The concept of heaven in drawings by french muslim children

Abstract

This study examined drawings of children’s concepts of paradise categorized by age, gender, and religious-cultural differences. Participants were Sunni Turkish Muslim children born in France and who attend Islamic religious education at France’s Strasbourg Yunus Emre Mosque on weekends. Three superordinate and 14 subordinate qualitative categories were formed from the children’s drawings analyzed by the phenomenographic method. Although concrete descriptions of heaven were seen in the drawings by children of all ages, abstract depictions increased with age. Whereas drawings of heaven by girls depicted love and compassion, boys’ drawings represented power. Although there are commonalities between the descriptions by children of Muslim background and children from other religious backgrounds and cultures, the children’s particular religious and cultural structures were reflected in their representations of paradise. Recommendations from this study are given for the nature of the education children receive regarding death and heaven and hell.