Muslim Life in Germany - Deutsche Islam Konferenz

Religiousness and religious practice 133
selves “not devout at all” (4 per cent). This same order of selfassessed
religiousness also applies to the individual countries
of origin (table 18). Iran forms an exception to the described
trends. At 55 per cent, people with a migrant background from
Iran state far more frequently than Muslims from other predominantly
Muslim countries that they are not particularly devout
or not devout at all. This may be attributable to the socio-demographic
and socio-economic composition of Iranian migrants
in Germany. Since 1979, migrants from Iran have included the
country’s political and economic elite, as their democratic
and secular views often resulted in their becoming victims of
political persecution in the wake of the Islamic revolution. The
migrant groups from Iran who opted to migrate to Germany
for other reasons, such as the war between Iraq and Iran (1980
-1988), are also comprised primarily of intellectuals and persons
opposed Iran’s religious regime. A lower level of religiousness
within this group of migrants is thus in keeping with expectations.
As a departure from the general breakdown of the
strengths of religiousness, the “other parts of Africa” region
represents the highest share of extremely devout Muslims, at
almost 47 per cent. The countries subsumed under the heading
“other parts of Africa” are all located south of the Sahara (figure
27).
In virtually all groups of origin, Muslim women tend to
consider themselves extremely devout more frequently than
Muslim men. In turn, the share of “quite devout” Muslims is
higher among men than women. The share of Muslims who
consider themselves “not devout at all” stands at around 4 per
cent for both sexes. Iranians form an exception here, with more