By Mika Park
For The Diamondback
Recent polls show American views toward Muslim people and Islam have grown increasingly positive over the past few months despite the Orlando shooting and a presidential campaign that has encouraged anti-Muslim sentiment.
Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat chair for peace and development and a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland published the latest poll on July 11 with the Brookings Institution.
The poll will measure a trend line beginning from November 2015 to May 2016, before the Orlando shooting, and ending in June after the attack to see whether the event had an impact on public opinion.
The poll revealed that there has been growth in favorable attitudes both toward Muslims and toward Islam since November.
“The change went in the opposite direction from what many people have been expecting,” Telhami said.
However, the poll findings show a 50 point difference between Hillary Clinton supporters and Donald Trump supporters in positive attitudes toward Islam — 66 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Telhami stresses that these are not simply incremental differences, but rather, it is almost like having two Americas.
Michael Robbins, director of the Arab Barometer and research fellow at the University of Michigan, believes that Donald Trump’s characterization of Muslims has contributed to more Democrats and Independents sympathy toward them.
“It appears that those who support the Republican party and are relatively unmoved by campaign rhetoric about Muslims,” Robbins wrote in an email. “Donald Trump’s comments have been playing to his base rather than influencing their views.”
After the Orlando shooting, Democrats who feel that Islamic and Western values and traditions are compatible gained five percentage points. Independents’ approval jumped from 56 percent to 71 percent after the attacks.
In contrast to Democrat and Independent responses, the 44 percent of Republicans that felt Islam and Western ideals are compatible dropped to 42 percent.
In Telhami’s Politico article on the two new polls, he offers possible explanations for the differences among party opinions. His explanations center around in political stance, demographic change and nuanced understanding of the Orlando shooting that looks beyond militant Islam as the root cause.
Dimas Syuardi, a senior majoring in studio art and graphic design, feels that people have been more interested in understanding his Muslim background recently.
“A lot of the people I have talked to are more interested in learning about Islam, and want to be more knowledgeable on the Islam that is not portrayed in the media,” Syuardi said.
The poll results indicated that people who never interact with Muslims view them most unfavorably, and those with even marginal contact are more likely to be accepting and understanding, Telhami said.
As the Sadat Chair, Telhami holds the Anwar Sadat Lecture for Peace, public forums and conducts research such as public opinion polls that matter for public discourse.
He finds it important for the rest of the world to know how Americans feel.
“What we think of someone else affects their sense of identity and how they think of us,” Telhami said. “It is very important to have this clarity about how we think and how others think and put it out for the discourse to see how it changes and what factors influence it.
“It has been a very difficult time for Muslims in America. I think people probably are heartened by the results … but overall there is a level of discomfort that is going to be with us for a while.”
