Introduction

Today there are more than 50 Muslim states with distinct cultural and ecological contexts. There are high-populated countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and less populated countries like Bahrain and Kuwait. Some have strong and effective government systems, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, and some are struggling to exist, like Bosnia, Somalia, and Syria. There are countries with very weak economies, like Mali and Bangladesh, and there are countries with strong economies and a wealth of natural resources, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Libya. Other countries like the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia have used industrialization to build successful economies. Some Muslim countries are compromised of mostly one ethnic group, such as most Arab countries, while others include several different ethnic groups with different languages and cultural backgrounds, as in Iran. There are all kinds of sociopolitical, economic, and ideological representations in these states. While there are secular countries like the United Arab Emirates or Indonesia, countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia have based their governments on religious ideology. There are monarchies in Malaysia, Nigeria, and Brunei and democracies in Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.