Many of us found it frightening that the recent Pew Research Center poll should discover about a quarter of young American Muslims think the use of suicide bombing against civilian targets to defend Islam could on occasion be justified. But, according to AP, many Muslim scholars think the finding quite predictable.

“Given what’s happened in Iraq and Palestine, I would be shocked if there wasn’t discontent,” said Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, had a different – and more accurate – take on the matter: “That it’s younger people indicates there has been a tremendous tendency toward a recovery of more radical aspects of the faith. In the past, immigrants were encouraged and inclined to assimilate.”