---
title: "Should Mosques Express Political Views?"
description: "That's the percentage of Muslim Americans who say that mosques should express their views on day-to-day social and political matters, 49% of U.S. Muslims take the opposite view."
date: "2007-06-20"
authors:
  - name: "Russell Heimlich"
    job_title: "Former web developer"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2007/06/20/should-mosques-express-political-views/"
---

# Should Mosques Express Political Views?

U.S. Muslims are divided on the question of whether mosques should be involved in politics; slightly more than four-in-ten Muslims (43%) say that mosques should express their views on day-to-day social and political matters, while slightly less than half (49%) believe that mosques should keep out of political matters. Among the public as a whole, 51% support churches or other houses of worship expressing their views on social and political questions, while 46% say they should keep out of politics. The roughly even division on this question among all U.S. Muslims reflects the deep disagreement on this issue between native-born Muslims and foreign-born Muslim Americans. Native-born Muslims, especially African Americans, express overwhelming support for the notion that mosques should express their views on social and political matters (68% among all native-born Muslims and 79% among native-born African American Muslims). U.S. Muslims who were born abroad take the opposite view, with six-in-10 saying that mosques should keep out of political matters. [Read More](https://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/483/muslim-americans)