what is the muslim population of snohomish county, washington?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 12 May 2004 15:00 PDT

I can provide you with the latest statistics on ancestry in Snohomish
County, including the numbers of people in the county of Arab descent.
 However, I do not think statistics on religion are available for the
county.

Would you like me to provide the ancestry statistics as an answer to your question?

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Clarification of Question by bankerbob-ga on 12 May 2004 16:10 PDT

people of arab decent would be alright.

Bankerbob --

I'm not going to be able to answer your question with precision but am
able to provide some resources to allow you to estimate a range.

Snohomish County has 606,000 people or 10.3% of the state's population:
U.S. Census
"Washington by County"
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=04000US53&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-PH1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-format=ST-2

The American Religion Data Archive doesn't show any significant
presence of Muslims in its 2000 survey of Snohomish County -- though
quite frankly their data shows 76% of the county as "unclaimed":
American Religion Data Archive
"Snohomish County"
http://www.thearda.com/FR_Index.html?/RCMS/2000/County/53061.htm

The Seattle Times reports that there are an estimated 50,000 Muslims
in state and that half of them are Somalis.
Seattle Times
"Muslim cemetery in Covington fulfills teachings of Islam" (Feb. 22, 2004)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001862816_cemetery22m.html

However, south Everett and the Mukilteo School District both have a
substantial Iraqi population, claimed by the Seattle P-I to be the
largest in the state of Washington.

There were only 15,000 in the state of Washington census for 2000
described as "Arab."

Verizon's Yellow Pages only list 2 mosques in the county -- Evergreen
Islamic Institute in Lynwood and IECS in Mountlake Terrace.

What would be a good estimate of Muslim population?  At the low end,
the county probably has at least 10% of the estimated 25,000
non-Somali Muslims; perhaps as much as 20%.  Given the number of
mosques, 2,500 to 5,000 people seems a reasonable number.

Google search strategy:
"Snohomish County" + religion
"Snohomish County" + Islam
"Iraqi population" + Everett
"interfaith council" + "Snohomish county"

I contacted Kathleen Tussing, religion editor of the Everett Herald, to see if 
there were any better resources to arrive at the answer.  She was the
one who suggested the Interfaith Council of Snohomish County. 
Unfortunately neither of the mosques in the county are members of the
Council -- though they do participate in some inter-faith activities.

The school districts in the county have statistics on
English-as-a-Second-Language, including what the primary language is. 
However, not even the Mukilteo School District (which has a large
number of Iraqi-born students) has good statistics online.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA
Mukilteo, WA

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 13 May 2004 13:01 PDT

Bankerbob --

I got a chance this morning at Sno-Isle Library to check the
"Washington State Vital Statistics, 2002" published by the state
Health Department.

The ethnicity of mothers giving birth was 97.5% American, Native
American, Hispanic, Japanese and Chinese (among 8,344 births in the
county).  I selected the ethnicities with lower percentages of
Muslims.

It would lend credence to the lower number in my previous estimates --
or perhaps even a lower estimate than 10%.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Answer by omnivorous-ga on 14 May 2004 03:56 PDT

Bankerbob --

Thanks to a neighbor, I was able to find the numbers for primary
language in each of the Snohomish County districts.  In Washington,
it's the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction -- known
in the teacher biz as OSPI -- that keeps all of the data.  So going to
the Washington OSPI website and doing a site search with got the data:
Mukilteo + language

This report on "limited English proficient" students gives a very
precise report on mother tongue for students.  You'll see, for example
that Everett (p. 48)has 102 Arabic speaking students; 5 Farsi; 232
Serbo-Croatian; 22 Somali; 8 Swahili; 33 Tagalog speakers.  Not all
Muslim -- but they represent cultures where there are a significant
number of Muslims.

You would have to roll up all of the Sno County districts but this
report should allow a more-precise estimate of the number that you're
seeking:
Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
"Educating Limited-English-Proficient Students in Washington State"
http://www.k12.wa.us/research/pubdocs/pdf/LEPreport2001_final.pdf

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

If I may add just a small bit to omnivorous' wonderful answer, here's
the data on the Arab population in Snohomish County:

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP2&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&-_lang=en&-_sse=on&-geo_id=05000US53061

Arab ancestry -- 2,008 (0.3% of the county total)

A similar number of people identified their ancestry as:

Subsaharan African --  2,066  0.3%