Muslim-Majority Countries and the Law of Faith

The 2008 constitution bars non-Muslims from citizenship and requires the President and other officeholders to be Sunni Muslims. The Buddhist past ended when the court converted to Islam in 1153, so this is the clearest case of faith written into who may be a citizen.

The constitution names Islam in its Sunni Maliki form the sole religion of citizens and state, and the 2018 criminal code makes apostasy and blasphemy capital offenses for Muslims, though no execution has been carried out. The old manuscript towns of Chinguetti and Ouadane show the scholarly tradition behind this legal order.

Nearly the whole population is Sunni Muslim of the Shafi'i school. The provisional federal constitution of 2012 names Islam the state religion, requires laws to follow the general principles of sharia and prohibits propagating any other religion, while al-Shabaab has attacked the Sufi shrines that long anchored local devotion.

The Shafi'i school is the constitutional religion and the Sultan is Head of the Islamic Faith under the state philosophy of Melayu Islam Beraja. A Sharia Penal Code was phased in between 2014 and 2019 and reaches many non-Muslims, yet Buddhist and Christian minorities keep long-standing places of worship.

The constitution draws national principles from Sunni Islam while also guaranteeing equal rights regardless of belief. Proselytizing for another religion is a criminal offense and non-Sunni worship is barred from public places, which led the United States to place Comoros on its Special Watch List.

About 94 per cent of the population is Sunni Muslim and the constitution names Islam the state religion while guaranteeing equality before the law. Every religious group must register with the Ministry of the Interior after a background investigation, a rule tied to the country's strategic position on the Red Sea.

Tajikistan is Sunni Hanafi with an Ismaili minority among the Pamiri peoples of Gorno-Badakhshan. After Soviet suppression and the civil war of 1992 to 1997, a 2009 law declares Islam the traditional religion while requiring registration of every mosque and vetting of clergy and literature.

The constitution declares a secular state and protects freedom of religion, yet the Ministry of Justice registration process is opaque and leaves Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and Hare Krishna devotees largely unable to operate legally. The United States has named it a Country of Particular Concern every year since 2014.

Considered the most religiously open of the five Central Asian republics, it still requires the State Committee on Religious Affairs to register every group. Courts have found parts of the registration regime unconstitutional even as enforcement against unregistered mosques and minorities has tightened.

Close to 96 per cent of the people are Muslim and the constitution bars a state religion and religious political parties. When President Jammeh declared an Islamic republic by decree in December 2015 the declaration was reversed after his removal in 2017, and the Supreme Islamic Council and Gambia Christian Council keep a standing interfaith relationship.

About 99 per cent Muslim, with Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya Sufi leaders holding real social authority, Niger is described as a secular state in its constitution. The military council in power since the July 2023 coup has kept the same ministry framework for registering mosques, churches and associations.