Monday, July 4, 2011

OnIslam's Funny Numbers

According to this onIslam account, FORTY THOUSAND people attended this year's ISNA convention. Furthermore,
Although there are no official figures, the United States is believed to be home to between 6-8 Muslims.
 Well, that's not very many.

Just kidding. Obviously, the operative word that was accidentally omitted is "million." But guess what? Official figures--yes, they do exist--place the number at anywhere between 1.8 million and 2.5 million, substantially fewer than the onIslam stat.

You don't suppose the numbers were kited on purpose, do you? ;)

2 comments:

Carlos Perera said...

Those inflated numbers of American Moslems, to the extent they aren't simply pulled out of thin air, are often based on statistical surveys of Arab last names as a proportion of total sample size. The fly in the ointment is that, while the U. S. does indeed have a substantial Arab-American population, the overwhelming majority of them are Christians.

Jacksonville, Florida, where I live makes a good case in point: a significant proportion of the city's inhabitants have Arabic last names, e.g., Tommy _Hazouri_, who was mayor during the 1990s, but almost all of them are Christians, largely Catholics with a sprinkling of Protestants (Hazouri himself is Methodist). My own personal physician is a Maronite Christian, originally from Lebanon. I sometimes attend the Syriac Rite Catholic Church that is near my home. None of the parishioners seems likely to convert to Islam any time soon.

scaramouche said...

I have a feeling that more often than not they ARE pulled out of thin air. As well, it's a case of wishful thinking, I think.