The Worldviews of Islamic Publics: The Cases of Egypt, Iran, and Jordan

Abstract

AbstractThis paper analyzes the religious beliefs, religiosity, national identity, and attitudes toward Western culture, family, and gender relations of the publics of three Islamic countries. It is based on national representative surveys of 3000 Egyptians, 2532 Iranians, and 1222 Jordanians that were carried out in 2000-2001, as part of the World Values Surveys. We first discuss the views of the respondents concerning key indicators of religious beliefs, religiosity, identity, and attitudes toward Western culture. Then, we describe variations in such values as the ideal number of children, attitudes toward marriage and women, family ties, and trusts in major social institutions in these three countries. Next, we present age and educational differences in religious beliefs, trust in mosque, identity, trust in government, attitude toward women and gender relations. We conclude by pointing to the variation in the nature of the regime as an important determinant of the variations in the worldviews among the public in these three Islamic countries.