Islam perspective sociologist

   The ebidence examined thus far beem lomited to christian nations. Now let us shift to religious trends in islam. Is extraordnary contradiction to the seculazation doctrine, there seems to be a profound compatibility of the islamic faith and modernation several studies from quite different parts of the world suggest that muslim commitment in creases with modernization.

In a study of muslims in java, joseph tamney ( 1979,1980) found that religious commitment was postively correlated with education and with ocvupational prestige. That is, people who had attentded village and or held hugh status occupations were substantially more likely to pray the required five hugh status occupations were substantially more likely to pray the required five times a day, to give alms and to fast in accord with orthodox islamic practive than were muslims with little education and or low status occupations. Tamney also recognized that his findings implied that muslim practice would increase as modernization proceeded. In a subsequent qork, Tamney (1992) has analyzed the " resilince" of religion, how it has been able to adjust to challenges of modernity.

         A study of the leading Muslim " fundamentalist" movement in pakistan found that leaders are highly educated ( all having advanced degrees), and supporters of the movement are drawn overwhelmingly from " the new middle class" ( ahmad 1991). This is confied by data on Turkish students based on an actual time series. Since 1978 there has beena remarkable increase in the proportion of students at tje University of Ankara who hold orthodox islamic beliefs, and in 1991 the overwhelming majoruty of students held these views. Thust, in 1978, 36 percent of students expressed firm belief that " there is a Heaven and hell, " while in 1991 threw-fourths held this view. As Jayhan Mutlu (1996:335) explained, faith in " the essentr elements of islamic beliefs is becoming widespread among the university students i.e., the prospective elites, in Ankara." These students are the future scientists and engineers. Moreover, Turkey is, by most measures, the most modernized of islamic nations and beginning in the 1920s, ecperienced decades of official state secularity and semi-official irreligion, althot these policies have waned in recent time ( for reasons entirely clear in the data).

   Of course, these islamic data are fragmentary. On oltbe other hand, no informed observer even needs data such as these to detect the thunderous vitality of contemporary islam and to realize that it is in direct proportion to modernization.