Via Reuters (h/t Islamophobia Watch):
Support for radical Islamist groups is low among European Muslims and some leading groups with overseas roots are now cooperating with local governments and encouraging Muslims to vote, according to a new report.
European groups linked to wider Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami now focus more on conditions for Muslims in Europe than their original ideologies from Egypt and Pakistan, according to the report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The report also cited tensions between "jihadists" and peaceful Islamists in Europe, saying some groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood were working with police to counter militants.
"By most accounts, support for radical extremist groups is relatively low among Muslims in Europe," it said. "Nevertheless, such groups have been central to the public discussion of Islam in Europe, especially in recent years."
The report said supporters of European groups with links to foreign Islamist movements often showed little interest in their founding ideologies, which critics say are radical and anti-Western.
(more)
The Pew report (here in PDF) gives an overview of the following networks: Gülen Movement, Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-i Islami, Muslim World League and World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Radical Islamist Movements: Jihadi Networks and Hizb ut-Tahrir, Sufi Orders, Tablighi Jama’at and Networks of Religious Scholars. The Jihadi networks and Hizb ut-Tahrir are the only ones considered radical.
The problem with the headline is the way Pew defines radical. Intelligence services across Europe are concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood, but according to Pew, it's a non-radical organization.
For example, regarding Muslim Brotherhood and Jama’at-i Islami, the report says:
Both groups originally sought to establish legal and political systems based on Islamic law. Today, European offshoots of the groups promote Islam as a comprehensive way of life and encourage Muslims to participate in the broader society in order to advance Islamic causes.I'm not sure what's the difference between seeking to establish an Islamic political system and promoting Islam as a comprehensive way of life What "Islamic causes" does the Muslim Brotherhood want to promote?
Pew is not doing European Muslims a favor by pretending that these radical movements are not radical, just because there's even more radical movements, It's reports like these that encourage "Islamophobia" and the feeling that "there's only one Islam".
