However, the surveys also reveal that, at least in some places, considerable support for suicide bombing persists. In Nigeria, for instance, nearly half of Muslims say suicide bombing in defense of Islam is often or sometimes justified, while in Egypt and Jordan more than one-in-four share this point of view. Pockets of support also exist in Western Europe and the United States, with younger Muslims tending to be somewhat more supportive of suicide tactics than are their older counterparts.

Moreover, Pew Research Center polling conducted in 2005 found that “Muslim publics are somewhat more inclined to support suicide bombings when carried out against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq” than when asked about the general acceptability of suicide bombing to defend Islam from its enemies. (For further analysis of support for suicide bombing in specific circumstances, see the Pew Global Attitudes Project survey reports from 2004 and 2005.)

Support for Osama bin Laden is low in most countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center. As with support for suicide bombing, confidence in bin Laden has declined in recent years in many parts of the world. For instance, between 2003 and 2007, the number of people expressing a lot of confidence or some confidence in bin Laden declined by 36 percentage points in Jordan, 19 points in Lebanon, 18 points in Indonesia and 15 points in the Palestinian Territory.

But as with suicide bombing, bin Laden retains considerable levels of support in certain places. More than half of Muslims in the Palestinian Authority (57%) and in Nigeria (52%), for example, say they have confidence in bin Laden’s leadership, as do roughly four-in-10 Indonesians (41%), Bangladeshis (39%), Pakistanis (38%) and Ethiopians (37%). Muslims living in Europe express lower levels of confidence in bin Laden compared with Muslims in many other countries.

Although support for suicide bombing and bin Laden has waned in recent years, many Muslims still see Islamic extremism as a problem. With the exception of Turkey, majorities in every predominantly Muslim country surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2006 say they are at least somewhat concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world. Large majorities of Muslims living in Western European nations and the United States also express such concern.

Muslims living in Europe tend to be somewhat less concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism in the countries in which they reside as compared with the rise of Islamic extremism around the world. In Spain, for instance, 46% of Muslims say they are somewhat or very concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism in their country, compared with 60% expressing concern about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world. By contrast, in most of the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed, people express at least as much concern about Islamic extremism in their home country as about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world. The one exception to this pattern is Indonesia, where 45% express concern about the rise of Islamic extremism in their country, compared with 68% who express concern about the rise of extremism around the world.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan “fact tank” with seven projects that provide information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. This analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life was based on a 2007 Pew Research Center survey of Muslim Americans as well as surveys conducted between 2003 and 2007 by the Pew Global Attitudes Project.