Non-Belief: An Islamic Perspective

Abstract

Psychology of religion research is typically conducted with Protestant populations living in the West. Only recently has non-belief in God become a central topic in the field. And while it remains an open question whether or not the research assumptions and theoretical frameworks designed for Western populations of Protestants can be applied to non-believers, exploring non-belief in the Islamic context may pose additional problems. For example, do Western concepts and terms such as “church attendance” or “atheist” have equivalent meaning in the Muslim world? Are there any structural differences within Islam and Christianity that may contribute to the uneven number of self-reported non-believers within these cultures? In this article, we argue that a cultural psychological approach can provide a useful perspective for researching non-belief in the Muslim cultural context.