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Quote:The WZB-funded Six Country Immigrant Integration Comparative Survey (SCIICS) among immigrants and natives in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden provides for the first time a solid empirical basis for these debates. The survey with a total sample size of 9,000 respondents was conducted in 2008 among persons with a Turkish or Moroccan immigration background, as well as a native comparison group. Following the widely accepted definition of fundamentalism of Bob Altermeyer and Bruce Hunsberger, the fundamentalism belief system is defined by three key elements:
- that believers should return to the eternal and unchangeable rules laid down in the past;
- that these rules allow only one interpretation and are binding for all believers;
- that religious rules have priority over secular laws.
and the summary:
Quote:These findings clearly contradict the often-heard claim that Islamic religious fundamentalism is a marginal phenomenon in Western Europe or that it does not differ from the extent of fundamentalism among the Christian majority. Both claims are blatantly false, as almost half of European Muslims agree that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam, that there is only one interpretation of the Koran, and that the rules laid down in it are more important than secular laws. Among native Christians, less than one in 25 can be characterized as fundamentalists in this sense. Religious fundamentalism is moreover not an innocent form of strict religiosity, as its strong relationship – among both Christians and Muslims – to hostility towards out-groups demonstrates.
The number of respondents is very low; given the number of muslims in Europe, this sample size can't be considered representative (I just put it through my sample-size calculator and was given a 60% confidence level). Only having Turkish & Morrocan muslims as respondents may give bias and there's no split by islamic denomination (e.g. sunni, shia, suffist etc.). Additionally, some of the countries in question have enacted legislation to control islam (e.g. France banning the niqab) which could further skew the results. The questions are very broad and don't try to identify 'flavours' of fundamentalism.
There are some good points to this survey: using countries with different % muslims amongst their populations, the definitions of fundamentalism, control groups were used, comparisons to the majority religion were made for context.
Overall, I can't say I'm satisfied with the results. If they can expand the sample population to something more representative, provide better interpretation by having better definitions of respondents and remove some of the crass generalisation by increasing the number of questions then I'd be more prepared to listen.
