Home-Grown Islamic Terrorism No Threat

US Muslims well-integrated, 'devout capitalists'
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 12, 2009 8:14 AM CST
Home-Grown Islamic Terrorism No Threat
A Muslim youth stands in front of a Turkish flag in the Fatih Mosque in New York, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008.   (AP Photo/Ed Ou)

Whatever place religious extremism occupied in the troubled mind of Nidal Hasan, the United States—unlike Europe—has no reason to fear terrorism from its own Muslim population, says Max Fisher. American Muslims are far less vulnerable to al-Qaeda recruitment than their brethren across the pond, Fisher writes in the Atlantic, because they're much better integrated—culturally and economically.

Terrorist groups find fertile ground for recruitment in Spain, where Muslim immigrants arrive poor and stay poor; in France, where a hijab ban fuels resentment; or in Germany, where anti-Muslim prejudice hinders mosque-building. In the US, a society much more comfortable with both immigration and religiosity, most Muslims are mainstream, middle-class, patriotic, and, in many cases, happy: 38% are satisfied with the state of the US, compared to 32% of the general population. So we must not "alienate or restrict" our Muslim population, writes Fisher. "To do so would more than just risk our greatest anti-terrorism weapon; it would threaten to incite the very violence we seek to quell." (More Islam stories.)

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