Measuring the 'Religiosity' of Muslims

Religion is a natural human need. It has been so since Allah created Adam and will remain so as long as there are people on Earth. People differ in their religiousness according to how closely they remain true to the natural religious disposition that Allah, in His mercy, has instilled in all human beings.

Allah says: " Then set your face upright for religion in the right state -- the nature made by Allah in which He has made humanity." [Sûrah al-Rûm: 30]

He also says: "And (remember) when your Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. That was so you should not say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! Of this we were unaware " [Sûrah al-A`râf: 172]

Therefore, from an Islamic standpoint, a religious person is someone who is behaving in accordance with human nature, whereas an irreligious person is behaving contrary to that nature. However, if the circumstances are conducive, the potential for that person to return to the natural way is, by Allah's grace, always there.

The Problem

The measurement of religiousness -- or religiosity -- is undertaken within the field of psychology, particularly the psychology of religion -- the psychological study of religious experiences, beliefs, and activities -- which aims to inform understanding of religion through science. Psychology is, without doubt, one of the most important social sciences, and one most in need of Muslim specialists who are able to work within the field in accordance with the dictates of Islam.

A crucial aspect of psychology is psychometrics, a field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and personality traits. The field is primarily concerned with the construction and validation of measurement instruments, such as questionnaires, tests, and personality assessments.

Psychometrics is extremely important, and not only in purely psychological research. It has an immense practical value, with a wide array of applications to many areas of research, including health research, productivity studies, industry analysis, marketing, and media studies.

The earliest and most well-known area of psychometric research is of course intelligence testing. Psychometrics has subsequently been applied to the measurement of personality, attitudes, and beliefs, and academic achievement. One area of inquiry that was for a long time neglected by psychometrics in the West was tat of religiousness and spirituality. According to Dr. David Wulff, a leading specialist in the psychology of religion, this was in a large part due to the attitude Western academia has exhibited towards religion.

Unfortunately, this attitude seems to have rubbed off on many Muslim psychologists, who have not given the psychology of religion the attention that it deserves, and when they have attended to the matter at all, have usually sufficed with merely translating the standards and measurements developed by non-Muslim psychologists in the West and applying them without any critical consideration to Muslims living in the Muslim world. Examples of such studies were those conducted by Hina (1959), Abdulali (1977), Abulnayl (1978) and al-Hiwari (1978) with less than satisfactory results.

This problem demands of Muslim psychologists that they make a concerted effort to critical engage with the psychometrics of religiousness ad develop standards ad methods of assessment that are suitable to measure religiousness in a Muslim context.

The importance of this should not be underestimated. Effective psychometric studies of religiousness in the Muslim world has both theoretical and practical value. There is a vast array of studies needed in the Muslim world where an accurate assessment of people's religiousness is indispensable. These include political analysis, public policy formulation, productivity and commerce studies, development studies… the list goes on.

The Measurement of Religiosity

Psychometrics measures to what extent an individual possesses a certain psychological characteristic. The particular characteristic we are concerned with here is "religiosity", which we can define as: the degree to which an individual adheres to the beliefs and practical teachings of the faith. For a Muslim, these beliefs would include belief in Allah, His angels, His scriptures, His messengers, the Day of Judgment, ad Divine Decree. The practical teachings would encompass the various religious duties and prohibitions set forth by Islam.

Western psychologists working in the field of the psychometrics of religiosity have adopted three approaches:

1. Uni-dimensional: where religiosity is regarded as a single trait. Such studies measure factors like one's attitudes towards the "church" and frequency of church attendance. Studies of this kind include those of Thurson and Chave (1929), Thoules (1935), and the Allport-Vernon-Lindsey Study of Values Test.

As an example of the relevance of such research to human wellbeing, Allport has done critically important research in the correlation between religiosity and prejudice in society, showing it to be more nuanced and complex than expected. He said: "the role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice."

2. Bipolar: where religiosity is looked at from two angles, like "proper / less desirable" or "good / bad". Approaches of this kind include Lenski's landmark study The Religious Factor: A Sociological Study of Religion's Impact on Politics, Economics, and Family Life (1961). By using the emerging tool of the survey to empirically investigate and compare distinct religio-ethnic communities (whites, blacks, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews), Lenski was able to document the apparent social consequences of religious group membership. Another is Walter Houston Clark's The Psychology of Religion: An Introduction to Religious Experience and Behavior (1958).

3. Multidimensional: where religiosity is considered to involve many various aspects f a person's behavior. Studies of this kind include Thouless's An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion 91971) as well as the works of Kurts (1962) Whiteman (1961), and Meadow et. al. (1984).

Muslim contributions to developing psychometric standards for measuring religiosity have been few, much of it amounting to little more than translating the various measures developed by Western scholars into Arabic and other languages to apply in various Muslim societies.

Abdulali and Abulnayl, for instance, translated the Allport-Vernon-Lindsey Study of Values Test. This test has 30 questions, of which ten are devoted to religious values. Each question gives two choices, like:

If you have free time, would you:  (a) visit a dear friend or relative, or  (b) visit your place of worship.

In this question, choosing choice (b) would indicate a positive religious value.

Mahmud Abulnay used this questionnaire in his 1987 study on the effects of religiosity on factory worker productivity in Muslim society. Likewise, al-Hiwari (1978) used the same questionnaire to measure the effects of religiosity on mental stability. Abdulali (1977) used it in his study of how religious values affects people's goals ad aspirations in society. Atiyya Mahmud Hina (1959) used it to measure religiosity in a crucial study comparing the performance of male and female university students in a Muslim country.

In spite of the obvious importance of these studies to understanding the dynamics of Muslim society, the inadequacy of the questionnaire used to measure religiosity should be apparent.

1. First of all, the questionnaire was translated verbatim, without considering the differences between Muslim society and the society for which it was originally written. This was the unfortunate case with all of the above-mentioned studies, notwithstanding the nearly forty years between them. For instance, consider the sample question cited above. Does the fact that Muslims view visiting relatives as an act of worship affect the answer a religious Muslim would give to it? Also, does the fact that a Muslim might go to the mosque five times a day as part of the normal routine make not doing so in "free time" less significant?

2. Secondly, the fact that only two choices were given for each question is problematic. Moreover, each question is designed to measures a religious value, and not religiosity.

Some Positive Muslim Attempts

A few psychometric measuring instruments for measuring religiosity have been developed by Muslims. They have been employed in studies where the measuring of religiosity in Muslim society is needed. They are tentative steps in the right direction, but they suffer from shortcomings.

For instance, Abdulhamid Muhammad Humaydan Nassar (1988) developed a questionnaire of 94 questions, divided into three categories. The first section, comprising 35 questions, deals with emotional considerations. Participants are given a choice of five answers for each: [always -- usually -- sometimes -- rarely -- never] The second section, comprising 34 questions, deals with behavior, like "Do you perform your prayers?" again with the same five options for an answer. The third section of 25 questions uses the same format to test essential religious knowledge.

The problem with this questionnaire is that the three sections overlap considerably. There is a lot of repetition, and many crucial aspects of Islamic religious beliefs ad behaviors are left out.

One of the best psychometric instruments developed thus far to measure religiosity among Muslims is that which was developed by Tiraz Mahdi al-Tâ'i in 1985. It is both comprehensive and easy to implement. The questionnaire is based upon the 77 branches of faith that are found in the classical Islamic literature. A statement is given for each branch with a "yes" or "no" response required. For instance:

I am fully convinced that Allah exists.   [yes]   [no]

This approach of using the 77 branches of faith might ensure completeness, but it also presents some serious problems, among which are the following:

1. The method of response is to inflexible. Consider the question of Allah's existence. A "no" answer to that question could be tantamount to a declaration of unbelief! This goes for other essentials matters of faith asked about in the questionnaire. Such questions force every participant who actually considers himself or herself a Muslim by faith to provide a straightforward [yes] answer. This is not very useful.

2. Since each of the 77 questions is equally weighted, this seriously distorts the value given to responses on highly disparate matters. Is observance of the five daily prayers to be regarded as equal to "removing an obstacle from the road"? Is paying 2.5% of one's savings annually in Zakâh equal to saying "bless you" when someone sneezes? This is certainly not the way Islam – or, for that matter, a religious Muslim – sees things. The religiosity of someone who neglects prayer should be called into question far more than that of someone who neglects to remove obstacles from the road.

3. A single score is give at the end of the process which really does not help in gauging the real nature and degree of the person's religiosity.

A New Attempt

In consideration of the problems and shortcomings that exist in previous attempts at the psychometrics of gauging the religiosity of Muslims, and considering how badly such a measure is needed for research that addresses many of the problems and practical concerns of Muslim society, I have undertaken to develop a psychometric instrument for that purpose. The research was conducted as part of my doctoral work in psychology at the Social Sciences faculty of al-Imam University in Riyadh.

The instrument is a questionnaire of 60 questions, with three choices for answering each. Each of the choices is weighted with one, two, or three points. The wordig of the choices is varied for each question, and the weighting is sometimes in ascending and sometimes in descending order to ameliorate the effects of arbitrary answering.

The questions are divided as follows: Part One deals with the articles of faith. There are six questions, one relating to each of the six articles of faith. For example:

[1] My faith in Allah:

(a) is comparable to that of people of the highest faith
(b) is comparable to that of people of average faith
(c) is comparable to that of people of weak faith

[2] When I think of how the angels worship Allah

(a) it motivates me worship Allah a lot
(b) it motivates me to worship Allah somewhat
(c) it does not motivate me to worship Allah

Part Two comprises 9 questions deals with the pillars of Islam, four relating to prayer, two to fasting, two to Zakâh, and one to the Hajj. For example:

[8] I observe the obligatory daily prayers punctually:

(a) all the time
(b) usually
(c) rarely

[10] I offer my prayers in the mosque:

(a) most or all the time
(b) some of the time
(c) rarely

Part Three comprises the other 45 questions and deals with the rest of the branches of faith. For instance:

[56] I keep up the remembrance of Allah:

(a) rarely, since I am very busy
(b) sometimes
(c) most or all of the time

The overall weight value of different questions is different, depending on how essential it is. These questions are framed to correspond to the religious sensibilities of Muslims with the aim of soliciting answers that will provide a more accurate assessment of their religiosity. Furthermore, they are geared for the specific nuances of religion in Saudi society.

To gauge the accuracy of the test, the initial study group, comprising 70 people, participants were given the questionnaire twice, two weeks apart. There was an 89% correspondence between the two, which is considered very high level of correspondence in psychometrics.

This questionnaire has, over the past decade, been employed in a number of research projects within Saudi Arabia, as well as in other neighboring Muslim countries, with positive results.

I hope that similar efforts will be undertaken by Muslim psychologists and sociologists throughout the world.