Severity and Reasons Behind Religious Intolerance in Pakistan: Perceptions of Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadis, and Christians

Taalia Khan, Karin Österman and Kaj Björkqvist
Additional contact information
Taalia Khan: Åbo Akademi University, Vasa, Finland

Humanities Today: Proceedings Articles, 2023, vol. 2

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate a perceived severity of religious intolerance, and reasons behind it, among different religious groups in Pakistan. A questionnaire measuring religious intolerance was completed by 199 university students (females M = 23.8 yrs, SD 5.3, and males M = 24.6 yrs, SD 5.6) from four religious groups: Sunni, Shia, Ahmadi, and Christian. Questions regarding the severity of intolerance were included as well as the following seven scales measuring possible causes for it: impact of the school curriculum, lack of knowledge about other groups, impact of hate literature, lack of social justice, family background and peer pressure, media impact, as well as external power influence and history. Respondents of all groups agreed upon the severe level of religious intolerance towards Ahmadis. Regarding the other religious groups, opinions differed. Sunni respondents rated the seven causes for religious intolerance as lower than the others. Sunni and Shia respondents rated the impact of the school curriculum as the significantly most important reason behind religious intolerance, whereas the Ahmadis and Christians rated hate literature as the most important reason. The results suggest that there is a need for further research into social factors that could reduce religious intolerance in Pakistan. Views of different religious groups need to be taken in consideration.

Keywords: religious intolerance; religious groups; hate literature; school curriculum; Pakistan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://brucol.be/index.php/htpr/article/view/8220 (text/html)
https://brucol.be/files/articles/htpr_v2_i1_23/Khan.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eur:htprjr:28

DOI: 10.26417/ejser.v10i2.p193-202

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Humanities Today: Proceedings Articles from Revistia Research and Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Revistia Research and Publishing ().