That’s the headline figure from an article by Andrew Bostom which has been widely reproduced across the “counter-jihadist” blogosphere. It’s no doubt only a matter of time before this claim is taken up by the mainstream right-wing media in the US.

The statistic is taken from a study published in the latest issue of Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Quarterly. How reliable is this study?

Well, it’s not yet available online, so we can’t assess its conclusions at first hand. However, the study is part of the Mapping Shari’a project, and its stated aim is “to measure the correlation between Sharia adherence and dogma calling for violence against non-believers”. One of the authors is Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University who served for 25 years in the IDF’s military intelligence directorate. The other is David Yerushalmi.

So, probably not entirely reliable.

Update:  See Richard Bartholomew’s comments at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 6 June 2011

Update 2:  Kedar and Yerushalmi’s article is now available onlinehere