Despite sharing the "Islamic republic" name, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws, and of the four only Iran is a religious theocratic state. 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, Sudan, Algeria, Maldives and Bangladesh.