Faith and Friendship: Religious Bonding and Interfaith Relations in Muslim Countries

Abstract

Studies have documented more negative attitudes and a higher level of social hostilities toward religious minorities in Muslim than in non-Muslim countries. I seek to explain what contributes to these poor interfaith relations. Diverging from the mainstream approaches that focus on cultural, institutional, or psychological explanations, I argue that the poorer interfaith relations in Muslim countries are driven by high levels of religious bonding or religiously homogeneous friendships among Muslims in these countries. Analyzing a global survey of more than 17,000 Muslims and a report documenting how religious groups in a country restrict or discriminate against each other, I show that religious bonding is related to more negative attitudes toward religious minorities, that a country's level of religious bonding is positively related to its level of social hostilities, and that religious bonding is indeed higher among Muslims in Muslim countries than among Catholics in Catholic-majority Latin American countries.