The Sociology of Religious Transformations Individual Religiosity Among Moroccan Youths As a Case Study

The religious field is witnessing many changes in Morocco, as is the case in a group of countries. By providing an insight into many transformations.  we present a number of indications related to the religious field in Morocco as it has been recently characterized by a quasi-break between producing and reproducing the religious values. Typically, this refers to the ending of the monopoly over the religious authority and the emergence of new leaders and elites who now manage to compete with the official religious discourse. However, they contribute to a partial break down of traditional cultural structures and face difficulties reconstructing new ones. This has been the result of a remarkable presence of the value of the individual over the group, accompanied by a growing role of media and technology and easy access to the information in shaping youth’s new tendencies to employ reason and improvisation of attitudes to decide their religious inclinations. All this has immensely contributed to changing the religious discourse through a remarkable appearance of diverse religious and moral references in a way that pushed some sociologists to call it “a market of religiosity” that contains a wide range of options for consumers who pick and choose among multiple and new religious patterns.

In an attempt to examine the religious transformations in Morocco, we have conducted a survey over 460 male and female youths (aged from 18 to 35 years old), in a rural and urban region (City of Sale near Rabat), with the help of statistical data provided by the high commission for planning (HCP), depending on the targeted sampling method and departing from the main hypotheses: To what extent has diversity in religious references affected the emergence of the individual religiosity among the Moroccan youths, and what are its main aspects?