.... Paradoxically, for the world beyond Europe the policy prescriptive has been the opposite. Since the late colonial period – and particularly for predominantly Muslim societies today – the policy dogma has been that the adoption of secularism as a state project will lead to the process of secularisation.
But secularism as a separation of church (religion) and state does not make ready sense in societies where there was no hierarchical, structured church that had inherited an empire's state apparatus as the Roman Catholic church had in Europe.
In the various versions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc there has been no one clerical figure vested with the kind of power and authority that the pope excersised over domains now assumed within the modern state. [guardian.co.uk] Read more
