Ziasma Haneef Khan

Muslim attitudes toward religion, religious orientation and empathy among Pakistanis

Pakistani university students responded to the Muslim Attitudes towards Religion Scale (MARS) along with the Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Quest Religious Orientation Scales and with measures of adaptive and maladaptive empathy. The MARS most importantly predicted higher Intrinsic Scale scores, and MARS linkages with empathy were at least partially explained by an intrinsic religious orientation. The Extrinsic–Social motivation was lower than the Intrinsic orientation, which in turn was lower that the Extrinsic–Personal form of commitment. Quest reflected a more Extrinsic religious orientation. Numerous gender differences appeared. Comparison with previous British, Iranian, Pakistani and American data illustrated how a well-established research perspective can promote insights into an under-examined religious tradition and how the analysis of an under-examined religious tradition can clarify and qualify a well-established research perspective.

Theoretical, Empirical, and Potential Ideological Dimensions of Using Western Conceptualizations to Measure Muslim Religious Commitments

One approach to promoting a Muslim psychology of religion involves a dialogical model of research. This model would bring Western social scientific understandings of religion and mental health into dialogue with Muslim perspectives. Concerns about bias in applying Western assumptions and methods to Muslim religiousness could be addressed through an empirical sensitivity to ideological factors. Support for this model may appear in the effort of Western psychologists to describe intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious motivations. These orientations roughly parallel, respectively, the experiential, utilitarian, and Gnostic types of Muslim religiousness described by the Iranian philosopher A. K. Soroush (2003). Studies using Muslim samples in Iran and Pakistan have confirmed the plausibility of this parallel and therefore the potential of the dialogical model.

Factorial complexity and validity of the Sahin–Francis Attitude toward Islam Scale among Pakistani university students

English‐speaking Pakistani university students responded to the Sahin–Francis Attitude toward Islam Scale, along with other religious measures and a social desirability scale. This scale was multidimensional. Correlations with religious measures confirmed its validity and were not explained by a social desirability response set. These data identified the Sahin–Francis Scale as a useful measure for studying Muslim attitudes within an Islamic society.

Differentiating religious coping from Islamic identification in patient and non-patient Pakistani Muslims

Pakistanis suffering from major medical problems and non-patient controls responded to two factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness that operationalised religious coping. Punishing Allah Reappraisal correlated positively with Poorer Psychological Functioning and External Control and negatively with Self-Adjustment. Factor analytic procedures demonstrated that the Islamic Positive Religious Coping and Identification subscale (IPRCIS) contained three dimensions. These Positive Islamic Coping, Islamic Identification, and Extra-Prayer Commitment factors displayed similar linkages with single-item measures of religious orientation and religious interest. Positive Islamic Coping also had noteworthy implications for understanding Muslim religious coping. These data most importantly demonstrated that the IPRCIS is a multidimensional construct, that Punishing Allah Reappraisal is maladaptive, and that the influences of beneficial Muslim forms of coping may be complex.

Pakistani religious coping and the experience and behaviour of Ramadan

Previous efforts to demonstrate the coping benefits of Muslim beliefs have yielded ambiguous outcomes. With a sample of 200 Pakistani adults, this project used the Islamic Positive Religious Coping and Identification (IPRCI) subscale within the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) to examine relationships with the experience and behaviour of Ramadan. Preliminary confirmatory factor analyses revealed a need to focus on a Positive Islamic Coping factor within the IPRCI. Positive Islamic Coping correlated directly with Positive Ramadan Experience and Ramadan Behaviour and inversely with Negative Ramadan Experience. Along with other PMIR variables assessing Muslim commitments more generally, Positive Islamic Coping helped mediate relationships between Ramadan Experience and Ramadan Behaviour. Punishing Allah Reappraisal from the PMIR displayed only minimal evidence that it recorded a maladaptive form of religious coping. These data confirmed Positive Islamic Coping as an operationalisation of adaptive Muslim coping and illustrated the importance of examining measures that are relevant within a religious tradition.

Islamic Religious Coping, Perceived Stress, and Mental Well-being in Pakistanis

Research suggests that religious beliefs may both help and hinder how Muslims cope. In a Pakistani sample, the Positive Islamic Coping, Islamic Identity, and Extra-Prayer Commitment factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness correlated negatively with Perceived Stress and positively with Mental Well-Being, Intrinsic Religious Orientation, and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientation. Islamic Identity also partially mediated the negative relationship of Perceived Stress with Mental Well-Being. A Punishing Allah Reappraisal factor failed to display any evidence that it operationalized a maladaptive form of Muslim coping. These data most importantly confirmed the positive coping potentials of Muslim commitments, with Islamic Identity being especially noteworthy.

Smoking, Muslim religious commitments, and the experience and behaviour of Ramadan in Pakistani men

This study examined the possibility that smoking may interfere with Muslim commitments in general and with the experience and behaviour of Ramadan in particular. During Ramadan, a sample of 29 smoking and 46 non-smoking Pakistani men responded to measures of smoking, Religious Orientation, Religious Interest, Positive and Negative Ramadan Experience, and Ramadan Behaviour. Various indices of smoking predicted a disinterest in religion, less of an Intrinsic Religious Orientation, lower levels of Positive Ramadan Experience, higher Negative Ramadan Experience, and reductions in Ramadan Behaviour. These data offered preliminary support for the suggestion that smoking presents a challenge to Muslim beliefs and practices, especially during Ramadan.

Self‐control in Pakistani Muslims: relationships with religious orientation, depression and anxiety

Islam literally refers to a personal ‘surrender’ or submission, and may therefore promote a form of self‐control that some have associated with psychosocial benefits. English‐speaking Pakistani university students (N = 160) responded to the Brief Self‐Control Scale along with measures of religious interest, religious orientation and psychological maladjustment. Self‐control correlated positively with religious interest ratings and an intrinsic religious orientation and negatively with an extrinsic religious orientation, depression and anxiety. These data supported the hypothesis that the ‘surrender’ of Islamic commitments would be associated with a self‐control that predicts religious and psychological adjustment.

Religious reflection in Pakistan: further evidence of integration between Muslim faith and intellect

Abstract Religious groups outside the West have displayed a positive correlation between faith and intellect-oriented reflection in contrast to the negative relationship found with American Christians. This study extended the analysis to Pakistani Muslims. University students (N = 180) responded to religious reflection scales along with measures of religious orientation and satisfaction with life. Faith- and intellect-oriented reflection correlated positively, and both displayed direct relationships with religious orientations and satisfaction with life. In multiple regression analyses, both combined to predict the intrinsic religious orientation, but faith-oriented reflection was the only significant predicter of other measures. These data further documented a compatibility between Muslim faith and intellect and supplemented other cross-cultural findings in suggesting that understandings of more conservative religious beliefs may require sensitivity not only to their content, but also to their cultural context.

Greater Jihad of society and self: Religious and psychological implications in Pakistani Madrassa and University students

ABSTRACT Development of a Greater Jihad Scale sought to record “jihad” as a Muslim spiritual struggle. Pakistani madrassa and university students responded to items that described Self Jihad as a struggle against corruptions within the self and Societal Jihad as an effort to bring social life into conformity with Islamic ideals. Greater Jihad factors correlated positively with Islamic Moral Values, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Social Religious Orientations, and Satisfaction with Life. Madrassa students scored higher on all these measures, but Greater Jihad factors more strongly predicted religious functioning in university students. In addition, Societal Jihad correlated negatively with the Extrinsic Personal Orientation, and madrassa students displayed lower Extrinsic Personal and Self-Esteem scores. These data supported descriptions of Muslim personality adjustment in terms of a subordination of the self and confirmed the greater jihad as an influential process within the Muslim psychology of religion.