The Role of Religion in Social Cohesion within the Contemporary Muslim Society in Malaysia: Revisited

Abstract

This study reports the findings of a research involving 400 respondents from all over the country to investigate the effect of industrialisation, modernisation and urbanisation to social cohesion of the Muslim society in Malaysia. The respondents were drawn from all segments of the society, male and female from the age of 16 to 60 years old. Every respondent was given a booklet of questionnaire with statements to be responded. Each statement was provided with five choices of responses ranging from 1. Strongly agree, 2. Agree, 3. Not sure, 4. Disagree, and 5. Strongly disagree. The questions were related to social issues including the issues of social cohesion such as the relations with the neighbours. The relationship with neighbour is an indicator of the social cohesion. The respondent was given 30 minutes to respond to the questionnaire, and the booklets were collected to be analysed using the SPSS. The findings show that social cohesion within the contemporary society changes with urbanisation since the finding show that social cohesion stronger in villages where modernisation and urbanisation effect is not strong compared to those who live in towns and big cities. The finding has also shown that there was a significant difference between the rural social cohesion and the urban social cohesion.