Muslim Life in Germany - Deutsche Islam Konferenz

Religiousness and religious practice 135
tremely devout persons and the high proportion of non-devout
persons is accountable to the high proportion of Iranians, rather
than to the denominations themselves. The lower level of religiousness
among the Alevis in comparison to Sunnis and other
Muslim denominations can be attributed to the fact that they
are considered to be highly secularised. Religion is of only secondary
importance in the lives of many Alevis (Sökefeld 2008b:
32; Sökefeld 2008c: 17). Most Muslims, irrespective of denomination,
classify themselves as belonging to the second-highest category
of religiousness and consider themselves “quite devout”.
Figure 26: Religiousness of interviewed Muslims according to denomination
(in per cent)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Sunni 2,1 7,5
Shiite
Alevi
Other
1,2
11,7
10,8
8,2
13,5
11,1
48,3
47,6
53,7
53,8
42,1
42,9
21,1
24,4
not devout at all not particularly devout quite devout extremely devout
Source: MLG 2008, dataset of interviewees aged 16 and over, weighted.
Unweighted number of cases: 2,417
If we now concentrate on the categories “quite devout”
and “extremely devout” and compare these for the group of
Muslims and the group of persons belonging to other religious
communities, a very mixed picture emerges. In some instances
Muslims consider themselves more devout than the respective