Countries
Maldives
Also Known As Maldivian
Asia
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The Maldives is constitutionally and near-universally Sunni Muslim, the only religion its own laws permit citizens to hold: the 2008 constitution bars non-Muslims from Maldivian citizenship outright, requires the President and other public officeholders to be Sunni Muslims, and identifies Islam as the one basis of national unity, a legal architecture with no close parallel elsewhere in South Asia. The archipelago's Buddhist past, evidenced by ruins of stupas and monasteries on several atolls, ended with the conversion of the ruling court to Islam in 1153, traditionally credited to a visiting North African scholar, after which the country's more than a thousand islands became one of the most religiously homogeneous societies in the world. Conversion away from Islam is a criminal offense under Maldivian law, punishable at minimum by loss of citizenship and, under some sharia interpretations invoked in political and religious discourse, more severely, though the government has not stated that it would impose a harsher penalty. Foreign residents and the large number of tourists who visit the Maldives' resort islands, the country's principal source of revenue, may practice other faiths only in private and are legally barred from evangelizing Maldivian citizens or importing religious materials associated with other faiths for public distribution.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment Status Apostasy or Blasphemy LawMaldivian law prohibits conversion of a Muslim to another religion; conviction carries loss of citizenship at minimum, and sharia jurisprudence invoked in Maldivian political and religious discourse is widely understood to permit a harsher penalty including death, though the government has made no official statement to that effect. 3 Registration or Recognition RegimeThe constitution requires every citizen to be a Muslim and bars a non-Muslim from holding citizenship, so no non-Islamic religious body can obtain legal standing to organize, build a place of worship or hold public religious activity; propagating any religion other than Sunni Islam, including proselytizing between denominations of Islam, is a criminal offense carrying two to five years of imprisonment or house arrest. Islamic affairs themselves stay under close government control, with the Ministry of Islamic Affairs requiring mosques to use government approved sermons. 3 Ban or Official WatchlistThe Maldives' constitution bars a non-Muslim from becoming a citizen at Article 9(d) and designates Sunni Islam the state religion at Article 10, so every citizen is required by law to be Muslim; non-citizen residents may practice a minority faith only in private and are barred from evangelizing or propagating it, and citizens who hold a minority faith are barred from practicing it publicly at all for fear it will be read as harming the state's religious identity. 3 Concordat BasisThe Maldives has no concordat with the Holy See. Article 9(d) of the 2008 Constitution bars a non-Muslim from becoming a citizen of the Maldives, and Article 10 names Islam the religion of the State and the basis of all its laws, barring any law contrary to a tenet of Islam. 4 Government
Government Type Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year Demographics
Religious CompositionEffectively 100% Sunni Muslim among citizens, since Maldivian law bars any other religious affiliation from citizenship; foreign residents and tourists of other faiths are not counted in the citizen religious composition (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1 Status
Legal StatusThe 2008 constitution designates Sunni Islam the state religion, bars non-Muslims from citizenship, and requires public officeholders to be Sunni Muslim; the constitution contains no freedom of religion clause, and conversion from Islam is a criminal offense. 3 Location
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Religion and History in the Maldives
The Maldives' religious history divides sharply at a single date. Ruins of stupas and monasteries on several atolls attest to a Buddhist past that once defined the archipelago's religious life, a period that ended with the conversion of the ruling court to Islam in 1153, traditionally credited to a visiting North African scholar. From that conversion onward, the more than one thousand islands of the Maldives became one of the most religiously homogeneous societies in the world, a homogeneity that has persisted for nearly nine centuries with no comparable religious transformation since.
Little of the pre-Islamic Buddhist period survives beyond archaeological remains, since the conversion was thorough enough to leave few living traces of the earlier tradition in later Maldivian religious or cultural life. The 1153 conversion is remembered today chiefly through court chronicle and popular tradition rather than contemporary documentary record, but its consequence is not in doubt: it set the Maldives on a trajectory toward the near-total religious uniformity that distinguishes it from every other country in South Asia today.
Citizenship, Apostasy and Religious Law in the Maldives
The Maldives' 2008 constitution builds religious identity directly into citizenship itself: it bars non-Muslims from Maldivian citizenship outright, requires the President and other public officeholders to be Sunni Muslims, and contains no freedom of religion clause, a legal architecture with no close parallel elsewhere in South Asia. Conversion away from Islam is a criminal offense under Maldivian law, punishable at minimum by loss of citizenship, and sharia jurisprudence invoked in Maldivian political and religious discourse is widely understood to permit a harsher penalty, though the government has made no official statement to that effect.
The resulting system draws a firm line between citizens and everyone else. Foreign residents and the large number of tourists who visit the Maldives' resort islands, the country's principal source of revenue, may practice other faiths only in private, typically confined in practice to resort premises kept apart from Maldivian civic and religious life, and are legally barred from evangelizing Maldivian citizens or importing religious materials associated with other faiths for public distribution. The arrangement preserves near-total religious uniformity among citizens while accommodating a tourism economy built substantially on non-Muslim visitors.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Maldives directly: "The Constitute Project's text of the Maldives's 2008 Constitution, whose Article 9(d) bars a non-Muslim from becoming a citizen of the Maldives and whose Article 10 names Islam the religion of the..."
This source names Maldives directly: "naval power against Sri Lanka and the Maldives, built a granite temple to Shiva at his capital, Thanjavur, dedicating it in his nineteenth regnal year, corresponding to 1009 to 1010 CE, and naming..."
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