Mosque Attendance Research Articles

A Kingdom of Possibility

A Kingdom of Possibility

Gender Differences in Social Embeddedness Determinants of Loneliness Among Moroccan and Turkish Older Migrants.

Moroccan and Turkish migrants residing in Northwestern Europe have high loneliness levels. This study examines gender differences in loneliness within this migrant population. The migrants have gender-segregated social roles at home and in public, which might lead to gender differences in what aspects of social relationships can explain variation in loneliness. Respondents are from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam with 446 first-generation Moroccan and Turkish migrants in the Netherlands, aged between 55 and 66 years. We use interaction effects to test for gender differences in determinants of loneliness. Men and women have a similar, moderate level of loneliness. Having a spouse and receiving care from children are more strongly related with lower loneliness levels in men than in women. Coethnic ties play an equally important role for men and women. In men, frequent mosque attendance is related with greater loneliness, but not in women. Family ties are more protective against loneliness for older men than for older women, possibly indicating that migrant women's expectations regarding family go above and beyond having a spouse, receiving intergenerational care, or having frequent contact with children. In addition, migrant older men's higher expectations regarding a public social life could make their social life in the Netherlands less fulfilling, resulting in greater loneliness.

Investigating the relationship of COVID-19 preventive and mitigation measures with mosque attendance in Pakistan.

Social distancing served as a principal strategy to curtail the spread of COVID-19. However, congregational activities in mosques made it challenging to practice social distancing and led to a rapid surge in virus infections in several Muslim countries. This study uses nationally representative cross-sectional data from Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country, to examine the relationship of practicing preventive measures (such as social distancing, wearing mask and hand washing) and mitigation measures (like avoid going to the market, social gatherings, healthcare seeking, use of public transport, and long-distance travel) with mosque visits by utilizing logistic regressions. The results show that individuals adhering to preventive and mitigation measures also avoid visiting mosques and other religious gatherings. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that the government of Pakistan can avoid direct religious confrontation when it needs to minimize mosque visits to curtail the spread of the virus by implementing preventive and mitigation measures.

Religiosity and electoral turnout among Muslims in Western Europe

Abstract Investigating the relationship between Islamic religiosity and electoral participation amongst Muslim citizens in Western Europe, this study combines insights from the sociology of religion and Islamic studies with political behavior literature thus creating an improved theoretical framework and a richer empirical understanding surrounding the electoral participation of religious minorities. First, we theorize about three underlying dimensions of Islamic religiosity: frequency of mosque attendance, religious identification, and frequency of prayer. Subsequently, we consider how the religiosity–voting relationship is bolstered or hindered by hostile national environments such as more exclusionary policies and practices (e.g., veil banning or exclusionary citizenship laws). Empirically, we use a unique dataset that harmonizes five European surveys, resulting in a sample size of just under 8,000 European Muslims. Using multi-level techniques, we find, contrary to research on majority religiosity, that communal religiosity is unrelated to electoral participation. However, individual religiosity bolsters voting in particular among the second generation. Opposite to our expectation, we find that hostile environments do not seem to lead to different impacts of Islamic religiosity within Western Europe. Our results support the taking of a more fine-grained approach when measuring religiosity and also highlight how the impact varies across genders and generations.

Let’s Talk about Gender

Abstract Within Europe, gender and Islam have a complex and often polarised discursive history. Whilst some find only repression of women in patriarchal and religious structures, others hail Islam as the birthplace of emancipation. This article explores the experiences of women who have moved out of Islam in both the Netherlands and the UK and finds that many navigate in between these narratives of suppression and liberation. The aim of this article is twofold: based on 22 life-history interviews, it firstly explores gendered experiences whilst growing up (from personal experienced inequality to observing theological or legislative problems), which may have led to various degrees of doubt or distress. It further unpacks gendered embodied experiences, such as veiling, modesty or mosque attendance as having relative importance when moving out of Islam. Secondly, this article elaborates on how these women position themselves, within religious and secular expectations of what it means to be a former Muslim woman. It explores their positionality in a polarised debate: how did they relate to the discourses of suppression and liberation, from either secular(ised) or religious environs?

جهش سکولار در بین ایرانیان: یافته‌هایی از نظرسنجی تطبیقی و دراز مدت در ایران و خاورمیانه

To what extent do Iranians reject the foundational principle of the Islamic regime and support secular politics? This paper contends that in 2020, 70% of Iranian adults supported the separation of religion and politics and 30% otherwise, but no more than 9% strongly favored an Islamic political system. These figures rest on the analysis of data from the 2000, 2005, and 2020 surveys carried out in the country, and well-over twenty cross-national and longitudinal surveys in other Middle Eastern countries in the past twenty years – a total of more than 70,000 face-to-face interviews. Despite the caveat that the surveys of people’s cultural, religious, and political values conducted under an authoritarian exclusionary regime inevitably carry conservative bias, the findings still showed Iranians in 2000 attended mosques less often than did people from other Middle Eastern countries and Indonesia. Iranian mosque attendance and religious orientation further declined between 2000 and 2020. Responses to a question concerning the separation of religion and politics in 2005 showed that, at a conservative estimate, 47% of Iranians supported the measure. Using this figure to project how Iranian felt about secular politics in 2020, this paper presents empirical evidence that the decline in political Islam in Iran has been much more remarkable than in other Middle Eastern countries. At the same time, secular politics in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, and Turkey were supported by an overwhelming majority of adult respondents. Trends toward secular politics in Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey in the past twenty years were astonishing; in 2020, about 80% of respondents from these three countries supported the separation of religion and politics. Considering this figure, and noting that religious attendance and orientation in Iran declined more dramatically than in any of these countries, that the dominant intellectual trend in Iran has been toward liberal democracy, that more Iranians have abandoned official structures of Shia Islam to practice Sufism in recent years than in the past, and that the rate of conversion to Christianity among Iranians has been higher in the postrevolutionary period than any Muslim-majority country in the Middle East, if not in the world, then a reasonable expectation of the extent of the Iranian support for the separation of religion and politics is placed at 70%. This percentage may be higher today, considering the widespread and ongoing revolutionary movement against the regime and the deep emotional energy that has been mobilized for the overthrow of the system of religious tyranny and the establishment of liberal democracy. This empirically verifiable conclusion supports the resolution of the revolutionary activists the Islamic regime is rotten to the core and contrary to the principles of human decency and the welfare of Iranians.

The impact of anti-Muslim hostilities on how Muslims connect their religiosity to support for gender equality in Western Europe

Right-wing populist voices argue that Muslims do not belong in Western Europe because Islam opposes the “core Western value” of women's empowerment. Ironically, such hostilities could cause European Muslims to reject antagonistic natives and their “Western values,” potentially creating backlashes in Muslims' support for gender equality. Delving into this possibility, this study diverges from simple conceptualizations of one inherently patriarchal Islam to study the diversity among Muslims in the gendered meanings they attach to their religion in different contexts. Empirically, we use a uniquely pooled dataset covering over 9,000 European Muslims in 16 Western European countries between 2008 and 2019. Multilevel models show that while mosque attendance limits support for public-sphere gender equality, religious identifications only do so among men and individual prayer only among women. Additionally, our results tentatively indicate that in more hostile contexts, prayer's effects become more patriarchal while religious identification's connection to opposition to gender equality weakens. We conclude that Islamic religiosities shape Muslims' support for public-sphere gender equality in far more complex ways than any right-wing populist claim on one essential patriarchal Islam captures.

Review: Varieties of American Sufism: Islam, Sufi Orders, and Authority in a Time of Transition, edited by Elliott Bazzano and Marcia Hermansen

Review: <i>Varieties of American Sufism: Islam, Sufi Orders, and Authority in a Time of Transition</i>, edited by Elliott Bazzano and Marcia Hermansen

Choice of Mosque and Ethnolinguistic Homophily: Muslim Migrants in Auckland

In this study, we identify the factors that Muslim migrants in Auckland, New Zealand's gateway city, prioritize when seeking to identify a suitable mosque, and the significance that frequenting a mosque has in their lives. We explore factors related to ethnicity, culture, language, belonging and the intergenerational transmission of religious knowledge and values from the theoretical perspective of homophily, or the tendency of individuals to socialize with others whom they consider to be similar. The importance of ethnolinguistic and cultural homophily is primarily linked to wellbeing, social support and bonding, the intergenerational transmission of beliefs and culture, and spiritual authenticity. Mosque attendance was viewed as a key factor in social integration, connectivity and wellbeing. The lack of suitable mosques for Shi'a was problematized. We discuss the different mosque-related priorities of the first and second generations, and formulate recommendations for catering to the multifarious needs of congregants in a Muslim-minority context.

What Shapes Attitudes Toward Homosexuality among European Muslims? The Role of Religiosity and Destination Hostility

Muslim migrants and their descendants in Western Europe have consistently been shown to hold more negative attitudes toward homosexuality, the more religious they are. In this article, we go beyond this mono-dimensional view of religiosity and develop a theoretical framework that combines (a) the role of different dimensions of religiosity in anchoring cultural attitudes and (b) the potential impact of destination hostility and discrimination on the retention of cultural attitudes toward homosexuality among Muslim migrants in Western Europe. For the analysis, we use eight rounds of the European Social Survey, enriched with country-level data. Findings indicate that Muslim migrants’ mosque attendance, as a dimension of religiosity, has the negative effect that was expected. Particularly, Muslims who grew up in Western Europe are negative about homosexuality if they attended mosque regularly, whereas among first-generation Muslim migrants, origin-country norms are a strong predictor of attitudes toward homosexuality. In addition, we find that perceived group discrimination drives the maintenance of negative attitudes toward homosexuality, especially among mosque attendees. These results imply that the development of more liberal attitudes among European Muslims is held back by a combination of socialization in conservative religious communities and hostility from host-country populations.

Religion and wellbeing: devotion, happiness and life satisfaction in Turkey

ABSTRACT Most of the published research addressing the relationship between subjective wellbeing and religiosity has relied on Western populations and used Judeo-Christian participants. The present study examined links between subjective wellbeing and religion in the predominantly Muslim country of Turkey. Using pooled data from the World Values Survey (n = 9289), this research explored whether religious devotion could be linked to happiness and life satisfaction in a Turkish population. The findings suggest that higher levels of religious self-identification, the importance given to religion and God and mosque attendance were all associated with greater levels of happiness and life satisfaction. In addition, the results show that mosque attendance, which is less common among women, did not have significantly different effects on the subjective wellbeing of women and men.

Online activity of mosques and Muslims in the Netherlands: A study of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

Research on Muslim minorities in western societies has mainly focused on offline behavior, such as mosque attendance, whereas little is known about their presence in the online world. This study explores the online visibility and activities of all (478) mosques in the Netherlands. We collected data on personal websites and four social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube). The majority of mosques have a website (52%) and an account on Facebook (61%). Less often used are Twitter (17%), Instagram (17%) and YouTube (19%). On social media platforms, mosques strongly differ in their activity and number of followers. We find evidence to suggest that Salafist mosques, which tend to have a strict ideology, are more active on Twitter and YouTube, and also attract a larger share of followers on Facebook than non-Salafist mosques. Our more fine-grained analysis on Twitter shows that Salafist mosques in the Netherlands cluster together. Followers of Salafist mosques make up a community of users who are mainly connected to each other ("bonding ties"), and much less so to other users ("bridging ties"). We conclude with a discussion of opportunities for studying the online presence and activities of mosques and Muslims in western societies.

Rejecting homosexuality but tolerating homosexuals: The complex relations between religiosity and opposition to homosexuality in 9 Arab countries

Public debates portray Arab Muslims as universally opposed to homosexuality due to Islam. Those Orientalist claims are mirrored by large-scale studies that argue Muslims oppose homosexuality more than non-Muslims. We argue that assuming religion and opposition to homosexuality are unidimensional concepts obscures how they relate to each other and why; we study both “religiosity” and “opposition to homosexuality” multidimensionally.WVS data on 9000 Arab Muslims show, first, that although most respondents reject both homosexuality and homosexuals, one in five reject homosexuality but do not object to having homosexual neighbors. A substantial minority of Arab Muslims thus “hate the sin but love the sinner”. Multilevel analyses show that stronger religious attachment increases opposition to homosexuality and homosexual people. However, all other dimensions of religiosity we study (textualism, mosque attendance, and altruism) also reduce some oppositions. Consequently, the argument that Arab Muslims’ religiosity only leads to opposition to homosexuality is too simplistic.

Determinants of informal care-giving in various social relationships in the Netherlands.

This study investigates determinants for offering help to family members, neighbours and friends, based on the Informal Care Model. We do so in pooled representative data for the Netherlands collected in 2014 and 2016 (persons >17 years, n = 13,165). One‐third provides informal care to a person with health problems or impairments: partners (4%, n = 671), parents or children (16%, n = 2,381), distant relatives (6%, n = 858), friends or neighbours (6%, n = 839). Marginal effects show differences in the associations of care‐giving relationships with sociodemographic factors, barriers and beliefs. Helping a partner is related to age, gender (older people and men are more likely to help) and household composition (singles help less often). Care for close family is given often by 45–64 year olds, women, multiperson households and those with strong family beliefs. Helping second‐degree relatives correlates with age (young people help more often), barriers (those living with children help less often) and beliefs (people with professional background in care and people who attend church or mosque helping more often). Providing non‐kin care is associated with age and education level (young people less likely to help, people with a high education more likely), barriers (having a fulltime job) and beliefs (work experience in care, church or mosque attendance and norms). The supply of care to partners and close family is mainly associated with sociodemographic factors and barriers while the provision of care to distant family and non‐kin is also correlated with beliefs. If desirable policy is to create more informal care, investment in the combination of work and informal care, childcare and supportive arrangements for older community living couples is recommended. It also might be worthwhile to enhance beliefs about the usefulness of helping each other in times of need.

Believers, Islamic Brotherhood and Mosque-Based Emotional and Informal Social Support System among Muslims in Pakistan

ABSTRACT Although many studies have been conducted in the Western context on congregational-based social support systems focusing on non-Islamic perspectives, studies among Muslims on mosque-based social support networks in Islamic context remained unexplored. The purpose of this study is to understand and empirically examine the religious behavior-based and demographic-related correlates of mosque-based social support among 240 Muslims (believers) from Pakistan. The study is based on dimensions that include providing and receiving emotional support, anticipating emotional support, and non-positive interactions with other believers of the believer’s mosque. Results indicated that one in every five respondents received higher levels of emotional support from their co-religionists, whereas half of the respondents received moderate levels of emotional support. Involvement in congregations and mosque attendance indicated positive relationships with receiving, providing, and anticipating social support from other believer congregants. Thus, co-religionists who were actively involved in their congregations received, provided, and anticipated higher levels of emotional support from other believers as compared to respondents not actively involved in such congregations and who did not attend the mosque frequently. Female believers were provided with and anticipated receiving higher levels of support from other believers than did male believers. The co-religionists who attend mosques frequently were expected to have high levels of emotional support compared to those who attend mosques less frequently. The respondents with high school or less education received more emotional support than the respondents with higher education. However, believers with higher qualifications reported few negative interactions with other believers than those having lower education levels. Overall, the findings show that the believers do care, provide support and assistance, cooperate and help other believers, instead of criticizing them. Such selflessness results in creating and strengthening social-ties that keep the co-religionists connected with each other backed by the bond of Islamic brotherhood, in which a believer provides support to others, considering it a religious obligation.

Are Birds of a Feather Praying Together? Assessing Friends’ Influence on Muslim Youths’ Religiosity in Germany

Muslim religiosity is often portrayed as a barrier to integration into secular societies, especially in Europe. Scholars suggest that religiously segregated networks reinforce Muslims’ religiosity and religious identification, but solid evidence is scarce. Based on longitudinal German data, we examined whether friendship networks influence Muslim youths’ religiosity. Using stochastic actor-oriented models, we also assessed whether religiosity in turn relates to friendship choices. We found that higher shares of Muslim friends neither increase Muslim youths’ religious identification nor their frequency of prayer, but they are associated with more frequent mosque attendance. Furthermore, Muslim youths assimilated their Muslim friends’ mosque attendance and frequency of prayer. Friends’ actual religious practices, rather than shared group membership, thus seems to shape individual religiosity. Finally, religiosity does not hamper interreligious friendships; it was unrelated to friendship choices. Results are similar for Christian youths, suggesting that these patterns are not unique to Muslims.

What factors are truly associated with risk for radicalisation? A secondary data analysis within a UK sample.

Radicalisation and extremist violence are of increasing concern internationally. The unconventional, decentralised, and transnational nature of modern terrorism involves an active process of radicalisation requiring national security responses to reflect findings from recent empirical research. This study aims to identify factors that relate to extremist attitudes and potential vulnerability to radicalisation in order to inform preventative action. A cross-sectional survey was conducted of a representative population sample of men and women aged 18-45 of Muslim heritage recruited by quota sampling in two English cities. Logistic regressions were performed on a seven-item dichotomised measure based on our previously developed scale of 'sympathy for terrorist acts'. Scores representing 'non-condemnation of these acts' were deemed to represent risk for radicalisation. Thirteen respondents had a positive score on the sympathy for terrorism measure (2.4%), 39 scored zero (6.41%) and the remainder (91.4%) had a negative score representing condemnation of terrorist acts. There was a significant association between sympathy for terrorism and belonging to the local or global Muslim community, anxiety, and support for the use of defensive violence. Gender, religious identity, country of birth, belief in Sharia law, the importance of religion in life, and mosque attendance were all not associated with sympathy for terrorism. The results contribute to an understanding of the radicalisation process and have potential value in developing preventative public health interventions.

Is there such a thing as a Muslim vote?

This contribution explores to what extent there is such a thing as a distinct Muslim vote in flexible proportional list systems. We test in a new and reliable way whether the religious belonging and behavioural dimension of Muslim voters play a role in their decision-making process when casting preferential votes in a secular democracy. To achieve this, voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously in cross-classified multilevel analyses where the decision-making process of voters (the demand side) is studied while taking into account the list composition in terms of individual candidates (the supply side). We use data of an exit poll related to the local elections of 2018 in Belgium, especially at oversampled locations. The analyses show that voters who belong to Muslim faith are more likely to vote for Muslim candidates. Contrary, the behaviour dimension of Muslim voters – measured in mosque attendance - has no effect on voting primarily for Muslim candidates.

Praying on Friday, voting on Sunday? Mosque attendance and voter turnout in three West European democracies

ABSTRACTSeveral studies have demonstrated a positive association between regular church attendance and turning out to vote in established democracies. This paper examines whether the relationship holds for Muslims who regularly attend religious services. Using an original dataset of Muslim-origin citizens in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, I find that regular mosque attendance is indeed associated with higher likelihood to vote in national elections in Germany and the United Kingdom, while among Dutch Muslims turnout is positively associated with individual religiosity. I find evidence that the proposed association between regular mosque attendance and voting is mediated through the acquisition of relevant political information and stronger associational involvement. The paper provides an individual-level analysis complementing studies of country-level institutional particularities and group-level characteristics that are conducive to higher levels of turnout among Muslims. The findings dispel the myth that mosques are sites of civic alienation and self-segregation, but can, in fact, play the role of ‘schools of democracy’.

Disentangling Honor-Based Violence and Religion: The Differential Influence of Individual and Social Religious Practices and Fundamentalism on Support for Honor Killings in a Cross-National Sample of Muslims.

Religion is seen as one of the main causes of honor violence; yet, empirical studies investigating this purported relationship remain scarce. Therefore, we investigated how individual and social religious practices, religious fundamentalism, and demographic variables contribute to support for honor killings of women and men. We analyzed multinational face-to-face interview data of Muslims with a final sample size of N = 25,723. Using multilevel ordinal regression, we found that increased support for honor killings was strongly predicted by the frequency of mosque attendance, religious fundamentalism, a lower educational level, and living in a rural area. Conversely, gender and the frequency of private prayer did not significantly relate to support for honor killings. Thus, different aspects of religion have differential effects: Individual aspects of religious practice such as private prayer seem to be not significantly related to support for honor violence, whereas social aspects such as mosque attendance and religious fundamentalism strongly predict an increased support for honor killings.