Cultural Muslim

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Cultural Muslims are religiously unobservant individuals who still identify with the religion due to family backgrounds, personal experiences, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up. According to Kia Abdullah cultural Muslims tend to feel a close connection with some of the positive values they were raised within their childhood but no longer feel connected with faith strongly enough. Kia Abdullah says some are just not practicing, some may be agnostic and some maybe even atheists. Kia Abdullah says, unlike Ex-Muslims, cultural Muslims may not wish to have complete disassociation with Islam. Even though cultural Muslims are non-practicing or liberal in practice, want to remain emotionally connected with the community and cultural heritage.

As Kia Abdullah quotes journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s example may be a cultural Muslim does not fast but still keeps attachment to Islamic values, and the term ‘cultural Muslim‘ provides space and identity to them. Kia Abdullah says that actually many non-practicing would be there as cultural Muslim but do not identify so for lack of theological literacy needed to establish right to exist so and secondly sheer fear of reprisal.

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.

Singapore Ramadan Geylang Serai Festive Light-Up

Ramadan festival in Singapore

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.

Malise Ruthven (2000) discussed the terms “cultural Muslim” and “nominal Muslim” as follows:

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. 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.

Believer Vs non-believer and practicing Vs. not-practicing

In non-Muslim majority countries Muslims may identify themselves by distinguishing themselves as practicing Vs. not-practicing and Believer Vs non-believer. Usually ritual practicing ones are presumed to be Believer. While non-practicing one can be believer or non-believer.

Demographics

A collage of Muslim women voters in the 2010s from different countries

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. 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. 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. However, these numbers may be underestimated, due to most Muslims praying regularly at home.

Belgium

Surveys conducted 1994 and 1996 observed a decrease in religiosity based on lowering mosque participation, less frequent prayer, dropping importance attached to a religious education, etc. This decrease in religiosity was more visible in younger Muslims; however, other more recent studies show that while participation in religious activities among young Muslims is reducing, they are more likely to identify with Islam culturally.

A 2005 Université Libre de Bruxelles study estimated that about 10% of the Muslim population in Belgium are “practicing Muslims” A 2009 survey found that the majority of Muslims in Belgium supported “separation between religion and state.” A 2010 study found that while Muslims put great emphasis on religious freedom and the overwhelming majority stated people should be free to leave Islam if they wanted, they were less comfortable with the idea of Muslims marrying non-Muslims.

Bulgaria

Evgenia Ivanova of the New Bulgarian University stated in 2011 that “religion is not of primary importance to Bulgaria’s Muslims.” The New Bulgarian University conducted a survey of 850 Muslims in Bulgaria, which found that 48.6% described themselves as religious, 28.5% of which were very religious. Approximately 41% never went to a mosque and 59.3% did not pray at home. About 0.5% believed that disputes should be resolved using Islamic Sharia law and 79.6% said that wearing a veil in school was “unacceptable.” More than half of the respondents said cohabitation without marriage was “acceptable”, 39.8% ate pork and 43.3% drank alcohol. On the contrary, 88% of respondents said they circumcised their boys and 96% observed Muslim burial practices for their relatives.

According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, 33% of Bulgarian Muslims responded that religion is “very important” in their lives. The same survey found that 7% of Bulgarian Muslims pray all five salah, 22% attend mosque at least once a week, and 6% read Quran at least once a week.

France

According to study only 33% of French Muslims who were interviewed said they were practicing believers. That figure is the same as that obtained by the INED/INSEE study in October 2010. And 20% claimed to go regularly to the mosque for the Friday service, and 31% practice prayer (salat), and 70% said they “observe Ramadan”. According to expert Franck Fregosi: “Although fasting during Ramadan is the most popular practice, it ranks more as a sign of Muslim identity than piety, and it is more a sign of belonging to a culture and a community”, and he added that not drinking alcohol “seems to be more a cultural behavior”.

Netherlands

By 2009, only 24% of Muslims in the Netherlands attended mosque once a week. A 2004 study found that the importance of Islam in the lives of Dutch Muslims, particularly of second-generation immigrants was decreasing. This observation was based on the reducing participation of younger Muslims in Islamic rituals, organizations, and prayer. The study also predicted that the trend would continue with increasing education and “individualization”. However, the study also found that second-generation immigrants attached more importance to religion that the first generation as an “individual experience.” The study concluded “the expression of religiosity by Muslim youth was not much different to that of their Dutch Christian or Jewish peers”.

Turkey

In a poll conducted by Sabancı University in 2006 16% of Turkish Muslims said they were “extremely religious“, 39% said they were “somewhat religious“, and 32% said they were “not religious“.

Criticism

Kia Abdullah says the term and ‘cultural Muslims‘ identity is not only are at receiving end from conservative Muslims but also from some progressive ones saying cultural Muslim cherry pick best of both worlds without enough proactive contribution and commitment to liberalism.