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The Dearborn Effect: A Comparison of the Political Dispositions of Shi‘a and Sunni Muslims in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2010

Cyrus Ali Contractor
Cyrus Ali Contractor*
Affiliation:
The University of Oklahoma
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Cyrus Ali Contractor, Department of Political Science, The University of Oklahoma, 455 West Lindsey, Dale Hall Tower 205, Norman, Oklahoma 73019. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The study of Muslims in the West is a burgeoning field, in which scholars are examining the religious, social and political lives of Muslims as minorities. This article continues in that vein, and utilizes the Muslim American Political Opinion Survey (MAPOS) to compare Shi‘a and Sunni responses in a few areas of interest: religious identity, views of being a Muslim in the United States, and political participation in the American system. Using a comparison of mean responses and the t-test to analyze 13 variables, it demonstrates that Sunnis felt more strongly that the teachings of Islam were compatible with political participation in the United States, and that a statistically significantly higher percentage of Shi‘a respondents participated in a rally or protest. The study goes further to suggest that perhaps congregants of Shi‘a mosques view Islamic teachings as being more compatible with participation in American politics, and opens the door for further consideration and research involving a more in-depth study of the Shi‘as in the American political context, one that examines how the narratives that drive Shi‘ism affect individual Shi‘a social and political participation in a country where they are a real “minority within a minority”.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , April 2011 , pp. 154 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2010

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