Muslim world but are rapidly increasing. In the Eastern Middle East, Iran has a high level of youth literacy at 98%, whereas Iraq's youth literacy rate has sharply declined from 85% to 57%, during the American-led war and subsequent occupation. Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, has a very high youth literacy rate at 99%. In Afghanistan, seminaries are operated by politically active religious organizations and have taken the place of basic education not provided and funded by the government. A 2016 Pew Research Center study about religion and education around the world found that Muslims have the lowest average
Muslim world boundaries of the Muslim world. The Open Doors USA organization, in its 2012 survey of countries around the world that persecute Christians, listed 37 members of the Muslim world amongst the top 50 countries where Christians face the most severe persecution. 9 of the top 10 countries are Islamic-majority states. As the Muslim world came into contact with secular ideals, societies responded in different ways. Some Muslim-majority countries are secular. Azerbaijan became the first secular republic in the Muslim world, between 1918 and 1920, before it was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Turkey has been governed as a secular state