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Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS): A New Instrument for

Muslim Religiosity Research and Practice

Article  in  Psychology of Religion and Spirituality · March 2016

DOI: 10.1037/rel0000074

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Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS): A
New Instrument for Muslim Religiosity Research and
Practice
Yunusa Olufadi
Online First Publication, March 17, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000074

CITATION
Olufadi, Y. (2016, March 17). Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS): A New
Instrument for Muslim Religiosity Research and Practice. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000074
 Psychology of Religion and Spirituality © 2016 American Psychological Association
2016, Vol. 8, No. 2, 000 1941-1022/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000074

Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS): A New

Instrument for Muslim Religiosity Research and Practice
Yunusa Olufadi
Kwara State University

Although there are many scales for measuring Muslims’ religiosity, a literature search indicated that there
are limited references directed toward assessing Muslims’ daily actions and behaviors in accordance with
the teachings and practice of Islam. Our goal in the present study is to fill this gap. To achieve this goal,
3 stages of instrument development (item generation, scale development, and instrument testing) were
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

undertaken through 2 studies. The results of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

the existence of 3 dimensions in the proposed measurement instrument (which I referred to as Muslim
Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale, MUDRAS); the dimensions are sinful acts, recommended acts, and
engaging in bodily worship. The combined findings from the 2 studies reported here provide initial
evidence that MUDRAS exhibits excellent psychometric properties. Last, the usefulness of MUDRAS
for individual Muslims, counselors, clinically trained clergymen, and implications for psychological
research is discussed.

Keywords: Muslim, religiosity, self-assessment, confirmatory factor analysis, scale development

Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000074.supp

According to the Islamic beliefs and teachings, the primary
purpose for which God created man is to worship Him, and no
doubt, many Muslims are carrying out this obligation; however,
there are times they find themselves regressing from this original
command. Therefore, at the end of each day, Muslims are strongly
encouraged to assess their actions and seize the valuable moments
in this life before the final Day of Judgment when they will not
have the opportunity to make up for their misdeeds. In other
words, they should assess themselves before they are assessed on
the Day of Judgment. In addition, God loves consistency, and its
perpetuation is strongly encouraged. The question, however, is do
Muslims take their time to constantly assess the level of their
relationship with God as they do in their day-to-day activities (e.g.,
teaching, recruiting, drug control)? Do they have the fear of divine
retribution (the consequence of failing to follow God’s commands
and abstaining from His prohibitions) as they fear the consequence
of their day-to-day activities? The need for a self-assessment scale
for measuring Muslims’ daily religiosity, therefore, becomes rel-
evant and apparent.
Meanwhile, one of the greatest problems Muslims are facing
nowadays is that they have restricted the concept of obedience in
worship of God to occasions (e.g., Ramadan), venues (e.g., Mecca
for Hajj or Umra), situations (e.g., when there is death in the
family), and conditions (e.g., sitting in the company of the pious
people). However, what happens when Ramadan terminates, when
they return from Mecca, the few days/weeks after the demise of
their beloved ones, and when they become separated from the good
company? The remembrance of God fades away, the majority of
them discontinue the teachings and practices of Ramadan, others
abandon the recitation of the holy Qur’an, their Salat becomes
irregular, and all other good deeds they might have been practicing
cease. These inconsistent behaviors in worshipping God is another
pointer to the need for a self-assessment scale for measuring
Muslims’ daily religiosity. This kind of scale could act as checks
and balances, call them to order, help them identify their areas of
weaknesses, and make necessary adjustment from time-to-time.
Indeed, this is one of the main goals of the present study.
In addition, the existing studies on Muslim religiosity focused
their attention on the measurement of Islamic religiosity in terms
of level of beliefs, attitudes, and practices (Ghorbani, Watson,
Ghramaleki, Morris, & Hood, 2000; Khan, Watson, & Habib,
2005; Wilde & Joseph, 1997), coping (Aflakseir & Coleman,
2011; Ghorbani, Watson, & Khan, 2007; Husain, 1998; Khan &
Watson, 2006a; Khawaja, 2008), experiential (Chen, Ghorbani,
Watson, & Aghababaei, 2013). There are limited references in the
literature directed toward assessing Muslims’ daily actions and
behaviors as advised in the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet
Muhammad (peace be upon him [PBUH]). Our approach in the
present study is to fill this gap. Thus, the main goal of this study
is to propose a simple, quick-to-administer, and psychometrically
tested scale that could be used by Muslims to assess their daily
actions and behaviors in accordance with the teachings of Islam,
because none of the available measures met this need. To achieve
this, a daily self-assessment scale, which I called Muslim Daily
Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS) was developed.1

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yunusa Olufadi, 1

I should note that each items in MUDRAS has at least one reference
Department of Statistics and Mathematical Sciences, Kwara State University either from the Qur’an or from the Hadith (saying and teachings of PBUH),
Malete, PMB 1530, Ilorin, Nigeria. E-mail: yolufadi@gmail.com the two primary sources of references for Muslims (Appendix).

1
 2 OLUFADI
Previous Measurement Instruments: Complexities
and Limitations
It is important to note that defining or measuring an individual’s
level of religiosity (e.g., attitude and belief) is subjective and not
only a difficult task but also a complex one; and many authors
(Coyle, 2002; Hackney & Sanders, 2003; Khraim, 2010; Salleh,
2012) have recognized this problem. In addition, an individual’s
belief and actions to obey God’s command or refrain from His
prohibitions remains within the heart. Moreover, the intention
(sincere or not) for engaging or not engaging in certain acts of
worship is difficult for anyone to judge let alone measure—the
knowledge of such is always between an individual and his or her
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
creator.
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Next, I give a brief account of the limitations inherent in the
previous scholars’ attempt at measuring the level of religiosity of
Muslims. A plethora of scales have been developed by various
authors to measure the level of devotion of Muslims (e.g., atti-
tudes, beliefs, practices) toward their religion (see Abu Raiya &
Hill, 2014; Abu Raiya, Pargament, Mahoney, & Stein, 2008; Abu
Raiya, Pargament, Stein, & Mahoney, 2007; AlMarri, Tayyiba,
Oei, & Al-Adawi, 2009; Jana-Masri & Priester, 2007; Krauss et
al., 2006; Tiliouine & Belgoumidi, 2009; Tiliouine, Cummins, &
Davern, 2009; Wilde & Joseph, 1997).
For example, concerns about the adaptation and/or imposition of
a Christian-based instrument to a Muslim population and instru-
ments not subjected to rigorous psychometric testing have been
addressed by Ibrahim (1993), Abu Raiya (2008), Khraim (2010),
Salleh (2012), and Shukor and Jamal (2013). However, in addition
to the works of the previous authors who have attempted to review
and identify limitations in the existing scales developed for mea-
suring Muslims’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices, I have identified
another important limitation common to virtually all the existing
scales—I referred to this limitation as “item wording.” Thus,
efforts should be made to address and minimize the nonsampling
errors that may occur, which hopefully can be controlled through
a careful design of questionnaire. I describe briefly three major
concerns yet to be addressed in the existing studies.
Lack of Period or Time in the Item(s)
A major limitation common to almost all the existing instru-
ments for measuring Muslims’ attitudes, beliefs, and practices is
that they are not period-specific. For instance, Item 8 in Ibrahim
(1993) reads, “I observe the obligatory daily prayers punctually”
with the following options: (a) all the time, (b) usually, and (c)
rarely. This item is unnecessarily vague and would have been
much more meaningful if a specific period was attached. For
example, it may be reworded as follows: Do you observed the
obligatory daily prayers punctually during the past week? With
options (a) all the time, (b) most times, (c) sometimes, and (d) I
hardly do this. Other examples abound in the items of the scale
developed by this author. Similarly, the following items (how
often do you pray? how often do you fast? how often do you go to
the masjid?) in Abu Raiya et al. (2008) and the six items that
measures Muslim practices in Khan and Watson (2006b) are too
ambiguous. The main danger in not specifying the time period is
that the respondents would have no point of reference and may
interpret the question(s) as they deem fit— does the question relate
to part of the day, yesterday, last week/month, or an entire duration
of respondents’ life? Thus, the questions must be period specific
with all the main components clearly defined. Other items in Abu
Raiya (2008); AlMarri et al. (2009); Jana-Masri and Priester
(2007); Krauss et al. (2005); Tiliouine and Belgoumidi (2009);
Aflakseir and Coleman (2011), and Wilde and Joseph (1997) all
contain items that fail to provide specific time frames.
Overlap and/or Repetitions
This is another drawback of some of the existing scales for
Muslim religiosity. I would draw the attention of readers to Tili-
ouine and Belgoumidi’s (2009) Comprehensive Measures of Is-
lamic Religiosity (CMIR) to illustrate our argument. In the CMIR,
many items overlap considerably and/or measuring the same thing.
For example, the following items “avoid watching ‘nudes’ movies
even when alone,” “‘spy’ others,” “avoid mixing with opposite
sex,” and “avoid swearing by God’s name” are all measuring the
same thing as Item 14 in the religious belief subscale of CMIR (“I
fear all that offends God”). This item would have been much more
meaningful if it was worded as, “I fear all that offends God (e.g.,
watching ‘nudes’ movies even when alone, ‘spy’ others.)” Another
case of repetition found in CMIR that includes “recite some
traditional prayers,” “say “Shahada” before going to sleep,” and
“recite some Koranic verses when beginning work” could all be
captured by a single item, like Remembrance of God in every
situation, for example, when beginning or ending one’s actions
like reading, sleeping, sitting, and entering toilet.
Double-Barreled Questions
Double-barreled questions ask two questions in one and are
usually identified by the word. The use of double-barreled ques-
tions is common in the existing scales of Muslim religiosity (see
Joshanloo & Rastegar, 2012; Khodadady & Bagheri, 2012; Tili-
ouine et al., 2009; Wilde & Joseph, 1997). These type of questions
are problematic and should never be used when developing a scale
because survey respondents are asked to give one response for two
questions. Authors should try to ask for one piece of information
at a time.
Relationship Between MUDRAS and the Existing
Muslim Religiosity Scales
In this section, I present the relationship between MUDRAS and
the existing scales on Muslim religiosity. A literature search of
scales that measures the self-assessment of daily Muslim religios-
ity is scant and indicated their limited availability. Our search
revealed that some of the existing scales about the Muslim religi-
osity either use a Christian-based instrument with a Muslim pop-
ulation, make no attempt to modify the original instrument or are
an adaptation from the Christianity scales (e.g., Francis & Stubbs,
1987; Gorsuch & McPherson, 1989; Ji & Ibrahim, 2007; Long &
Elghanemi, 1987; Mahabeer & Bhana, 1984; Wilde & Joseph,
1997). Several other researchers have imposed Western constructs
like extrinsic religiosity (Piedmont & Leach, 2002) or spirituality
(Watson et al., 2002) on Muslims.
For example, Wilde and Joseph (1997) developed a scale for
measuring Islamic religiosity of Muslims; they referred to this
 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE
scale as the Muslim Attitudes Toward Religion Scale (MARS).
This scale was adapted from the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward
Christianity (Francis & Stubbs, 1987), and its emphasis is more on
attitudes and the experiential dimension rather than on the actual
beliefs and practices of Muslims. Although MARS has good
psychometric properties and contains three items that measure
active participation in the religion (e.g., “I pray five times a day”),
the remaining items record general attitudes toward the benefits of
being a Muslim (e.g., “Allah helps me”) rather than self-reported
practices and beliefs.
Several other authors have attempted to measure Muslim
religiosity from an Islamic perspective; however, these mea-
surement instrument are not subjected to rigorous psychometric
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
testing, fail to offer support for the construct validity of their
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
instrument or included items not appropriate for the present
study (e.g., Abu-Ali & Reisen, 1999; Meyer, Rizzo, & Ali,
1998; Suhail & Akram, 2002; Tessler & Nachtwey, 1998). For
example, Tessler and Nachtwey (1998) rely on a three-item
instrument based solely on behavior, while Suhail and Akram
(2002) use a “homemade” instrument and offer no statistics in
support of its psychometric reliability or validity. Other authors
like Meyer et al. (1998) developed an instrument created from
an Islamic perspective and offer acceptable reliability estimates
on one subscale, but then fail to offer the same information for
the second subscale or for the overall instrument. This instru-
ment also contains some items that do not seem to relate to
Qur’an-based concepts and are political in nature (e.g., “People
should choose political candidates for their political experience
not their religious sect” or “All Muslims must work together to
face the Western challenge against Islam”).
Moreover, some of the instruments fall far below acceptable
psychometric standards. For instance, Al-Sabwah and Abdel-
Khalek (2006) use a one-item scale, asking the individual to
rate the importance of religion in his or her life. Huntington,
Fronk, and Chadwick (2001) used two Likert-type items (“How
religious are you?” and “How frequently do you attend religious
services?”) followed by four categorical responses of yes or no
to behavioral questions (e.g., “Do you celebrate Eid al-Adha?”)
to measure Muslim religiosity. Meanwhile, having so few items
or items with categorical yes/no responses have been reported
to severely limits the variability of potential responses (DeV-
ellis, 2003). Although some scales were found that have these
properties (e.g., good psychometric features and excellent de-
scription of the item generation), they were focused on mea-
suring religious coping (e.g., Aflakseir & Coleman, 2011;
Amer, Hovey, Fox, & Rezcallah, 2008; Ghorbani et al., 2007;
Husain, 1998; Khan & Watson, 2006a; Khawaja, 2008) rather
than daily assessment of Muslim religiosity as intended in the
present study.
In addition, the goal of the existing scales developed for
measuring Islamic religiosity of Muslims is not for the assess-
ment of Muslims daily religiosity. In fact, most of the previous
scales (e.g., AlMarri et al., 2009; Jana-Masri & Priester, 2007;
Tiliouine et al., 2009) contain items that are carried out either
on weekly and/or annual basis. For instance, the scale devel-
oped by AlMarri et al. (2009) contains two sections that focused
on pillars of Islam and religious beliefs of the Muslims. While
these authors reported both the exploratory and confirmatory
factor analysis of the scale and the items in the scale contains
3
some of the aspects of Islamic beliefs and practices, it is not a
good measure of daily religiosity assessment of Muslim. This is
because majority of the items in their scale do not assess the
daily religiosity of Muslims (e.g., “All Muslim countries should
be governed by absolute Sharia law”). Moreover, as reported in
Abu Raiya and Hill (2014), these authors fail to report how the
items are generated and no evidence of construct validity of the
scores was reported.
Finally, the issues of “item wording” in the existing scales of
Islamic religiosity has been explained in Previous Measurement
Instrument: Complexities and Limitations; I should note that all of
these are taking into account when developing the MUDRAS. In
addition, the use of the common Likert scales like “almost never,”
“frequently,” “almost always,” “sometimes,” “often” as is com-
monly employed in the existing scale (see, e.g., Abu Raiya et al.,
2008; AlMarri et al., 2009; Jana-Masri & Priester, 2007; Joshanloo
& Rastegar, 2012; Khan & Watson, 2006a, b; Tiliouine et al.,
2009) was avoided when developing MUDRAS. This is because
the Likert scale is subjective. For instance, a person’s opinion of
“sometimes” may in reality be more or less frequent than another
person’s opinion. Thus, for questions that require the use of Likert
scales in the MUDRAS, I used the following scales: never do this
today (3) to more than 3 times today (0). Overall, what distin-
guishes the present study from the existing instruments for mea-
suring Muslim religiosity is as follows:
(a) The present study only focused on the self-assessment of
daily religiosity of Muslims.
(b) All items in the proposed instrument (MUDRAS) are gen-
erated based on at least one references either from the Qur’an or
Hadith.
(c) The use of items that are commonly related to both genders,
and
(d) The items are free of the limitations in the existing inventory
(e.g., extending a Christian instrument or Western concepts to
study Muslim religiosity; failing to report acceptable psychometric
properties; including items that are more political in nature, rather
than being based on the Qur’an and Hadith).
Issues With Self-Assessment of One’s Religiosity
I believe that self-assessment of one’s level of daily religiosity
should prove quite useful and fruitful especially when the object of
introspection is the self. This assertion is premised on the evidence
found in the works of authors like Klein and Loftus (1988);
Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977), who have established that
self-relevant information is generally more accessible than other
types of information. For instance, Kihlstrom et al. (1988) reported
that people usually have more information about themselves than
they have about other people or things. These previous findings
may suggest that engaging in daily self-assessment of one’s level
of religiosity might foster self-insight. Indeed, a study conducted
by Hixon and Swann (1993) supported this assertion. These au-
thors found that when it comes to self-views (i.e., self-assessment),
the opportunity to engage in self-contemplation should promote
rather than impair self-insight. Moreover, according to Bandura’s
(1977) self-efficacy theory, people are motivated to assess them-
selves accurately (i.e., with no bias).
 4 OLUFADI
Study 1: Examining the Dimensionality of the
Proposed Instrument
Questionnaire Construction and Validation
This first study aims at designing an exploratory construct
validity and reliability analysis of our proposed inventory
(MUDRAS). Meanwhile, the desired information in line with the
objective of the study was elicited from participants through the
design of self-rated questionnaire; and in accordance with Cron-
bach’s (1971) recommendation on the development of a new
inventory, I strived to draw representative items from a universal
pool to ensure content validity. In addition, focus group discussion
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in which I employ a Metaplan Approach because of (Schnelle,
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1979) was conducted with three Ulamahu (Islamic scholars). Our
main points of discussions were the following: Is it possible for a
Muslim to measure his or her daily religiosity level? How can that
be achieved? The essence of the focus group discussion is to take
into account the view of the Ulamahu before the design of the
questionnaire.
More so, because many studies have been conducted on Islamic
religiosity, the lists of items used for the development of
MUDRAS were also generated through the review of the relevant
empirical studies; this approach is in tune with the recommenda-
tions in Netemeyer, Bearden, and Sharma (2003); Schultz and
Whitney (2005). Indeed, the present study has benefitted hugely
from these two approaches as they offered it valuable help in
generating the items used in the design of the questionnaire. Using
these approaches, I accumulated a list of 28 items covering the
different aspects of Muslims’ actions and behaviors (either with
their creator or other persons). It is pertinent to remark here that
during the items generation process, I strived to screen the list for
repetition, and this initial quality control process proved to be
helpful in increasing the face validity of the scale. Meanwhile, to
validate the items in the questionnaire, I employed the following
methods of validation: translational validity (i.e., content and face
validity), factor analysis and reliability test of internal consistency.
Content validity. The first validation method I employed
when developing MUDRAS is content validity, and according to
DeVellis (2003); Worthington and Whittaker (2006); Kane (2001);
DeVon et al. (2007); content validity ensures the items in the
questionnaire reflect a complete range of the attributes under
investigation. To apply this method, I contacted eight reviewers to
review the potential items. Although the criteria for choosing the
reviewers of the items were subjective, each of these reviewers
were faculty member from different universities and researchers in
psychology, Muslim religiosity, and instrument development with
substantial experience in the areas of Muslim religiosity and spir-
ituality. It is pertinent to note here that a clear description of the
conceptual framework for this study (in line with the recommen-
dation from the previous studies e.g., Nunnaly & Bernstein, 1994;
Walsh, 1995) was presented to the reviewers of the items in the
draft questionnaire. Thereafter, the eight reviewers were asked to
review the draft 28-item in the questionnaire to ensure it was
consistent with the conceptual framework. During the review, the
reviewers independently rated the relevance of each item in
MUDRAS to the conceptual framework using a 4-point Likert
scale from 1 (not relevant) to 4 (very relevant and succinct; Lynn,
1986). The Content Validity Index (CVI) was used to estimate the
validity of the items.2 Using this criterion, none of the 28 items
were dropped as they have a CVI score ranging from .87 to 1.00.
I remarked that the reviewers’ comments especially with regard to
the need to reword some of the items were taken into account
during pretesting and before the actual survey.
Face validity. Although face validity has been described as
the weakest form of validity because of its subjective assessment
nature (Trochim, 2001); it provides insight into how the potential
participants might interpret and respond to the items (DeVon et al.,
2007). For this reason, before the distribution of the questionnaires
after implementing the suggestions received from the content
reviewers, I decided to conduct a pilot study (i.e., pretesting) to
examine the instrument and receive feedback on the length, clarity,
grammar, organization, appropriateness, formatting, readability,
layout, and overall design of the questionnaire from the partici-
pants. The sample in this preliminary study consisted of 20 Muslim
students (who are exempted from the actual survey); in addition,
three experts who are skilled in questionnaire design and scale
development were also participated in the pilot study. These indi-
viduals were asked to fill the draft questionnaire and complete the
face validity evaluation form using a Likert scale of 1 (poor) to 5
(excellent), with a center-point at 3 (good). The evaluation form
includes clarity, grammar, appropriateness, formatting, readability,
and layout. In addition, the reviewers were provided space in the
evaluation form to comment on the overall design of the question-
naire, and if there were any information, they may usefully add to
improve the questionnaire. All the respondents rated each item at
four or five, with approximately 95% indicating they understood
the items in the questionnaire and found them easy to answer,
while 93% indicated the clarity, readability, appearance, and lay-
out would be acceptable to the intended target audience. With
these favorable findings regarding the structure and content of the
questionnaire, the questionnaire was ready to be tested with an
expanded sample.
It is pertinent to remark here that I have excluded some acts
commanded and prohibited by God in this study; for instance, not
performing pilgrimage to Mecca when one has the ability to do so,
not fasting during Ramadan without valid reasons, fleeing from the
battle field, withholding the Zakat. The criterion for the exclusion
of these religious activities is because they are not every day acts,
and our goal for developing MUDRAS is to assess the level of
daily religiosity of Muslims. However, this is not to say that all the
everyday acts and interactions are included in the MUDRAS. More
so, I do not distinguish between actions or behaviors that are
gender-based and in order to ensure gender equity, I concentrate on
actions that are common to both genders. For instance, while it is
compulsory for Muslim men to observe their five daily obligatory
prayers in congregation in the mosque, it is not compulsory for
Muslim women (in fact, it is highly recommended they [i.e.,
Muslim women] pray at home).
2
According to Lynn (1986), a CVI rating of three or four indicates the
content is valid and consistent with the conceptual framework. For exam-
ple, if six of the eight reviewers rate an item as relevant (3 or 4) the CVI
would be 6/8 ⫽ .75. This score does not meet the .83 level of endorsement
required to establish content validity using a panel of eight experts at the
.05 level of significance, and indicates the item should be dropped (DeVon
et al., 2007; Lynn, 1986).
 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE
Participants and Method
I conducted a self-reported cross-sectional survey in two Nigerian
universities. The eligibility criteria to participate in the survey are (a)
the participants must be a Muslim and (b) he or she must be 18 years
or above as at the time of conducting this survey. The potential
participants were asked two relevant questions to the above criteria to
ensure the eligibility criteria were satisfied before the questionnaires
were administered. I employed a convenience-based sampling ap-
proach for two reasons: (a) the earlier selection, which was based on
multistage stratification, resulted in over 65% of the students
contacted declining the letter of participation, and (b) the partici-
pants are readily available and willing to participate in the survey.
Nonetheless, I strove to maintain some element of probability
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sampling during the selection, this I achieved by going from one
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department to the other (in the two schools) during recruitment and
with the target of recruiting at least five students in each depart-
ment.
Using the procedure described previously, I recruited 400 stu-
dents from the two schools; however, only 368 of the returned
questionnaire were usable. Detailed instructions on how to com-
plete the questionnaire were provided for the students; for exam-
ple, they were told that the questionnaire should be completed
during the night when they are about to go to bed and to be
returned the next day. Each of these students were then given a
questionnaire designed to evaluate their daily religiosity level.
The questionnaire consists of two sections (demographic and
religiosity assessment). The demographic information obtained
from the respondents include age (M ⫽ 21.52, SD ⫽ 2.08) and
gender (200 women). Meanwhile, to ensure that the items in
MUDRAS are free of the limitations in the existing studies as
presented in Previous Measurement Instrument: Complexities and
Limitations, the items are presented to reflect the most suitable
responses (i.e., options) to each item. For example, in the second
section (in particular Items 7–28), the participants were asked
using a scale of 0 (more than 3 times today) to 3 (never do this
today) to indicate how many times they do or engage in certain
acts since the time they woke up for the day. In the same vein,
separate options provided for Items 1 to 6; for example, Item 2 in
the questionnaire asked the participants “How many Salat (the five
daily obligatory prayers) did you observe today?” with the follow-
ing options: (a) 0, (b) 1, (c) 2, (d) 3, (e) 4, and (f) 5. I deliberately
avoid the use of the common Likert scales like “almost never,”
“frequently,” “almost always,” “sometimes,” and “often” because
it helped us avoid one of the limitations in the existing scales. In
addition, I do not include the “not applicable” option as part of the
scale because all the items listed in the questionnaire are applicable
to all the participants (who happen to be Muslims). This is based
on the fact that Muslim is someone who believe fully in all the
teachings and recommendations of Islam and not partially. In the
Appendix, I present the 28 items used for the factor analysis and
the scoring details of the resulting scale, after taking into consid-
eration the results of the exploratory and confirmatory factor
analysis.
Exploratory Factor and Reliability Analysis
Factor analysis using a principal component analysis (PCA) as
extraction method with varimax rotation was performed on the 28
items in the questionnaire. I present in this section the reasons
5
behind the suitability of the present data for factor analyses. First,
the correlation matrix revealed that all variables intercorrelate with
at least one other variable at .30; this suggests reasonable fac-
torability. Second, the determinant of the correlation matrix for
this data was .004; therefore, multicollinearity was not a problem.
In other words, all 28 items in the draft questionnaire correlated
fairly well and none of the correlation coefficients are particu-
larly large; thus, there was no need to eliminate any item at this
stage. This further confirms the suitability of the data for factor
analysis. Furthermore, an examination of the Kaiser-Meyer-
Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy indicated that I
should be confident that factor analysis is appropriate for this data.
The KMO ⫽ .78, a value that is above the recommended value of
.5 (Kaiser, 1974). More so, the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was
also significant, ␹2(378) ⫽ 2551.52, p ⬍ .00001, indicating that
factor analysis is an appropriate method. Given these overall
indicators, factor analysis was deemed suitable with all the 28
items. The diagonals of the anti-image correlation matrix were also
all over .5 and the communalities after extraction were all above .3
except for three items (Table 1); further confirming that each item
shared some common variance with other items. Meanwhile, a
number of criteria were used to determine the full and subscales of
MUDRAS. These are as follows: (a) a minimum eigenvalue
of one, (b) examination of the scree plot (i.e., factors above the
point of inflection in the curve are retained), (c) exclusion of items
with factor loadings less than .40, and (d) the conceptual coherence
of the factors.
Factor Analyses Results
Twenty-eight items were factor analyzed using PCA extraction
method and varimax (orthogonal) rotation. However, an iterative
process was followed to reach a meaningful factor structure be-
cause the scree plot indicated three and six factors, I therefore
sought solutions that are more efficient and conceptually mean-
ingful. To this end, three-, four-, five-, and six factor-solutions
were examined and items with loadings less than the cut-off point
or loaded on multiple factors were discarded and the remaining
pool of items was reanalyzed. The outcome of this process yielded
25 items divided into four factors (Table 1), and together explain
41.91% of the variance in the measured construct. In other words,
among the factor solutions I examined, the four-factor solution
proved the most conceptually meaningful construct. Meanwhile,
PCA with a varimax rotation was used in preference to other
methods of extraction (e.g., maximum likelihood estimator) be-
cause (a) I am interested in uncovering the underlying dimension
of the MUDRAS construct, (b) it yielded clearer dimensions with
no cross-loadings, and (c) our main goal was to identify and
compute composite scores for the factors underlying MUDRAS. In
addition, a review of the initial factor loadings suggests that the
proper solution was attainable through PCA with varimax rotation,
because it converges in six iterations and moreover, the use of
varimax rotation helps in a long way in answering our research
question. Indeed, support for the convergence validity of the scales
is evident because each item converged significantly on the same
factor tapping these items; additionally, since there were no mul-
tiple loadings among the items, this provide evidence for the
discriminant validity of the scale. This finding therefore provides
initial support for the validity of the proposed instrument (i.e.,
 6 OLUFADI

Table 1
Factor Loadings and Communalities Based on a Principal Components Analysis

Question
number Itemsⴱ F1 F2 F3 F4 Communality M SD

Q20 Consult with soothsayers .76 .58 2.43 .86

Q21 Backbiting including listen to it .73 .53 2.55 .77
Q26 Swear falsely in the name of God .65 .45 2.66 .70
Q19 Riba’ (usury or interest) .64 .48 2.44 .80
Q24 Falsely suspecting others i.e., suspicion .61 .47 2.72 .66
Q28 Encroaching on others privacies without permission .58 .34 2.72 .65
Q25 Gambling .58 .44 2.64 .71
Q23 Waste resources e.g., food, money etc. .56 .37 2.71 .62
Q18 Use intoxicants like alcohol whether drinking, selling, etc. .55 .33 2.47 .81
Q15 Cheating in its various forms, e.g., unjustly taking the property of others .41 .25 2.82 .57
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Q6 Spend anything in charity e.g., giving alms, feeding your neighbours .67 .46 2.80 .49
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Q9 Fulfill your promise .67 .47 2.73 .63

Q10 Pray for your parents .67 .46 2.59 .83
Q7 Speak the truth in every situations .66 .44 2.50 .78
Q8 Obedience to your parents .66 .48 2.51 .82
Q11 Turn to God with sincere repentance i.e., without returning to the sin .60 .41 2.23 .96
Q5 Engage in Nawaafil (Optional prayers) .54 .35 2.51 .77
Q2 Observe Salat (obligatory prayers) .86 .74 3.13 .98
Q4 Place request in the court of Allah .83 .71 2.56 1.8
Q3 Observe at its right time .73 .54 1.71 1.82
Q1 Recitations of the Quran aside during the five daily Obligatory prayers .58 .37 1.49 .80
Q27 Curse another person .68 .48 2.96 .28
Q17 Give false witness .60 .52 2.87 .47
Q14 Kill another person without just cause .50 .28 2.97 .19
Q13 Associate partners with God .42 .20 2.99 .17
Q13 Eigen Value 4.81 3.19 2.18 1.56
Q13 % of Total Variance 15.4 10.72 8.8 6.99
Q13 Cronbach’s alpha .82 .76 .76 .36
ⴱ
Full details of each item is presented in the Appendix.

MUDRAS). Finally, I labeled each subscale of the MUDRAS as
follows.
The first factor that I labeled “sinful acts,” consists of 10
items representing both the major and minor sins highly pro-
hibited in Islam and strongly frown at by God. These 10 items
have loadings that range from .41 to .76, and explain together
15.4% of the variance. The second factor is labeled “recom-
mended acts,” and comprises seven items all of which talking
about the positive recommended acts as commanded by God
and strongly encouraged by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
These items load .54 to .67 on their factor and explain 10.72%
of the variance. The third factor is labeled “Engaging in bodily
worship of God,” covering some religious obligations or wor-
ship that involves the use of the whole body or parts of the
body, for example, observing Salat. The loadings on the third
factor fall between .58 and .86, and together explain 8.8% of the
variance. Although the items in the fourth factor had primary
loadings values that met the threshold I set in the present
investigation (values range between .42 and .68, and explain
6.99% of the variance), I preferred a three-factor solution,
because of its low reliability (internal consistency) value.
Internal Consistency Reliability
The internal consistency reliability of MUDRAS and its sub-
scales were examined using Cronbach’s Alpha. The analysis re-
vealed that alpha was .89 for the full scale while three of its
subscales have alpha values ranging from .76 to .82 (Table 1), the
last factor has low alpha value, which was extremely low to the
threshold recommended. I note that no substantial increase in alpha
for MUDRAS and its four subscales could have been achieved by
eliminating one or more items.
Study 2: Confirmatory and Validity Analysis
Participants
In the second phase of our study, samples from another
university located in the same area as the first study was
collected from 160 students who are Muslims and are 18 years
or above. I noted that the data-gathering approach of this second
study is the same as the one used in the first study; however,
responses from 12 students were dropped because the question-
naire was partially completed. Most of the participants in this
confirmatory study were women (62.16%, n ⫽ 92), and the
average age in the sample was 21.25 (SD ⫽ 3.13). Meanwhile,
all the participants completed a booklet containing MUDRAS
and some standardized measures used in the second study.3 The
essence of these measures is to carry out further validity of our
proposed instrument. I now described briefly information about
the standardized measures I included in the questionnaire for
this second study.
3
For this confirmatory study, MUDRAS consists of the 21 items I
obtained from the exploratory factor analysis in Study 1.
 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE
Instruments
Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Satisfaction with life
among participants was assessed with the 5-item SWLS developed
by Diener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985). Participants rated
each item on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
7 (strongly agree). A higher score on this scale means a greater
sense of life satisfaction. The coefficient alpha for this scale was
found to be .73.
Positive Relations With others (PRWOS). Ryff and Keyes
developed this scale in 1995. It consists of nine items and is used
to assess the quality of relations that participants tend to form with
others. Participants rated each item on a 6-point scale ranging from
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1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicate
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positive relations with others. I found that the coefficient alpha for
this scale in the present study was .86.
General Islamic Well-Being Scale (GIWS). This nine-item
scale by Abu Raiya et al. (2008) assesses the degree to which
the individual perceives Islam as affecting several aspects of his
or her life (e.g., sense of meaning in life, sense of personal
comfort). Sample items from this scale are “Islam affects my
sense of personal identity” and “Islam affects my sense of
meaning in life.” The participants were asked to respond to each
item on a 5-point scale ranging from ⫺2 (very negatively) to 2
(very positively); higher scores indicate greater general Islamic
well-being. The coefficient alpha for this scale was found to be
.84.
Global Religiousness Scale (GRS). Two items as presented
in (Abu Raiya et al., 2008) were used to assess general perceptions
of religiousness of the participants. These items are: (1) how do
you describe your religiousness? and (2) How do you describe
your spirituality? The participants were asked to respond to each
item on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high).
A higher score on this measure means greater perception of global
religiousness. The coefficient alpha for this scale in the present
study was .71.
MARS. This is perhaps the first measure of Islamic religious-
ness to rely exclusively on Islamic tenets, beliefs, and practices.
Wilde and Joseph (1997) developed the 14 items scale. Each item
was rated by the respondent on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from
strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) so that scores on the
total scale had a possible range of 14 to 70, with higher scores
indicating a more positive attitude. A sample item from this scale
is “Saying my prayers help me a lot.” The coefficient alpha for this
scale was found to be .86.
Purpose in Life Scale (PILS). I employed Ryff and Keyes’s
(1995) Purpose in Life scale to assess this domain in participants’
lives. Participants rated each of the nine items in the scale on a
6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6
(strongly agree). Higher scores denote greater purpose in life. The
coefficient alpha for this scale in the present study was .59.
Short Muslim Belief and Practice Scale (SMBPS). This
nine-item scale was developed by AlMarri et al. (2009) and was
designed to examine the role of religion in relation to alcohol
consumption. The first five items relate to the pillars of Islam and
responses are given on a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1
indicating “I never do this” to 5 “I always do this.” Higher scores
indicated a higher commitment to the acts detailed in the religion.
The other items consisted of four items relating to religious belief
7
such as “Men/Women should not shake hands with a person of the
opposite sex in public,” responses being given using a 5-point
rating scale ranging from 1 indicating “strongly disagree” to 5
“strongly agree.” The coefficient alpha for this scale in the present
study was .89.
Hypothesized Models
Model 1. This model hypothesized one first-order factor (MU-
DRAS), accounting for all the common variance among the 21
items. By this model, I are assuming that self-assessment of daily
actions and behaviors of Muslims is a single first order construct.
This assumption is motivated by the typical practice of scaling new
construct by adding the individual items in the construct to obtain
the total score.
Model 2. By this model, I hypothesized that the 21 items
divided into three uncorrelated or orthogonal first-order factors
(i.e., sinful acts, recommended acts, and engaging in bodily wor-
ship) based on the results from the factor analysis in Study 1. I
should recall that the use of varimax (orthogonal) rotation resulted
in three uncorrelated factors; thus, Model 2 is considered a plau-
sible model of the underlying data structure.
Model 3. This last model hypothesizes three first-order factors
and one second-order factor (MUDRAS). The model was included
because of the possible correlation that might exist between the
factors. In fact, if the first-order factors are correlated, it is possible
that the correlations between first order factors is statistically
“caused” by a single second-order factor.
Hypothesized Model Results
A number of indices were used in this study to check the
adequacy of the hypothesized models in the present study. This
is because there is no universally acceptable statistic as an index
of checking model adequacy. To this end, relative indices like
normed fit indices (NFI), target coefficient, and ratio of chi-
square to its degree of freedom were used to compare models.
In addition, absolute indices of goodness-of-fit such as chi-
square, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), and Adjusted Goodness of
Fit Index (AGFI), are used to evaluate the individual model.
More so, the Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual
(SRMR) and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RM-
SEA; Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Steiger & Lind, 1980) were
used to estimate the lack of fit in the model compared with a
perfect model. The larger the value the greater the misspecifi-
cation; a RMSEA value less than 0.08 is considered indicative
of an adequate fitting model and smaller values of the SRMR
are associated with better fitting models with scores below .05
considered as evidence of good fit (Byrne, 1989). Last, two
incremental fit index measures, namely the Tucker-Lewis Index
(TLI; Tucker & Lewis, 1973) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI;
Bentler, 1990) were also employed. These indices compare the
fit between the specified model and an independent (null)
model. For these two indices, a value of .90 is generally
considered to indicate an acceptable model and a value greater
than .95 is considered an excellent model (Bentler & Bonet,
1980; Hu & Bentler, 1999)
The goodness-of-fit indices for the hypothesized models and the
null model are presented in Table 2. I should note that the null
 8 OLUFADI

Table 2
Goodness-of-Fit Indices for the Hypothesized Models

3 First-order factors 3 First-order factors, 1

Fit Threshold for Threshold for Null model 1 First-order factor (uncorrelated) second-order factor
measures good fit acceptable fit value model value model value model value

␹2 (df) — — 1,542.24 (126) 985.36 (95) 258.85 (91) 289.14 (96)

␹2/df ␹2/df ⬍ 3 3 < ␹2/d ⬍ 5 12.24 10.37 2.84 3.01
NFI .95 ⱕ NFI ⱕ1 .90 ⬍ NFI ⬍ .95 — .64 .94 .93
GFI .95 ⱕ GFI ⱕ 1 .90 ⬍ GFI ⬍ .95 .62 .79 .95 .92
AGFI .9 ⱕ AGFI ⱕ 1 .85 ⬍ AGFI ⬍ .90 .67 .78 .96 .94
SRMR 0 ⬍ SRMR ⬍ .05 0 ⬍ SRMR ⬍ .10 .65 .07 .03 .03
RMSEA 0 ⬍ RMSEA ⬍ .05 .05 ⬍ RMSEA ⬍ .08 .38 .07 .04 .03
TLI .95 ⱕ TLI ⱕ 1 .90 ⬍ TLI ⬍ .95 .61 .67 .96 .94
CFI .95 ⱕ CFI ⱕ 1 .90 ⬍ CFI ⬍ .95 .63 .65 .95 .93
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NFI ⫽ normed fit indices; GFI ⫽ Goodness of Fit Index; AGFI ⫽ Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index; SRMR ⫽ Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual;
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RMSEA ⫽ Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; TLI ⫽ Tucker-Lewis Index; CFI ⫽ Comparative Fit Index.

model was included in order to establish the zero-point for the NFI.
Meanwhile, previous studies have made effort to specify a thresh-
old for measuring model fit. For instance, Marsh and Hocevar
(1985) recommends using the ratio of chi-square value to its
degree of freedom when its value is as low as 2 or as high as 5, as
evidence of a reasonable fit. As for GFI and AGFI, researchers
usually interpret GFI or AGFI scores in the .80 to .89 range as
representing reasonable fit; scores of .90 or higher are considered
evidence of good fit. Following this criteria, it is clear that the null
model provides a poor fit to the data (Table 2).
Examining all the indices of goodness-of-fit considered in
this second study, Model 1 provides a substantially better fit
relative to the null model, however, by normal standards, Model
1 is not close to being considered a good fit with the sample
data. Moreover, Model 2 substantially improves all indices of
goodness-of-fit relative to Model 1. Model 2 therefore shows
good model-data fit, as indicated by the various indices of
model fit considered in the present study. Thus, from the
empirical standpoint, this model provides a more than satisfac-
tory solution. The last model (Model 3) shows excellent model-
data fit, as indicated by the absolute indices (GFI, AGFI),
incremental fit indices values (TLI and CFI). However, as
expected for a second-order model, Model 3’s GFI and AGFI
scores are slightly lower than its first-order counterpart (Model
2). Thus, the results suggest that Models 2 and 3 are satisfactory
and competing representations of the underlying structure of
our construct.
Meanwhile, to confirm the multidimensionality of MUDRAS
construct, I conducted the convergent and discriminant tests in
line with the recommendation in Hair, Black, Babin, and An-
derson (2009). To achieve this, convergent validity was exam-
ined using both composite reliability (CR) and average variance
extracted (AVE) of all constructs. It is obvious from Table 3
that the CR and AVE of all constructs exceed .80 (ranging from
.90 to .93) and .50 (ranging from .69 to .71), respectively. To
examine the discriminant validity, I compared the square root of
each latent variable’s AVE (values in the diagonal, Table 3) to
supported, therefore; I could submit that the measure of each of
the three-factor structure loads on their components and that the
components are correlated.
Furthermore, the target coefficient was used to test for the
existence of a higher-order construct. Using Model 2 as the target
model, the target coefficient is the ratio of the chi-square of Model
2 to the chi-square of Model 3. In this case, a target coefficient of
.90 provides reasonable evidence of a second-order construct in-
herent in the daily self-assessment of Muslims’ actions and behav-
iors toward their God or other persons. This result indicates that
Model 3 explains 90% of the variation in the three first-order
factors in Model 2.
Meanwhile, when comparing first-order and second-order mod-
els, it is important to realize that the higher order factors are merely
trying to explain the covariation among the first-order factors in a
more parsimonious way (i.e., one that requires fewer degrees of
freedom). Consequently, even when the higher-order model is able
to explain effectively the factor covariations, the goodness-of-fit of
the higher-order model can never be better than the corresponding
first-order model. Overall, there is reasonable evidence to suggest
a second-order construct.
Further Validity Analyses
In this section, I provide further evidence of predictive and
convergent validity of the proposed measurement instrument
(MUDRAS). For example, the predictive validity of MUDRAS
and its three subscales was assessed by correlating it with some
standardized measures of well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life,
positive relations with others, and purpose in life).
Table 3
Convergent and Discriminant Validity Results
MUDRAS subscale AVE CR 1 2 3
1. Sinful acts .70 .91 .84 ⴱ

its correlations with other latent variables. I found that the 2. Recommended acts .71 .93 .37 .85ⴱ
intercorrelations for the latent variable were all lower than the 3. Engaging in bodily worship .69 .90 .16 .26 .84ⴱ
square root of AVE for that latent variable. These results Note. MUDRAS ⫽ Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale; AVE ⫽
suggest that the overall validity of the overall model as well as average variance extracted; CR ⫽ composite reliability.
ⴱ
the convergent and discriminant validity of individual scales is The square root of each latent variable’s AVE is placed on the diagonal.
 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE
Convergent Validity: Correlations With Theoretically
Related Constructs
As would be expected, a positive and significant association was
obtained between MUDRAS, its subscales and three theoretically
related constructs. In particular, greater levels of General Islamic
Well-Being and Global Religiousness were related significantly to
higher scores on MUDRAS and its subscales with values ranging
between .16 and .53, except the sinful acts subscale (r ⫽ ⫺.12);
greater levels of Global Religiousness were related significantly to
lower scores on this subscale. Similarly, fairly strong relationships
were observed between MUDRAS, its subscales, and short Mus-
lim practice and behavior scale (SMPBS), as well as MARS.
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Predictive Validity: Correlations With the
Psychological Well-Being Measures
The correlations between MUDRAS, its three subscales, and the
well-being measures are provided in Table 4. Obviously, it is easy
to observe from Table 4 that MUDRAS and its subscales were
associated with various psychological well-being measures con-
sidered in this study. These results therefore support the predictive
validity of the MUDRAS.
Discussion
The main objective of this study is to develop a simple, short,
and psychometrically sound scale useful for self-assessment of the
daily religiosity of Muslims. To achieve this, I conceptualized and
measured the daily self-assessment of individual Muslim religios-
ity as a multidimensional construct consisting of three factors:
sinful acts, recommended acts by God and Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH), and engaging in bodily worship of God. The validation
process I employed using both exploratory and confirmatory factor
analysis techniques produced a 21-item instrument, which exhibits
sound psychometric properties. Meanwhile, each of the factors
may still be strengthened through revision, rewriting of the items
with lower primary loadings or by adding new items that are not
included in the present study.
In addition, the investigation of the construct validity of the
MUDRAS using four standardized well-being measures, and three
theoretically related constructs to MUDRAS provide preliminary
evidence for the convergent and predictive validity of MUDRAS.
For instance, the correlations between MUDRAS, its subscales,
and the three theoretically related measures considered in the
present study were in the expected direction, supporting the con-
vergent validity of the MUDRAS. This result may be based on the
Table 4
Correlations Between the Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment
Scale (MUDRAS), Its Subscales, and the Outcome Measures
Satisfaction with Positive relations
Variable life with others
Bodily worship .24ⴱ .33ⴱⴱ
Recommended acts .13ⴱ .81ⴱⴱ
Sinful acts ⫺.24 .06
MUDRAS .36ⴱⴱ .37ⴱⴱ
ⴱ ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ 05. p ⬍ 01.
9
assumption that the MUDRAS subscales measures different as-
pects of Islamic religiosity (see, e.g., Abu Raiya, 2005).
In addition, the predictive validity of MUDRAS and its sub-
scales was established in this preliminary investigation and are
associated with various well-being indices. These findings may be
a pointer to the fact that engaging in self-assessment of daily
religiosity by the Muslims may contributes to their Psychological
well-being. This assertion is premised on the study conducted by
Ryff (1989), who reported that purpose in life is one of the central
components of psychological well-being. Thus, the connection
between Muslims’ self-assessment of their daily religiosity and
some domains in life was established. More so, the subscales of
MUDRAS capture the major purpose of creation according to the
Muslims’ belief. This may therefore explain the positive and
significant relationship observed between MUDRAS and purpose
in life. Thus, given that MUDRAS and its subscales contribute to
purpose in life and that purpose in life is a central factor in many
conceptualizations of mental well-being, the findings reported
suggests that MUDRAS is beneficial to the Muslims.
Although there are many measures that demonstrated and ac-
knowledged that religiosity had a great influence on psychological
well-being of the Muslims (e.g., Abu Raiya et al., 2008; AlMarri
et al., 2009; Jana-Masri & Priester, 2007), none of these indices
investigated the possible relationship between the daily self-
assessment of Muslim religiosity and psychological outcomes for
example, satisfaction in life. Moreover, I believe that MUDRAS
has the potential to contribute empirical data useful for psycho-
logical and general well-being measures. Indeed, the benefits of
sincere and consistent self-assessment of daily religiosity in the
lives of Muslims and their relationship with fellow Muslims and
non-Muslims cannot be underestimated. There is therefore a need
for studies in the Muslim world where psychometrically sound
measures of assessing daily religiosity of Muslim is highly re-
quired and indispensable. Overall, MUDRAS demonstrated prom-
ise as a measure of self-assessment of Muslim daily religiosity and
has potential significant implications for psychological and mental
health.
Usefulness of MUDRAS for Individual Muslims and
Clinicians, and Implications for Psychological
Research
For any Muslim counselors, psychologist, or clinically trained
clergymen interested in using MUDRAS, the first and (probably)
the most important step in using MUDRAS is to let their client/
congregation know from the outset why they think that using
MUDRAS is a good idea. Explaining how it will benefit their
clients or the congregation is particularly important because self-
assessment of their daily religiosity might require more effort on
the part of the users. This may therefore help them avoid any
negative perceptions that may arise from the use of MUDRAS. In
addition, the Muslim counselors, psychologist, and clinically
Purpose in trained clergymen would have to let their clients/congregation
life understand how MUDRAS can be used, and more importantly
.78ⴱⴱ assured them that they are free to be honest, accurate, and engage
.42ⴱ in careful thought about their religious beliefs, practices, and
.51ⴱⴱ attitudes. More so, they may assure the potential users that there
.61ⴱⴱ are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure the confidentiality of
their responses and results.
 10 OLUFADI
In addition, MUDRAS could be very useful to the Muslim
chaplains, counselors, and clinically trained clergy to assess their
clients and/or congregations’ level of religious wellbeing. This I
believe would help them identify the spiritual/religious problems
of their clients/congregation. Furthermore, counselors could use
MUDRAS as an assessment and diagnosis tool to evaluate whether
identifying the level of religiosity of their client is important to a
particular treatment and whether religious factors are helping or
hindering the healing process of their client. By this way, many
possible steps like (a) taking no further actions (b) change of the
treatment plan, and (c) incorporation of the religiosity factors into
the treatment may follow the religious assessment of their client.
At the individual level, the items put together in MUDRAS
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could be useful as a self-assessment inventory of the Muslims’
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level of relationship with their creator (i.e., God) and in addition
help them identify whether they are meeting or satisfying the
purpose of their creation. For instance, the main goal of creating
human being according to Islamic belief is to worship God alone.
However, this goal may go unrealized because of lack of self-
awareness. In other words, if Muslims fails to monitor their be-
havior (e.g., ensuring that they observe their five daily obligatory
prayers promptly), the salience of the discrepancy between their
main goal (e.g., observe all the daily obligatory prayers per day)
and their actual behavior (e.g., only observing part or none of the
daily obligatory prayers) might be very low. Indeed, complying
with the standards of worshipping God as He is ought to be
worshipped is no different from any other fact of life: out of sight,
out of mind. Thus, to improve and ensure that they achieve the
goal of worshipping God as expected of them, they must remain
aware of their current behavior to have a clearer sense of its
departure from their main goal of creation. In addition, MUDRAS
could be an inexpensive, easy-to-use inventory for determining
Muslims’ compliance with the laid down rules and regulations and
may act as a tool for correcting those behaviors that are not
consistent with the religious standards (e.g., worshipping God as
He ought to be worshipped).
Furthermore, MUDRAS could be particularly helpful for indi-
vidual Muslims living in a non-Muslims’ country or environment,
I believe that this formal assessment has the capability of improv-
ing their religious behaviors, practices and attitudes in this kind of
environment and can as well act as checks and balances for these
categories of Muslims. In addition, because regular meetings in the
mosques, attending Islamic gatherings where lectures capable of
improving their religiosity is not always available in this kind of
environment, the use of MUDRAS for the assessment of their daily
religiosity might prove effective means of improving their religi-
osity. This is very essential because for most of the Muslims, a
quality of life or level of life satisfaction is not through measuring
the tangible and countable worldly possessions; for them, the
quality of life indicator is their level of religious well-being, which
nurtures their feeling of gratification.
Limitations
To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at developing a
measurement instrument useful for daily self-assessment of Mus-
lim religiosity and although, the findings are quite promising, this
study like many other scientific investigations has some limitations
that must be considered when interpreting its results. First, the
results of the confirmatory factor analysis reported here should be
interpreted with caution. This is because the criteria for judging the
goodness-of-fit or comparing models are relative rather than ab-
solute. In addition, there is no universally agreed threshold or
standard cutoff values for evaluating model-data fit or the exis-
tence of higher-order constructs. Furthermore, the fact that a model
fits one sample like the one reported in the present investigation
does not imply that it is the ultimate solution. To this end, future
researchers can respecify our model using a confirmatory factor
analysis to revise and improve the model.
In addition, although the samples in the present investigation is
representative of the Muslim populations from which it was se-
lected, the use of a convenience sampling approach may not
provide an accurate representation of this population in the study
areas. This approach may therefore cast doubts about the results
presented here. By this way, cautions should be taken when
generalizing the findings despite the strong evidence of reliability
and validity of the instrument. Moreover, the data for the study
were obtained in two of the universities in Nigeria; other research-
ers using a different university may find more or less of the results
reported here. It is also possible that the students’ reports will be
unique and not representative of other groups of students in other
universities with regard to region, religious group, ethnicity, and
social status.
However, this may not pose a problem because the samples in
the present study represents the Muslim population in the study
areas and cuts across different age group with diverse socioeco-
nomic and demographic characteristics. Nevertheless, I recom-
mend that MUDRAS be validated across different Muslim popu-
lations and groups of Islam (e.g., Sunni, Shiite) to study the
psychometrics properties of MUDRAS.
Conclusions
This study reports an exploratory-confirmatory study through a
rigorous validation of the proposed measurement instrument. De-
spite the limitations highlighted earlier, the evidence presented
here indicates that the MUDRAS is a promising instrument for
self-assessment of Muslim daily religiosity, through which coun-
selors, psychologists and clinical trained clergyman may identify
and understand the religious problems of their clients and its
relationship to any psychological, wellbeing, or clinical outcome
of interest. Thus, MUDRAS can be used as a standardized measure
of daily self-assessment of Muslim religiosity. Overall, I hope the
results presented in our present investigation sparks the interests of
researchers to refine this new measure and encourage empirical
studies on a number of psychological outcomes as well as provide
fresh insights into the psychology of Muslims religiosity. For
example, MUDRAS may be refined by analyzing the correlation
between the error terms of items or respecifying the model. Last,
I hope that this scale serves as a valuable resource, reference, and
guide for researchers interested in this fascinating field of inquiry.
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 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE 13

Appendix
Muslim Daily Religiosity Assessment Scale (MUDRAS)

INSTRUCTION: Apart from questions 1 to 6, kindly indicate the number of times you do or engage in
each of the statement presented below since the time you wake up today using the following scales:
Never do this today ⴝ 3; I did this once today ⴝ 2; 2–3 times today ⴝ 1; More than 3 times today ⴝ 0

Item no. Questions Reference from the Quran

1 Aside the recitations of the Quran during the five daily Obligatory Q35:29; Q73:4; At-Tirmidhi
prayers, how many times did you read the Quran today? (a) I 5/175; Al-Baani Sahih
don’t know how to read the Quran (b) I can read the Quran but Tirmidhi 9/3; Sahih As-
I don’t read it today (c) I read the Quran today (d) I read it Saghir 5/340
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with meaning and understanding

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

2 How many Salat (obligatory prayers) did you observe today? Q4:103; SB Book 10, No
(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2 (d) 3 (e) 4 (f) 5 505, 522 and 536
3 There is a specified time for observing salat and the best salat is Q4:103; Sahih Bukhari Book
the one which is observed at the early slated time, how many 10, No 505, 522 and 536
salat did you observe at its right time today?
(a) 0 (b) 1 (c) 2 (d) 3 (e) 4 (f) 5
4 God has commanded that we ask from Him anything we want Q7:55; Q25:77; Q40:60
regarding the matters of this world or hereafter, and has
promised to grant our request. He added that those who are
arrogant to place their request before Him shall be entered into
Hellfire. How many times do you place your request in the
court of Allah since the time you woke up today? (a) 0 (b) 1
(c) 2 (d) 3 (e) 4 (f) ⱖ 5
5 There are Nawaafil (Optional prayers) strongly recommended and SB volume 1, book of
practiced by the Prophet before and after the five daily prayers, Adhan, Hadith #663 and
how many times do you engage in carrying out this Nawaafil #731; SB volume 1, book
today? of belief, Hadith #46; SM
(a) None of the Nawaafil (b) only one of the Nawaafil (c) 2–3 volume 2, book of
Nawaafil (d) More than 3 Nawaafil travelers, Hadith #729,
730, 1698 and 1699
6 How many times did you spend anything in charity today e.g., Q2:267, 270, 271, 274; Q3:
giving alms, feeding your neighbours/roommate, teaching or 92, 134; Q63:
sharing with others what you know etc.? (a) Never do this 10–11; Q65:7
today (b) I did this once today (c) 2–4 times today (d) More
than 4 times today
ⴱ
7 Speak the truth in every situations Q45:6; Q4:61, 106, 110;
ⴱ
8 Obedience to your parents Q19:13, 32; Q29:8; Q31:14;
Q46:15; Q17:23
ⴱ
9 Fulfill your promise Q70:32; Q33:72
ⴱ
10 Pray for your parents Q20:132
ⴱ
11 Turn to God with sincere repentance i.e., without returning to the Q3:135; Q66:8;
sin
ⴱ
12 Encourage others to do good Q31:17
13 Associate partners with God Q6:151–152
14 Kill another person without just cause Q25:68; Q17:33; Q25:68
15 Cheating in its various forms, for example, unjustly taking the Q83:1–3; Q4:29–30; Q35:43,
wealth/ property of others, weighing scale, during examination Q4:10; Q2:188; Q3:161;
etc. SB 4/3073
16 Engage in illegal sexual intercourse Q17:30; Q24:3; Q31:6 SB
7/5590
17 Give false witness Q25:72
18 Use intoxicants like alcohol whether drinking, selling, etc. Q5:90; Q31:6; SB 7/5590
19 Riba’ (usury or interest) Q2:275, Q2:188
20 Consult with soothsayers Sahih Al-Jami #5816
21 Backbiting including listen to it Q104:1–9; Q24:15,16,19;
Q49:12; Q50:18; Q68:11
22 Break the trust placed in your care Q8:27

(Appendix continues)
 14 OLUFADI

Appendix (continued)

Item no. Questions Reference from the Quran

23 Waste resources e.g., food, money etc. Q7:31; SB book #41, Hadith
#591

24 Falsely suspecting others i.e., suspicion Q49:13

25 Gambling Q5:90
26 Swear falsely in the name of God Q16:105; SB book #78,
Hadith #647
27 Curse another person Sahih Al-Jami #3598
28 Encroaching on others privacies (e.g., their houses, eavesdropping Q49:12; Q68:11
on their private conversations etc.) without permission
ⴱ
Items with reversed scores
SB ⫽ Sahih Bukhari; SM ⫽ Sahih Muslim
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Scoring of the MUDRAS

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In scoring MUDRAS, three component scores are derived. The component scores are summed to produce a global score
that ranges from 0 to 10. Higher scores indicate good relationship with Allah for the day.
Component 1: Sinful acts—items 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 28

Items 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 28 should be as scored as follows

More than 3 times 0

2–3 times 1
I did this once 2
Never do this 3

Sum of items 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24,

25, 26 and 28 scores Component 1 score

0–5 0
6–10 1
11–15 2
16–20 3
21–25 4
26–30 5
Component 1 score: ________
Component 2: Recommended acts – items 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11

Items 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 should be as scored as follows

More than 3 times 0

2–3 times 1
I did this once 2
Never do this 3

Items 5 and 6 should be as scored as follows

Option (a) 0
Option (b) 1
Option (c) 2
Option (d) 3

(Appendix continues)
 MUSLIM DAILY RELIGIOSITY ASSESSEMENT SCALE 15

Sum of items 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 scores Component 2 score

0–5 0
6–10 1
11–15 2
> 16 3

Component 2 score: ________

Component 3: Engaging in bodily worship of Allah—items 1, 2, 3, and 4

Item 1 should be as scored as follows

Option (a) 0
Option (b) 1
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Option (c) 2
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Option (d) 3

Items 2, 3, and 4 should be as scored as follows

Option (a) 0
Option (b) 1
Option (c) 2
Option (d) 3
Option (e) 4
Option (f) 5

Sum of 1, 2, 3 and 4 Component 3 score

0–6 0
7–12 1
ⱖ13 2
Component 3 score: ________
Global MUDRAS Score: Sum of three component scores: ________

Received August 30, 2015

Revision received November 8, 2015
Accepted January 4, 2016 䡲

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