This paper studies early childhood health in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, focusing on inequalities in anthropometric outcomes by religious adherence. India and Nepal have Hindu majorities, while Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim. Results confirm a relative Muslim advantage for children less than 12 months of age in height-for-age and weight-for-age z scores primarily in India, possibly reflect...

Many societies became Muslim gradually, without conquest by Muslim rulers. Explanations of this process typically focus on Muslim traders, proselytizing ‘holy men’, and the conversion of ruling elites, as the limited sources suggest. Yet it cannot be assumed that Islamization always made sense for elites as a power-enhancing stratagem, or that rulers or holy men were willing or able to shape th...

Despite the widespread use of prenatal screening, women’s perceptions and experiences of prenatal care have only recently been addressed in scientifi c research.1 Several studies show that perceptions of and participation in prenatal testing can be quite different among women of different ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds.2 3 Especially little is known about how Muslim women experience pr...

speakers of different languages have paid attention to the phonetics of their language since ancient times. muslim scientists have also taken into consideration the value of phonological studies and among them there are linguists who are not less important than any western ones like saussure, chomsky and jacobson. some of them are even counted more major than westerners; one of these muslim sch...

BACKGROUND Canada has observed significant decreases in incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in recent decades, and this has been attributed to appropriate screening (i.e., the Pap test). However, certain subgroups including Muslim immigrants show higher rates of cervical cancer mortality despite their lower incidence. Low levels of screening have been attributed to such barriers as lack ...

Chaudhary, Latika, and Rubin, Jared—Reading, writing, and religion: Institutions and human capital formation In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, altho...

Age and sex are biological terms that are socioculturally constructed for marriage and marital sexual behavior in every society. Marriage is a universal norm that makes legitimate sexual behavior between a man and a woman in marital life cycle to gain bio-social purposes. Cross-cultural studies reveal that marital sexual frequency as a part of marital sexual behavior not only varies within the ...

In a world where we are constantly bombarded with countless images of Islamic terrorism, violence, and danger, it is not surprising that we have come to associate all aspects of Islamic society with malevolence. This destructive way of thinking has impacted the way we—as Westerners— think about, portray, and perceive Muslim men and women. While Muslim men are often depicted as hostile, cruel, a...

Addressing the cultural and religious beliefs around the issue of family planning has been a big challenge for the international development community. The concept of family planning has raised some concerns regarding its acceptability within Muslim populations. While some Muslim states and organisations have adopted a rather cautious approach to the issue, others have gone to the extent of inv...