SUICIDE AND RELIGIOUS CULTURE:BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND CATHOLICS

Feeling the need to study in depth the relationship between religious creed and propensity to suicide, the present research work has investigated two groups of subjects -Muslims and Catholics- in order to probe their attitudes toward violent death. The instrument utilized is the \u2018Reasons for Living Inventory\u2019 (RLI) integrated with three aphorisms that praise, justify and condemn voluntary death. Results show that the Muslim group tends toward \u201cselfish\u201d suicide less than the Catholic group. However, discussion of the results obtained highlights the need for further research on \u201cselfless\u201d suicide