The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women

Middle-aged career women looking to assess the improvements brought on by life, would probably give some forethought to their aging years, like where they have gone to, and what they have been doing. They reassess their priorities and make changes to their goals and orientations to command a higher...

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Main Authors:	Siti Marziah Zakaria, Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018
Online Access:	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/1/17018-81002-1-PB.pdf

id	ukm-12831
recordtype	eprints
spelling	ukm-128312019-04-25T20:46:12Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/ The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women Siti Marziah Zakaria, Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal, Middle-aged career women looking to assess the improvements brought on by life, would probably give some forethought to their aging years, like where they have gone to, and what they have been doing. They reassess their priorities and make changes to their goals and orientations to command a higher purpose in all aspects of life. Many theorists believe, an older woman’s successful navigation of work-life balance is associated with her having a strong faith. Thus, a qualitative research was conducted to explore the meaning of faith from the perspectives of middle-aged Muslim career women. It also identified the transformation of religious practices performed by these women as they reach middle life. A few rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 middle-aged Muslim working class women from different levels of education, career, income and health. The research adopted a purposive maximum variation sampling technique in order to have a variety in the respondents’ profiles, before transcribing and analysing all interview data in Nvivo software. What followed was a thematic analysis to identify themes and sub-themes of the data. The results showed that the respondents’ perspectives on faith rested on four meanings; 1) guide and way of life, 2) principle of life, 3) obedience, and 4) source of peace. This research also identified five central themes of the transformation being investigated; 1) inculcating religious values, 2) attending religious talks, 3) reciting and understanding the Quran, 4) improving the quality of prayer, and 5) dhikr and supplication were cited as the most visible manifestations of the transformation. It is hoped that these findings will provide a clearer understanding into the spiritual and internal growth of middle-aged Muslim career women. Apart from strengthening the works on developmental psychology in Malaysia, this research can tap on contribution opportunities, ranging from benefiting counsellors and social workers in their programs planning to enhance the psychological well-being of middle-aged Muslim working class women in Malaysia. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2018 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/1/17018-81002-1-PB.pdf Siti Marziah Zakaria, and Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal, (2018) The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women. AKADEMIKA, 88 (2). pp. 71-80. ISSN 0126-5008 http://ejournal.ukm.my/akademika/issue/view/1064
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
building	UKM Institutional Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
description	Middle-aged career women looking to assess the improvements brought on by life, would probably give some forethought to their aging years, like where they have gone to, and what they have been doing. They reassess their priorities and make changes to their goals and orientations to command a higher purpose in all aspects of life. Many theorists believe, an older woman’s successful navigation of work-life balance is associated with her having a strong faith. Thus, a qualitative research was conducted to explore the meaning of faith from the perspectives of middle-aged Muslim career women. It also identified the transformation of religious practices performed by these women as they reach middle life. A few rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 middle-aged Muslim working class women from different levels of education, career, income and health. The research adopted a purposive maximum variation sampling technique in order to have a variety in the respondents’ profiles, before transcribing and analysing all interview data in Nvivo software. What followed was a thematic analysis to identify themes and sub-themes of the data. The results showed that the respondents’ perspectives on faith rested on four meanings; 1) guide and way of life, 2) principle of life, 3) obedience, and 4) source of peace. This research also identified five central themes of the transformation being investigated; 1) inculcating religious values, 2) attending religious talks, 3) reciting and understanding the Quran, 4) improving the quality of prayer, and 5) dhikr and supplication were cited as the most visible manifestations of the transformation. It is hoped that these findings will provide a clearer understanding into the spiritual and internal growth of middle-aged Muslim career women. Apart from strengthening the works on developmental psychology in Malaysia, this research can tap on contribution opportunities, ranging from benefiting counsellors and social workers in their programs planning to enhance the psychological well-being of middle-aged Muslim working class women in Malaysia.
format	Article
author	Siti Marziah Zakaria, Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal,
spellingShingle	Siti Marziah Zakaria, Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal, The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
author_facet	Siti Marziah Zakaria, Bazilah Raihan Mat Shawal,
author_sort	Siti Marziah Zakaria,
title	The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
title_short	The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
title_full	The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
title_fullStr	The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
title_full_unstemmed	The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
title_sort	meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women
publisher	Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
publishDate	2018
url	http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/12831/1/17018-81002-1-PB.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:03:29Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:03:29Z
_version_	1777407003707047936

The meaning of faith and transformation of religious practices among muslim middle-aged career women

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