There are many ways of defining what it means to be religious, but for this analysis, we looked at four common measures of religious observance: religious service attendance, prayer frequency, belief in God and self-described importance of religion in one’s life.

The interactive tool above allows you to see how 34 countries across Europe rank on each of these measures – and by the share of adults in each country who are “highly religious” overall.

Using the combined measure shows that, overall, Central and Eastern Europeans are more likely than Western Europeans to be highly religious. For example, in Armenia and Greece, roughly half of adults are highly religious. Meanwhile, only about one-in-ten people in Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom qualify as highly religious by these criteria.

A similar pattern holds when we look at the four measures of religious commitment individually, with Central and Eastern Europeans generally more likely than Western Europeans to say religion is very important in their lives, they attend religious services at least monthly, they pray every day, and they believe in God with absolute certainty. For instance, half or more adults in Armenia, Bosnia, Georgia, Greece and Romania say religion is very important in their lives, compared with about one-in-ten in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and several other Western European countries.

At the same time, not all countries in Western Europe have low levels of religious commitment, and not all countries in Central and Eastern Europe are at the higher end of the index. For instance, 37% of Portuguese adults are highly religious, significantly more than other Western European countries and in line with Poland. And the Czech Republic and Estonia have religiosity levels similar to Denmark, noticeably lower than those in most other Central and Eastern European countries.

Source: Pew Research Center

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (August 29, 2017)

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field.

• This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur
• Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span
• The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions
• The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question
• The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

Table of Contents

• Volume I. From the Prophet to the Mongols

A. Introduction to the Two Volumes of A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture

B. The Early Caliphates, Umayyads, and end of Late Antiquity (650-750)

C. Abbasids and the Universal Caliphate (750-900)

D. Fragmentation and the Rival Caliphates of Cordoba, Cairo, and Baghdad (900- 1050)

E. “City States” and the Later Baghdad Caliphate (1050-1250)

• Volume II: From the Mongols to Modernism

A. “Global” Empires and the World-System (1250-1450)

B. Early Modern Empires and their Neighbors (1450-1700)

C. Modernity, Empire, Colony and Nation (1700-1950)

D. Islam, Art, and the Contemporary (1950-Present)

Author Information

• Finbarr Barry Flood is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of the Humanities at the Institute of Fine Arts and Department of Art History, New York University. He publishes on late antiquity, Islamic architectural history and historiography, transcultural dimensions of Islamic art, image theory, museology, and Orientalism. His books include The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (2000), and Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter, (2009), awarded the 2011 Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Prize of the Association for Asian Studies.

• Gülru Necipoğlu is Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art at the Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University. She publishes on architecture and architectural practice, aesthetics of ornament and figural representation, cross-cultural exchanges, and Islamic art historiography. Her books include Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapi Palace (1991); The Topkapi Scroll, Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture (1995) which won the Albert Hourani and Spiro Kostoff awards; and The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (2005), winner of the Fuat Köprülü award and the Albert Hourani honorable mention award. She edits the journal Muqarnas and its Supplements.

Source: Wiley