Secular Turn in the Middle East: Findings from Values Survey

It would be misleading to consider the upsurge of Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism, and sectarian violence, transpired between the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the destruction of the Islamic State in 2017, as the reflection of the cultural perspectives of the Middle Eastern public. Findings from comparative longitudinal surveys of nationally representative samples of well over 75,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Türkiye portray a different picture. In these countries, the dominant trends have been toward the liberal values of secular politics, gender equality, expressive individualism, and national identity. Female youth followed by older females in Egypt, female youth with university education in Tunisia, and youth with no university education and young females in Türkiye were at the forefront of trends in values toward liberal democracy.