Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, a new documentary film from Unity Productions Foundation, explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll on the subject, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization.



Gallup researchers began by asking the questions on every American’s mind. Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists and how do Muslims feel about them? What do Muslims like and dislike about the West? What do Muslim women really want?



Crucial policy decisions hang on these questions; they continue to generate passionate disagreements in the public square. Yet for all the heat and controversy, the actual views of the world’s Muslims have been conspicuously missing from the debate.



Now we have the missing answers and statistics, gathered, parsed, and analyzed, not by pundits, but by professional researchers. As part of this groundbreaking six-year project, Gallup conducted tens of thousands of interviews with residents in 35 predominantly Muslim nations, as well as smaller populations in Europe and the United States. The broad extent of the polling has delivered findings for the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims with a plus or minus accuracy of three percent.



Focusing on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy, the film presents this remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts, not fear.

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Experts featured include Dalia Mogahed, Senior Analyst, Gallup and Director, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; John Esposito, Professor, Georgetown University; Rami George Khouri, Editor-at-large, Beirut-based Daily Star; and Kenneth Pollack, Director and Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute.