Change of Identities and Religiosities of Muslim Young People across Time and Space: Resilient Youth

Abstract

Modern people have cut themselves off from the sacred and imaginative realties and live in secular and measurable time. They live in a world described by Max Weber in terms of disenchantment. In Muslim society, many Muslims are not detached from reality; rather, they live in an enchanted world, a world of spirits and forces. This creates tensions between secular liberal and traditional views of life. In this sense, the young people strives to take a certain place and role in that society; they try to know themselves in society, to determine their personalities’ limits, to find out ‘who they are, what they believe, what they value and connect, what their aim should be, in short, what their place in society is’. In this research, the identity, religious life and behavior of Muslim young people, religious resilience, and accordingly religious changes and transformations have been examined along with religious potential. To be resilient, a person must be able to change, and to adapt to new circumstances. Thus, the paper explores that the Turkish youth may have new religious perceptions and different identity structures depending on the color of the time. The effect of different cultures and social changes and the new social manifestations that develop depending on this situation can be effective on the way to the transformation of religious identities. İn the first step, this paper is exploring the questions: ‘how does religion affect young people's recognition and evaluation of themselves and life? The next step is to research how Muslim youth can help people experiencing resilience to be strengthened, and how they can be strengthened as they exercise a religiosity and their identity. The paper could help to find out how religious faith can have in enabling people to overcome difficulty by giving them faith to hold on to life and find meaning and purpose, as well as by providing a supportive network of people. The data were obtained from semi-structured interviews which were conducted with 30 students of Şırnak University in Turkey. İt includes participants’ accounts of their process of making meaning of the world, their evolving understanding, perceptions, experiences and identity situations. Nevertheless, literature survey method has chosen to support and enhance the quality of the research. The qualitative research method was adopted as an interpretative paradigm. The data shows that; the relationship between the individual and religious belief and identity motivation is related to inhomogeneous results and factors. Young people create their own identity, which is mixed, and bricolage. Each individual has different conceptions and different motivations regarding religious identity. In this sense, religiosity and identity is fed by different social and psychological dynamics; in general, it seems to be related to time, space and socialization processes.