MalayMail-Sept 12
Malaysian Muslims polled recently have listed the three biggest perceived threats to their faith as the influence of the United States, extremists from their own religious group, and what they perceived as a growing Christian community. Pew Research Center’s latest survey released tonight found that Muslims and Buddhists in six Asian countries – Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka – generally see extremists from their own faiths as one of the biggest threats to their religions. “Among both Muslims and Buddhists, highly educated adults are more likely than those with less education to say that extremists within their own religion are a threat,” it said in its report titled “Buddhism, Islam and Religious Pluralism in South and Southeast Asia”. This comes as in Malaysia, more than half of the Muslims polled felt the abovementioned three topics are the biggest threats to Islam — with 59 per cent cited the influence of the US, followed by “Muslim extremists” (58 per cent), and “growing number of Christians” (52 per cent). Another 49 per cent said it was the “growing number of Buddhists”, and “the influence of China” (also 49 per cent), and tourists from other countries (31 per cent). Compared to their neighbors, Malaysian Muslims had the biggest proportion of those who saw “growing number of Christians” as threat, compared to just 35 per cent in Indonesia and 20 per cent in Singapore. Similarly, Malaysian Muslims topped the list when it came to seeing “growing number of Buddhists” as a threat. According to the latest census by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) in 2020, Malaysia’s population is comprised of 63.5 per cent Muslims, followed by Buddhists (18.7 per cent), Christians (9.1 per cent), Hindus (6.1 per cent), and others (2.7 per cent). Read more at: https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2023/09/12/in-malaysia-survey-shows-muslims-and-buddhists-see-extremists-from-their-own-faiths-as-biggest-threats/90346
