Moral or Religious requirements? Which of Them Imposes More Shame on 13 to 15-year-old Iranian Muslim Girls? (Joining virtually)

We are supposed to obey various requirements in our life such as requirements which are set by governments, companies, schools, universities, families, and hundreds of other legislator institutions.

Psychological theories of obsessions and compulsions have long recognized that strict religious codes and moral standards might influence the content and intensity of obsessional symptoms (e.g., Fitz, 1990; Rachman & Hodgson, 1980). In spite of some contradictory findings (e.g., Rapheal, Rani, Bale, & Drummond, 1996; Steketee, Quay, & White, 1991; Tek & Ulug, 2001), most empirical studies have found a positive association between religiosity and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms (e.g., Abramowitz, Deacon, Woods, & Tolin, 2004; Sica, Novara, & Sanavio, 2002; Yorulmaz, Gencoz, & Woody, 2009). However, the causal process responsible for this elevated obsessionality in highly religious individuals is largely unknown, nor is it known whether this relationship is evident in other religious faiths such as Islam. (Inozu, Karanci & Clark: 2012)

Feeling ashamed is another problem caused by religious strictness. As self-conscious emotions, shame is at the heart of pathology and developmental psychology. (Kashanaki & Keshmiri: 2019). Shame in this paper is a feeling that makes you feel as if you are a bad person.

Since a large number of scholars have previously analyzed the relationship between mental health and religion by using psychological methodology in all over the world, in this paper I do not repeat this examination because my goal is not to analyze the harm caused and I only I want to know whether children learn these requirements at school or from their families? And I also want to know if there is a trace of compulsion to perform Islamic requirements in the Qur'an or not? For this purpose, by focusing on the verses of the Qur'an, I investigate the attitude of the Qur'an in the implementation of Islamic requirements by the people. Does the Qur'an leave the people of the society free to comply with Islamic requirements or does it force them to obey through threats?

Mona Norouzi lives in Tehran, Iran. She has a background in Accounting and Auditing but her passion has always been Sufism and literature. She has earned her M.A in Persian Language and Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University, Iran. She writes papers on Islamic studies with literary analysis and has presented them in international conferences in Oxford and Cambridge universities, along with publishing them in Iranian journals. Moreover, she has been awarded a scholarship from Dr. Ida Glaser, an academic director at the Centre for Muslim-Christian studies in Oxford, England, and Houston, USA, for participating in three on-line courses in a row on Qur`an and Bible as well as contemporary issues in Muslim-Christian dialogue.