Social Context and One’s Religious Experience

By the time I arrived in the US in August 2021, Joe Biden had been sworn in as president seven months earlier. A Trump re-election probably would have increased even more suspicion and misperceptions regarding Muslims. I felt safe being a Muslim in the US, and still do. I never really worried about being on the receiving end of religious discrimination. I have not experienced it thus far. However, feeling safe and feeling at home, or religiously inspired, are two different feelings. The transition for me was also quite drastic. I had grown up in Singapore most of my life. I was not just moving to a new country. I was moving to a new Islamic landscape, one I was not familiar with. Would there be a Ba’alwie Mosque equivalent in the US?

Our social environment plays a significant role in our religious experience. While it is true that religiosity is an individual journey, the social environment is a key part of this journey. If one is born into a family that prays five times a day, the child might pick up on these practices. Or they may be religious up to a certain age and cease practising. Alternatively, a child may be born into a family not cognisant of Islamic practices but end up cultivating their own relationship with God as they get older. The same goes for friendships. The friends that you associate with more can have an impact on your own religious trajectory. Faith of course wavers, wherever we live. I think most, if not all, Muslims can attest to this reality. Hence, it is not easy to draw a linear relationship between the religiosity of one’s immediate environment and the religiosity of the individual. What I am talking about is nothing new. Many studies have looked at the effect of one’s social environment on their religious experience. The family is indeed the core of religious socialisation for many youths¹. Adolescents are more likely to be religious in religious families than in families where religious beliefs hold little significance. Along the same vein, other studies suggest that the religious practices of parents are a reliable indicator of the religious life of their children. My article is more personal and talks about the broader society, not just the family. My experience may or may not resonate with other readers.

Living in North Carolina, admittedly not representative of the US, I can feel the difference in religious experience when compared to my years in Singapore. Where I am (Chapel Hill, North Carolina), there is just one mosque. Without a car, going there requires a bit of effort. Granted, the simple, but costly solution would be to get a car, but that is beside the point. Not everyone has a car, whether due to financial constraints or personal choice. Not having a car has a psychological effect. Places that you want to go to feel a lot further away. However, this is not the case in Singapore. You do not need a car.

Mosques are reasonably physically accessible by public transport, unlike in Chapel Hill, where buses operate less frequently. Mosques in Singapore are usually open during the day too. In Charlottesville, Virginia, I decided to perform Zuhr prayer at an Islamic centre on a weekday afternoon, but it was closed. Alternative centres or mosques were far away. Apart from being homesick, being in the US made me realise that I took the geographical distribution of mosques in Singapore for granted.

Mosques are a physical symbol of a Muslim community. People also define that community. Where I am, it is not easy to find Muslims who are around my age – 31. The Muslim Student Association tends to comprise undergraduates, some as young as twenty. They are genuinely nice people who care about their faith. However, religion is not just about the theological, but the relationships you build with people in this world. It is the interactions with people around you that determine how you feel in a community. It is not easy to build relationships with people so much younger than you. Common interests are hard to find. There are of course graduate students who are Muslim, but graduate school is a solitary and lonely enterprise. Graduate Muslim students are then hard to find. Lacking relationships with other Muslims for whatever reason also means lacking a sense of belonging. Lacking a sense of belonging does not automatically compromise one’s religiosity, but it does make it difficult to feel like you are part of a Muslim community.

A community is also defined by shared cultural references, such as sports. The sports culture in the US primarily consists of American football, basketball, and baseball, sports that I am simply apathetic to. I watched a live basketball game between the University of North Carolina (UNC) and the University of Kansas for the college championship. That was in April 2022. That was my first and probably last time watching a live basketball game. Sports alone seems like a trivial topic for this article, but they are part and parcel of American popular culture, whether you are a Muslim or not. Growing up in Singapore, the English Premier League was the talk of the town, whether in mosques or Malay classes in secondary school. Manchester United was usually the star of the conversation then. In Southeast Asia, ASEAN football competitions reflect football’s prestige and are popular in the Muslim-majority countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. It is fun to talk about soccer with Muslims in Singapore but not so much at UNC, albeit with a few exceptions. It is not that sports chit-chat is supposed to enhance your religiosity, but having less things to talk about with fellow Muslims makes it more difficult to feel like you are in a community.

There is also the added element of being an international student from a region far away. Although this relates to a lack of shared cultural references that I mentioned earlier, it also does not help that Malaysia and Singapore are countries that are mentally far away for most Americans I have interacted with. It is difficult to feel like you are in a community when you know the place you come from is almost an afterthought for those around you. I am certain this article would read differently if I could interact with more Muslim international students on campus. In Singapore, I feel more heard and seen within the Muslim community. Maybe there will be jokes from others about Malaysia which I indulge in too, but those jokes only emphasise my visibility which I appreciate.

As Muslims, we may seek to establish a closer relationship with God, whatever it may be now. It is our individual responsibility, but some social environments are simply more supportive of this relationship. I have talked about the US and Singapore. Imagine living in a society that is hostile towards the religion, or even indifferent. I imagine it will be harder to build that relationship, though not impossible. In fact, experiencing persecution could prove to be an impetus to get closer to God. In other cases, a government may be too strict with their interpretation of Islam to the point that it becomes disenchanting. In Iran, a growing number of Iranians seem to be leaving Shia Islam, “or experimenting with alternatives to Shiism”² such as Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Bahaism. Ultimately, Islam is about your relationship with God and your fate in the afterlife. However, the journey between now and the afterlife is where the social environment comes into play. It influences what kind of religious community we are in, and how much we feel at home in this community. ⬛

¹ Sârbu, E. A., Lazăr, F., and Popovici, A. F. Individual, Familial and Social Environment Factors Associated with Religiosity Among Urban High School Students. Review Religious Research, 63, 2021. pp. 489–509

² The Economist. Disenchanted Iranians are turning to other faiths. 2021, January 21. Available at: https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/01/21/disenchanted-iranians-are-turning-to-other-faiths

Syed Imad Alatas is currently pursuing his PhD in Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His main research interests are in gender and religion, topics on which he has written for Singaporean and Malaysian publications.