Den persiska vägen till kristendomen : En kvalitativ studie om individers rollbytesprocessen från islam till kristendom

Sammanfattning: This study aims to understand and describe the role exit for Persian individuals that has left Islam for Christianity. The process of what individuals go through when leaving a religion for another inspired the approach of the study, leading to the subject of leaving Islam for Christi- anity. Due to the thematic breadth of the collected empirical material, two different theoreti- cal concepts and theories will be used. The theoretical approach of this study is Emile Durk- heim’s theory of religious sociology and Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh’s (1988) study about the process of exit a role. Emile Durkheim’s (1912) theory regards that religion provides social cohesion and social control to maintain society in social solidarity. While Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh (1988) aims to describe the process of roll exiting. Since this study is about understanding and describing the phenomenon in hand, a qualitative method will be used. The study is based on 10 semi-structured interviews that have conduc- ted with individuals with a muslim background that have now became christian, and every individual has an ethnic Persian background. The results presented that the informants did go through a process of a role change, meaning the role change from Islam to Christianity. These individuals left the muslim setting and entered their new social role. However, many of these individuals went through a prerequisite step that could be considered as a complement to Ebaughs study, namely, the possibility of integration.