According to a study released today by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), based on two surveys conducted in 2016 and 2020, an average of 85 percent of respondents said that religion is important in their lives but that they do not know their beliefs well. The vast majority of respondents also want to live in a secular and democratic country.
“Pluralism in Turkey Faces Radicalization: Religion and Radical Attitudes in a Muslim-Majority Country” is based on two comprehensive surveys conducted in 2016 and 2020.
According to the report, these two surveys, conducted through face-to-face interviews with representative samples of 6,989 and 7,280 people, respectively, examine factors such as religious identity, levels of religiosity and tolerance towards differences in beliefs and ethnic/religious origins.
The report states that the majority of Turkey’s population is Muslim and Sunni, with 84 percent in 2016 and 87 percent in 2020.
“In 2016, 59 percent of respondents said they did not know their faith, while this rate increased to 71 percent in 2020,” the report said, noting that the majority of those surveyed said they were “unaware of their faith or did not know it well.” However, it also notes that this difference may be due to the impact of the coup attempt organized by the Gülen movement in 2016.
They want to live in a secular and democratic country
According to the TEPAV study, the majority of respondents in both surveys prefer to live in a secular country, and this rate has been increasing over the time between the two surveys.
According to the survey results, while 75 percent of respondents in 2016 wanted to live in a secular country, this rate rose to 81 percent in 2020.
How important is religion in your life?
While the majority of respondents, 85 percent on average, think that religion is important in their lives, there are some differences by region.
In the 2016 survey, respondents living in eastern provinces were more likely than respondents living in western provinces to say that religion is important in their lives, whereas in the 2020 survey, a significant change was observed in some regions.
According to this change, there was an increase among respondents in the western Marmara region who reported that religion is very important in their lives. There was also an increase in the importance given to religion among respondents from Istanbul and the Western Black Sea region. In contrast, those in the Mediterranean, Central Anatolia and Western Anatolia reported a decline.
Meanwhile, the report also found that Kurdish respondents were more likely than Turkish respondents to consider religion “very important or important” in their lives.
The proportion of female respondents wearing headscarves varied from year to year, but was more than half in 2020. In the period between the two surveys, there was a decline in headscarf use among young people, working women and respondents with higher levels of education.
Religion becomes less important as education increases
According to the study, both surveys reveal that the perceived importance of religion decreases as the level of education increases.
Illiterate, primary school graduates and those who are literate without a diploma are more likely to report that religion is very important. There is a significant decrease in the importance attached to religion among middle school, high school and university graduates.
Another interesting finding of the report is the importance attached to religion by different age groups. According to the report, younger respondents, especially those aged 18-24, are less likely than older respondents to think that religion is very important. “This suggests that there is a generational difference in attitudes towards religion,” the report said, adding that different responses were also observed depending on whether the respondents had a job or not.
In the 2016 survey, students and working respondents were less likely to think religion was very important in their lives compared to housewives, retirees or those not working. In the 2020 survey, students were similarly less likely to attach less importance to religion, while housewives were the most likely to attach the most importance to religion.
Trust in the Turkish State Religious Authority (Diyanet) and cults is very low
Another interesting finding of the report concerns the source of religious information and the trust in the Directorate of Religious Affairs and religious orders.
Nearly two-thirds of the 2020 survey respondents said that they received their religious knowledge from their families.
Trust in the Diyanet in general remains at 6.47 percent, while trust in religious foundations or sects is at a lower level at 2 percent.
Trust in the information provided by the Diyanet varies. 58 percent of the 2020 survey respondents trust the information provided by the Diyanet on prayer times, Ramadan days or holidays. On the other hand, 30 percent of the respondents are undecided on this issue, while 11 percent do not trust it.
On the other hand, 46 percent of the respondents trust the Diyanet’s fatwas, while 35 percent partially trust them and 16 percent do not trust them.
DW