bballad, hmm, depends on what you mean by an 'Islamic state' I suppose.

I've been to Turkey a couple of times, and I would regard it as a secular democracy where the majority religion is Muslim, in much the same way that other countries in the EU (and the US etc.) are a secular democracy, where usually Christianity is the main religion.

Turkey is lobbying hard to become a member of the EU, and is amending some of its laws, to try and achieve membership.

What I meant by 'Islamic states' was places like Saudi Arabia, Iran etc where it is a criminal offence to possess a copy of the bible, or carry out any act of Christian worship.

For example, in Turkey, women are allowed to drive a car (not sure if that is a good thing though ), work, and if you want to, you can drink alcohol, or go to a Christian church.