America's elusive minority: Muslims

Muslims are taking root in America. Though small in number, they're growing fast and setting up enclaves in some of the largest cities. A study released today shows they're better educated and almost as well paid as the non-Hispanic white population. But if American Muslims are poised to join the mainstream economically, politics and religion are roiling the confluence.

The aftermath of Sept. 11 and tension with Iraq has exposed a dual response to Muslims living here. There's both suspicion and outreach – discrimination and efforts to bridge the religious divide.

"Islam has become a part of public discourse and people are making up their minds," says Mohamed Nimer, author of a new book, "The North American Muslim Resource Guide." "America is confronting ... what we might call a precursor to being a truly pluralistic society."

While no one knows how many Muslims live in the US – estimates span 1.2 million to 10 million – their numbers are growing fast. Between 1990 and 2000, the Muslim-origin population grew 40 percent, according to the new study by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research at New York's University at Albany. And they're more integrated than larger minorities.

"They're rather highly concentrated in certain metropolitan areas," says John Logan, Mumford Center director. "But in those areas they tend to live in neighborhoods where they're a distinct minority."

Four metropolitan regions – Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and Washington – boast more than 100,000 American Muslims. A decade earlier, only Los Angeles could make that claim. Detroit's population includes more Muslims than virtually any city. But much smaller Jersey City, N.J., which saw a doubling of its Muslim population in the 1990s, now boasts the identical concentration: 2.8 percent.

Even with recent high-profile incidents – such as the arrests of suspected Islamic terrorists in Lackawanna, N.Y., and the detention of three hapless Arab medical students in Florida – the Muslim population remains relatively invisible. One reason is that it's hard to count. Although the nation contains some 500,000 indigenous Muslims – mostly black Muslims – most of the population's growth comes from immigration. And since the US census doesn't characterize religion, researchers have to make rough estimates based on place of birth and ancestry. That's tricky work.

Officially, for example, today's Mumford Center report doesn't count Muslims at all, but "Americans with roots in historically Islamic countries." So it includes immigrants from overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan but leaves out India, with its huge Muslim minority. It includes Lebanon even though the first wave of Lebanese who came here a century ago were mostly Christian. Because of limitations in ancestry data, the study can count only US residents born in Indonesia (the world's largest Islamic country), and not their children.

Page: 1 | 2