Essay On Secular State

During this semester, the 10th grade history class has been discussing the similarities and differences between secular and religious states by reading and analyzing primary and secondary sources. A secular state is a government that does not have an official religion and it neither supports nor opposes any religion. It is also believed that a secular state treats its entire population alike regardless of the people’s religious background. In the other hand, a religious state is a state with an official religion established by law. All states have strengths and weaknesses, conversely a secular state’s governance, culture and economy have more strengths than weaknesses.

A secular state’s governance has both positives and weaknesses although it has more strengths than flaws. A secular

This allows the citizens of the nation to have more equality and fairness, which is at the end for the benefit of the government and the people. Even though the Ottoman Empire was a Sunni based state, the government was a mixture of a secular and a religious state, which is a very rare case that we do not see in our world today. The Ottoman Empire created a system called the “Millet System” which was developed under the rule of Mehmet II who was emperor during the 15th century. It was a separate legal court combining all religious laws (Muslim Sharia, Christian Canon law and Jewish Halakha). The Millet System was also allowed to rule itself under its own system meaning that it had and controlled its own body of government. The Millet system comes from the word “millah” which means unity and that was the goal the Ottoman Empire wanted to achieve when they came up with this system. They wanted the Ottoman community to be united together because there was so much diversity in the empire they had to come up with a way to keep everyone satisfied. It was created for non-Muslim communities and the minority