Retrieving and Rereading Studies of Religiosity in Iran: Implicit Surveys of Religious Commitment

Despite the relative expansion of religiosity studies in Iran over recent decades, many of these efforts continue to suffer from conceptual vagueness, methodological inconsistency, and a lack of longitudinal continuity.National-level analysis of religious change requires valid, comparable, and temporally extended data grounded in coherent and reliable frameworks.However, the few available national surveys-particularly those that assess religiosity only implicitly-do not fully meet these criteria.This article critically reexamines four major nationwide surveys conducted in 1977, 1980, 1996, and 2004, which share a degree of conceptual and structural similarity in their indirect measurement of religiosity.The primary focus is on formal and structural aspects of these surveys, including item coherence, instrument design quality, level of measurement, conceptual consistency, and the comparability of data over time.The study does not engage in evaluating the validity of findings or conducting substantive content analysis.Findings indicate that despite variations in geographic coverage and sample size, the surveys exhibit limited item-level replication across time and largely remain at a descriptive level.Composite constructs and conceptual indices are rarely employed, restricting longitudinal or causal analysis.Nevertheless, these fragmented datasets represent the only empirical sources currently available for partially reconstructing the historical trajectory of religiosity in Iran.The article underscores the need to strengthen systematic and theory-driven survey traditions and urges scholars of religion and Iranian society to critically engage with and build upon these foundational efforts for future research and policy-oriented inquiry.