Effect of religious teachings on social capital in Malaysia

Abstract

As one of the key concepts of social sciences that constitutes one of the cultural foundations of modern societies along with elements such as rationality and rule of law, social capital has a special place amongst social science scholars. This article claimed that religion and its teachings have received less attention as an important factor in social capital. Creating social capital by neglecting religious teachings is very difficult and useless because religion can play a significant role in creating some of the most important elements of social capital because of its unique characteristics. This article aimed to study the effect of religious teachings on social capital. Therefore, 2000 Kuala Lumpur citizens were investigated by simple random sampling and the collected data were evaluated by Linear Structural Relations (LISREL) after measuring the current level of religious teachings and social capital in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16. Data analysis indicated a positive effect of religious teachings on social capital (P = 0.68; T = 4.92). With regard to the relationship of social capital with religion and according to the obtained findings, the article described and explained the situation of sociological relationship of Islam with social capital in Islamic society.

Contribution: This article provided further insight into the relationship between religious teachings and social capital in a Muslim country.