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Most of the answers here are obviously not written by residents of Alabama, so as a resident I’ll chime in.By regressive, I’ll assume the OP was inspired by the recent anti-abortion law recently passed by the Alabama State legislature and signed by Governor Kay Ivey. This was part of a trend that has occurred in several other states before Alabama (Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky among others), who have passed similar state laws restricting access to legalized abortion, and whose primary purpose is to instigate a Supreme Court showdown in challenge to the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/09/which-states-are-blocking-abortion-and-which-are-enacting-protections/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f7539e0f3975 Now that Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court has tipped the scales to the conservative side, anti-abortion activists see a window of opportunity to bring the issue to a head in the courts. The Alabama law is more draconian than ever, but that’s part of the strategy - enact laws so restrictive that it will be challenged in federal courts and will eventually force a SCOTUS landmark decision in opposition to Roe v Wade.Now the question was: “Why is Alabama Regressive” which is a much broader question, and a real answer would take more space and time than the average Quora reader would care to invest, but here goes anyway. I’ll also assume the OP was sincere and not just baiting anti-Alabama sentiment from close-minded Quorans.Like many Southern States formerly part of the Confederacy, Alabama was poor, rural, and financially supported by an agricultural economy, who was subject to the backlash of reconstruction (also considered punitive and draconian by many), and whose political power base was the relatively few large landowners who formerly had land, wealth, slaves, and of course, political power. Those who possessed wealth, education, and political influence were much better suited to take over the State Legislature and retain their power. When you don’t have much, and political power is all you’ve got to work with, you do everything you can to retain that power. When you have economic and political power and you make up a very, very small portion of the population, you have to prevent all those people who outnumber you by 50:1 from taking that power away from you. After all, they may not have much but they each have the same number of votes that you do and there’s a whole lot more of them than there are of you.So, if you have the power, and all that’s preventing you from retaining that power is being out-voted, then you want to restrict the number of voters who would likely vote against you. Those most likely to vote against you are those who don’t have what you have and who want more out of life. In almost all the former Confederate states, those people were former slaves, poor dirt farmers (white and black), and sharecroppers whose livelihoods depend upon the ability to farm your land for a portion of the proceeds. You control the land the sharecroppers rely on for their livelihoods, so you can easily influence their vote. What do you do about those poor ex-slaves and poor white dirt farmers over whom you don’t have control?You have to get a little creative and a little loosey-goosey with the law, because there’s that annoying US Constitution that says you can’t restrict these people’s rights granted them by the Constitution. But wait, the US Constitution circa 1900 doesn’t specifically guarantee everyone gets a vote, and since the states retain all rights not specifically granted by said Constitution, there’s nothing stopping you and your cronies from establishing state laws that restrict access to voting. So, you say, what can we do to prevent all those poor dirt white farmers and former slaves and their families from voting us out of power? Let’s pass some voter qualification laws that prevent a lot of these undesirable voters from voting in the first place. So, you restrict their ability to vote based on these new state laws, and if these don’t limit the opposition enough, let’s charge a poll tax so those who don’t have any money can’t afford to vote.If you don’t think you’ve done enough to prevent them from voting based on voter qualifications you’ve set up, or by poll taxes, then you employ the age-old strategy of divide and conquer. You reason that the poor white farmers and poor black farmers are really in the same boat, and if they ever united themselves they could vote you out of power. So, you do what you can to encourage the poor white farmers to vote for you and your cronies by playing their natural bias against the poor black farmers to your advantage. You use your connections to some of those not-so-secret racially-motivated organizations to foment unrest and direct it toward those poor black farmers. After all, you say, you and I look alike, and you know all those “others” just want to take what is ours, and they especially want to have their way with our women, don’t they? So, wouldn’t you rather vote for me, because we take care of our own, don’t we?Now, most of you in power at the time faithfully belong to and attend services in one the higher end establishment branches of the Protestant Christian faith, probably Anglican or Episcopalian. Kind of subdued, not too shouty, and a little more wiggle room when it comes to biblical interpretation. However, you notice that most of these poor white and poor black farmers belong to and attend more Calvinist-leaning branches, maybe Baptist or Wesleyan-leaning Methodist, where those preachers are real shouty, and promote a more literal biblical interpretation, along with predestination. Those preachers have a lot more direct influence over their parishioners, and aren’t afraid to use it. If you can get those preachers on your side, you can employ them to influence their people to vote for you. Those preachers are not beyond using social ostracism, open accusations, and public shaming to keep their flock in line. So, you start framing your political agenda so it fits within their biblical message, and before you know it, they’re working on your behalf. You may have to give a little bit, such as the right to consume a libation or two, but in the end you get to keep your power.Now you’re in a position to create your master stroke: the Alabama State Constitution of 1901.Constitution of Alabama - Wikipedia This document effectively focuses all law-making power with the Alabama State Legislature and eliminates the concept of “home rule” by restricting the power of local and county governments to make and enforce laws that are not specifically granted by amendment to the State constitution. This means, for example, that the City of Birmingham cannot make laws that are specifically applicable to the needs of Birmingham or Jefferson County without approval by a majority vote of the State Legislature or by an Amendment by statewide election. Yes, as a resident of Piney Woods, Alabama you get to vote on an Amendment that allows the City of Mobile, AL to pass a 1/2 % property tax for Mobile City schools. If you hate property taxes of any kind, and it’s no skin off your nose one way or another, you still have the right to vote no. Needless to say, this grew into a behemoth of a document, which is over 44 times the length of the US Constitution and carries over 900 amendments, and is the longest constitutional document in the world, exceeding India’s in length by almost three times. India’s constitution is the longest national constitution in the world with 117,369 words, while Alabama’s state constitution has 310,296 words.There have been several attempts in recent years to create a constitutional convention and scrap the current state constitution for a more modern and lighter version, but that would threaten the power base in Montgomery so it is not likely to happen. Imagine if you will, the enthusiasm our current US Congress has about proposing an amendment to the US Constitution to establish term limits on Senators and Representatives. Re-writing the Alabama State Constitution of 1901 is just as likely as Nancy Pelosi introducing a bill to limit Senators to two 6-year terms and Representatives to three 2-year terms.Why is Alabama regressive? In many ways it is very progressive - technology, higher education, medical research, aerospace engineering, automotive technology, natural resource protection, and many other areas.Where Alabama is regressive is politically - based on a 118-year-old Constitution that helps to concentrate political power within a small, very conservative clique of old school politicians whose number one allegiance is to maintenance of that power. Ironically, this power base was overwhelmingly Democratic until the Tea Party takeover which flipped the Legislature over to the far right Republican Party.As far as the Abortion law? That’s a nod to the preachers and their adherents in the Pro-Life activism camp, saying “We’ve still got your back.” It’s as much theatre as anything. This won’t be the first Alabama law that was struck down by the Federal Courts. Stay tuned for the real battles.Edit: There has been some healthy debates on abortion in previous comments, but unsurprisingly the rhetoric has degraded to name-calling and that wasn’t in the spirit of the question or my answer, so comments have been disabled. Also, some have been offended by my characterization of Methodists as Calvinists, so I added the distinction of Wesleyan-leaning Methodists. I don’t know which group was more insulted by being lumped with the other, but I’ve never really understood the difference and it doesn’t matter in context of the original post or my answer. Apparently one is a little less shouty than the other.Thank you, fellow Quorans!

The secret of the rise of the Islamic civilization during the medieval period was rooted in a major difference between early Christianity and early Islam:Early Christianity restricted science purely to the Clerus, the religious elite of monks and high ranking bishops, archbishops and other heads of the church itself. On purpose, the bulk of the people, farmers, early citizens and even the knights, were kept as illiterates, unable to read and write, left unaware about the valuable knowledge inherited from the antique civilizations.Subsequently, only a thin layer of people was able to contribute further to the universal knowledge of the society. Eventually, it turns out to become a statistical problem:the smaller the total number of literate, educated intellectual people, the smaller the pool of creative and inventive minds. At the end, the innovative and creative power of a society suffers from that.Additionally, the church demonized systematically knowledgeable people who were not part of the church itself in order to protect her own power, meaning the power of the pope himself and his subordinates.The famous novel “The name of the rose” by Umberto Eco, is exactly referring to that phenomenon. Knowledge was reserved to the leaders of the church, this mostly to protect their own power. They channeled and censored knowledge effectively.On the other hand, Islam didn’t have any such religious class. By default, their relation between God and believers was defined as an immediate, personal relation. No institution, such as the church in Christianity, was intercalated. The believer talks to God directly.Furthermore, in order to be a real believer, Islam demands to be able to read the Quran. That means, to be literate was actually compulsory. Although Islam never achieved a fully literate community – a large number of members of the “Umma” remained illiterate. However, a much larger number of literate muslims were present than in contemporary Christian communities.Even more so, medieval Islam had no hostile attitude towards science. One obligation of man, even written down in the Quran, was to learn more about Gods creation. This meant to study natural phenomena was never condemned, as it was in medieval Christianity. We may refer to early Baghdad, the city of Mansour as an example of a medieval hub of knowledge. A governmentally supported positive environment for intellectuals, engineers and inventors were created to the point that new knowledge was literally rewarded its weight in gold. Naturally, such a society produces new ideas, social, scientific and technological progress – even so, not all of the avant-garde were Muslims. It was just essential that this positive environment existed, protected by the institution of the Khalifat.Only gradually, early medieval Europe learned from that example. A major person to represent that learning process was the medieval Emperor Frederic II., ruling Sicilly, Germany and the Roman Empire. Raised as a child among the Saracens of Southern Italy and fluent in Arabic, the grand son of Frederic Barbarossa of Suebia was an exceptionally educated Christian ruler. Consequently, the church maintained a hostile relationship towards him, who was called “stupor mundi”, somewhat translated as one who shocked the world by his unconventional, intellectual approaches. During his reign came the first wave of advanced ideas in Europe.The real historical turning point was eventually the European era of enlightenment.Starting already during the 16th century by the attempts of Martin Luther to reform the church and the rise of the ideal of education. Luther translated the Bible to German in order to provide access to its words and ideas to more people. The recent invention of printing books by Johannes Guttenberg allowed an easy reproduction of books, further opening the gates of knowledge to more people.The church and its elite more and more lost their power over the people and their status of education during this period (i.e., the Renaissance).Meanwhile, Islam lost its educational advantage, and we notice the retreat of Islamic societies into hyper-religious ideology. As an example, we may refer to the fundamentalist ideology of Wahabism, which was founded during the European era of enlightenment in the 18th century.Since then, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the last remaining political power of Islam, added to the political and social marginalization of Islamic countries in general. The race with western societies was lost by losing the race on innovation, science and engineering. We note, that since about the 15/16th century, no major invention nor intellectual contribution of major importance was created by the Muslim world. In contrast, we could name legions of scientists and philosophers of Europe. The only remaining challenging power to Europe, China, was eliminated in the course of military conflicts and was politically hibernating for about half a millennium later on.Today, the Muslim world remains in political agony. Failure of democratic political systems and fall back into medieval-like communities reigned by autocratic rulers are the hallmarks of the Islamic community. The retreat into religious ideology and the almost total lack of modern, secular political systems prevent any adequate development of the society; a waste of a considerable potential unfortunately. Economically stable countries of the Muslim world do not exploit their full potential into the development of their society. Instead, resources are wasted on prestige projects and/or political agenda.None of the countries with Muslim population achieved a secular constitution, except Turkey. The economic growth and potential of Turkey, unless jeopardized by autocrats, demonstrates the superiority of a secular organization of a nation.Europe with its originally largely Christian population took the step into secular constitutions about 200 years ago during the Napoleonic era, and today provides the best environment to unfold an individual’s potential.By that, executing a 180 degrees turn of the political conditions of, let’s say the Fatimid era around 1100 when the Islamic world provided the most tolerant environment to an individual, would grant enough freedom and unfold potential.This answer to the very complex question is naturally simplified. However, it is supposed to explain the diverse development of Christianity and Islam throughout the centuries.Many other answers on this question focus on the fact that the Muslim world inherited territory plastered with the countless cultural remains of centuries old literate antique civilizations. They argue that the Muslim world benefitted from those predecessors.It is true that early Islam was founded in a geographical region with a rich cultural heritage. However, antique Rome was finally inheriting the sum of all of these predecessors. Including Ptolemaic Egypt with the famous library of Alexandria, Greece, the Levante, parts of Mesopotamia, Syria, etc. However, this heritage seem to have been poorly exploited – or why did we encounter such considerable different levels of education between Islamic orient and Christian occidental during the centuries from 700 - 1200 AD?Obviously, the rise of early Islamic civilizations is not to explain simply by referring to the rich cultural heritage of the southern Mediterranean and beyond. Rome provided an equally rich cultural basis. The city still contained copies of ancient documents. It is not that Rome and her former provinces were completely demolished. A lot of infrastructure survived the decline of the EmpireThis heritage required the open mind of a ruler and his citizens, all who would value the gift of knowledge.This happened during the early Khalifat of the Umayyads and Abbasids, and granted the Muslim society a considerable advantage.This is what I try to explain in the above paragraphs.

Note: I have turned off comments on this answer. The comments I have received lately have been… unedifying. Thank you to Quora for finally providing this feature.There's a saying among lawyers: When the law is on your side, pound on the law. When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. When neither the law nor the facts are on your side, pound on the table.Practically everything said in public about the Constitution is pounding on the table. Here's the thing: the Constitution is practically impossible to change. It's been amended only 27 times in the past two and a quarter centuries. The first 10 were passed almost immediately. They were widely seen as filling out stuff that should have been in the Constitution in the first place, and were left out only so that the Constitution could get finished and approved. (If you actually read the document, you'll notice that it gets vaguer and briefer as it goes on. The section on the Supreme Court says barely more than "we should have one".)Of the remaining amendments, two cancel each other out. The most recent one is a pointless bit concerning Congressional pay, passed largely as an accident. We haven't had a significant amendment in 40 years.In other words... if you can convince people that the Constitution is on your side, you win forever. A Constitutional amendment has an incredibly high bar to pass. If there's a hint of opposition, it fails. It doesn't even matter if the particular part you're talking about is such gibberish that you're reduced to quoting only a fraction of a sentence in order to make your point.Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To BeState constitutions are generally modified much more easily. People confused by the distinction (i.e. apparently everybody) therefore rush out to make state-constitutional amendments to do whatever the hell it is they want it to do, even if they already have a law to the same effect. Of course, anything that can be passed by simple majority can be overturned by a simple majority, but that hardly matters. A gay marriage banned by state constitutional amendment is banneder than one merely banned by a law.I do apologize for being so damn cynical about it. The answer to any question about the American political process is "political grandstanding". And that's aggravating, because there's much in the Constitution that is genuinely brilliant. Elements like free speech and free press are nearly universally agreed upon, and should be protected with the utmost force. The separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution was, at least for a time, a brilliant and necessary notion, at least until it was discovered that "political grandstanding" meant that "separation of powers" could be used primarily to embarrass political opponents so that you can get into power (and of course they wouldn't dream of doing exactly the same thing back to you).The Framers were utterly brilliant in designing the Constitution. It set into place a structure that helped make us the most powerful nation on earth, with the highest standard of living, and among the most free (though plenty of other factors went into it as well, and the idea that the Constitution itself is solely responsible is laughable). Of those few amendments that aren't dull procedural political matters, each has advanced the cause of freedom, ending slavery and granting rights to more and more people.It is, in many ways, showing its age, as the world has changed and the document has become sclerotic. Unfortunately, it took a revolution to put it into place, and given the bitterness surrounding it, it would likely take another one to make any more non-trivial changes.