Any islamic countries that are considered secular, compared to other Islamic nations?
What about Islamic people who are the minority in other countries. Are they more liberal or conservative compared to other nations?
Turkey certainly is.
For now.
The only country that is legitimately a Muslim theocracy is Iran. The rest are nominally secular.
Turkey is a Muslim-majority country with a constitutionally prescribed secular government:
Malaysia and Indonesia also have principles of secular government, but they have active pro-Shari’a movements that are working to bring the civil laws in line with (their interpretation of) Islamic religious law.
Most post-colonial Muslim-majority states adopted secular forms of government, but several have been more or less “Shari’aized” since then. It isn’t always easy to draw a definite line between secular and “Islamic” governments. Does it make a government non-secular if it recognizes Islam as the state religion? (For that matter, does it make a European government non-secular if it recognizes some Christian sect as its state religion?)
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here. Is this about Muslims in non-Muslim-majority countries? Are you asking whether those Muslim minorities are more liberal or conservative compared to the average citizens of the country they live in, or compared to Muslim-majority countries, or what?
Saudi Arabia is a secular state? :dubious:
Iraq was a secular state before we invaded it. Now it’s reverted back to theocracy.
I suppose you could technically stretch a point to say that Saudi Arabia is officially a monarchy with state ownership of resources, and hence nominally a secular state. As opposed to Iran, which explicitly decrees a religious body (the Guardian Council) and religious leader as the head of the people and charges them with oversight of all legal and governmental affairs—hence officially a theocracy.
Both constitutions, however, explicitly invoke Islam as their state religion and guiding principle, and they don’t seem that different functionally.
No, I suppose Saudi Arabia is a good counter-example.
I was gonna say that.
Dang.
Peace,
mangeorge
Sorry for not being clear. I was asking if muslims in predominately non-muslim countries are more liberal compared to muslims in dominately muslim countries.
OK, here’s a starting point. From this website (www.islamic-world.net), here are a list of islamic countries:
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, WesternSahara, Yemen.
I am guessing that they include every country with a sizable Islamic population.
The only one that has a theocratic government, as far as I know, is Iran.
You could look up each country in the CIA world factbook (www.cia.gov) to see how it’s described. For example, the CIA world factbook describes Iran as a theocratic government.
To properly answer the question, one must answer what is meant by “secular government”, as Kimstu has said, considering:
Is Islam officially declared to be the state religion?
Were the laws devised on a shariah system?
An obvious (to us westerners), but maybe not relevant social differentiator - do women generally walk the streets of small cities without veils or head coverings?
I would call Egypt and Yemen, for example, secular islamic states.
If you consider the US a non-muslin country, the muslims I’ve know have been pretty conservative.
But is Turkey DEFACTO secular? I mean you can be a Muslim in the US and Western Europe and though you might face some discrimination, you still are pretty much free to practice?
If you’re a Jew or a Christian or Hindu or Buddist or even Athiest, can you go about and practice without fear of being harrassed or physically threatened.
It’s like in the old South black people always had the RIGHT to vote, but when you got mobs of white people threatening them with bodily harm if they vote, then you really don’t have that right.
Is Turkey like that? It’s one thing to be secular “de Jour” and secular “de facto” is another thing. I’m not saying Turkey isn’t I’m just asking
Well, the 2002 US State Department Religious Freedom Report on Turkey sez:
Tunisia has an autocratic government which generally opposes excessively religious symbols like the hijab, although they aren’t the best example of a religiously free country. Same with Egypt although they are more democratic.
Lebanon is really secular so much as pluralistic. Something like 35% of the population is Christian, and the Muslims are also divided fairly equally by sect. Government positions are divided; always the PM is Sunni, the President Maronite Catholic, and the Speaker is Shiite. While other religions/the nonreligious are underrepresented, there certainly is not Muslim hegemony on a national level.
I live in Indonesia and secularism varies greatly by region. On Java, for example, the atmosphere is very relaxed, but here in Aceh, there are Sharia police patroling the streets and beaches and monitoring people’s behaviour.
madmonk28,
What is the actual legal status of those “Sharai police” patrols?
I believe Morocco has a secular government.
Yes, I know, Wikipedia–but this entry has references.
Nothing of substance to add, just that “jour” is the French word for ‘day’ (as in soupe du jour, soup of the day). You want de jure, where jure (or iure) is the ablative case of ius, iuris, ‘law.’
I’ve worked in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not recently but not so long ago (within the last ten years). I’d rank them in that order from secular to religious. This is non-scientific, just my feel.
In Turkey, specifically Istanbul which may be atypical but is certainly a big chunk of the country, it felt a lot like any city in Europe, albeit a somewhat poor and often disorganized one. They seemed proud of being “European” and did not consider themselves Asian or Middle Eastern. Obviously, there were mosques, and the call to prayer, but women came to work mostly in dresses or pants.
In Egypt, you saw a lot more traditional women, but at least there were women in the offices, and these were actually often Coptic Christians. I was surprised that my colleague wore a crucifix. At the hotel I stayed in there was a casino, you could get served beer (not great beer, but real beer), and there were women in abbaya (sp?) sitting out in the courtyard, smoking sheesha with their menfolk.
In Saudi Arabia, there are separate sections in all restaurants for Men Only and Families Only, so segregated dining, enforced coverage for women, women for the most part can’t work* or drive or do most anything not considered the Islamic feminist ideal. It is the birthplace of Wahabism, the strict branch of Islam that spawned al Qaeda and bin Laden. There are religious police to ensure that there is no improper mingling of the sexes and that women are properly covered. You are asked the religion of your mother when applying for a visa. Stores closed and work essentially stopped during the five daily calls to prayer, although I was allowed to continue working, the guys at work (no women whatsoever) all took out the time to do their ablutions and pray in an office set aside for the purpose.
*Exceptions seemed to be for airline stewardesses (no male flight attendants), teaching girls, and some medical staff.