Remember when Obama declared that America was one of the largest Muslim countries in the world“? Guess what, it’s not. A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that is being billed as the most comprehensive of its kind puts the number of Muslims living in the United States at 2.45 million. When President Obama went to Cairo to deliver his grand address to the Muslim world, he declared that there were “nearly 7 million American Muslims” in the United States. Where on earth did he get that number? The White House estimate is nearly three times the number estimate by Pew — and presumably this wasn’t based on some early census work by ACORN. At the time the White House defended the number by saying it had been used by the previous administration, and by Karen Hughes in particular. But as Abe Foxman pointed out then, “I don’t believe that they would use Karen Hughes as a reliable source on any other subject, so why use her on this?” More likely, the Obama administration was relying on a 2001 study by the always controversial and often anti-American Council for American-Islamic Relations. So Obama is either getting his information from Karen Hughes or CAIR depending on who you want to believe, but either way, he’s wrong. When he declared that America was one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, President Obama also said that “there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.” Maybe wildly inflating the number of Muslims in America is not a great way for the president to foster understanding of the United States in the Muslim world.
