What is the Islamic response to where you are born/culture mainly determines whether you are Muslim?

Question

I said the word “mainly” because there are exceptions but I’ve seen a video that is getting quite famous about how where you are born/the culture you are raised in mainly determines your religious values.

If you are born in Saudi 95% will be Muslim, in Thailand majority will be Buddhist. If you are born in a culture where you are made to adhere to religious principles strictly from birth it will be something you follow strictly even as you grow up.

The main challenges I seen from this are, despite birthplace/culture being arguably the main determining factor to what religion you follow they all would claim there religion is the ONE true religion, people in certain cultures won’t challenge their own beliefs but rather have an extremely biased outlook on religion and ties with confirmation bias to ensure that one stays/follows the same said religion, if they were born in another environment they would likely follow another religion and as they grow up likely not convert to the religion they are already in.

Therefore, religion is mainly determines by culture/where you are born instead of the actual beliefs and if people were born in to other families/cultures/areas they would likely follow a different faith or not be religious at all.

Is there any Hadith/Quranic verses or any Islamic scholars that refute this?

Answer 1

The content I write is my opinion from the Shiite point of view and may be incomplete. First of all, you should know that contrary to what you think, we have hadiths that confirm your opinion to some extent, Prophet of Islam, may God bless him and grant him peace, says:

كُلُّ مَولودٍ يُولَدُ على الفِطرَةِ ، و إنّما أبَواهُ يُهَوِّدانِهِ و يُنَصِّرانِهِ

Every child is born on the fitrah, but his parents are Judaizing and Christianizing him.

So your words are generally correct, but there are some points:

• The first point is that if a person is born among Muslim people, it is not allowed to become a Muslim blindly, let me explain further: In Shia, when you reach the age of puberty (the age of puberty is the time when you have to follow Sharia law after reaching it, for example, you can not pray before the age of puberty, but you must pray after this age) to fulfill the rulings, you must appoint a person who In the field of religion, it is an expert to choose and follow the rules based on his opinions. We call this person "Marja Taghlid". So far your opinion is correct, we were born in this part of geography and when we reach the age of puberty we should choose a religious expert and based on his opinion we should remain Muslim (Shia) like our fathers, but you should know that at the beginning of the book of rulings of all religious experts Or the same as "Marja Taghlid", a point is written that I bring an example from their book Ayatollah Sistani, one of the greatest religious experts among Shias, writes as the first ruling in his book: > Ruling 1. A Muslim’s belief in the fundamentals of religion (uṣūl al‑dīn) must be based on personal insight [i.e. grounded in reason], and he cannot follow anyone in the fundamentals of religion; i.e. he cannot accept the word of someone who knows about the fundamentals of religion simply because that person says so.

• The second point is that even if a person was not born among Muslim people, if a person is a seeker of truth, he will definitely hear the name of Islam in his research and will definitely research about it, and this point is exactly where the law and ruling First, the book of Shia religious experts places us there as a search point for researching our beliefs.

And finally, in my opinion, religion is similar to thought and thought is not limited to geography, so it is us who ultimately choose our religion, not our fathers. People who believe in the religion of their fathers without research will generally carry only the name of that religion and will be free from it.

Answer 2

Your observation that religion is mainly inherited from culture/birth is evidently true.

The verse of the Quran that concerns your question most is 22:67

For every congregation We have appointed acts of devotion, which they observe. So do not let them dispute with you in this matter. And invite to your Lord; you are upon a straight guidance.

Although it is primarily directed to the Arab people of the time of the Prophet (p.b.u.h), the Quran claims to be universally true, not bound to a nation.

According to the abovementioned verse, other religions should be acknowledged with tolerance, not accepting that they are true to the same extent as Islam, which need not mean that all of them is false.

The verse invites Muslim to encourage conversion.