History of Islam

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Social Structure

Culture

What is culture?  If we look at definitions tried by anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers etc. etc. we end up hearing bombastic words without understanding their meanings.  Even if we manage to understand the meaning, we find that the said definition is not comprehensive. So, let’s limit ourselves to simple dictionary definition.  According to Chambers 21st Century Dictionary culture is the customs, ideas, values, etc. of a particular civilization, society or social group, especially at a particular time.1 It is a mixture of a range of phenomena including religion, rituals, clothing, housing, cooking, music, dance, art, technology, language, family norms and so on and so forth.2 So a culture encompasses many social aspects, some could be common to other cultures and some unique. Combination of everything in a differing quantity and quality makes a group of humans so exclusive that they become a culturally recognizable entity.

Story doesn’t finish at recognizing a cultural entity.  We know language is one of the major proxies for culture.3  We also know that the other major proxy of a culture is religion.4 But as there are many more small contributors to culture that even after delineating a cultural group, we keep seeing variations within that culture to the extent that we have to devise another term – sub culture.  Systematic variation in norms and preferences shared within social groups is called cultural difference.5

A culture has to reproduce and propagate itself for survival.  Transmission of beliefs and preferences from parents to their children is called vertical transmission and is main factor for survival of a given culture over time.  Transmission of beliefs and preferences from peers is called horizontal transmission and is responsible for a culture to spread. 

Islamic culture

There is nothing such as ‘Islamic culture’.  Muslims are so widely distributed geographically, so widely divided by languages, living in so varied socio-economic conditions, separated by so many national boundaries and split by so many national psyche that they cannot constitute one culture.  Muslims have never been nor are a uniform entity.  More realistically, there are thousands of cultures on the face of earth.  A number of them have one commonality.  That is belief in Islam.  It makes them resemble to each other in certain aspects.  Hence they can be called ‘Islamic cultures’ though there are very other social aspects that are common to all of them.

Believes reflect in action

For centuries philosophers and sages have been saying that belief of a person is what his action shows.  Scientific research proves it.  For example, a study performed by Pew Research Center and published on April 12, 2016 demonstrated that those who believe that helping poor is piety actually do it.  And those who do not believe in it are less likely to do it.<6  Actions done and rituals performed by a culture are actually expression of the belief system of that culture.  Whatever Muslim’s cultural practices are, they stem from their belief.

Dress of Muslims

Dress represents culture.  Historically each culture has adopted a unique dress for men and women which represented that culture.  During the last hundred years or so, there has been a trend among many cultures around the world to abandon their cultural costumes to adopt international ones (usually Western) in public places.  This trend is more pronounced among Muslim men, leaving woman alone to represent their culture based dress.  According to Pew Research Center’s survey 72% of men among American Muslims say that they don’t have anything distinctly Muslim in their appearance while 27% say they do have.  In case of women 51% say they don’t have anything distinctly Muslim in their appearance while 48% say they do have.7  The tally is not 100% as some people refused to answer the survey.

Generally Muslim women tend to dress modestly in public.  Muslim society expect woman to appear in public in a specific way.  This is part of the society’s perception about ‘respect of a woman.’   Mansoor Moaddel has done a research in Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia regarding how men expect a woman to appear in public.  He showed men of these countries six different sketches of women’s head dress ranging from shuttlecock burqa to uncovered head.  Uncovered head was appreciated as appropriate way of appearing in public by only 15% in Tunisia, 32% In Turkey and 49% in Lebanon.  Similarly, Shuttlecock burqa was unpopular everywhere.  Head and chest covered with one piece of cloth was decisively popular in all countries except Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  Saudis decisively liked woman in burqa with only eyes visible and Pakistanis were divided among woman in burqa with only eyes visible (32%), woman fully covered in burqa but face open (31%) and woman covering head and chest with a single piece of cloth (24%).  Christians living in the same countries were decisively in favour of woman with uncovered head. There was no striking difference between Sunnis and Shias on this issue.8

But it does not mean men pressurise woman on dress.  Actually they expect a woman to understand her ethical responsibility in this regard.  Muslims who think a woman should have a right to choose if she veils are 88% in South Eastern Europe, 79% in South East Asia, 73% in Central Asia, 56% in south Asia, 53% in the Middle East and North Africa and 40% in sub Saharan Africa.9

There is a gender gap in some countries when asked if woman should have a right to choose if she wishes to veil.  In countries where number of women who wish to get this right is more than number of men who wish to transfer this right to woman are considered by researches as places where women are supportive of women’s rights.  Such countries are Russia (22 point difference) Pakistan (21 point difference), Uzbekistan (19 point difference), Afghanistan (17 point difference), Palestinian territory 1(7 point difference), Tajikistan (16 point difference), Bangladesh (15 point difference), Egypt (15 point difference), Lebanon (15 point difference), Thailand (15 point difference), Iraq (14 point difference) and Kyrgyzstan (14 point difference).  In Kosovo men and woman do not differ on this matter.  Other countries where difference between men and women on this issue is less significant are Azerbaijan (9 point difference), Jordan (8 point difference), Kazakhstan (8 point difference), Malaysia (7 point difference), Albania (5 point difference), Indonesia (4 point difference), Morocco (4 point difference), Tunisia (4 point difference), Turkey (3 point difference), Bosnia-Herz. (2 point difference).10 It appears that countries where men and women are near agreement on the issue are those where either veil is out of fashion or where it is a norm.

As dress reflects religious believes more obviously in Muslim women than in Muslim men, Muslim women have become center of controversy regarding their dress, especially veil.  According to a Pew Research Center report 50 of the 198 countries and territories studied had at least one law or policy regulating women’s religious attire in 2012 and 2013.  About three quarter of those countries (39 out of 50 or 78%) had a law or policy limiting women’s ability to wear religious attire, while a quarter (12 of the 50, 24%) had at least one law or policy requiring women to wear particular attire.  Some of these laws or policies are applied nationwide, while others were imposed at provincial/state or local level.  One country had both kinds of law.  In Russia Stavropol region bans Muslim headscarves or hijabs in public schools and Chechnya requires them in all public buildings. In addition the study found 50 countries where some kind of women’s public harassment took place over religious attire in 2012 and 2013.  In 33 of 198 countries (17%) women were harassed for wearing religious dress and in 23 of 198 countries (12%) they were harassed for not abiding by religious dress code.  In five countries (3%) women were harassed both for wearing and not wearing religious attire.  In general harassment of women was in line with government law, policies or regulations of that jurisdiction.

Pious Muslim men wear beard as expression of their religious belief. It has not yet come under any public scrutiny during this century.

Entertainment of Muslims

Entertainment is culture specific.  Generally Muslim societies endorse entertainment that does not clash with religious beliefs.  In an interesting research it was asked from Muslims if they like Western type entertainment over Bollywood type entertainment.  It found that Bollywood is more popular in South Asian and Central Asian Muslims than Western entertainment.  In Russia Bollywood is slightly less popular among Muslims than Western entertainment.11  The reason why Muslims frown upon Western type entertainment is clear.  65% Muslims of Southern and Eastern Europe, 59% of Central Asia, 51% of South East Asia, 51% of South Asia, 38% of Middle East and North America and 35% of sub Saharan Africa think that Western music, movies and TV hurt morality of their country.12

These kinds of researches bring to light one stark reality about Muslim cultures.  They have to choose between Western type entertainment and Bollywood type entertainment. The only other, but less conspicuous, alternative they have got is local type entertainment.  They do not have any genre of entertainment that originates from a country lived predominantly by Muslims and spreads across international boundaries.  This is particularly true about news media.  No media channel of a Muslim majority country has that much resources and international viewers as has BBC, for example.  We know art, fiction, music, film, TV and news – all things that collectively constitute home based entertainment – have a power to shape public opinion.  Muslims have lagged behind in developing such tools.

Concept of justice among Muslims

“The World’s Muslims: Religion, politics and society” is the most comprehensive study performed on Muslim world’s current affairs.  It analyses data collected from 2008 to 2012 in a total of 39 countries, spread over three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa) with the help of 38000 face to face interviews.  It covered all the countries that have a population of 10 million Muslims or more with the exception of China, India, Saudi Arabia and Syria which were excluded due to security reasons.  For this survey Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, and Russia were included in Southern and Eastern Europe; Azerbaijan Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkey were included in central Asia; Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh were included in South Asia; Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia were included in South East Asia; Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco were included in Middle East and North Africa; Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti were included in Sub Saharan Africa.13 This study is referred to many times in this text.

According to this study Sharia law is of utmost importance to Muslims of certain regions while it is not that important for Muslims of some other regions.  Highest support to make Sharia as law of the country is in South Asia (84% support), it is followed by Southeast Asia (77% support), Middle East and North Africa (74% support) and Sub-Saharan Africa (64% support).  Two regions of the world with Muslim majority, Southern and Eastern Europe (18% support) and Central Asia (12% support) are far behind other regions in this regard.14  All these readings are median.

In South Asia 78% wish religious judges to oversee family law, (including property maters), 81% wish severe corporal punishments and 76% wish executing those who leave Islam; in Middle East and North Africa this proportion is 78%, 57% and 56% respectively.  In Southeast Asia it is 84%, 46% and 27%; in Central Asia it is 62%, 38% and 16%.  In Southern and Eastern Europe it is 41% 36% and 13% respectively.15 Again we can see that Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia have lesser support for such ideas.

Data from 20 countries, where sample was adequate, was analysed further for support of corporal punishments like whipping and cutting off hands of thieves among those who want Sharia law to be land of the country.  Those who do not want sharia law to be land of country were excluded from analysis.  Majority of the people who support Sharia to be the law of country in 10 countries also supports this kind of punishments.  In another 10 countries majority of people who support sharia to be law of country don’t support this kind of punishments.16   Probably majority of those who wish to see sharia as law of the country in these 10 countries, wish to see it in family law and inheritance.  Overwhelming support for whipping and cutting off hands of thieves is present among those who wish sharia to be law of country in Pakistan (88%), Afghanistan (81%), Palestine (76%) and Egypt (70%).17 Almost similar pattern is seen for support for stoning unfaithful spouses.  Pattern of support is also highest in Pakistan (89%), Afghanistan (85%), Palestine (84%) and Egypt (81%).18

From results of this study we can see that opinion of Muslims about law of country differ considerably over different parts of the world as well as over different countries.  Actually, each and every individual has a sense of Justice.  Sense of justice is thoughts and feelings about what is fair and unfair and what people deserve and owe others (rights and duties).19 Individual’s sense of justice is deeply rooted in culture.  It develops during childhood under influence of moral norms of that society.20 Naturally, sense of justice of overwhelming majority of individuals practicing a particular culture will become collective sense of justice of that particular culture.  That is the reason sense of justice not only differs in different cultures but also in the same culture over time.

Up to now humans have got only two codes of conducts that are capable of controlling behaviour of an individual living in a society.  One is religion and the other is statuary law.  Religion came first.  It gave a common sense of justice to its adherents.  It created a difference between right and wrong behaviours.  But the only punishment it could prescribe for unjust behaviour was rage of supernatural being.  It was not enough to control behaviour of individuals at large as we know atheists have been present in each community and in all times.  They would have not avoided sin.

Then came statuary law.  Its aim was to ensure that individuals and community adhere to the will of the state.  As it prescribes worldly punishment to unjustified behaviour and a mechanism to detect unjustified behaviour, it is more universally adhered to.   Statuary law is not necessarily entirely different from the religious law of a country.  Difference between the two is in surveillance and detection of unjustified behaviour and application of punishments.   As a matter of fact the earliest statuary laws were claimed to be bestowed by gods and were sacred.  The first written code of law that has reached us, the code of Hammurabi, was received by him from gods.21

Ethics are personal choice of right and wrong. They develop in each individual under guidance of parents and society.  Ethics are usually subservient to religion or statuary law.  As deviating from ethical behaviour does not carry any punishment, ethics do not qualify to be a mechanism that controls behaviour of an individual living in a society.  If an unethical behaviour carries punishment it is no longer in domain of ethics, it is a crime or sin.

For centuries humans have been pondering over the nature of justice.  The first human being to challenge concept of justice was Plato (c. 428 BCE – 348 BCE).  Character of Thrasymachus in his famous drama ‘republic’ argues that justice is the interest of strong – merely a name for what the powerful or cunning ruler has imposed on the people.22  This assertion is right to some extent. Common observation is that during era of absolute monarchs the source of law was the person of the sovereign who was the most powerful in the land and later on parliaments, that are the supreme in a land, took over this role.  The court system was under direct control of absolute monarchs, now it is under indirect control of parliaments.  So, observation that the statuary law is the will of powerful is valid but the ‘powerful’ has some limitations in making his wishes.  He has to take into account practicality of a law, general economic conditions of the land and the cultural norms of the land when devising laws.  Any law that is not practical, that makes economy stagnate or is in direct contradiction with cultural norms will not survive for long even if it is the deepest wish of the ‘powerful’.

So the current laws of Muslim majority countries reflect wills of their governments curtailed by practicality of the situation, economy of the state and sense of justice of its people.23

Extreme degree of tolerance

Majority of Muslims living in almost all Muslim majority countries feel they are ‘very free’ to practice their religion.  The only countries where less than half feel so are Iraq (48%), Egypt (46%), and Uzbekistan (39%).24  It means Muslims don’t feel any pressure from anybody preventing them from practicing their religion.  And they wish to extend the same freedom to people of other faiths living in Muslim-majority countries.  94 % of Muslims living in Southern-Eastern Europe, 93% in Central Asia, 95% in Southeast Asia, 85% in South Asia, 92% in Middle East-North Africa and  97% in sub Saharan Africa consider religious freedom for other faiths in their country a good thing.<25

It does not mean Muslim majority countries have created an environment of hundred percent religious tolerance.  As a matter of fact, there is hardly any country in the world where absolutely no restrictions are present against religious practices of certain religious group.  Restrictions can come from the state or from society at large.  When both kinds of restrictions are combined, it is found that (as of the end of 2015) Russia, Egypt, India, Pakistan and Nigeria are most restrictive.  While Brazil, Japan, South Africa, Ethiopia and the Phillippines are the least restrictive.26  Here one can conclude that religious restrictions are not a phenomenon limited to Muslim-majority countries.  And religious tolerance can also not be attributed to any specific group of countries.  Only 25 most populous countries of the world participated in this survey.  Interestingly, while government restrictions on religious practices was absent in some of these countries, social hostilities were present in almost all countries leading the researchers to believe that big population in any given country will lead to religious hostilities because of the number of people involved.

One point to note here is that Muslims have least tolerance for Jews.  Opinion of Muslims in 7 countries surveyed to find it out, namely Indonesia, Pakistan, turkey, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon is very negative about Jews.  Less than 5% see them positively in all of them except in Indonesia where this percentage is 10.  Interestingly, among Israeli Muslims, only 49% have negative opinion about Jews.27

Despite being tolerant to other established faiths, Muslims are just tolerant to them.  They don’t like mingling with them.  In an interesting study Pew Research Center surveyed Muslims living in 39 countries.  It was found that overwhelming majority of Muslims in all countries surveyed (> 78% in each and every case) have only Muslims as their close friends.28  USA is an exception.  Here only 36% Muslims limit their close friendship only with Muslims.29

Alcohol drinking

Abstaining from Alcohol has been a trademark of pious Muslims throughout existence of this religion.  At present 62 % of Muslims in Southern-Eastern Europe, 66 % in Central Asia, 93 % in Southeast Asia, 82 % in South Asia, 84 % in Middle East-North Africa and 82 % in sub Saharan Africa consider alcohol drinking immoral.30

Though wish to abstain from alcohol among Muslims is not as strong as is the wish to practice core worships, research has established that use of alcohol among Muslims is much less than their peers of other religions living side by side with them in those countries where alcohol is available legally.  For example, a research done on University students of Lebanon found that alcohol drinking is significantly less in Muslim students than Christian students.31  Another study from Norway established that immigrants from Muslim countries drink alcohol significantly less than their ethnic Norwegians counterparts.32  Similarly, a study in Britain established that Muslims drank much less alcohol as compared to Hindus, Sikhs and whites.33

Religion and education

Educational levels vary widely among adherents of different religions.  Jews are highest achievers in field of education with an average of 13.4 years of formal schooling followed by Christians who have an average of 9.3 years of formal schooling.  Unaffiliated have 8.8 years and Buddhists have 7.9 Years as average years of schooling.  Muslims and Hindus both are at the bottom of educational ladder with 5.6 Years of formal education each.  Global average schooling is 7.7 years.34  The researchers of this study think educational achievement cannot be directly related to religious believes.  Rather it depends upon where a person with a particular religious belief is living.  Jews are more educated because their vast majority lives in the United States and Israel, both economically developed countries.  Hindus are less educated because 98% of them live in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, three underdeveloped countries.  But there are some differences in educational attainments among religious groups living in the same region, even in the same country.  In sub-Saharan Africa, for example Muslims tend to be less educated than their Christian fellows.  Some social scientist believe that even this difference cannot be attached with religious believes.  It might have historical routes as most of the Christians have converted there by missionary activities.35

14% of young adults 24 years and older (15% men and 13% women) have some kind of post-secondary training/education the world over. Again, post-secondary education is higher in Jews (61%). It is followed by Christians 20%, unaffiliated 16%, Budhists 12%, Hindus 10%, and Muslims 8% .  Religions that have made big advances on education over the last eighty years are Muslims and Hindus and actually gap between religions on education is decreasing. Interestingly in the USA religious minorities have higher rates of post-secondary education then Christian majority.  39% of all US adults have post graduate training.  Among religious groups the make-up is as follows: Hindus 96%; Jews 75%; Muslims 54%; Budhists 53%; unaffiliated 44%; Christians 36%.  Actually out of high educated persons in the USA only 14% Christians were born outside USA but 64% Muslims and 87% Hindus were born outside USA.36  It depicts brain drain from Muslim and Hindu majority countries to the USA.

19% of world adults are illiterate.  Illiteracy is more pronounced among Muslims and Hindus.  36% of Muslims and 41% of Hindus are illiterate.37

Suicide

Muslims consider suicide to be immoral.  83% Muslims living in Southern-Eastern Europe, 80 % in Central Asia, 95 % in Southeast Asia, 80 % in South Asia, 82 % in Middle East-North Africa and 89 % in sub Saharan Africa hold this belief.38

In line with this Muslims decisively reject violence in the name of Islam, especially suicide bombing.  About 3 out of four Muslims strongly reject violence in the name of Islam specifically suicide bombing. However, there are sizable minorities in some countries who support it.  40% Palestinians, 39% Afghans, 29% Egyptians and 26% Bangladeshis support it.39

Reflecting their beliefs of suicide, Muslims consider euthanasia immoral.  64 % in Southern-Eastern Europe, 62 % in Central Asia, 88 % in Southeast Asia, 68 % in South Asia, 75 % in Middle East-North Africa and 80 % in sub Saharan Africa express this view.40

Muslims vs. Western Culture

In certain regions the Muslims consider modernism a proxy of Western culture.  In others they see both independently.  That is the reason when asked if there is any conflict between religion and modern society, answer is different depending upon region.  71 % of Muslims living in Central Asia do not see any conflict between religion and modern society.  This number decreases to 64% in South East Asia, 60 % in Middle East and North Africa and 58 % in South East Europe.  On the other hand only 39 % of Muslims living in South Asia do not see any conflict between religion and modern society.41

End Notes:

  1. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, 1996, s.v. “Culture.”
  2. John J. Macionis and Linda Marie Gerber. Sociology. (Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc., 2011). 53.
  3. Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, Benjamin Enke, David Huffman, and Uwe Sunde. The Nature and Predictive Power of Preferences: Global Evidence. Discussion paper No. 9504. (Bonn: The Institute for the Study of Labor, 2015) 1 – 76. See also: Enrico Splaore and Romain Wacziarg “Ancestry, Language and Culture” in The Palgrave Handbook of Economics and Language. Eds. Ginsburgh V. and Weber S. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 174 – 211. And see also: Klaus Desmet, Ignacio Ortuno-Ortin, and Romain Wacziarg. The political economy of Linguistic Cleavages. Jorunal of Development Economics 97(2) (2012): 322 – 338.
  4. Sascha O. Becker and Ludger Woessmann. Was Weber wrong? A Human Capital theory of Protestant Economic History. Quarterly journal of Economics 124 (2) (2009): 531 – 596. See also: Luigi Guiso, Paola Sapienza, and Luigi Zingales. People’s opium? Relgion and economic attitudes. Journal of Monetary Ecomonics 50(2003): 225 – 282. AND see also: Christoph Basten and Frank Betz Beyond Work Ethic: Religion, Individual, and Political Preferences. American Economic Journal: Economic Polity 5(3) (2013): 67 – 91.
  5. Raquel Fernandez. Does Culture Matter? In Handbook of social economics eds. Jess Benhabib, Alberto Bisin, Methew O. Jackson. (San Diego: Elsevier, 2011). Vol 1A P 481 – 508.
  6. “Religion in everyday life,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2016/04/12/religion-in-everyday-life/.
  7. “In many ways, Muslim men and Women see life in America differently,” Pew Research Center, Clare Gecewicz. Accessed 18 Feb. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/07/in-many-ways-muslim-men-and-women-see-life-in-america-differently/.
  8. “A Report the Birthplace of the Arab Spring: Values and Perceptions of Tunisians and A comparative Assessment of Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Pakistani, Saudi, Tunisian, and Turkish Publics,” University of Manyland, Mansoor Moaddel. Accessed 29 Sep. 2018, Https://mevs.org/files/tmp/Tunisia_FinalReport.pdf
  9. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  10. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  11. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  12. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  13. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  14. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  15. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  16. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  17. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  18. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/.
  19. Dennis L. Krebs ‘the evolution of a sense of justice,’ in Evolutionary Forensic Psychology. Eds. Joshua D. Duntley and Todd K. Shackelford. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) 229.
  20. Kohlberg, L. Essays in Moral Development: the Psychology of Moral Development (New York: Harper & Row, 1984). Vol. 2.
  21. Prince, J. Dyneley. “Review: The Code of Hammurabi.” The American Journal of Theology 8 (3) (1904): 601 – 609. See also: Jean-Vincent Scheil. La Loi de Hammourabi (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1904).
  22. Plato. The Republic ed. Allen R. E. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
  23. Tad Stanke Robert C. Blitt. “The Religion-State Relationship and the Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Comparative Textual Analysis of the Constitutions of Predominantly Muslim Countries.” Gerogetown Journal of International Law 36 (4) (2005): 947 – 1078.
  24. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  25. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  26. “Religious Restrictions vary significantly in the World’s most populous countries,” Pew Research Center, Michael Lipka. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/13/religious-restrictions-vary-significantly-in -the- worlds-most-populous-countries/.
  27. “Muslim Western Tensions Persist,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 23 Feb. 2018, www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/muslim-western-tensions-persist/.
  28. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  29. “Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the US and around the World,” Pew Research Center, Michael Lipka. Accessed 16 Feb. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and -around-the-world/.
  30. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  31. Lilian A. Ghandour, Elie G. Karam and Wadih E. Maalouf ‘lifetime alcohol use, abuse and dependence among university students in Lebanon: exploring the role of religiosity in different religious faiths. Addiction 104 (6) (2009): 940 – 948.
  32. Ellen J. Amundsen. ‘low level of alcohol drinking among two generations of non-Western immigrants in Oslo: a multi-ethnic comparison’ BMC public health 12 ( 2012): 535 –
  33. Raymond Cochrae and Sukhwant Bal ‘The drinking habits of Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and white men in the West Midlands: a community survey’ addiction 85 (6) (1990) 759 – 769.
  34. “Religion and Education around the World,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-around-the-world/.
  35. “Religion and Education around the World,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-around-the-world/.
  36. “Religion and Education around the World,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-around-the-world/.
  37. “Religion and Education around the World,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-around-the-world/.
  38. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  39. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  40. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
  41. “The World’s Muslims: religion politics society overview,” Pew Research Center. Accessed 17 Feb. 2018, www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
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