The concept of social change in Muslim community Essay

Every society is now in a process of transition. Growth of knowledge, urbanization, education and employment are some of the factors that lead to social change. The institution of family and the division of labour within, along with other elements in the broader social system have been effected by the processes of change.
The Muslim form a religious minority community in India and due to their rigid religious orientation change is generally resisted. In spite of this, lately certain changes have occurred in the Muslim community in general and regarding the role and position of Muslim women in particular. One of the factors in the improvement of the status of Women is education which is indispensible for playing many of the modern roles and thereby enables them to rise in status it is also widens their cognitive map enables to compare their position in society vis-a-vis men. The main theme of this research is how changes have occurred in the activity pattern and position of Meo women.
1.2 Theoretical Perspective
Social change is a widely discussed subject but its theoretical position remains controversial. Analytic descriptive studies of various social and cultural systems in India did engage the interests of the British and European scholar's right from the 18th century, but comparatively the studies about the processes of social change went on continually. The functionalist studies mainly focused on the analysis of social change. In fact some of the most discussed concept of social change in India is clearly oriented to the structural functional method.
The concept of social change finds a beginning in the writings of the British and Indian scholars following the last quarter of the 19th century. The concept and formulations got differentiated and a variety of approaches emerged. These approaches are classified into the following types
1. Evolutionary Approach
2. Cultural Approach
3. Structural Approach
4. Dialectical Historical Approach
The evolutionary approach concentrates on the institutions like caste, family, marriage, kinship and village community. Evolutionary approach to modernisation is based on more systematic theoretical assumptions. Modernization is conceived of as an evolutionary stage in the life of human society.
A comprehensive theory of social or cultural change assumes that sources of change lie both inside and outside the system. The concepts of sanskritization and westernization postulated by Srinivas define these two types of sources of social change. If we define social change not merely as new cultural adaptations or positional changes in the status of groups and categories but as structural changes or change in the principles of social stratification as such, we find that all the above conceptual formulations on social change tend to be partial. The dependent where change take place, and independent why change takes place variables used through these concepts do not reach the point of critical minima to be considered adequate for theoretical generalization. The dependent variables are in most cases culturological, they deal with changes in ideologies, outlooks, traditions and their social organization rather than in the social system or structure as such.