1990 Trust survey of British Muslims

The 1990 Trust has compiled its survey of British Muslims. The results are available in PDF format. The anti-racist organisation concludes that

"[t]his new survey (sample: 1,213) reinforces that there is almost no support for terrorism amongst the Muslim community. Just 1% of those surveyed supported the 7/7 London bombings."

The 1990 Trust said the survey was conducted because it was felt "that previous polls and the sensational manner in which some of them were reported have left many serious questions unanswered."

Here are some of the findings. Of the 1213 Muslims surveyed (exclusively online):

• 92% said they felt the UK's foreign policy did not reflect their views and 93% said the United States had 'too much influence' (the truth of the last statement is a no-brainer).
• Just under 2% said the London bombings were justified, with 96% rejecting any justification (86.5% 'strongly'. The 1990 Trust points out that some previous surveys have relied on dubious language such as asking Muslims whether they sympathise with the 'feelings' and 'motives' of the bombers.
• 83% of Muslims had become more 'politivally radicalised'. But this 'radicalisation' did not necessarily mean violence; it could mean political awarness, campaigning, demonstrating or writing to MPs and so on.
• 82% felt that Shrub and Poodle did not represent Christianity (thanks to all those good Christians around).
• 40% said there was government influence on media reporting and a further 35% said the media consistently misreported events in the Middle East. More importantly, this should kill the meme that mosques are a source of information -- extremists are not likely to be found in mosques, whatever other faults one can find with the way mosque officials conduct themselves. (Finsbury Park was an exception -- even in that case, Abu Hamza and chums forcefully the mosque, rather than their preaching having anything to do with official mosque policy.)
• 82% say there should be a public inquiry into the July bombings. Whether this was fuelled by conspiracy theories or just good healthy distrust of the government narrative, it doesn't say (I also did this survey, and we were also allowed to give our own comments on different questions).

Their report also gives their methdology and points out that the respondents were likely to have been younger Muslims, because of their strategy of advertising the survey only on major websites aimed at British Muslims. As with almost any survey or opinion poll, the overall trend in comparison with other polls and surveys (with all the statistical caveats that are necessary to make) is more important that the absolute numbers (which are impossible in any survey).