Washington, USA - Gallup Organization interviews with a random sample of 946 Muslim Americans in 2008 shed light on the demographics of this rarely studied group:
RACE: Muslims are the nation's most racially diverse religious group. At least a third of Muslim-Americans are black _ mostly converts or children of converts to Islam. "The significant proportion of native-born converts to Islam is a characteristic unique to the United States," Gallup said. More than a quarter call themselves white, while nearly one in five identified as Asian and about as many classified themselves as "other."
RELIGIOSITY: Muslim-Americans are more religious than other Americans, but less likely than those in predominantly Muslim countries to say religion plays an important part in their lives _ 80 percent of Muslim-Americans compared to virtually all in Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Morocco, for example.
IDEOLOGY: Muslim-Americans are the U.S. religious group most evenly spread out along the political spectrum _ 29% liberal, 38% moderate, 25% conservative.
PARTISANSHIP: 49 percent of Muslim-Americans called themselves Democrats, 8 percent Republican and 37 percent independent. Gallup found that among all Americans in 2008 34 percent identified as Democratic, 26 percent Republican and 33 percent independent. But voter registration was relatively low among Muslim-Americans.
OTHER DEMOGRAPHICS: Muslim-Americans skew young, with 36 percent age 18-29, double the rate for the general population. They're more likely than other Americans to be single. Forty percent have at least a college degree, compared to 29 percent of Americans overall. Muslims may be slightly more likely than other Americans to report low household income.
Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for Muslim-Americans, 0.2 points for all Americans.