Abstract
Muslims in Europe tend to have an immigrant background. Consequently, they often face a twofold challenge: they are subjected to the prejudice and discrimination immigrants in general face alongside prejudice directed toward them as a religious minority. In this study, we explore the role of Muslims' religiosity and how it relates to scepticism towards Muslims. We apply an online split-sample survey experiment conducted in 2021 to investigate Norwegians' attitudes toward individuals with different strengths of religious faith, ranging from a moderate to a strong Muslim faith. In addition, we explore how attitudes towards Muslims compare to the same attitudes towards individuals with similar Christian beliefs. Three main explanations are proposed for explaining these attitudes: socio-demographic aspects, religiosity, and scepticism towards immigration. We find that there is considerable scepticism towards Islam within Norwegian society, also when compared to other religions. Moreover, we find that those who are sceptical of immigration view Muslims in general as inherently strongly religious. In contrast, those who hold more positive views of immigration tend to consider Muslims in general as inherently moderate. This may suggest that an underlying aspect of why discussions surrounding Muslims within contemporary Europe seem to be so polarized is because different segments of society have a different understanding of what a Muslim actually is.
