Le Soudan a mis un terme, en 2019, à trente années de dictature islamiste. Deux ans après l’éviction d’Omar el-Béchir, les lois demeurent cependant largement basées sur la charia. Deux groupes rebelles actifs dans le sud du pays, où la proportion de chrétiens, animistes et athées s’avère plus importante que dans le reste du pays, ont, par conséquent, conditionné leur…
Search results for: religion
MENA Youth Lead Return To Religion
Personal piety is not constant across space or time. The Pew Research Center has found that levels of religiosity vary by a number of factors, including years of education, life expectancy, income, and levels of economic inequality. Others have found that during times of crisis such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks, there tend to be associated increases in levels…
Lebanon’s atheists rejecting their religion
In Lebanon, the sectarian identity you inherit from your father is written on the civil registry. From birth people are defined by their religion and atheism or ‘no religion’ are not included in 18 options available. A survey for BBC News Arabic by Arab Barometer suggests that people across the region are growing less religious….
Are Iraqi youths losing their religion?
“It’s about my identity,” Yara Ali said with confidence. Ali is an Arab-Iraqi lawyer and prominent activist living in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq; for security reasons, she uses a pseudonym. “I was forced to wear it. It was to protect me, but it wasn’t me.” Yara, 29, told Al-Monitor. A couple of years ago, the modern, educated woman who had become…
Arabs are losing their religion in backlash against Islamists
A large number of Arabs have abandoned religious belief in the past six years, according to a poll demonstrating that the political turmoil and war have had clear social effects. The loss of faith, albeit from a high level before, was particularly marked in the young. Researchers from the Arab Barometer asked the residents of ten countries and the Palestinian…
Lebanon’s atheists on losing their religion
In a country where your faith defines you from birth, some are taking the rare step of removing their religious designation. In Lebanon personal piety has declined some 43% over the past decade, indicating less than a quarter of the population now define themselves as religious. The survey for BBC News Arabic was conducted by Arab Barometer. The BBC spoke…
Religion and Tolerance of Minority Sects in the Arab World
Does religious behavior always promote hostility toward members of other faiths? This article suggests that the relationship between personal religious behavior and religious tolerance is not so simple. Even in the Arab World, frequently cited as a center of religious piety and intolerance, different forms of religious behavior have markedly different effects on attitudes toward minority sects. Using both observational…
BBC Radio 4 Sunday’s interview with Michael Robbins on Religion & Homosexuality Trends in MENA
BBC survey carried out by the Arab Barometer reveals people in Arab countries are becoming less religious. William Crawley of BBC Radio 4 Sunday program interviews Dr. Michael Robbins, director of the Arab Barometer, to discuss the findings.
Youth, Religion and Democracy After the Arab Uprisings: Evidence from the Arab Barometer
This article compares the changes over time in attitudes of youth in Egypt and Tunisia, two countries that experienced dramatic political changes in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. The primary comparison is the change in attitudes over time within each country; views of youths just after the respective revolutions are compared with views of a similar cohort two years…
Maghreb Matters: Report on the role of religion in Algeria…
…… Yet this is slowly changing. Younger Algerians are more educated, more urbanized, more connected both internally and externally through digital technologies, more demanding of opportunities, and more determined to be less acquiescent than the older generations in challenging government policies. The report does a good job of enumerating the various means for encouraging the current regime to realize that…
Infrastructure Provision, Politics and Religion: Insights from Tunisia’s new democracy
This paper analyzes the relationship between access to infrastructure services and support for religious parties based on the evidence produced by a recent democratic experience in Tunisia in which a religious political party, Ennahdha, governed from 2011 to 2014. The experience points to a complex relationship. In the 2011 election, areas with higher access are associated with higher support for…
The Arab world in seven charts: Are Arabs turning their backs on religion?
Arabs are increasingly saying they are no longer religious, according to the largest and most in-depth survey undertaken of the Middle East and North Africa. The finding is one of a number on how Arabs feel about a wide range of issues, from women’s rights and migration to security and sexuality. More than 25,000 people were interviewed for the survey…
Is the MENA Region Becoming Less Religious? An Interview with Michael Robbins
In late 2019, the research network Arab Barometer released the results of new polling surveys that show that there has been a decline religious faith and trust in religious parties across the Middle East and North Africa. Naman Karl-Thomas Habtom, a graduate student at Cambridge University and Senior Vice President of the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum, recently had…
A New Dawn for Political Islam?
The Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has seen an increase in levels of religiosity, particularly among youth, over the last five years. What implications might this have for the region? Does this rise in personal religiosity correspond with changes in views about the proper role for religion in politics? Might this change foreshadow a revival in fortunes of…