Legal systems may be used by religions as a means to bring about legally enforced actions. Often the law is used as a means to enforce censorship by banning considered blasphemous or defamatory elements in society. This may ensure defending dogmas by obliterating dissent; at shielding the purity and the souls of both believers and non-believers in the community and at protecting the institutions of religion, whether the hierarchy personally or its extensions, from loss of political, economic or social advantages. Legal systems may be heavily scrutinized by religion in some countries or areas such as state religions and/or where strong religious sentiment of a homogeneous nature is characteristic. In other countries the legal system may be fully independent from the religious body.
Legal action taken by religious authorities may be exhibited in Islamic countries. Examples of what the religious authorities may use the legal system for include banning or censoring school materials (including textbooks, displays, audio-visual products), and public communications of any kind such as speeches, billboard messages, posters, signs, hand-out pamphlets, circulars or circulated private letters. For example, an egyptian film was banned because it showed the shadow of the Prophet Muhammed's camel. Legal action may also be used to withhold scientific information, world or local news; to prevent the propagation of considered (western) ideas such as the equal and independent women vis-a-vis men, legal abortion for medical reasons, and the evolution of man in nature.