essex
Just a harbinger of huge problems to come -- and not just in the U.K. What other religion puts itself above allegiance to a country, and as such, what does any country owe to adherents of that religion?
- Phil Jones, London UK
Every day in England you see a whole Muslim community that neither does or desire to integrate and be part of this country. They live off the country which gives them more rights and freedoms that they would ever get in their homelands yet are so quick to bite the hand that feeds them. England's politicians have for so long tried to reassure us that this is a positive change, yet those of us living amongst them know we are as a Christian majority (currently) are increasingly diluted and have our traditions traded away. There will be change either through a change in policy or a terrible wake up call in blood.
- Pendragon, London England
How ironic that it was Mossad that carried out 7/7.
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE .
No surprise there really.
Those questioned obviously want a western lifestyle even though they would never admit to it. Plus are more than happy to grab our hard earned taxes in hand-outs to members of their family who can't speak English.
Then they use threatening behaviour in the name of the Muslim religion. Is it any reason why your average Joe starts to have resentment?
- Scott, London
Says it all really. Maybe we should ask them to leave the country instead of paying for their education.
- Tony Faarah, Brighton, UK
By keeping these people at arms length and not questioning certain aspects of their beliefs (over decades) for fear of offending, this shouldn't come as a surprise to the British Government.
- Steve, London
The results of this survey should come as a surprise to no-one, and are a clear indication of the problems this country faces today, but which this government seems unwilling, or unable, to confront.
- David, London, England
Nice to see that integration and acceptance of British culture is strong in Muslims. so reassuring.
- Fly, london
And thus these students should have no problem with me killing THEM first, to defend my own life and liberty. Works for me.
- Trunk, US
These people should study Saladin (Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub) (1138-1193), a great scholar, soldier and administrator and much admired in the West even at the time he gave Richard the Lionheart a good kicking.
There much to be admired in Islam, look at the Alhambra Spain, the most astonishing and beautiful architecture.
Islamic cultural saved Ancient Roman and Greek Classical writings after the collapse of Rome, we owe them a great debt for this alone.
These current people are a very, very pale shadow of this former glory; they are influenced not by their great and glorious past but the decline during the medieval period, and a blind hatred and resentment of the West which their current societies cannot match but which they depend upon for education, money, jobs and a far better lifestyle than can be had in Islamic countries, for the moment anyway.
- Dave Morris, Sunderland
