Suchergebnisse

Professor Smith has produced a comprehensive survey1 of the relations between state and religion in India which will be of great value to students of modern Indian government and politics as well as of religion. Moreover, this useful, stimulating and very readable study raises questions of compelling, interest for all who are concerned with problems of "church and state". India, the seat of a civilization renowned for elaboration of religious thought and pervasiveness of religious observance has, even by Professor Smith's rigorous standards, successfully established a secular state. In this volume, Professor Smith has undertaken to explain how this has come about, to analyze the Indian achievement and the problems that accompany it and, finally, to indicate how India may advance to the full realization of that "true secularism" which he so enthusiastically endorses.

I am greatly indebted to Professor Marc Galanter and Professor John T. Flint for their detailed and thoughtful reviews of India as a Secular State. One of the important objects of the book was to stimulate precisely this kind of serious discussion of problems, problems of both scholarly analysis and public policy. The two reviews are useful in sharpening certain of the issues, and I am grateful for this opportunity to comment on them.

The question of change in religion in Middle Eastern communities has been recently studied by several researchers. A review of these studies reveals three main approaches to the problem. The first approach, used principally by orientalists, treats the problem in terms of either history or theology. Among the most significant of these studies are those of H. A. R. Gibb (1938) and Bernard Lewis (1964), who hold that contact between the secular world of the West and the Muslim sacred way of life has brought elements of secularism into the Islamic religion.

The emergence of an official policy of secularism in Bangladesh must be viewed as a major ideological landmark in the recent history of the Indian subcontinent. Analyzed in terms of legitimizing symbols, the abrupt change from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the secular People's Republic of Bangladesh is a significant event. It is axiomatic that revolutionary changes in the symbols of statehood need not be, and generally are not, accompanied by corresponding attitudinal changes among the masses of the people. The symbols, after all, are formulated by a small political elite or even by one leader. But it is important to understand both what the leaders are trying to express by the symbols they choose and how these symbols are related to the political process and the general culture.

Based on statistical surveys & observation, considerations are presented on the position of religion in Egypt. The basic polarity of the discussion is mosque versus government. The religious establishment has fallen increasingly under the control of government, & the influence of the ulama, or Moslem priests, has correspondingly declined. The mosques are under the supervision of the Ministry of Waqfs whose power has eroded to the point where only three major functions remain: charity, investment of its own funds, & mosque supervision. While not directly opposing religion, the military regime has sought to encourage people to look beyond it & has tried to use religion to buttress its goals of socialism, nationalism, & one-party 'popular democracy.' The religious establishment has accepted secularism in fact, if not in principle. 22 Tables. S. Karganovic.