Religion in the United Arab Emirates or criticism of religion "equates to distancing oneself from national identity". Al-Qassemi notes that the use of social media via the internet remains the strongest medium of expression for Gulf atheists, while providing anonymity; a pioneering Gulf blogger is the Emirati atheist Ahmed Ben Kerishan, who is known in the Arabic blogosphere for advocating atheist and secular views. Religion in the United Arab Emirates Islam is both the official and majority religion in the United Arab Emirates followed by approximately 76% of the population. The Al Nahayan and Al Maktoum ruling families adhere to Sunni Islam of Maliki school of
Handbook of Religion and Health "Freethought Today", a magazine published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, wrote that the "Handbook" "reports that there are at least 1200 studies on religion and health - with the vast majority showing positive associations" and asked Are there really this many studies? What are these studies like? Well, here's one of them that qualifies by Koenig's standards... The authors reported differences between Jewish and non-Jewish Cleveland attorneys in the incidence of some index of cardiovascular disease. That's it... So that's how numbers like 1200 arise, because studies like this get included. (pp. 10-11) In the "Journal for the Scientific