Music Liking and Religiosity: Analyzing Muslim Music Listeners in Pakistan

Abstract

The study aims at presenting the state of mind of present day Muslim music listeners in Pakistani society. It lies on the general impression about the status of music in Islam that presents music as not favored.  On the other side, the growing rate of musical elements in the television, radio channels of Pakistan along with huge consumption through social media proves popularity of music. For the purpose, a quasi-experimental test was conducted on a sample of 100 respondents selected randomly. Respondents` religiosity level was measured through a pre-test questionnaire developed on 5 points Likert scale. Then the respondents are exposed to a popular music number used as a stimulus material following by a questionnaire investigating their music liking level. The scores of the posttest questionnaire developed on second variable of music liking were correlated with the pretest questionnaire`s scores. The result indicated a strong relationship between religiosity and music liking of the taken respondents.