> It is even more alarming when religious bodies do it and to such a mega scale because ...
That describes somewhere between 50% and 95% of all muslim countries, depending on your threshold for calling something religious (and likely to be on the higher end of that scale), including muslim schools in Europe I might add. Add to that at least half of India (and I mean greater India, up to and maybe including PNG), and a decent chunk of Africa.
I just mean to say, even looking at our own history, religious institutions are the early stages of states, not the other way around. The Church had a working bureaucracy (and educational system) more than a millennium before European states even realized they wanted one.
Plus, I must say it depends on the religion. I do not feel especially worried in this case.
That describes somewhere between 50% and 95% of all muslim countries, depending on your threshold for calling something religious (and likely to be on the higher end of that scale), including muslim schools in Europe I might add. Add to that at least half of India (and I mean greater India, up to and maybe including PNG), and a decent chunk of Africa.
I just mean to say, even looking at our own history, religious institutions are the early stages of states, not the other way around. The Church had a working bureaucracy (and educational system) more than a millennium before European states even realized they wanted one.
Plus, I must say it depends on the religion. I do not feel especially worried in this case.