Muslim Life in Germany - Deutsche Islam Konferenz

Religiousness and religious practice 131
Table 17: Muslim interviewees aged 16 and over according to denomination
and region of origin (in per cent) 54
Southeast
Europe
Turkey
Central
Asia/CIS
Iran
South/
Southeast
Asia
Middle
East
North
Africa
other
parts of
Africa
Sunni 67,7 74,6 86,7 3,0 59,8 68,2 85,7 70,6
Shiite 3,1 2,3 0,0 95,5 10,7 28,3 2,3 5,9
Alevi 3,1 18,9 — 1,5 0,9 0,6 1,5 5,9
Ahmadi 0,6 0,3 6,7 — 26,8 — 0,0 0,0
Sufis/Mystics 0,0 0,2 — — — — 0,8 —
Ibadis — 0,3 — — — — — 0,0
Other 25,5 3,4 6,7 0,0 1,8 2,9 9,8 17,6
Total (N) 124 522 10 136 418 451 312 52
Source: MLG 2008, dataset of interviewees aged 16 and over, weighted.
Unweighted number of cases: 2,025
4.2 Religiousness
In a theoretical context, religion is to be understood as a
belief system involving specific symbols and forms of behaviour
which relates explicitly to at least one supernatural higher being
(Spiro 1966: 87ff.; Stark and Bainbridge 1985: 5ff.; ibid 1987:
39). On this level, religiousness is an individual characteristic,
which expresses the degree of conformity with the values and
standards prescribed by the religion concerned and consequent
actions (Kecskes and Wolf 1993: 272). The following chapter
examines Muslims’ religiousness while also considering the
members of other religions. A comparison between different
religious communities according to regions of origin is of interest
because strong religiousness is often considered a charac-
54 The figures relate exclusively to Muslim interviewees aged 16 or over. The definitive
values for structural findings on all Muslims with a migrant background
living in Germany are the figures contained in figure 12 on all household members,
as children and young people up to the age of 16 are also included here.