Cultural Muslims, like cultural Christians, are a silent majority

Bulliet’s research places the focus on some of the oddities — as gleaned from biographical data — that detail key periods and events across the newly urbanized localities on the outer rim of the empire. For instance, studies of prominent Muslim families living away from the capital in Baghdad demonstrate independent social developments on the periphery.

The view from the edge … sees eleventh-century Iranian urban society as totally dominated by the great ulama families. In selected instances, constellations of these local families … attempted … to secure for their cities autonomy from all but the most formal aspects of imperial control

Such historical enquiry reminds us all about the complexity of Muslim identity. Muslims themselves adhere in various ways to their own religious and cultural values. It is good to know that recent scholarly attention is putting the view from the edge back on the agenda.

What’s faith got to do with it?
Not all Muslims are religious. An increasingly recognized body of non-practicing Muslims living in the West are identified (or openly self-identify) as cultural. This is different to the many liberal Muslims, who like liberal Christians, would argue that they are simply re-interpreting the unchanging core of their religion, to suit the new environment.

The cultural Muslim appears to be the case of an unaccounted majority. They no doubt represent an important part of the dialogue between religion and secularity in the West. The qualifier “cultural,” used by Muslims themselves, seems to indicate awareness that the conscious choice of calling oneself a cultural Muslim dissociates from anti-Muslim sentiment (see Ruth Mas 2006: 586).

An Australian study in 2011 drew attention to the need to understand the “silent majority” as the unaccounted voice of cultural or non-practicing Muslims. The contention is in the classification of Muslim attitudes, arguing that majority Muslim opinion is ignored, and remains silent, in the debate between moderate and extremist Muslims.

The literature emerging in the past decade clearly demonstrates that not all Muslims are practicing. Indeed, a large number of unaccounted Muslims are nominal by choice.

The fact that Islam is an orthopraxy (rather than an orthodoxy) makes the sorts of survey instruments that have traditionally been used to measure Christian commitment of little value for measuring Muslim commitment. Two decades after Western governments began to worry about militant Islam, there is still no single comprehensive survey that would allow observers to estimate what proportion of those born to Muslim parents are themselves “practicing” or “believing”.

Uniformity and cohesion
The issue of the silent majority should be a chief point of concern for greater discussion. Even if it starts by understanding more about what the category of the cultural Muslim might actually entail.

Why are these Muslims choosing to self-designate as such? Are they pressured by the foreign political climate to do so (in order to fit in). Is it out of fear of being labelled as “other”? Or is it a willful choice that is emblematic of their having the right to choose in a liberal democratic and predominantly secular society?

Is it based on class awareness (not being limited to just the West)? Or perhaps even intellectual trends?

While these questions need to be tested empirically, the working hypothesis is that secularization has created the conditions for the prevalence of cultural and secular Muslims, in particular in Western liberal democratic societies. The issue will almost certainly have far-reaching implications for understanding Muslim and non-Muslim relations at the global level.

Looking to the horizon, the observed interplay between categories as markers of identity may begin to shed light on the everyday experience of Muslims who stand apart from radicalized members of their community.

Not forgetting the politics of religion and identity construction, let’s not forget that cultural Muslims constitute the vast (and indeed silent) majority of those who are consciously identifying primarily with their cultural heritage and only secondarily with their religion. The fact that non-practicing Muslims are acutely aware of stigmatization provides important clues about Muslim subjectivity and its association with concerns about social cohesion and national security.

Milad Milani is Lecturer, History and Political Thought at University of Western Sydney. This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).