Countries
Bangladesh
Also Known As Bangladeshi
Asia
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Bangladesh is overwhelmingly Muslim, mostly Sunni following the Hanafi school, with a Hindu minority that has shrunk substantially since partition through migration and periodic violence. Islam reached Bengal largely through Sufi teachers rather than conquest, and the shrines of figures such as Shah Jalal in Sylhet remain major pilgrimage sites; the Baul singers of the Bengal countryside, recognised by UNESCO, carry a syncretic devotional tradition drawing on both Sufi and Vaishnava sources. The country was founded in 1971 on a constitution naming secularism among its four state principles, but the eighth amendment of 1988 declared Islam the state religion, and both provisions now stand together after a 2011 restoration of the secularism clause. Small Buddhist communities remain in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and a Christian minority in the north.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment StatusIslam is named the state religion under the eighth constitutional amendment of 1988; a 2011 amendment restored secularism as a state principle alongside it, and separate personal status laws apply to Muslim, Hindu and Christian citizens. State Funding MechanismBangladesh funds Islamic religious life directly from the state budget through its Ministry of Religious Affairs, which had a budget of about 23.53 billion taka, roughly 224 million dollars, for the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year. Most of that money passes through the Islamic Foundation, the ministry's implementing body, which received about 18.17 billion taka of it, and the government pays the salaries of imams and other staff at thousands of mosques nationwide, including the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka. The government also influences who is appointed and removed as imam and issues written guidance on sermon content, including instructing imams to denounce extremism. 4 Apostasy or Blasphemy LawBangladesh has no crime titled blasphemy but reaches the same conduct through the 1860 Penal Code and, from 2018 to 2023, digital-security legislation. Penal Code sections 295 to 298 punish injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult a religion, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings (section 295A), disturbing a religious assembly, and words or gestures meant to wound religious feelings, carrying maximum terms of two years under sections 295 and 295A and one year under sections 296 to 298. Section 28 of the 2018 Digital Security Act separately made publishing material online that hurts religious sentiment a cognizable, non-bailable offense, giving police power to arrest on suspicion alone; that Act was repealed and replaced by the 2023 Cyber Security Act, which retains comparable provisions. Bangladesh has no apostasy statute. Enforcement of the religious-insult provisions has intensified since 2013, and mob violence and vigilante killings of bloggers and writers accused of blasphemy have occurred alongside, and at times instead of, criminal prosecution under these sections. 5 Registration or Recognition RegimeThe Eighth Amendment of 1988 inserted Article 2A, naming Islam the state religion while pledging equal status and an equal right to practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and other religions; the Supreme Court has since upheld the provision against constitutional challenge. A religious association running more than one house of worship, or receiving foreign funding for development work, must register with the NGO Affairs Bureau; one that receives no foreign funding registers instead with the Ministry of Social Welfare, or as a society under the Societies Registration Act of 1860. Many small congregations remain unregistered under either path. 3 Ban or Official WatchlistBangladeshi law allows the government to return property it formerly confiscated from individuals, overwhelmingly Hindus, whom the state declared enemies. Authorities used the Enemy Property Act, later renamed the Restoration of Vested Property Act, to seize property abandoned by members of religious minority groups who fled the country, particularly following the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, and the law leaves the government discretion to return such property rather than an obligation to do so, so land and homes taken from Hindu families remain vested in the state decades later. 3 Concordat BasisBangladesh has no concordat with the Holy See. Article 2A, inserted by the Eighth Amendment of 1988, names Islam the state religion while other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony; the Fifteenth Amendment of 2011 restored secularism among the constitution's fundamental principles without removing Islam's state-religion status, an arrangement the Supreme Court upheld against constitutional challenge in 2016, the country's own unresolved constitutional relationship to religion. 6 Disputed
Legal StatusIslam is the state religion under the eighth amendment of 1988, while secularism was restored as a state principle in 2011 and both provisions now stand; separate personal status laws apply to Muslim, Hindu and Christian citizens. 3 7 Bangladesh's constitution carries two provisions that sit in tension rather than one clearly superseding the other: Islam was declared the state religion by the eighth constitutional amendment in 1988, and secularism was restored as a foundational state principle by a 2011 constitutional amendment following a Supreme Court ruling, without the 1988 provision being repealed. Both therefore stand together in the same document. Separately, personal status law, covering marriage, divorce and inheritance, is administered under distinct religious codes for Muslim, Hindu and Christian citizens rather than under one uniform civil law. The State Department's report documents this as the current legal architecture rather than resolving which provision, the state religion clause or the secularism principle, controls in a given case. Because the two provisions were added by different governments at different times without one explicitly repealing the other, the tension is a feature of the constitutional text itself and would require further amendment or definitive court ruling to close. Demographics
Religious CompositionAbout 91 per cent Muslim, predominantly Sunni of the Hanafi school, with a Hindu minority of roughly 8 per cent and small Buddhist and Christian communities (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020; Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics). 1 Government
Government Type Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year16 December 1971 (from Pakistan) Geography
LatitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. LongitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. Location
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Religion and History in Bangladesh
Islam came to Bengal mainly through teachers rather than armies, and the shrines of the men credited with it, Shah Jalal at Sylhet above all, remain places of pilgrimage rather than merely of memory. The result is a Bengali Islam with a strong devotional and Sufi character, most visible in the Bauls, wandering singers who reject caste and orthodoxy alike and draw on Sufi, Vaishnava and tantric material; their tradition was inscribed by UNESCO and its best known figure, Lalon Shah, is a national one.
Bengal was partitioned in 1947 on religious lines into East Pakistan, and then in 1971 the eastern wing fought a war of independence against West Pakistan in which the decisive issue was language and Bengali identity rather than religion, since both sides were overwhelmingly Muslim. That war is the reason the founding constitution of 1972 named secularism as one of four state principles. It is also why the trials conducted from 2010 by the International Crimes Tribunal, directed largely at leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami for collaboration in 1971, were simultaneously a reckoning with war crimes and a confrontation with political Islam. Buddhism preceded both: the Pala emperors ruled Bengal as the last great Buddhist dynasty of the subcontinent until the twelfth century, and the ruins of their monastery at Somapura in Paharpur are a World Heritage site.
Secularism and State Religion in One Constitution
Bangladesh is the rare country whose constitution declares both secularism and a state religion, and it arrived there by successive amendment rather than by design. Secularism was one of the four founding principles in 1972. It was removed after the 1975 coup, when Ziaur Rahman replaced it with a declaration of absolute trust in Almighty Allah, and in 1988 Hussain Muhammad Ershad added the eighth amendment making Islam the state religion. In 2011 the fifteenth amendment restored secularism as a principle while leaving the state religion clause in place, and in 2016 the High Court dismissed a long pending challenge to that clause, so both now stand together. What this means in practice is contested rather than settled.
Personal status law is administered separately for Muslims, Hindus and Christians, so marriage, divorce and inheritance depend on the community a person belongs to, and Hindu women in particular have far weaker inheritance and divorce rights than Muslim women. The Vested Property Act, which allowed the state to seize property of those declared enemies after 1965 and was used overwhelmingly against Hindus, was repealed in 2001 but restitution remains substantially incomplete. Attacks on Hindu temples and homes, often triggered by allegations of blasphemous social media posts, have recurred with enough regularity to become a pattern rather than a series of incidents.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Bangladesh directly: "mangrove delta straddling India and Bangladesh, venerated jointly by Hindu and Muslim communities alike."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "article on the Constitution of Bangladesh, covering its 4 November 1972 adoption and 16 December 1972 effective date, its original four fundamental principles of nationalism, socialism, democracy..."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "from twelfth century Pala-Sena Bangladesh, held by the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, accession S1992.46, gift of Dr."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "a twelfth century Pala-Sena work from Bangladesh, gift of Dr."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh, stating its passage by parliament on 30 June 2011 and its restoration of the 1972 constitution's four original fundamental principles, nationalism..."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh, detailing Ziaur Rahman's proclamation removing secularism from Article 8 and replacing it with "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah..."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "mangrove delta straddling India and Bangladesh, published by Routledge in 2010."
Roughly 8 per cent of the population, much reduced since partition through migration and periodic violence.
About 91 per cent of the population, Sunni of the Hanafi school, spread historically through Sufi teachers rather than conquest.
This source names Bangladesh directly: "conducive to the security environment; Bangladesh banned it in July 2016 following the Dhaka terror attack, after investigators reported a connection between one attacker and Naik's online presence..."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "the three laureate organizations from Bangladesh, Ireland and Morocco and quoting UNESCO Assistant Director General Stefania Giannini on the anniversary."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, hosted on the government's own Laws of Bangladesh portal."
This source names Bangladesh directly: "That year's three laureates, from Bangladesh, Ireland and Morocco, were honored for programs in floating schools, adult e-learning and inclusive second chance education, and UNESCO's Stefania..."
Originated Here
Sky Figures Read Here
Bangladesh is the country in which Bengali is the national language.
Sources
1. Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020
2. The World Factbook (Central Intelligence Agency)
3. International Religious Freedom Report
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State, 2023View the Source 4. US Department of State, 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Bangladesh
United States Department of State, Office of International Religious Freedom, US Department of State
5. End Blasphemy Laws Project: Bangladesh Country Page
6. The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Article 2A, the State Religion (Laws of Bangladesh)
People's Republic of Bangladesh, Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament), Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Laws of Bangladesh (bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd)View the Source 7. Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia
The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition
Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the Source Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (A/HRC/39/64)
United Nations Human Rights Council, 2018Originated Here: Rohingya
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Legal Status
Subrata Chowdhury, the lawyer who argued the case for the Committee against Autocracy and Communalism across all twenty eight years the petition was pending, holds that Article 2A's declaration of Islam as the state religion cannot stand beside the constitution's own secularism principle and should have been struck down on the merits. When Bangladesh's High Court summarily dismissed the petition on 28 March 2016, ruling only that the committee lacked standing to bring it and never reaching the underlying constitutional question, Chowdhury said the court had denied his side any hearing on that point at all and described himself as completely disappointed with an outcome that left the tension in the constitution's own text exactly where it had stood since 1988.
A dissenting reading, from Subrata ChowdhuryDavid Bergman, Bangladesh Court Upholds Islam as Religion of the State (Al Jazeera), Al Jazeera, 2016
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