Below is an article I
found highly thought provoking. Though I disagree with the authors on a few
points, they present an interesting argument. Their premise: Conflict, theology and history
make Muslims 'more religious.' Hmm. My first thought was 'how can you
comparatively analyze degrees of peoples religiosity?' You can represent
degrees of adherence to religious codes. But to make a scale for defining
religiosity, to me, is a pompous idea. Isn't that the job of a god?
The study that the CNN article quotes is largely
analyzing data from the three major Muslim countries: Saudi Arabic, Indonesia
and Turkey, where I am currently living. See below, the underlined paragraph
for the authors reflections on Turkey, and mine at the end.
By Richard Allen Greene, CNN
(CNN) – Every religion has its true believers and its
doubters, its pious and its pragmatists, but new evidence suggests that Muslims
tend to be more committed to their faith than other believers.
Muslims are much more
likely than Christians and Hindus to say that their own faith is the only true
path to paradise, according to a recent global survey, and they are more
inclined to say their religion is an important part of their daily lives.
Muslims also have a
much greater tendency to say their religion motivates them to do good works,
said the survey, released over the summer by Ipsos-Mori, a British research
company that polls around the world.
Islam is the world's
second-largest religion - behind Christianity and ahead of Hinduism, the third
largest. With some 1.5 billion followers and rising, Islam's influence may be
growing even faster than its numbers as the Arab Spring topples long-reigning
secular rulers and opens the way to religiously inspired political parties. But
while there's no doubt about the importance of Islam, experts have different
theories about why Muslims appear to be more religious than members of other
global faiths - and contrasting views on whether to fear the depth of Muslims'
commitment to their faith.
One explanation lies in
current affairs, says Azyumardi Azra, an expert on Islam in Indonesia, the
world's most populous Muslim majority country.
Many Muslims
increasingly define themselves in contrast with what they see as the Christian
West, says Azra, the director of the graduate school at the State Islamic
University in Jakarta.
"When they
confront the West that they perceive or misperceive as morally in decline, many
Muslims feel that Islam is the best way of life. Islam for them is the only
salvation," he says. That feeling has become stronger since the September
11 attacks, as many Muslims believe there is a "growing conflict between
Islam and the so-called West," he says.
"Unfortunately
this growing attachment to Islam among Muslims in general has been used and
abused by literal-minded Muslims and the jihadists for their own
purposes," he says.
But other experts say
that deep religious commitment doesn't necessarily lead to violence.
"Being more
religious doesn't necessarily mean that they will become suicide bombers,"
says Ed Husain, a former radical Islamist who is now a Middle East expert at
the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
In fact, Husain argues
that religious upbringing "could be an antidote" to radicalism.
The people most likely
to become Islamist radicals, he says, are those who were raised without a
religious education and came to Islam later, as "born-agains."
Muslims raised with a grounding in their religion are better able to resist the
distortions of Islam peddled by recruiters to radical causes, some experts like
Husain argue, making them less likely to turn to violence. But he agrees that
Muslims are strongly attached to their faith, and says the reason lies in the
religion itself.
"Muslims have this
mindset that we alone possess the final truth," Husain says.
Muslims believe
"Jews and Christians went before us and Mohammed was the last
prophet," says Husain, whose book "The Islamist" chronicles his
experiences with radicals. "Our prophet aimed to nullify the message of
the previous prophets."
The depth of the Muslim
commitment to Islam is not only a matter of theology and current events, but of
education and history, as well, other experts say.
"Where religion is
linked into the state institutions, where religion is deeply ingrained from
childhood, you are getting this feeling that 'My way is the only way,'"
says Fiyaz Mughal, the director of Faith Matters, a conflict-resolution
organization in London.
The Ipsos-Mori survey
results included two countries with a strong link between religion and the
state: Legally Muslim Saudi Arabia, which calls itself the guardian of Islam's
two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina; and Indonesia, home of the world's largest
Muslim population.
The third
majority Muslim country in the study is Turkey, which has a very different
relationship with religion. It was founded after World War I as a legally
secular country. But despite generations of trying to separate mosque and
state, Turkey is now governed by an Islam-inspired party, the AKP.
Turkey's experience
shows how difficult it can be to untangle government and religion in Muslim
majority countries and helps explain the Muslim commitment to their religion,
says Azyumardi Azra, the Indonesia expert.
He notes that there has
been no "Enlightenment" in Islam as there was in Europe in the 17th
and 18th centuries, weakening the link between church and state in many
Christian countries.
"Muslim
communities have never experienced intense secularization that took place in
Europe and the West in general," says Azra. "So Islam is still
adhered to very strongly."
But it's not only the
link between mosque and state in many Muslim majority countries that ties
followers to their faith, says professor Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani
diplomat who has written a book about Islam around the world.
Like Christians who
wear "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets, many Muslims feel a deep
personal connection to the founder of their faith, the prophet Muhammad, he
says.
Muhammad isn't simply a
historical figure to them, but rather a personal inspiration to hundreds of
millions of people around the world today.
"When a Muslim is
fasting or is asked to give charity or behave in a certain way, he is
constantly reminded of the example set by the prophet many centuries ago,"
argues Ahmed, the author of "Journey Into Islam: The Crisis of
Globalization."
His book is based on
interviews with Muslims around the world, and one thing he found wherever he
traveled was admiration for Muhammad.
"One of the
questions was, 'Who is your role model?' From Morocco to Indonesia, it was the
prophet, the prophet, the prophet," says Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of
Islamic Studies at American University in Washington. But while Ahmed sees
similar patterns across the Islamic world, Ed Husain, the former radical, said
it was important to understand its diversity, as well. "There is no
monolithic religiosity - Muslims in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are following
different versions of Islam," says Husain. "All we're seeing (in the
survey) is an adherence to a faith."
Political scientist
Farid Senzai, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and
Understanding in Washington, raised questions about the survey's findings.
"Look at the
countries that are surveyed - Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Turkey," he
says. "There are about 300 million Muslims in those three countries, (who
make up) about 20% of Muslims globally."
Islam is
"incredibly important" in Saudi Arabia, he says.
"But in Tunisia or
Morocco you could have had a different result. It would have been nice if they
had picked a few more Arab countries and had a bit more diversity," says
Senzai.
The pollster,
Ipsos-Mori, does monthly surveys in 24 countries, three of which are majority
Muslim – Turkey, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The other countries range from
India to the United States, and Mexico to South Korea, and are the same each
month, regardless of the subject the pollsters are investigating. In the survey
released in July, about six in 10 Muslims in the survey said their religion was
the only way to salvation, while only a quarter of Hindus and two out of 10
Christians made that claim about their own faiths.
More than nine out of
10 Muslims said their faith was important in their lives, while the figure was
86% for Hindus and 66% for Christians. Ipsos-Mori surveyed 18,473 adults via an
online panel in April and released the findings in July. Results were weighted
to make the results as representative as possible, but the pollster cautioned
that because the survey was conducted online, it was harder to get
representative results in poorer countries where internet access is not
widespread.
CNN polling director
Keating Holland also warns that in an "opt-in" survey, where
respondents actively choose to participate, results tend to come from
"people who are confident in their opinions and express them openly... not
good for intensely private matters like faith or income or sex."
Online surveys in
countries that are not entirely free are also open to the possibility that
pollsters get "the approved response" in those nations, "where
the people who are most likely to be willing to talk about such matters are the
ones who hold, or at least verbalize, opinions that won't get them in trouble
if they are expressed," Holland says.
That may have been an
issue in Saudi Arabia, where respondents were given the choice of not answering
questions on religion due to their potential sensitivity in the kingdom. The
Saudi sample was the smallest, with 354 participants, meaning "findings
for Saudi Arabia must be treated with caution," Ipsos-Mori said.
Muslims in different
countries were committed to their faith for different reasons, he
says."Saudi Arabia is an institutionally religious state. Indonesia has
religion tied into its culture," says Mughal.
But Muslim immigrants
to Europe also show strong ties to their religion, either as a defense
mechanism in the face of a perceived threat, or because of an effort to cling
to identity, he contends.
He detects a link
between insular communities and commitment to faith regardless of what religion
is involved. It is prevalent in Muslim Saudi Arabia, but he has seen it among
Israeli Jews as well, he says.
"The Israeli
Jewish perspective is that (the dispute with the Palestinians) is a conflict of
land and religion which are integrally linked," Mughal says.
"What does play a
role in that scenario is a sense of isolationism and seclusion in Israeli
Jewish religious communities, a growing trend to say, 'Our way is the only
way,'" he says.
Religious leaders of
all faiths need to combat those kinds of attitudes because of the greater
diversity people encounter in the world today, he argues. But Senzai, the
political scientist, says that it's also important for the West to take the
Muslim world on its own terms. "Many Muslims want religion to play a role
in politics," he says. "To assume that everyone around the world
wants to be like the West - that they want liberal secular democracy - is an
absurd idea."
– CNN's Nima Elbagir
and Atika Shubert contributed to this report.
(for the full
article, see the webpage)
· My thoughts? The intensity of Islam in the daily lives
of its followers merits reflection. It is important to notice that the major
difference between Islam & Judaism versus Christianity & the
other major religions. The legal code given to the people to uphold is
one of the most important differences that is affecting the world today. The
Christians were told come as you are, flaws and all, and were given a
relatively flexible set of suggestions to lead a moral life. But the Jews were
given their commandments, there mitzvahs and the religious duties to follow.
Islam is similar, providing a code of moral conduct to be carried out daily.
Examples are five prayers a day, interrupting what we would call a normal life.
For the Jews, no pork and resting on Sabbath. The Christians have few laws like
this. And if they do exist, they are buried somewhere in the Vatican, and
clearly not part of the current culture of the Christian faith. However, the
author goes on to say. "He detects a link between insular
communities and commitment to faith regardless of what religion is involved. It
is prevalent in Muslim Saudi Arabia, but he has seen it among Israeli Jews as
well, he says." This statement also reflects what is historically
accurate. The Jews preserved Hebrew, a dead language, and revived it, because
of the insular communities they lived in throughout the centuries because of
persecution. Minorities tend to hold strongest to their faith and culture, as a
duty to pass it on to the coming generations. This idea of intense religiosity
is just as strong for the Jews as it is for the Muslims. The integration of
religious and cultural symbols into governmental organizations and the national
consciousness is undeniable, both in Israel and in Egypt. This is significant
because of the production of a generation of religiously conscious individuals,
raised in a culture where religiosity is blended into daily life. This (as the
author suggests) develops an unbalanced perception of us versus them. National
consciousness produces certain identifiable cultural and, in this case,
religious symbols with which to identify. Those who do not identify with these symbols are outsiders.
· So why don't you and I make it a bit easier to bring about world peace?
Polarizing our world will only lead to more destruction. An "us"
versus "them" mentality is the opposite of what we need. If the west
is the ultimate symbol of moral degradation, maybe we should reconsider how we
present ourselves and our culture to the world. What does the rest of the world
see of us? Sex, beautiful girls, easy lives, shopping, drugs, drama, lots of money. How accurately
does that reflect your life? I would hope, not much. My ultimate goal is to
promote the understanding between the east and west; to find the common links;
and accept our differences as a beautiful thing, not as a reason to rise up
against.
