I consider myself a secular humanist.

I believe that education should be secular, not rooted in religion.

Saddam was venal and cruel, but his regime was predominantly secular.

It cannot, which is why no Muslim state can be fully secular.

For this reason, they refused to reach out to their secular opponents to offer them a piece of the political pie.

For many years Bangladesh was an exception in the Islamic world, pursuing an independent course in a peaceful, secular, and democratic fashion.

Its strength is belief itself belief in a moral order that defies secular, or, indeed, religious dictators.

In a society such as Spain s, which is increasingly secular and traditionally tolerant of minority sexual identities, few voices have defended Cañizares.

Many foreign commentators described the presidential and parliamentary elections as a contest between Turkey s secular past and a putative Islamist future.

In particular, Turkey s Westernized, modernized, secular women seemed determined to show their opposition to the existence of the other Turkish woman.

It was through Zionism, an essentially secular nationalist movement, that the Jews were returned to political action and developed the necessary diplomatic tools.

They do not form a formidable presence, as in Nigeria, where some Muslim majority states in the north have even implemented Sharia Law, making them more or less Islamic states. Nevertheless, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a secular state, as are almost all sub Saharan African states.

General Buyukanit said in April that the country s new president must be secular not just in words, but in essence.

Nevertheless, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a secular state, as are almost all sub Saharan African states.

Ronald Reagan saw the benefit of tapping these constituencies, introducing a faith first element into what had been a more secularized, big tent conservatism.

In the absence of a strong central authority, the predominant divide between secular nationalism and politicized religion has led to the actual geographic disintegration of the Palestinian Territories into two distinct parts.

On numerous occasions, he has argued that his country needs to rethink its traditional strict separation of state and religion, called laïcité . In particular, according to the twice divorced self confessed cultural Catholic, France should develop a positive secularism.

On numerous occasions, he has argued that his country needs to rethink its traditional strict separation of state and religion, called laïcité .

Meanwhile, the significance of the reconciliation agreement signed last May by Hamas and Fatah, the secular nationalist movement that controls the Palestinian Authority, remains uncertain.

A revolution in any of these countries might easily bring Islamists to power, but this would have little to do with Tunisia s secular uprising.

The BJP government under Modi has ushered in a surge of Hindu nationalism, an ideology that believes the country should conform to Hindu, not secular, values.

Now he wants state subsidies for faith based organizations a policy proposal that upsets his many secularist critics.

Many believe that Congress with its commitment to secular values, economic growth, and helping the poor now has a mandate to transform India into a great power.

Hosni Mubarak, the secular despot who ran Egypt for 30 years until his downfall in 2011, had little time for Hamas.

While the right to free expression is enshrined the country's constitution and Bangladesh is a secular state, the government has done little to discourage these attacks or bring killers to justice.

Indeed, on the night of the coup, these ultra conservative Islamists appeared together with military leaders and the secular political leader Mohamed ElBaradei to announce Morsi s overthrow.

There is also a clash that is best described not as being between Islam and the West, but between the secularized world and a growing religious one.

Despite the horrific violence of Islamist fanatics, it should not be forgotten that the mosque can also be a legitimate basis for resistance against the mostly secular dictatorships in the Middle East today.

Successive European and American governments share an atavistic fear of the Islamic alternative to Arab secular nationalists like Fatah, and so have defended the status quo.

Indeed, most radicalism arises in groups who, by their experience of mobility and displacement, are acquainted with secular Western ways of political thinking and urban living.

This tranquility has been helped by the elaborate rituals of respect that have developed between the secular state and the Sufi orders, and the excellent relations between the country s Muslim majority and the Catholic minority at all levels of society.

With modern technology, Indonesian Muslims can see clearly the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, the disastrous results of the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and America s silence when Lebanon was bombed in July 2006.

It is in this context that the historic compromise between the religious (Hamas) and the secular (Fatah) to form a national unity government for Palestine might have established a new paradigm for the future of regime change in the Arab world. The concept of national unity governments might, indeed, be the formula that makes it possible to hold together the political families in the Arab world.

Many senior Americans were puzzled that Turkey, a long standing NATO ally and a secular state, refused to allow American forces to use Turkey as a base to invade Iraq.

It is in this context that the historic compromise between the religious (Hamas) and the secular (Fatah) to form a national unity government for Palestine might have established a new paradigm for the future of regime change in the Arab world.