RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND THE RULE OF THE CLAN IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES

As Brian J. Grim noted in an earlier issue of this journal, religious freedom is an essential part of the "bundled commodity" of rights in well-established democracies. 1 Historically foundational to most other modern constitutional guarantees of liberty, religious freedom today is inseparable from them politically, necessary for their practical realization, and, arguably, inextricable from them conceptually. A similar point could be made about restrictions on religious freedom, particularly in Muslim-majority states, where social and governmental restraints on religion are strong. The lack of religious freedom in these nations undergirds and justifies broader curtailments of political rights.