Government survey on Islam in Germany

[Hyades]

http://europenews.dk/files/BMIStudy.pdf

Some highlights for those who do not want to read the whole PDF:

In contrast to earlier surveys, it is clear that the number of those who describe
themselves as religious or even very religious has risen again in the last years. Over 85% of
the Muslims in Germany describe themselves as “religious” or “very religious”.
The number of those who attend mosque at least once a week increased between 2000 and
2005 from 30.7% to 41.6%. Fundamentalist political tendencies can be attributed only to
a minority; the majority has a traditional, an orthodox, or a fundamentalist orientation in
regard to religion.

Not only the attendees at mosque has increased, but also, for example, the number of
those advocating the wearing of the headscarf for women: in 2005, 46.6% agreed with the
statement that women should wear a headscarf in public, while in 2000 only 27.2% had
affirmed this. And the number of those who have attended a Koran school also is
clearly higher among the younger Muslims in Germany than among those who are older
. Interestingly, the number is highest among those born in Germany: 60%. The
longer that attendance at a Koran school lasted, the more clearly a religiously
fundamentalist orientation can be observed – which likewise cannot be surprising
when seen against the background of the results of earlier studies on the integration-inhibiting
role played by Koran schools.

Of the respondents, 19.4% can be considered as poorly integrated linguistically and
socially, a further 37.6% as moderately integrated, only 32% as satisfactorily to well
integrated, and 11.9% as very well integrated (96), dependent upon the age of the person at
the time of immigration: “A successful integration, put into practice in everyday life, can be
identified only in somewhat more than 10%”

 (Almost 90% are “infuriated” “when after terrorist attacks Muslims are always
suspected first”; they feel themselves as Muslims collectively and globally
marginalized. More than 90% reject the killing of other people in the name of God as
unjustifiable, and more than 90% consider a person who “encourages young Muslims to
commit suicide attacks or instructs them in doing so” to be “godless criminals” . On
the other hand, 44% agreed “somewhat” or “completely” with the statement that
“Muslims who die in armed struggle for the faith” enter “into Paradise”, that is, are
rewarded by God for their acts . Just under 40% consider “the use of physical
violence as a reaction to the threat presented to Islam by the West as legitimate”

Further, 48.4% “affirm the statement that democracy in Germany is one of the reasons for the high rate of
crime” ; 46.7% agree “somewhat” or “completely” that “the observance of the
commandments of my religion … (is) more important for me than democracy”, which
corresponds roughly to the results of earlier surveys that about half of the Muslim population
in Germany considers the Koran and democracy to be incompatible.

and about 9.4% advocate the punishments contained in Sharia for
Germany – which in absolute figures corresponds to more than 300,000 people.

Adding the group of those maintaining a great distance to democracy to those
who to a great degree consider religiously and politically motivated violence to be
legitimate, the study assumes a proportion amounting altogether to 13.9% of the
Muslims in Germany

Just about 40% of the Muslim students surveyed possessed German citizenship;
about 70% came from a Turkish background; 77% lived since birth in Germany. Yet, here, too, a high proportion, 27.2%, felt themselves bound only to their home
country, which for most of them is the country of origin of their parents and
grandparents.

More than 15% of Muslim young people express anti-Semitic prejudices ; to
a clearly lesser extent, however, prejudices against Christians. Among native non-Muslims,
however, the proportion of those who express prejudices against Muslims is, at almost a
fifth of those surveyed, still higher. Only 6.4% of Muslim youth is considered to be
sympathetic toward Islamism, but 24% are considered sympathetic toward
violence... “In sum, it therefore can be
established that a significantly heightened acceptance of violence is connected with the
affiliation with the Islamic religion”...
Among non-Muslims (Christians), a contrary
tendency is discernible: a heightened religious consciousness lowers the affinity toward
violence to about 3%.

It is a matter here of a minority that is not to be underestimated and that shows clear indications of
intolerance, distance to democracy, or authoritarian features”. If the aspect of the
advocacy of violence is combined with this figure, then the percentage rises to 29.2%,
more than a quarter of Muslim young people – a potential that is not insignificant and is not to
be neglected.

Approximately a fourth of the young people affirms its own readiness to exert corporal violence against unbelievers in
the service of the Islamic community. As a whole, this percentage of young people is
approximately twice as high as the percentage in the total Islamic population; “among the
young people, the potential of young Muslims responsive to political radicalization up to the
extent of excessive violence (is) noticeably higher than in the general population”.

The percentage of young people who characterize themselves as religious is 87.2%.
In contrast, 45.6% of non-Muslim migrants describe themselves as religious; only
19.1% of native young people do so.

Striking is the fact that the educational level of Muslim youth (rate of attendance
at a Gymnasium: 14.6%) is significantly lower than among native young people (45.8%),
but also lower than among non-Muslim migrants (34.1%). Among Muslims, 63.3%
reported that they had “only a few” or “no German friends at all”; among non-Muslim
migrants, this was the case for only 47.1%.

The linguistic-practical integration of Muslim youth was significantly less than
that of non-Muslim youth; more than 40% have problems here. Only 45.4%
of young Muslims advocate the adaptation of their conduct to German culture and
instead demand acceptance; in the general Muslim population, on the other hand, 82.6%
advocates adaptation. In consequence, young Muslims insist more strongly than non-
Muslims upon the maintenance of their own culture. At the same time, however, 35.9%
judges the German society receiving them as migrants as having a negative attitude toward
them; almost 80% report of incidents of rejection and negative treatment in the last twelve
months.

Almost 50% of German youth support the idea that foreigners who are unable or unwilling to accommodate
themselves should leave Germany.

Among Muslim students, 33.7% report severe or very severe discrimination, a rate that is considerably lower among non-
Muslim students.

Because of the manifold factors that can bring about a radicalization of
individuals, this latent potential for a politically and religiously motivated radicalization
in Germany, as the study emphasizes, can not be quantified clearly. The authors,
however, on the basis of the present investigation, assume a figure of approximately
10% to 12% of the Muslims in Germany, which means a number on the
magnitude of between 320,000 and 420,000 people.