Religious Knowledge Index

1. Religious Knowledge Index
The religious knowledge of respondent is measured by the knowledge of the versus of holy Qur’an, Hadith of Holy Prophet (SA), traditions of Imam of AhleBayt (AS) and Imam of Fiqh (RA). These are taken in absolute numbers. The following questions in this regard were asked:
Vi = No. of Versus known by ith respondent
Hi = No. of Hadith known by ith respondent
TAi = No. of Traditions of Imam of AhleBait known by ith respondent
TFi = No. of Traditions of Imam of Fiqh known by ith respondent

RS-Knowledge = (Vi/500)+(Hi/200)+(TAi/100)+(TFi/150)

The denominators’ values are taken as the maximum value responded by the ith individual respondent excluding the outliers for the particular question.
A truly religious scholar as well as follower is expected to have knowledge of Qur’an, Hadith, traditions of Imams narrated in literature of his own sect as well as those narrated by other sects. Only this type of attitude can make him more tolerant and accommodative to all others. If we could assign true weights to each of the answer above, then a high value of this index, would mean a more balanced scholar or follower. This task is left for any future researcher.

Religious Friends Index
The religious friends index is constructed on the basis of number of social and religious friends s/he has.

RFi = No. of Religious friends of ith respondent
SFi = No. of social friends of ith respondent

RS-Friends = (RFi/200)+(SFi/1000)
The denominators’ values are taken as the maximum value responded by the ith individual respondent excluding the outliers for the particular question.

Religious Family Members Index
The religious family index is made on the basis of adult family members’ affiliation with religion. Three categories were made i.e. highly religious, moderate religious and liberal family members. The percentages of every category were taken and then multiplied with subjective weights to each category. Highly religious member were assigned a numeric weight of 2, moderate religious 1 and 0 to liberal.

HRi = No. of Highly Religious adult members of ith respondent
MRi = No. of Moderate Religious adult members of ith respondent
Li = No. of Liberal adults members of ith respondent
RS-Family = {HRi/[HRi+MRi+Li]}*2 + {MRi/[HRi+MRi+Li]}*1 + {Li/[HRi+MRi+Li]}*0

Religious Devotion Index
The religious devotion index is constructed to measure devotion towards Islamic practices, apart from his minimum compulsory obligations. The respondents were asked the questions that how often they offer daily pray in congregation, how often they offer midnight pray (Tahjjud) and how many times they recite Darrod on Holy Prophet in day.

CPi = Congregation pray (Coded as ‘never’ to ‘almost daily’ in five scales)
MPi = Midnight pray (Coded as ‘daily’ to never in five scales)
Di = No. of times Darood recitation on Holy Prophet (PBUH).

RS-Devotion =CPi+(1/MPi)+(Di/1500)

Religious Spiritual Capital Index
To judge the spiritual dimension of religiosity of an individual different question were asked like after disaster, whether he felt himself in continual conversation with God, whether he had any feeling/dream/sign of disaster before the earthquake, whether he feels himself as blessed one despite disaster and losses and whether disaster made him more religiously person. These questions were coded from ‘negligible’ to ‘too much’ in five scales. The relative ranking of each question were added up for the index

RS- Religious Capital = (Ai/5)+(Bi/5)+(Ci/5)+(Di/5)
Where A, B, C, D are the coded responses of above questions.

Religious Extrinsic Index
To measure the true religiosity of person, few question were asked from the respondents. Sometimes the common presumption of a religious person is contradictory to religious teaching, though it is near to impossible to measure the extrinsic religiosity of a person, but the efforts are made just for crude measurement.

The questions were asked that “Although I am a religious person but I do not let religious considerations influence my everyday affairs” and “Prayer is beneficial; it reduces pains and gives relief and protection”. These questions are coded in categories from strongly disagree to strongly agree and researchers perception that these questions have ranked from true to lesser religiosity. The other question is “Listening sectarian sermons is wastage of time” have same codes but here lesser reflects more religiosity ranking. Similarly, a question was asked “I don’t believe in these Molavies (religious scholars), rather I have much stronger personal experiences” it is ranked from true to lesser religiosity. Finally, a question have lesser to true religiosity was “After earthquake, it was difficult to get time for prayers due to other engagements/sorrows/ sufferings”.
The above question are represented by A, B, C, D and E for ith respondent.
RS-Extrinsic Religiosity= (Ai/5)+(Bi/5)+(1/Ci)+(Di/5)+(1/Ei)

Religious Promotional Index
One of the religious dimension is that how a person promotes its religious beliefs to other. To observe this the question were asked that how an individual feels comfortable in expressing his/her religious belies to strangers, how frequently s/he talks about death, grave, day of judgement and hell and heaven. Lastly in hopeless situation whether s/he finds a deeper purpose in it or not. These questions are also categorized in five scales.

RS-Promotional Religiosity = (Ai/5)+(Bi/5)+(Ci/5)

Religious Futuristic Index
Religions are dynamic; they have the account for history, current and future events of the world. Islam also develops futuristic religiosity; human development, by putting forwards events, personalities, situations and perceptions. So in order to capture the dynamic religiosity of individuals, futuristic religiosity is measured. The questions were asked that how a person expects that God’s most beloved person(s) will rule on earth and how a person feels that good people of all religions and sects will become under one umbrella one day. The coding was used to measure it, is ranging from very soon to never and don’t know. The reverse weights have given these scales.

RS-Futuristic Religiosity = (1/Ai)+(1/Bi)

Household Religious Knowledge Index
The religious household knowledge is measured from the respondent’s own and his father’s religious education. The religious knowledge has the categories of reading Holy Quran (Naazerah), Formal Madrassa education and any other higher levels of religious educations. The weights assign to each category are from lesser to higher respectively in the above categories. The categories are independent to one another, if a respondents gives multiple responses then all categories were taken, rather then taking only the highest level, that means every category has its own standing in Islamic knowledge.

ONi = Own reading/naazerah of ith respondent
OFi = Own formal Madrassa education of ith respondent
OOi = Own other higher levels of ith respondent
FNi = Father’s own Reading/naazerah of ith respondent
FFi = Father’s formal Madrassa education of ith respondent
FOi = Father’s other higher levels of ith respondent

RHC-HH = (ONi*1)+(OFi*2)+(OOi*3)+(FNi*1)+(FFi*2)+(FOi*3)

Religious Prayer Index
The prayer index identifies the number of obligatory prayers per day performed by the respondents. The respondents were asked about the prayers performed for each specific prayer time within one day. The index gives a simple count of the number of prayers performed by the individual per day.
The following are the prayer time and coded as binary.
Mi = Morning pray for ith respondent
Ni = Noon pray for ith respondent
ANi = Afternoon pray for ith respondent
Si = Sunset pray for ith respondent
NTi = Night pray for ith respondent

RS-Prayer = (Mi + Ni + ANi + Si + NTi)

Mahdvi Index in Diaster Perspective
Human behavior is affected by the religious or other predictions. This was observed especially in a society that has an experiences of a disaster like earthquake 2005 in Pakistan. To measure this the respondents were asked that how frequently do they discuss with family/friends on the predictions about earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, windstorms, violence, wars and other big disasters before the return of Jesus/re-appearance of Imam Mahdi as mentioned in authentic religious books The responses are coded from almost daily to never in five scales and a sixth scale i.e. “believe in science not prediction”
Reverse ordering is made for true prediction religiosity and A is the question codes.

RS-Prediction = (1/Ai)

Religious Accountability Index
Accountability in religious refers to the rewards and punishments life after death. The question was asked that how frequently do you discuss with family/friends about the reward and punishments associated with good and bad deeds. The same codes are assigned as the previous question and B is the question code.

RS-Accountability = (1/Bi)

Religious Riba Index
Riba (interest) is prohibited in Islam, the question were asked whether the respondent avails any interest bearing investment or for money for households affairs. The binary codes are scaled from zero to hundred index.

Religious Cumulative Index
All the above different indices are added up and then made in the 100 index.

Concluding Remarks
Regardless of race, religion and country, it appears important to develop more understanding of where the world is leading.

For this purpose, issues relating to research, particularly empirical research need to be explored

This requires development of religiosity scales in general and about Mahdviat in particular in order to estimate different interrelationships of importance.

It is suggested that Institutes working on the topic of Mahdism should promote and facilitate empirical research that has more appeal for the West, through offering PhD Scholarships and post-doctoral studies.


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