The Phenomenon of Religious Modernism: Tehran University Students’ Lived Experience

Authors

1 PhD. Student of sociology of tendency to study social problems of Iran. Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch

2 Assistant professor of sociology, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch

Abstract

This study focuses primarily on the lived experiences of religious modernism and religiosity among university students. The research results presented and discussed in this paper is based on semi-structured interviews with 26 students of Tehran University. It employs the narration analysis method. The results of this study have indicated the emergence of change in the university students’ religious life. On the basis of the university students’ narrations, their religious life has been affected personal and environmental changes, leading to the reconsideration in their religiosity.  In order to address this change, the interviews were divided into three varying phases: sustainable religious life, crisis in religious life, and religious modernism. As a result, three fundamental themes were derived from each phase, which includes religiosity as a priori, the crisis of religious identity, and religiosity as a posteriori. In conclusion, not only the university students’ overall narration tends to be a posteriori understanding of religiosity but also their religious modernism is neither a fully conscious action nor a fully structured phenomenon.
 

Keywords

Sociology of Social Institutions
Volume 7, Issue 15
September 2020
Pages 149-175

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