Cultural Muslims

This article is about non-practicing Muslims who still identify with Islam. For Muslims not affiliating with a specific school or branch, see Non-denominational Muslim.
See also: Islam and secularism and Islam and modernity
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Cultural Muslims, also known as nominal Muslims,[1] non-practicing Muslims or non-observing Muslims,[2] are people who identify as Muslims but are not religious and do not practice the faith.[3] They may be a non-observing, secular or irreligious[4] individuals who still identify with Islam due to family backgrounds, personal experiences, ethnic and national heritage, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up.[4][5][6][7][8]

Cultural Muslims can be found across the world, but especially in the Balkans,[9] Central Asia,[10] Europe,[11][12] the Maghreb,[13] the Middle East,[14] Russia,[15] Turkey,[16] Singapore,[17] Malaysia,[18] Indonesia[19] and the United States.[11] In several countries and regions, self-reported Muslims practice the religion at low levels,[20] and for some, their "Muslim" identity is associated with cultural or ethnic or national heritage, rather than merely religious faith.[21]

The concept is not always met with acceptance in conservative Islamic communities.[22] Cultural Muslims may be classified as kafir (non-believers) by more conservative Muslims and Islamist groups.[23][24][25]

  1. ^ Ruthven, Malise (2012). Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-19-964287-8.
  2. ^ Lederer, Gyorgy (2009), "Hungary", in Nielsen, Jorgen; Akgönül, Samim; Alibašic, Ahmet; Maréchal, Brigitte; Moe, Christian (eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, and in Iran Volume 1, BRILL Publishers, p. 13, ISBN 978-90-474-2850-3
  3. ^ Rahnema, Saeed (2009). Diaspora by Design. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-9258-9. This diversity is usually ignored, and in particular, the existence of a large number of secular and laic persons of Muslim cultural background is completely overlooked. These secular Muslims, identified on the basis of cultural origin ...
  4. ^ a b Rassool, G. Hussein (2015). Islamic Counselling: An Introduction to theory and practice. Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-317-44125-0. The label 'Cultural Muslim' is used in the literature to describe those Muslims who are religiously unobservant, secular or irreligious individuals who still identify with the Muslim culture due to family background, personal experiences, or the social and cultural environment in which they grew up... For Cultural Muslim the declaration of faith is superficial and has no effect of their religious practices.
  5. ^ Volkmann, Constanze (2018). Muslim Women in Austria and Germany Doing and Undoing Gender: Making Gender Differences and Hierarchies Relevant or Irrelevant. Springer. p. 9. ISBN 978-3-658-23952-7.
  6. ^ Alsultany, Evelyn (2021). Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion. New York University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-4985-6919-4. The nominal Muslim is someone who is born into a Muslim family and maybe raised Muslim, but who is not religious and identifies as a cultural or secular Muslim as opposed to a religious Muslim.
  7. ^ William Kim, David (2017). Religious Encounters in Transcultural Society: Collision, Alteration, and Transmission. Lexington Books. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-4985-6919-4.
  8. ^ Rane, Halim (2018). Islam and Muslims in the West. Springer International Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-3-319-92510-3. Saeed identifies "secular Muslims" as another trend among contempo- rary Western Muslims. ... Arguably a sub-branch of this approach are Saeed terms "cultural nominalists" (Saeed 2007, 401), whose "Muslim" identity is framed through a cultural lens rather than religious.
  9. ^ Warde, Ibrahim (2014). Islamic Finance in the Global Economy. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 15–19. ISBN 978-0-7486-9647-5.
  10. ^ Khalid, Adeeb (2007). Islam After Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia. Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24927-1.
  11. ^ a b B. Marrow, Helen (2021). The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965. Harvard University Press. pp. 527–533. ISBN 978-0-674-04493-7.
  12. ^ Royall, Frédéric (2016). From Silence to Protest: International Perspectives on Weakly Resourced Groups. Taylor & Francis. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-317-13180-9. Muslim immigrants in Western Europe differ in terms of ethnic backgrounds, as well as in terms of religiosity. Research has shown that many religiously unobservant or even irreligious individuals nonetheless identify themselves as "Muslims" because of their family background, their personal attachments, their ethnic and group allegiance, or the social and cultural environment in which they were raised; they are categorized as "cultural" or "nominal" Muslims.
  13. ^ Sonnenburg, Penny M. (2003), Colonialism: An International, Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, p. 58, ISBN 978-1-57607-335-3
  14. ^ Marsella, Anthony (2007), Ethnocultural Perspectives on Disaster and Trauma: Foundations, Issues, and Applications, Springer Science & Business Media, p. 129, ISBN 978-0-387-73285-5
  15. ^ S. Blinnikov, Mikhail (2021). Geography of Russia and Its Neighbors, Second Edition. Guilford Publications. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-4625-4459-2.
  16. ^ Cagaptay, Soner (2014), The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century's First Muslim Power, Potomac Books, p. 85, ISBN 978-1-61234-651-9
  17. ^ "No religion: Why more in Singapore are turning away from traditional faiths". CNA. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  18. ^ "Renouncing Islam in Malaysia". www.vice.com. 2 April 2021. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  19. ^ "Muslim Pork Eaters of Jakarta | Haram Harum | Trailer | Pork is haram (forbidden) in Islam, but that doesn't stop many Muslims from consuming the meat in Jakarta. We profiled Panggangin, a business run by a... | By Coconuts TV | Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2023-03-15.
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference auto1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference AitchisonHopkins2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Corinne Blake (2003). Brannon M. Wheeler (ed.). Teaching Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 175. ISBN 0-19-515224-7.
  23. ^ Rajan, Julie (30 January 2015). Al Qaeda's Global Crisis: The Islamic State, Takfir and the Genocide of Muslims. Routledge. p. cii. ISBN 9781317645382. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  24. ^ Bunt, Gary (2009). Muslims. The Other Press. p. ccxxiv. ISBN 9789839541694. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  25. ^ Pruniere, Gerard (1 January 2007). Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. Cornell University Press. p. xvi. ISBN 9780801446023. Retrieved 27 August 2015.