Introduction

Putting religiosity and spirituality under the scrutiny of scientific study is increasingly gaining interest among researchers. For instance, Williams and Sternthal (2007) enumerated 1,200 publications examining aspects of religiosity with relation to indicators of health. Meanwhile, 3,040 studies exploring the link between spirituality and health quality of life (QOL) were identified by Sawatzky et al. (2005). Moreover, the attitude of positive psychologists, who considered religiosity as a ‘human strength’ in their theoretical constructions, contributed in further invigorating research in this area for the last 25 years (Lewis and Cruise 2006).

However, many issues remain unresolved with relation to the contribution, or else, of religiosity on the way to enhance human wellness and flourishing. As early as 1962, Glock warns that “Religion is not the same to all men—neither in the modern complex societies nor in even to the most homogeneous of primitive ones. Even within a single religious tradition, many variations can be found. This simple fact scarcely needs documentation” (p. 98). This implies that conceptual clarifications are required for the advancement of this inquiry.

One of the persisting questions has been to establish the limits between the concepts of ‘religiosity’ and ‘spirituality’. In this respect, though no one can exclude the fact that some levels of spirituality form the basics of all organised religious traditions, a variety of personalised spiritual quests could be found outside the boundaries of these latter. So, the need to dichotomise spirituality and religiosity in this study seems redundant.

Methodological issues, such as how best to measure religiosity, are also omnipresent in this search, and have created difficulties in integrating research (Lewis and Cruise 2006; Abdel-Khalek 2006). It is also notable that ‘actual’ religious commitment is sometimes confounded with self-reported satisfaction with religiosity, whereas discrepancies between the two facets of religiosity cannot be ruled out. This is fundamental if one considers that some religious traditions, such as Judaism give more importance to practice in being religious (Cohen et al. 2003). Islam also shares this preference.

Accordingly, we draw upon this distinction in the present study for which a specifically designed scale of Islamic religiosity (the Comprehensive Measure of Islamic Religiosity, CMIR) has been used in order to explore the relationships between religiosity, Presence of Meaning in Life (PML) and subjective wellbeing (SWB).

This paper enfolds as follows: In the first part some of the related literature is reviewed, and then the procedure and the used measures are described. Afterwards, we summarise and discuss the results, as well as the limitations of this research.

Subjective Wellbeing (SWB)

Subjective, Psychological or Personal Wellbeing, Happiness, and Life Satisfaction have extensively been studied in recent years. This effort has been motivated not only by the intrinsic value of these psychological states, but because some of their variants could be developed as policy outcome measures in both developed and developing nations (e.g., Diener and Seligman 2004; Diener 2006).

Nevertheless, conceptual and methodological disputes are also difficult to overcome here. Ryan and Deci (2001) ended up by distinguishing between Hedonic and Eudaimonic dimensions of human wellness. While the first covers all aspects of momentary pleasures, the second refers to human flourishing and the fulfillment of one’s potential in general. Means to attend these latter have not been fully agreed upon. However, hedonic measures may include happiness, which is construed as a basically affective construct and life satisfaction which is dominated by cognition. Both could be included under the heading of subjective wellbeing (SWB) (e.g., Samman 2007). Meanwhile, the eudaimonic dimension reflects psychological wellbeing and comprises multifaceted measures of ‘flourishing’, such as the presence and search for meaning in life (Samman 2007).

Religiosity/Spirituality and Wellbeing

Religiosity has been studied as another correlate of good life (reviews: Peterson and Webb 2006; Williams and Sternthal 2007; Sawatzky et al. 2005), and even a component of SWB from this latter standpoint. For instance, Dierendonck (2005) extended Ryff’s Psychological Wellbeing scales to include a spiritual wellbeing subscale. Wills (2009) and Tiliouine (2009b) provided evidence for the addition of a satisfaction with religiosity/spirituality domain to PWI, as suggested by the International Wellbeing Group (IWG 2006).

Moreover, many researchers have reported that religious people are healthier and even live longer (e.g., Levin and Schiller 1987; McIntosh and Spilka 1990; reviews: Ellison and Levin 1998; Williams and Sternthal 2007), experience higher levels of happiness and satisfaction with life (e.g., Poloma and Pendleton 1990), enjoy higher SWB (Tiliouine et al. 2009), have lower suicide rates (e.g., Helliwell and Putnam 2005), and higher resistance against life setbacks (e.g., Ellison and Levin 1998).

Religiosity/Spirituality and Meaning in Life

Nonetheless, the important question that has not been fully addressed is what is in religion or religious activity that leads to these positive results? Meaning in life is suspected to be cultivated by religion. A link has already been established between the two (Dufton and Perlman 1986; Morgan and Fastides 2009a, b). Morgan and Fastides (2009a, b) stress that religion may foster meaning through many mediators, by focusing individuals’ attentions on meaning-inducing activities such as positive relationships, personal growth, and service to others, or by providing a framework of beliefs with which to make sense of one’s life. The results of these latter researchers generally confirm that altruism, personal growth and spirituality are the most consistent predictors of meaning in life.

Meaning in life is also described as an important component of eudaimonic happiness and SWB (Morgan and Fastides 2009b; Samman 2007). Its deficiency in life leads to noogenic neurosis according to Frankl, which is characterized among other things by apathy and boredom (cited in Morgan and Fastides 2009b). Furthermore, it has been suggested that meaning consistently predicts psychological wellbeing among college students in the United States (Zika and Chamberlain 1992), and has a positive relationship with satisfaction in life (Sheck 1993 cited in Samman 2007). But, more research is needed in this area before any clear-cut conclusions can be drawn.

It is worth of noting that research with Muslims in these particular fields of study is scarce, and the little available is inconclusive. Modest correlations between religiosity on the one hand and happiness on the other hand and SWL are registered (Suhail and Chaudhry 2004; Abdel-Khalek 2006; Abdel-Khalek and Naceur 2007). Variations between men and women have also been found (Abdel-Khalek 2006; Abdel-Khalek and Naceur 2007; Tiliouine et al. 2009). In these studies, religiosity is reported to predict SWB at a marginal level of significance (Suhail and Chaudhry 2004; Abdel-Khalek 2006; Abdel-Khalek and Naceur 2007). Tiliouine et al. (2009) have generally found good links between Islamic Religiosity and PWI, but weak association between satisfaction with life (SWL) and religiosity in two groups of self-identified healthy and unhealthy subjects. This has been explained by the possible interactions between underdevelopment of the researched country and religiosity.

However, measuring religiosity remains a complex task. The existing measures related to Islamic religiosity, such as “Muslim Attitudes towards Religion Scale” (MARS) of Wilde and Joseph (1997) put more emphasis on attitudes and the experiential dimension not the actual beliefs and practices of Muslims. So, a comprehensive measure which is able to systematically cover the key indicators of Islam seems lacking. The approach developed in Tiliouine et al. (2009), in which they referred to traditional religious textbooks and used wide consultancy of experts in Islamic studies to select these key indicators has been adopted and expanded here as will be described later.

This religiosity scale has been used along with Steger et al. short scale of the presence of meaning in life (Samman 2007) (PIL), the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) (IWG 2006) and Diener et al. (1985) Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) in one set of questionnaires. However, the importance of such an approach stems of the need to scientifically understand populations who are yet unknown. The main aim is to try to establish the link between the level of religious commitment and feelings of wellbeing, and verify to what extent all this is related to the notion of meaning in life. Such a knowledge base can be valuable even for practitioners, such as those of mental health and family therapies (Hall and Levingston 2006).

In the present research, we explore the relationship between the three constructs of religiosity, meaning in life and SWB in a Muslim sample.

The aim of this study is to explore the following four research questions:

  • What is the nature of Islamic Religiosity?

  • Is Islamic Religiosity related to meaning in life for individuals?

  • Is Islamic Religiosity related to subjective well-being?

  • What are the demographic variables which may have a relationship with Islamic Religiosity? (such as gender, residence location and household income)

Method

Notably, the present research took place at the University of Oran. Oran is a Mediterranean coastal city on the West the country of Algeria. This latter country is a North African state, mostly Arab and Muslim, with a population of about 33 million. It was colonized by France from 1830 to 1962. Afterwards, it was ruled by a single party system. Since 1989, it has opted for a pluralist democratic system, but the nullifying of the first round of parliamentary elections ended up in a violent opposition between the Army and the Islamist groups, leaving a death toll of up to 2000. However, the security crisis has sensibly improved since 2003 (Mortimer 2006). This research has thus been conducted in normalised conditions. Oran remains one of the safest cities in the country.

Participants

Five hundred and ten full-time Algerian Muslim students filled out the research questionnaires with no remuneration. Twelve of the questionnaires were discarded as they lacked basic information. Three other ones were identified as outliers, and hence excluded as suggested in PWI manual (IWG 2006), leaving a final sample of 495 participants (Mean age 21.26, SD 2.30). 98.6% of them are single. Females (330 subjects, 66.7%) outnumbered males (165 subjects, 33.3%). This is in accordance with the general trend in University recruits being dominated by females in this country. Among the sample, 224 (45.3%) enrolled in the Faculty of Sciences (mainly studying Biology and Earth Sciences), while 271 (54.7%) belonged to Arts fields (mainly, Arabic Literature and Psychology).

Participants were asked to rate their permanent residence locations on a 5-point scale: Rural areas (6.7%), small village (14.9%), small city (19.4%), Medium-size city (28.1%), and big city (30.9%), Table 1. They were also asked to rate their families’ financial income: Very low (5.3%), low (8.3%), average (69.5%), high (16%), and very high (1%). In the final analysis, both of the latter items were pulled out together creating only three categories: Low, Average and High (Table 1). We asked about Family average income, rather than personal income, because public education in Algeria is free at all levels, but students receive a very small scholarship. They usually rely on their families assistance in covering other expenses.

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the sample
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Procedure and Measures

Questionnaires were distributed in a classroom setting after previous appointments with the students and their teachers. The front page contained the objectives of the study and stressed the anonymous character of the answers. Instructions on how to answer the questions were also included on this page. The fifth and last page contained demographic information.

The measures are as follows:

  1. a.

    The Comprehensive Measure of Islamic Religiosity (CMIR)

Our attempt to construct an improved measure of Islamic Religiosity stems out of the need for a measure which encompasses the fundamental Islamic prescriptions and code of conduct. This cannot be developed without referring to basic religious texts, mainly the Koran and Hadith (The prophets’ sayings and doings). Tiliouine et al. (2009) made a first attempt by using a short measure of 16 items, of which only 11 items were usable. Two factors were identified: Religious Practice and Religious Altruism, with a small percentage of variance of, respectively 24.58% and 9.27% of the variance.

The present scale (CMIR) has been intended to be more comprehensive, well-referenced in terms of its contents, and unbiased in terms of gender. So, contacts were undertaken with many scholars who teach Islamic studies in local universities in order to identify the specific religious prescriptions. These prescriptions were included in a list of 70 items, covering: Obligations or duties (such as prayers on time, advise others to good and avoid sin), and prohibitions or interdictions (avoid alcoholic drinks, avoid gambling).

Pilot testing resulted in the adoption of 60 items with clear wording and no repetition.

In the final step, another group of experts (University teachers) were asked to create subscales on the basis of a content analysis. This procedure aims to ensure that item grouping is done on the basis of the meaning/understanding conveyed by each item.

Accordingly, the 60 retained items were divided into four religious domains, to which we refer henceforth as subscales, as described below.

Religious Belief

17 items dealing with faith matters, such as: believing in God, Judgment Day, Hell, Paradise, and Sacred Books. Item-subscale total correlations were positive and significant, ranging from: .34 to .67. Inter-items correlations were also mostly positive and significant. Cronbach’s alpha reached .79.

Religious Practice

20 items dealing with practical matters such as: Islamic prayers, fasting, avoid alcoholic drinks, respect restrictions on clothing, and hair style. Item and subscale-total correlations were positive and significant, ranging from: .30 to .63. Inter-items correlations were also mostly positive and significant. Cronbach’s alpha reached: .78.

Religious Altruism

12 items dealing with relational aspects, such as to be good to parents, relatives, neighbours, and advising others. Item and subscale-total correlations were positive and significant, ranging from: .36 to .59. Inter-items correlations were also mostly positive and significant. Cronbach’s alpha reached: .71.

Religious Enrichment

11 items dealing with activities that broaden religious knowledge and spiritual experiences, such as reading religious books, attend religious meetings, follow religious TV/radio programmes and read the Koran. Item and subscale-total correlations were positive and significant, ranging from: .43 to .71 (Table 2). Cronbach’s alpha reached: .81.

Table 2 Comparisons between self-assessed religious commitment groups in religiosity subscales
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Respondents were asked to indicate the strength/ frequency of the described aspect in each item on a 5-point scale (e.g., I believe that Koran relieves pain and disease: 1= not at all, 5 extremely; I try to learn by heart some Koranic Verses: 1= not at all, 5 always). Furthermore, 19 items were worded in the opposite direction and, thus reverse-scored prior to data analyses.

In order to ensure that each subscale effectively distinguishes between subjects with high, average, and low commitment to religion, we used an additional item in which each subject rated his own Religious commitment (high, average, or low). Analysis of variance between the three groups confirmed the same pattern of response in which significantly high means were found in favour of the high, followed by average, and then low commitment group (Table 2). These results prove the discriminatory power of the religiosity measures and further comfort our comparisons. Correlations between the four categories were also positive and significant (p < .001), ranging from: .56 to .72.

  1. b.

    Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI)

PWI (IWG 2006) has been proposed as a parsimonious measure of SWB. In this approach, PWI measures satisfaction with the eight broad domains that represent the first-level deconstruction of ‘satisfaction with life as a whole’. These are: standard of living, personal health, achieving in life, personal relationships, personal safety, community connectedness, future security and spirituality/religiosity.

One of the advantages of this measure is that these domains are theoretically and empirically derived as the first-level deconstruction of the single item ‘satisfaction with life as a whole’. Thus, each domain contributes unique variance to the prediction of this global construct (see manual for more details).

Previous uses of this Index in three large Algerian surveys, conducted on the basis of an 18-month interval since 2003 and totalling a sample of 6,886 subjects from general population (Tiliouine et al. 2006, 2009; Tiliouine 2009a) showed good sensitivity, validity and reliability. This has generally been found with samples from other countries, thus making the PWI suitable as a cross-cultural tool for the measurement of subjective wellbeing. In Australia, the PWI has a minimum Cronbach alpha value of .70. In this study, it is .74 and comparable to their equivalent in our previous surveys. Inter-item total correlations were positive and largely significant (p < .001), ranging between .46 and .67. All correlations between items were also positive and significant.

  1. c.

    Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)

Diener et al (1985) has proposed a general measure of overall satisfaction with life (SWLS) which has shown good psychometric qualities and a high validity and reliability. It is a 5-item measure of the cognitive component of SWB and has become a popular measure of life satisfaction (Vitterso et al. 2005). Respondents rate their degree of agreement with each item on a 7-point scale (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree).

In the translation (from English into Arabic), we followed the standard method of forward and back-translation by four University teachers who worked independently. The final version was adopted after a discussion in a post hoc meeting.

Factor Analysis of the five items yielded one factor solution, explaining 44.56% of the variance. All items loaded beyond .56 on the factor, except the last item (.49). Inter item-total correlations ranged from: .65 to .69. All correlations between items were positive and significant, ranging from .19 to .69. Conbach’s Alpha is .67.

  1. d.

    Presence of Meaning in Life (PML)

In measuring Meaning in Life, Steger et al (2006) developed two distinct measures: the ‘Presence of Meaning’ and the ‘Search for Meaning’. They noticed that other existing measures have confounded these two dimensions. Here, we follow Samman (2007) who argues that the study of the presence of meaning is more important with relation to life satisfaction than the search for meaning if internationally comparable indicators are sought. Originally, the presence of meaning scale consists of five items, but the short-form used here contains three items only: 1. My life has a clear sense of purpose; 2. I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful; 3. I have discovered a satisfying life purpose (Samman 2007, p. 3).

The items are rated by Steger et al. on a 7-point scale. Here, it has been replaced by an 11-point scale, ranging from 0 to 10.

Factor Analysis of the three items yielded one factor explaining 65.33 % of the variance, with loadings higher than .80. Inter-item total correlations are also high: .79, to .83 (correlations between items are: .47, .47 and .50). Cronbach’s alpha is: .73.

Data Analyses

As suggested by Cummins et al. (2003), all measures scores were standardized into units of percentage of Scale Maximum (%SM) on a 0 to 100 distribution to facilitate comparability of the results, except SWLS in which the original 7-point scale was conserved.

Results

  1. 1-

    Table 3 displays means and SDs of the 60 items, as well as those of the identified subscales of religiosity. Only one item registered a result lower than the theoretical mean of 50, commitment to pray in a group or a mosque (46.59, SD26.67). The highest is refusing alcoholic drinks even for fun (96.39, SD14.29). These generally high means indicate that religiosity is ubiquitous in this sample.

    Table 3 Items and subscales means, SDs and item-subscale total correlations
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It also is interesting to note that Religious Belief is the strongest subscale (86.03, SD 7.78), and the weakest is Enrichment of religious experience (74.06, SD11.01). This indicates that fewer people strive to improve their knowledge and religious experiences (Table 3).

  1. 2-

    Testing for the contribution of religious domains in PML resulted in two significant predictors: Belief (p = .004), and Altruism (p = .02) (Table 4).

    Table 4 Regression analysis of self-assessed religious commitment on the presence of meaning in life
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Additionally, comparisons between self-ratings of commitment to religion (a single item) indicate that subjects with high commitment score significantly higher in PML and SWLS. Average and low commitment groups only do not significantly differ in meaning in life (Table 5). This means that students with high religious commitment display higher levels in both satisfaction with life and presence of meaning in their lives.

Table 5 Comparisons between religious commitment groups in satisfaction with life (SWLS) and the presence of meaning in life (PML)
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  1. 3-

    In order to determine whether the strength of religiosity and the PML contribute in SWL and PWB, hierarchical regression analyses results are displayed in Table 6.

    Table 6 Hierarchical regression of religiosity subscales, and meaning in life (PML) on personal wellebeing index (PWI) and on satisfaction with life
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It is notable that a similar pattern of results is found in both SWL and the PML scales. Only religious belief makes a significant contribution in each of them. But, this effect has almost totally been accounted for by Meaning in life in the second step of the regression. Thus, the presence of meaning in life is the strongest predictor of both constructs: SWL and PWI.

  1. 4-

    The demographic character of the measures is as follows:

    • Gender

      • Males (76.33, SD10.31) scored marginally higher means than females (73.73, SD 9.76) in Religious Altruism t(490)=2.74, p < .05).

      • Females (4.45, SD1.17) have significantly higher means than men (4.20, SD1.17) in SWLS: t(492)=2.24, p < .05). In both sexes, the means in satisfaction with life are much lower than those reported in samples from developed countries (Vitterso et al. 2005).

        No significant differences are noticed on other measures.

    • Type of study

      Students of science reported higher ratings for both Belief and Practice subscales (p < .05). PML and SWLS also favour science students (p < .05) (Table 7)

      Table 7 Comparisons between arts and science students in religiosity subscales, presence of meaning in life (PML), and satisfaction with life scale (SWLS)
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    • Location

      Differences concern Practice favouring rural compared to urban (p = .005); Altruism, favouring respectively rural compared to urban (p. 000) and semi-urban (p = .008), Enrichment, favouring semi-urban to urban (p = .006), and PWI favouring respectively semi-urban and urban to rural (both p = .04) (Table 8).

      Table 8 Comparisons between location and family income groups in religiosity subscales, presence of meaning in life (PML), personal wellbeing index (PWI) and satisfaction with life scale (SWLS)
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    • Family income

      No significant differences are registered between income groups in religiosity subscales, but they differ respectively in measures of PML, SWLS, and PWI. In the three cases results generally favour people from higher income families (Table 8).

Discussion

The present study attempts to extend the body of existing research in many ways: through improving the measurement of Islamic religiosity and also through examining the associations between this latter, meaning in life, and both aspects of subjective wellbeing: a cognitive one (satisfaction with life), and a basically affective one (personal wellbeing).

  1. 1.

    Generally, the high means in the overwhelming majority of religiosity items confirm that religiosity is ubiquitous in Algerian samples (Tiliouine et al. 2009). This is not surprising as in mainstream Muslim societies religiosity continues to be socially highly desirable. Religion is omnipresent throughout Muslims’ lives. They are required to execute religious duties very often: 1) pray five times a day, 2) go to Friday noon group prayers in a mosque each week, 3) fast a full month, 4) give away alms as charity on savings and some property at least each year, and 5) complete a Mecca pilgrimage at least once in one’s lifetime. Besides, religion is omnipresent is the socialization and education of children and youths. Particular festivities or celebrations and rituals reinforce these processes. Nonetheless, one should not equate the strength of Islamic attachments or the degree of religious piety among ordinary Muslims with the likelihood of holding extremist political views. Such a popular stereotype is largely challenged by researchers (Tessler 2003, for a review).

  2. 2.

    With regard to the question of: Does Islamic religiosity provide meaning in life? Two religious domains have been found to significantly contribute in meaning in life: Belief and Altruism. It is plausible that belief is the first predictor because it provides a framework with which to make sense of one’s life (Morgan and Fastides 2009a, b). Altruism is also important because engaging in social relationships can be a valuable source of feelings of belongingness, and hence meaning. Neither practice nor enriching religious experiences significantly provide meaning, maybe because such activities are usually left to an older age. Tiliouine et al. (2009) found that youngest people (aged 18 to 25) are some 12 percentage points less than the oldest in religious practice. So, it would be interesting if future studies clarify how religiosity is experienced in a lifespan. However, the finding that higher religious commitment is generally accompanied with higher satisfaction and presence of meaning in life (Table 5) reinforces the hypothesis that religion does provide those committed to it with a frame reference and guidelines that positively affect their way of life.

  3. 3.

    The presence of meaning is confirmed as a good contributor in boosting PWI which is consistent with findings among college students in the United States (Zika and Chamberlin 1992). This effect is weaker in satisfaction with life maybe because of the interaction with the objective deficiencies in living conditions in a basically developing country.

  4. 4.

    Many variations have been detected amongst the different demographic groups in approaching religiosity and feelings of wellbeing and meaning with varying effects of gender, academic discipline, urban/rural residence and level of income.

Unexpectedly, men score higher than women in religious altruism (p < .05). This particular result is in opposition with Tiliouine et al. (2009) findings with general population. But again the young age of the sample may account for this difference. In the aforementioned research youngest people (aged 18–25) registered the lowest scores in Religious Altruism.

Nevertheless, one should bear in mind that women are generally found to be more satisfied with their religiosity than men (Tiliouine 2009b and Wills 2009 with Catholics). Abdel-Khalek and Naceur (2007) with a group of 244 Algerian students also found higher means in females in answering the question: What is your level of religiosity in general? The female gender-bias in our research sample (two thirds are women) presents the need for an extensive investigation of the gender invariance of religiosity measures in the future.

Furthermore, women express higher levels of satisfaction with life. This is generally consistent with previous surveys (Tiliouine et al. 2006; Tiliouine 2009b; Abdel-Khalek and Naceur 2007) and maybe because they are more expressive than males.

  1. 5.

    Unexpectedly, Science students seem to show more conformism with regard to religion as they have higher scores in both religious belief and practice than Arts’ students (p < .05). The dominating teaching methods and the fostered relation to science in Algerian education may explain these differences. As empirically-oriented researchers, science students are taught to make verifiable tests. Speculation about abstract possibilities is less emphasized in their training and development. As eye witnesses, it seems to us that scientific subjects are taught as certainties and critical thinking is not as valued as it should be among the students. They seem to extend this approach to social and religious issues.

Furthermore, Science students are more satisfied with life. One explanation of this is that holders of degrees in Sciences are highly valued in the society, and expect more promising careers than their counterparts who generally fall victims to unemployment. Moreover, their higher reported levels of PML could be attributed to their stronger religious attachment.

  1. 6.

    Interestingly, students from rural areas are more attached to religion. Maybe because in those areas, which have a basically an agro-pastoral economic life, traditionalism is strong. With relation to PWI, it has already been found that generally people with university education have higher PWI than other population groups in Algeria, which is in accordance with international literature (Tiliouine et al. 2006; Tiliouine 2009a). Beyond this, it is found here that students from rural areas have marginally lower PWI scores. This could be explained by the palpable disparities between rural and urban areas in the country as in the majority of developing countries. They lack basic necessities both in terms of infrastructure and life commodities.

  2. 7.

    The result that no difference in religiosity is attributable to income confirms earlier findings with the general population of Algeria (Tiliouine et al. 2009). Similar results were also registered with respect to higher SWB, and SWL scores in favour of high income groups. Previous findings around the world agree that this trend holds in people with low income from Developing Countries. Maybe because money availability helps one overcome everyday life pressures which are basically a consequence of underdevelopment. However, the association between low income and low PML scores in such contexts is problematic. Further research is hoped to reveal the role played by economic factors in cultivating meaning in life. It should also try to differentiate between meaning in life and levels of economic and social development.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Our research has several limitations. Firstly, the sample has a 2:1 ratio of females to males. Secondly, it is also important to consider how the sample’s relatively young age (Mean 21.26, SD2.30) and the respondents’ limited experience in life could have affected the association of religiosity scales with meaning in life. It is possible that in older age cohorts the association would be even stronger. However, this is an empirical question to be answered in future studies. Thirdly, Algeria has recently experienced harsh instability due to a terrorist insurgency. Fundamentalists identify themselves as being dedicated to pure Islam, of which they stood in defense. This situation created vivid discussions over the role of religion in various domains of life including the political scene. Such a situation may have effects on the results of the study. Finally, with the exception of religiosity measures, all other scales have been translated from English into Arabic. Translation may limit conveying the exact equivalent meanings of the items. It therefore would prove interesting to diversify research techniques in order to overcome such possible limitations.

Finally, this paper contributes to filling a big gap in the measurement of religiosity, through presenting an alternative measure of Islamic religiosity. The approach followed in the construction of CMIR has been fruitful. We relied heavily on our previous work (Tiliouine et al. 2009), basic religious textbooks, and advice of experts in Islamic studies. In its present format, CMIR looks to be a comprehensive and a valid alternative, but contains many items (60 items). Future research should pare it down using samples from other Muslim populations. Furthermore, our finding that the strength of Islamic religion lies in the provision of meaning in life to its followers may be challenging and needs further exploration.