Islam is the state religion of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. According to the 2022 census, Bangladesh had a population of about 150 million Muslims, or 91.04% of its total population of million. The majority of Bangladeshis are Sunni, and follow the Hanafi school of fiqh. Religion is an integral part of Bangladeshi identity. Despite being a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh is a de facto secular state. In the late 7th century, Arab Muslims established commercial as well as religious connection within the region before the conquest, mainly through the coastal regions as traders and primarily via the ports of Chittagong. Region was largely inhabited by different animistic tribes. Arab navigation in the region was the result of the Muslim reign over the Indus delta. In the early 13th century, Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji conquered Western and part of Northern Bengal, and established the first Muslim kingdom in Bengal. Islamic missionaries in India achieved their greatest success, in terms of number of converts, in Bengal. Sufi's like Shah Jalal are thought to have spread Islam in the north-eastern Bengal and Assam during the beginning of the 12th century. The Islamic Bengal Sultanate, was founded by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah after its independence from the Tughlaq dynasty. Bengal reached in her golden age during Bengal Sultanate's ruling period. Subsequently, Bengal was conquered by Babur, the founder of one of the gunpowder empires, but was also briefly occupied by the Suri Empire. Akbar the Great's preaching of the syncretic Din-i Ilahi, was described as a blasphemy by the Qadi of Bengal, which caused huge controversies in South Asia. In the 17th century, under Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's Islamic sharia-based rule, the Bengal Subah was also known as The Paradise of the Nations. Concepts of the Islamic economics's found in the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri delivered a significant direct contribution to the economy of Bengal, and the Proto-industrialization was signaled. History Early explorers The Buddhist Pala Empire enjoyed relations with the Arab Abbasid Caliphate. Islam first appeared in Bengal before Pala rule, as a result of increased trade with the early Arab Muslim merchants in places such as the Port of Chittagong. Around this time, the Arab geographer Al-Masudi and author of The Meadows of Gold, travelled to the region where he noticed a Muslim community of inhabitants residing in the region. Other authentications of the Arab traders present in the region was the writings of Arab geographers found