Article published November 07, 2009
'Inside Islam' puts a face on poll data
Film is based on landmark Gallup study
Michael Wolfe will show his film on Islam Sunday at the University of Toledo.
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BLADE RELIGION EDITOR
Who are Muslims, and what role does religion play in their lives?
Gallup Poll researchers decided to ask those questions as a starting point following 9/11, and wound up conducting six years of polling and tens of thousands of extensive interviews with Muslims in 35 nations, including the United States.
The groundbreaking study resulted in a book, Who Speaks for Islam?, published last year, and it also caught the attention of author and filmmaker Michael Wolfe.
"I read the book and it seemed perfect to me" for a documentary, Mr. Wolfe said.
His hour-long movie, Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, will have its premiere in 20 cities, including a showing tomorrow at the University of Toledo.
Mr. Wolfe said in an interview this week from his office in California that he believes the Gallup survey dispelled a lot of stereotypes and false perceptions about Muslims."There's a lot of counter-intuitive information in it. And it's not any one person's opinion, it's the opinion, plus or minus 3 percent, of a billion people in 35 countries," he said.
As example, he said, when Muslims were asked if they want jihad, the first response was no, they want jobs.
And when asked what item they would put first in a constitution, the overwhelming response was freedom of speech.
Mr. Wolfe said one major goal for the film was getting it done quickly, because he and co-producer Alex Kronemer believe it can help policymakers make informed decisions.
If government officials understand how Muslims really think, it could make a difference in shaping foreign policy in such global hotspots as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Mr. Wolfe said.
He also said the Muslim voice has been largely absent when it comes to the news media.
"When we turn on the TV or read the news, we get a lot of expert opinions about the Muslim world ,but it either comes from pundits who don't speak the language or from people who are not on the inside," Mr. Wolfe said.
The media too often quotes extremists rather than the moderate Muslims, he asserted, adding that, "You hear from Osama bin Laden more than you hear from many of the real spokespersons of the Muslim world."
Another challenge in making Inside Islam was to trying make a statistical survey and polling visually interesting, he said.
They primarily interviewed six experts on the poll who address particular portions of the Gallup survey.
"It's a film composed of talking heads, pie charts, and graphs - but very dynamic pie charts and graphs," he said. "We spent a lot of time making them memorable and legible."
They also filmed some scenes in Lebanon and Indonesia to give audiences a feel for the backdrop of some of the Gallup interviews in Muslim nations.
Mr. Wolfe said the survey showed that there is actually less understanding in America of Muslims and Islam today than there was in 2002. Statistically, 54 percent of Americans surveyed in 2002 said they knew little or nothing about Islam, compared to 57 percent in 2008.
There is a lot of confusion about American Muslims, he said, adding that media coverage of extremists makes it difficult to understand that most American Muslims "are citizens with professions and mortgages and kids in school."
"The way our media works, they get confused with and by events that take place 10,000 or 15,000 miles away," Mr. Wolfe said.
Mr. Wolfe, 64, originally from Cincinnati, converted to Islam in the 1990s. He said that while traveling the world as a journalist in his 20s, he was always impressed by the way Muslims treated him.
"They were very sociable and very hospitable and kind of protective of someone who didn't know much about their society and about getting along in unusual countries," he said.
Years later, in his 40s, he began to "look a little more inward" and felt that something was missing, which led him to convert to Islam.
His film company, Unity Productions Media, was founded in 1999 and has produced seven documentaries, including "Mohammed: Legacy of a Prophet."
"Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think" will be shown at 4 p.m. tomorrow at the University of Toledo's Law Center Auditorium, 2801 West Bancroft St. Producer Michael Wolfe will give a keynote address. Due to the film's content and images, no children under 13 allowed. The presentation is sponsored by United Muslim Association of Toledo.
- David Yonke
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