British Muslim youth and religious fundamentalism: a quantitative investigation

Abstract

Much attention in popular discourse and academic, qualitative research has focused on strengthening ‘fundamentalist’ religiosity among Muslim youth in Britain, and its impact on engendering politicized religious identities and conservative social attitudes. We use new survey data to empirically examine how Muslim youth differ from older Muslims and non-Muslim British peers on religiosity, Islam-specific and broader social attitudes. We find that young Muslims attribute a greater salience to Islam for their personal identity, even though they pray and read scripture less, and support plural interpretations of Islam more than their elders. Like other youth, Muslim youth show liberalizing social attitudes across generations on gay marriage and legal abortion. Notably, like Christian youth, Muslim youth express stronger support for including religion in public debates than their elders. Overall, Muslim youth religiosity although uniquely expressed, influences moral and social attitudes for Muslims similarly to that of Christian or other religious youth.