The authors defined the 7% of Muslims who considered the 9/11 attacks "completely justified" to be "politically radicalized" and they used the term "moderate" for the other 93%.
In a new article by Robert Satloff, he blows a few more holes into the book - but he also gets a hold of the all-important data: how many Muslims mostly or partially justified 9/11?
The answers are not quite as comforting as the authors implied. In addition to the 6.5% who felt that 9/11 was "mostly" justified, we find out:
The cover-up is even worse. The full data from the 9/11 question show that, in addition to the 13.5 percent, there is another 23.1 percent of respondents -- 300 million Muslims -- who told pollsters the attacks were in some way justified. Esposito and Mogahed don't utter a word about the vast sea of intolerance in which the radicals operate.So over one out of every three Muslims worldwide, 36.6%, can find some justification for 9/11; and about 80% of those were defined as "moderate" in this book.Which means that there are nearly a half-billion Muslims worldwide who would be considered supporters of terror by any reasonable definition, not "only" the 91 million that the authors claim.And then there is the more fundamental fraud of using the 9/11 question as the measure of "who is a radical." Amazing as it sounds, according to Esposito and Mogahed, the proper term for a Muslim who hates America, wants to impose Sharia law, supports suicide bombing, and opposes equal rights for women but does not "completely" justify 9/11 is . . . "moderate."
This is consistent with other polls over the same time period, notably the Pew Global Attitudes Project which has found declining but still significant support for suicide bombings among Muslims in various countries - 70% in Palestinian Arab territories, 31% in Lebanon, "only" 8% in Egypt.
The entire thrust of the book - that Muslims are just like everyone else - is shown to not only be inaccurate but to be a deliberate lie on the part of the authors.