"Studies of Spirituality"; a Field of Study or an Academic Major?

Following the development of interest in spirituality, studies of spirituality are also developing day by day. However, facing a multitude of studies in the field of spirituality raises the question in the mind as to whether a field called "spirituality studies" has been created or whether these studies are limited to scattered studies or at least to the extent of forming a new field of study. In this article, after introducing the types of studies available in this regard, through focusing on the studies that have categorized and drawn the spirituality studies in the West in a secondary way, we seek to find an independent field of "Spirituality Studies" in the three areas of social studies, religious studies and theological studies via citation analysis. The finding of this research suggests that it is only in the field of theological studies that researchers have reported the formation of an independent field of "spirituality". Of course, this claim needs evaluation. After introducing experts, departments, and works produced in this field, this article tries to evaluate this claim through a priori approach and provide an answer to the question of whether spirituality is an academic major or a field of study.