Love for Allah and love for self: exploring the connection between religious affect and self-esteem among Muslim adolescents in England

ABSTRACT The connection between religious affect and self-esteem has been supported by a series of studies conducted among Christian or post-Christian samples. The present study extends this research tradition among a sample of 919 self-identified Muslim adolescents (between the ages of 11 and 14 years) attending schools in England. The data demonstrated that, after controlling for personal factors (age and sex) and for psychological factors (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism), there was a significant positive association between the two core variables (religious affect and self-esteem). From the perspective of the empirical psychology of religion this study confirms among a Muslim sample a finding previously recorded among Christian or post-Christian samples.