Despite the media and campus narrative that support for the Islamic State is minuscule in Muslim societies, the actual number of supporters is large enough to keep ISIS going for years to come.
A poll released on Wednesday by Pew Research detailed how the overwhelming majority in eleven nations with large Muslim populations disdain ISIS.
Recommended Stories
The results ranged from Lebanon where zero percent of the population supported ISIS, to Nigeria where 14 percent said they viewed the terrorist group positively.
These poll results try to counter Western fears that more Muslims are joining ISIS, especially as Syrian refugees continue to pour into Europe.
While Pew tries to detract from many of these fears, it actually proved that this very small minority can reinforce ISIS for years.
The nations scientifically polled (Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian territory, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Malaysia, Senegal, and Pakistan) have a combined population of more than 760 million people.
By taking the percentage of those who view ISIS positively and comparing it to a nation’s whole population — for example, 8 percent of Turkey’s 74.93 million people is nearly 6 million people who support the Islamic State — the total for all 11 countries is 64 million ISIS supporters.
64 million people isn’t exactly a small minority.
Take into account the actual size of ISIS’ military, which is estimated as between 20,000 and 31,000 by the CIA. At the most extreme end of spectrum, Reuters reported that jihadist said that there’s 100,000 forces. Either way, this is a small military force in comparison to other nations in the region.
However, the damage that ISIS is doing on the battlegrounds in Iraq and Syria, as well as in the terrorism plots in Paris is startling considering their small forces.
Obviously, not everyone that has a favorable view of ISIS is going to join the terrorist organization — but some will.
The 64 million people who have a favorable opinion of ISIS is a large pool from which to draw support. This poll also doesn’t take into account other large Muslim nations like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Afghanistan.
