An Islamic republic can be considered a sovereign state in the form of a republic that is officially ruled by Islamic laws, contrasted to Islamic monarchy. As a name or title, three current states are Islamic republics: Iran, Mauritania and Pakistan. The term is, however, vague. Despite sharing the "Islamic republic" name, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws, and of the three only Iran is a religious theocratic state. Additionally, Pakistan was the first to adopt the name in 1956, despite the fact Islam was not the state religion at the time. It can therefore be considered a symbolic term.
As a term, it has come to mean several different things, some contradictory to others. To some Muslim religious leaders in the regions who advocate it, an Islamic republic is a state under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and a secular, nationalist republic. In their conception of the Islamic republic, the penal code of the state is required to be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia and the state may not be a monarchy as many Middle Eastern states are presently. Despite this, there are republics with Islam as a state religion and that are (at least partly) ruled by Islamic laws, but do not carry the "Islamic republic" name - examples include Iraq, Yemen, Algeria and Maldives.
Iran officially uses it as a title in all governance names referring to the country (e.g. the Islamic Republic of Iran Army or the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting) as opposed to its equivalents in Pakistan which are called the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. Unlike the others, Iran also uses the IRI acronym of the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of official acronyms.
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