Cultural Muslims

Cultural Muslims are religiously unobservant individuals who still identify with the Muslim culture due to family background, personal experiences, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up. Cultural Muslims can be found across the world, but are especially numerous in the Middle East (Arabic-speaking countries as well as in Israel, Turkey and Iran), Europe, Central Asia, North America, and parts of South and Southeast Asia.

Definition

In Central Asia and in former communist countries, the term "cultural Muslim" came into use to describe those who wished their "Muslim" identity to be associated with certain national and ethnic rituals, rather than merely religious faith.^[1]

Malise Ruthven (2000) discussed the terms "cultural Muslim" and "nominal Muslim" as follows:^[2]

There is, however, a secondary meaning to Muslim which may shade into the first. A Muslim is one born to a Muslim father who takes on his or her parents' confessional identity without necessarily subscribing to the beliefs and practices associated with the faith, just as a Jew may describe him- or herself as Jewish without observing the Tanakh or Halacha. In non-Muslim societies, such Muslims may subscribe to, and be vested with, secular identities. The Muslims of Bosnia, descendants of Slavs who converted to Islam under Ottoman rule, are not always noted for attendance at prayer, abstention from alcohol, seclusion of women and other social practices associated with believing Muslims in other parts of the world. They were officially designated as Muslims by nationality to distinguish them from Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats under the former Yugoslav communist regime. The label Muslim indicates their ethnicity and group allegiance, but not necessarily their religious beliefs. In this limited context (which may apply to other Muslim minorities in Europe and Asia), there may be no contradiction between being Muslim and being atheist or agnostic, just as there are Jewish atheists and Jewish agnostics. This secular definition of Muslim (sometimes the terms cultural Muslim or nominal Muslim are used) is very far from being uncontested.

A cultural Muslim internalizes the Islamic cultural tradition, or way of thinking, as a frame of reference. Cultural Muslims are diverse in terms of norms, values, political opinions, and religious views. They retain a shared "discourse or structure of feeling" related to shared history and memories.^[3]

The concept of a cultural Muslim - someone who identifies as a Muslim yet is not religious - is not always met with acceptance in conservative Islamic communities.^[4]

Demographics

When it comes to mosque attendance about 1% of the Muslims in Azerbaijan, 5% in Albania, 9% in Uzbekistan, 10% in Kazakhstan, 19% in Russia, and 22% in Kosovo attend mosque once a week or more.^[5] According to a Pew Research Center study, only 15% of the Muslims in Albania and 18% of the Muslims in Kazakhstan said that religion was very important in their lives.^[6] The same study found that only 2% of Muslims in Kazakhstan, 4% in Albania, 10% in Kosovo, 14% in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14% in Kyrgyzstan, 16% in Uzbekistan, and 21% in Azerbaijan perform all five prayers a day.^[7]

References

^ Cara Aitchison; Peter E. Hopkins; Mei-Po Kwan (2007). Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-4094-8747-0. Retrieved 30 June 2013.
^ Islam: A Very Short Introduction, by Malise Ruthven, Oxford University Press, 2000.
^ Spyros A. Sofos; Roza Tsagarousianou (2013). Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137357779.
^ Corinne Blake (2003). Brannon M. Wheeler (ed.). Teaching Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-19-515224-7.
^ The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity
^ "The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-26. Retrieved 2016-01-28.
^ Chapter 2: Religious Commitment

[AitchisonHopkins2007-1] Cara Aitchison; Peter E. Hopkins; Mei-Po Kwan (2007). Geographies of Muslim Identities: Diaspora, Gender and Belonging. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-4094-8747-0. Retrieved 30 June 2013.

[2] Islam: A Very Short Introduction, by Malise Ruthven, Oxford University Press, 2000.

[3] Spyros A. Sofos; Roza Tsagarousianou (2013). Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137357779.

[4] Corinne Blake (2003). Brannon M. Wheeler (ed.). Teaching Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-19-515224-7.

[5] The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity

[6] "The World's Muslims: Unity and Diversity" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-26. Retrieved 2016-01-28.

[7] Chapter 2: Religious Commitment

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Category Commons WikiProject Changes

Cultural Muslims

Definition

Demographics

See also

Parallel concepts

References