What 1.3 Billion Muslims Really Think

This book is based on the quantitative, multivariate analysis of the World Values Survey data from more than 80 countries around the globe on the political and social values of the world's Muslim communities by international comparison. Global Muslims and also the Muslim communities in Western democracies are value-conservative, family-oriented, but supportive of democracy. This study takes up the idea of "Asabiyya" ("social cohesion"), inherent in classic Arab historiography, first described by Ibn Chaldun (1332 to 1406) in his important work "Muqaddimah". Is "modernisation" without "spiritual values" possible in the long run? As a way out from the modernisation trap of societies, characterised by large-scale social anomaly, the "active society" of volunteer organisation work is the best societal medicine against this kind of value decay, which is so common in countries like France, Brazil, or most of East Central Europe and the former USSR. An active form of religious or non-religious humanism, which provides a noble motivation for such activities as volunteer social services, is a very necessary precondition for social cohesion in the 21st Century.