Introduction

In recent years, law and religion scholarship has increasingly emphasized the need to study the interaction of legal and religious ideas and institutions, norms and practices. The overall question that this scholarship explores may be stated as follows: how do legal and religious ideas and institutions, methods and mechanisms, beliefs and believers influence each other, for better and for worse, in the past, present and future?

This volume engages this area of scholarship by examining how law regulates religion, and how religion responds to such regulations. It examines underlying norms influencing state regulation of religion, and challenges emerging from such regulation.

Importantly, this volume will go beyond the conventional enquiries that draw upon the Anglo-European approaches and experiences, and emphasize instead Asian perspectives in order to expand and build upon existing understandings about the complex relationship between law and religion.