Jump to navigation
You are here
Home
-
Browse
-
Catholic University of America
-
Research Repository
-
CU Dissertations and Theses
-
CU Dissertations
"Most Religious" in Washington, D.C.: A Qualitative Study of Muslim American Religiosity
Search Term
Only in this collection
Description
Degree Awarded: Ph.D. Religion and Culture. The Catholic University of America
In collections
CU Dissertations
Dissertations from the School of Theology and Religious Studies
Details
Title
"Most Religious" in Washington, D.C.: A Qualitative Study of Muslim American Religiosity
Type
Dissertation
Created
2017-01-01T00:00:00Z
Issued
2017-01-01T00:00:00Z
Abstract
As American interest in Islam has increased in recent years, a growing interest in Muslim American religiosity as the subject of empirical social research has developed. Several recent studies have sought to understand how levels of religiosity influence Muslim Americans and a wide variety of instruments have been developed in an attempt to measure Muslim American religiosity more accurately. Depending on how individual researchers define and/or measure religiosity, many different Muslim cohorts have been identified as the “most religious” Muslims in America. The problem with such judgments is that little is known about the meaning(s) that Muslim Americans assign to the idea of “being religious,” how these meanings are or are not related to larger social-scientific understandings of “religiosity,” or how the meanings are or are not related to traditional Islamic understandings of faith, understanding, or piety. In addition, it is difficult to say whether these concepts are uniform across Muslim American cohorts or whether different communities have similar standards about what constitutes someone as being more or less religious. At best, it is assumed that these categories mean the same thing to different people.This dissertation explores the definitions of religiosity and the concepts of most or more religious offered by a select group of Muslim Americans in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to refine and/or enhance understanding of how Islamic religiosity is expressed and defined in the American context. Using the qualitative and ethnographic approach of grounded theory, two studies with 174 Muslim Americans were completed.My research found that while Muslim Americans understand the concept of being religious in different ways, three main areas of agreement were common. As a whole, Muslim Americans feel that someone is “being religious” if they allow Islam to “be a way of life,” if they allow Islam to “change how they act privately,” or if they allow Islam to “change how they act publicly.” However, my research has found that significant differences exist between Muslim cohorts- most notably between male and female Muslims and between older (age 40+) and younger Muslims. Men and women differ in how they conceptualize and discuss issues relating to prayer, the theological concept of taqwā, and the role of education. These concepts tend to be framed as devotional or relational issues for women and ritualistic issues for men. In addition, older Muslims are more likely to define Islam as a “way of life” than younger Muslims. Younger Muslims tend to understand religiosity in a more narrow sense in that Islam isn’t “a way of life” in the abstract but rather a canonical guide of do’s and don’ts. Finally, my research found that Muslim Americans tend to separate specific dimensions on how an individual could become more religious from their definitions of what being religious actually means. In the clearest example of this, the majority of my participants feel that “becoming more educated” would make them more religious, despite the fact that very few participants had mentioned or incorporated any notion of education when defining religiosity.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:64692
Local
Turner_cua_0043A_10793.pdf
Stats
Viewed 20 times
Downloaded 3 times
Downloads
Download
Home
About
Browse
Search