Religion and Tolerance of Minority Sects in the Arab World

• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719864404
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Author: Michael Hoffman
• Date: 01 February 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Religion and Tolerance

of Minority Sects

in the Arab World

Michael Hoffman

1

Abstract

Does religious behavior always promote hostility toward members of other faiths?

This article suggests that the relationship between personal religious behavior and

religious tolerance is not so simple. Even in the Arab World, frequently cited as a

center of religious piety and intolerance, different forms of religious behavior have

markedly different effects on attitudes toward minority sects. Using both observa-

tional and experimental data from across the Arab World as well as an original

nationally representative survey conducted in Lebanon in 2013 and 2014, I argue that

while communal religious practice does indeed tend to promote intolerant attitudes,

personal prayer has precisely the opposite effect. These findings indicate that the

traditional assumption that piety invariably leads to intolerance should be rethought.

Even in one of the most sectarian environments in the world, private religious

behavior can have a substantial pro-tolerance effect.

Keywords

conflict, conflict resolution, human rights, belief structure, conflict management

Religious tolerance is a persistently—and perhaps increasingly—important political

issue in much of the world. Recent events in the Arab World and elsewhere have led

many observers to wonder whether Islam promotes religious intolerance, particu-

larly in majority-Muslim areas. Both governments and extremist groups in many of

1

Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael Hoffman, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, 2083 Jenkins Nanovic Halls,

Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Email: mhoffma5@nd.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(2-3) 432-458

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0022002719864404

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these areas have targeted non-Muslims or members of minority Muslim sects, and

this type of targeting appears to have accelerated in some parts of the world. Public

responses to these incidents have frequently focused their attention on the role of

Islam. Indeed, the Trump Administration’s initial executive order regarding immi-

gration—widely perceived to be aimed at Muslims—explicitly directed the Depart-

ment of Homeland Security to “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the

basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a

minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality” (Executive Order

13769). Leaders of extremist groups frequently invoke Islamic concepts as a means

of justifying their behavior and almost universally rely on some form of religious

legitimacy to preserve their influence. Intolerance at the mass level influences

recruitment into extremist groups, political behavior, and regime policies. However,

it remains unclear whether or not there is any individual-level link between religi-

osity and religious intolerance among ordinary Muslims. Is Muslim religious beha-

vior, as is so often claimed, actually associated with religious intolerance?

This article addresses this issue in the context of the Arab World, an area where

Islam is often perceived to be a source of intolerance and even conflict. Using recent

data from the third wave of the Arab Barometer complemented by both observa-

tional and experimental data from an original nationally representative survey con-

ducted in Lebanon, I argue that the relationship between religiosity and attitudes

toward religious minority rights in the Arab World depends crucially on what type of

religiosity is considered. Communal religious practice, which often reinforces sec-

tarianism, frequently promotes intolerant attitudes. However, individual religious

behaviors such as private prayer can actually have a noticeable pro-tolerance influ-

ence on individual attitudes. These findings suggest that it is necessary to rethink the

conventional wisdom regarding religion and tolerance in the Arab World.

Religious Tolerance in the Arab World

The issue of religious tolerance re mains vastly important across th e globe. The

concept of religious tolerance is difficult to define. For the purposes of this article,

religious tolerance can be thought of as support for the rights of members of other

religions and opposition to discrimination along religious grounds. Despite rhetoric

to the contrary, religious persecution and violence are neither rare nor isolated to

particular pockets of the world (Grim and Finke 2010). The Arab World is the region

in which the stakes of religious tolerance are higher than anywhere else. Religious

minorities increasingly find their rights and security threatened; the recent experi-

ences of Christians, Shi‘a, and other religious minorities

1

in Iraq and Syria testify to

the severity of this issue. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2014) cites

“clear examples” of Christian, Shi‘a, and other minority groups being targeted—in

particular, in their places of worship—and states that “the longer the conflict goes

on, the more vulnerable minorities become.” Religious minorities, though not the

only threatened groups in the region, are severely endangered by regional conflicts.

Hoffman 433