Hirschl, Ran --- "Comparative constitutional law and religion in Asia" [2014] ELECD 145; in Dixon, Rosalind; Ginsburg, Tom (eds), "Comparative Constitutional Law in Asia" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014) 316

Book Title: Comparative Constitutional Law in Asia

Editor(s): Dixon, Rosalind; Ginsburg, Tom

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781002698

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Comparative constitutional law and religion in Asia

Author(s): Hirschl, Ran

Number of pages: 23

Abstract/Description:

Asia - the birthplace of many faith traditions - is not only the most populous continent, home to over four billion people; it is also the most religiously diverse continent. Hundreds of millions follow Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism in its Shinto, Thervada, Mahayana, and Confucian-Taoism versions. Crude estimates suggest that followers of Islam account for approximately 28 percent of Asia's population (Islam is the majority religion in 26 of the 48 Asian countries); 24 percent follow Hinduism (the vast majority of them in India and Nepal); 18 percent of the continent's population (constituting the majority religion in eight countries) follow varieties of Buddhism; and followers of all other religions make up the remaining 30 percent (Mahmood 2010; Esposito et al. 2011). The varied post-colonial legacy - British in India and Pakistan, French in Vietnam, Spanish in the Philippines, Portuguese in Macao and East Timor, and Dutch in Indonesia - alongside post-war (e.g. Japan) and post-Soviet (six Asian nations were once part of the USSR) reconstruction, add another layer of complexity.