| Abstract: Although Hirschi and Stark's seminal study of the impact of religiosity on crime/deviance reported that religious beliefs had no impact on delinquency, the overwhelming majority of studies that have followed consistently find that religiosity has an inhibitory effect on certain forms criminal and deviant behavior-particularly alcohol use, drug use and other minor forms of delinquency. However these studies have been fairly limited in scope, focusing primarily on the Christian faith and denominational differences within the faith. There is reason to believe that the Islamic faith may have a greater protective effect against alcohol use than other faiths because of Islam's explicit forbiddance of alcohol use. A limited amount of research has focused on the Islamic faith and its possible inhibitory effect on alcohol use; unfortunately these studies have neglected to examine the Muslim population within the United States. In the present analysis, I explore this relationship using data from a study collected by the Harvard University School of Public Health in 1993. Using logistic regression methods, I find that Muslim respondents are less likely to drink alcohol than respondents with no religious affiliation and less likely to drink alcohol than members of other religious faiths (i.e., Catholic, Protestant, Jewish). Suggestions for future research arc made. |
Updated 05/20/2006