Religious Identity and Social Structure: A Comparative Study of Muslims and Christians in Pakistan

Abstract

Religious attachments of humans are considered to be an integral part of societies around the world. Societies like Pakistan are striving hard to bring religious diversity and provision of equal rights and opportunities to all the religious communities residing in the social environment. Despite the continuous efforts of the governmental bodies, the situation seems to be comparatively competitive for some of the minority communities. According to universal human rights declarations, all human beings are equal. They are free to express their ideas. But, in many societies, there comes a concept of inferiority and superiority due to certain religious differences/difference in cultural traits. The present descriptive research is a comparative study between Muslims and Christians for the evaluation of social exclusion faced by Christians and its impact on their socio-economic conditions. This research work utilized the quantitative research design for getting the required data. An interview schedule was used and samples consisted of 200 total respondents,100 from the Muslim Community, and 100 from the Christian Community. The universe of the study was limited to district Jhelum in Punjab Province of Pakistan and respondents were selected accordingly. After data collection, the data was analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). It was observed that Christians were facing social exclusion as compared to Muslims generally which had significant impact on their Socio-Economic conditions in particular.

Presenters

Zaheer Abbas
PhD Scholar, Sociology, International Islamic University Islamabad

Muhammad Babar Akram

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Religious Community and Socialization

KEYWORDS

Religion, Culture, Society, Exclusion

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