Muslim Values in Islamic and Non-Islamic Societies

Abstract

AbstractValues are conceptions of the desirable in various domains of life. This study tests the hypotheses that (1) when Muslims are a minority living in a non-Islamic society (e.g., India, Singapore, Uganda), their values are more similar to those of the non-Muslim majority religion in their society than to those of Muslims in Muslim-majority Islamic societies (e.g., Iran, Morocco, Pakistan); and (2) this tendency toward value assimilation is more pronounced when the Muslim minority is socially included, rather than excluded, by the non-Muslim majority. Data from representative samples of the population of nine Muslim-majority societies and nine Muslim-minority societies in the 2000 (fourth) wave of the World Values Surveys are used to construct scales for three domains of cultural values: religious values, family values, and gender values, and measures of social exclusion. The findings largely confirm hypothesis 1 and lend some support to hypothesis 2.