Don't judge the majority by the actions of one

[TigerLover]

[MENTION=24308]Piri[/MENTION]

Well firstly these surveys were not surveys of Muslims but general population in pre-predominately Muslim countries. You might think it doesn't matter but Nigeria for example has a horrifying number of Christians who think favorably of ISIS and there are mind-bogglingly some Buddhists that hold favorable opinions of ISIS.

But the main flaw here is not with the surveys themselves but the conclusion being drawn from them. The nations where there is a high percentage of people with favorable opinions of IS (And by high I mean about 14%) Are regions where there is sizable conflict between Shiite and Sunni sects.

In areas with sectarian murder It's quite reasonable to assume the support from Isis stems from their posing as the champions of Sunni Islam and their hatred of the Shia sect. An uniformed border-line literates blindly supporting a group that claims to defend/avenge them against the people who killed their uncle or murdered their childhood best friend.

In my opinion it's extremely unlikely that ISIS relatively meager support has anything to do with their terrorism or even anti-Muslim sentiment but is merely a continuation of that bonkers ancient feud.
I believe the strong trend in support for ISIS in sectarian conflict zones supports this.

So to use these surveys to gauge support for terrorism what we'd really need to do is add two more questions.
Do they believe ISIS to be responsible for terrorist atrocities?
If they believe ISIS is responsible do they support ISIS's terror attacks?