Released: October 30, 2007

Widespread Negativity: Muslims Distrust Westerners More than Vice Versa

News headlines seem to bombard us daily with examples of conflict between the Muslim world and the West, whether the war in Iraq, the search for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program. In Europe, long running tensions over how to integrate and assimilate the continent's growing Muslim minorities have been exacerbated in recent years by terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, rioting in France, and other events.

In 2006, the Pew Global Attitudes Project set out to explore these tensions, examining how non-Muslims in the West and elsewhere view Muslims, as well as how Muslims think about people in western nations. The results reveal a disturbingly high level of negativity on both sides, with Muslims and non-Muslims associating a wide array of negative characteristics with one another, although there is generally more antagonism in Muslim countries toward the West than vice versa.

Read the complete commentary at pewresearch.org