Religion and State
Further information: Political aspects of Islam and Islam and secularismIslamic law does not distinguish between "matters of church" and "matters of state"; the ulama function as both jurists and theologians.
As the Muslim world came into contact with secular ideals of the Western world, Muslim societies responded in different ways. Azerbaijan was the first secular republic in the Muslim world, between 1918 and 1920, when it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Turkey has been governed as a secular state since the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. By contrast, the 1979 Iranian Revolution replaced a mostly secular regime with an Islamic republic led by the Ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Many Muslim countries have implemented some form of Sharia law or otherwise have Islam as the official state religion. Consequently, in those countries, areas of society ranging from politics to law to schooling, among others, have been affected. However, other states in the Muslim world remain officially secular.
Read more about this topic: Muslim World
Famous quotes containing the words religion and/or state:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshiper and the worshiper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)