In the name of God : the role of religion in the modern world, a history of Judeo-Christian and Islamic tolerance / Selina O'Grady.

Title:

Author:

O'Grady, Selina,

ISBN:

9781643135076

1643135074

Edition:

First Pegasus books hardcover edition.

Publication Info:

New York :

Description:

xvi, 462 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

Summary:

In this groundbreaking book, Selina O'Grady examines how and why the post-Christian and the Islamic worlds came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are. She asks whether tolerance can be expected to heal today's festering wound between these two worlds, or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed. Told through contemporary chronicles, stories and poems, Selina O'Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish persecutors and persecuted. From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who laid down the rules for the treatment of religious minorities in what was becoming the greatest empire the world has ever known, to Magna Carta John who seriously considered converting to Islam; and from al-Wahaabi, whose own brother thought he was illiterate and fanatical, but who created the religious-military alliance with the house of Saud that still survives today, to Europe's bloody Thirty Years war that wearied Europe of murderous inter-Christian violence but probably killed God in the process. This book is an essential guide to understanding Islam and the West today and the role of religion in the modern world.

Subject(s):

Religious tolerance.

Toleration -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.

Toleration -- Religious aspects -- Judaism.

Toleration -- Religious aspects -- Islam.

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Summary

A groundbreaking book on the history of religious tolerance and intolerance that offers an essential narrative to understanding Islam and the West today.

Never has this book been more timely. Religious intolerance, the resurgence of fundamentalism, hate crimes, repressive laws, and mass shootings are pervasive in today's world. Selina O'Grady asks how and why our societies came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are; whether tolerance can be expected to heal today's festering wound between Islam and the post-Christian West; or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed.

From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who led what became the greatest empire the world has ever known, to King John (of Magna Carta fame) who almost converted to Islam; from Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who created the religious-military alliance with the House of Saud that still survives today, to the bloody Thirty Years' War that cured Europe of murderous intra-Christian violence (but probably killed God in the process), Selina O'Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths.

In the Name of God is an original and thought-provoking history of monotheistic religions and their ever-shifting relationship with each other.

Author Notes

Selina O'Grady was a documentary film producer at BBC Television for many years. She is the author of And Man Created God and has written for the Guardian , and the Literary Review in Britain. She lives in London.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Documentary producer O'Grady (And Man Created God) presents a dazzling, lucid history of evolving, tenuous religious toleration. Starting with the Roman Empire and the beginnings of Islam, O'Grady shows how toleration was a pragmatic decision to consolidate power among diverse populations and conquered territories but collapsed when the subordinated began to threaten those in power. Tension between religious empires or nation states pervaded the Middle Ages as both Christians and Muslims fought heresy and launched holy wars against each other. Throughout the Dark Ages, O'Grady highlights how Muslims tended to be more tolerant of Jews, while Christians vacillated between relying on Jews for financing and violently massacring or expelling them, notably following the Black Death. The Reformation's wars and the 16th-century Sunni-Shiite conflict show how both faiths fractured and struggled with toleration. After discussing the diminished and reshaped role of God in politics during the American and French Revolutions, O'Grady describes the rapid, chaos-inducing Islamic Enlightenment and modernization sparked by the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. She ends with the rise of nationalism instead of religion as a unifier, arguing that the the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust were largely a product of this realignment. This perceptive, masterly history will change how many readers think about toleration and the supposed clash between Christian and Muslim worlds. (June)

Booklist Review

O'Grady's work will fascinate anyone wishing to plunge into the histories of Western Christianity and Euro-proximate Islam. Her focus is religious intolerance as performed by followers of both religions, and the idea that what all parties want is not tolerance, but equality. Tolerance, as she defines it, involves one party with more power that practices tolerance over the other, weaker party. Equality dissolves that power imbalance. With this in mind, she traces the histories of both concepts (in semi-broad strokes) from the Roman Empire to the twentieth century, ending just after WWII. She treads the narrow path between being mired in minutiae and grandly sweeping through events, and instead provides enlightening, entertaining stories while including key events for both Christianity and Islam. Roger Williams, the American founder of Rhode Island, walks across the same pages as Shah Ismail I and Robespierre. While its density might make casual readers quail, fans of history, religion, or ideas will revel in the comparative study of these two faiths, long kept apart in history books, whose pasts are inextricably intertwined.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Timeline	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
1 The Birth of Persecution: The Roman Empire Turns Christian	p. 7
2 Muhammad's Edict of Toleration	p. 23
3 The Price of Toleration: The Dhimmi in the Islamic Empire	p. 48
4 Islam's Inquisition	p. 65
5 The Problems of Assimilation: Willing Martyrs	p. 81
6 Austerity in England and the Papal Battle for Supremacy	p. 102
7 The Crusades: The Church Finds Its Enemy	p. 117
8 The Moneylender	p. 146
9 Enemies Within: The Heretic, the Leper, the Sodomite and the Jew	p. 159
10 The Mongols and the 'Closing of the Door'	p. 174
11 The Black Death: An Experiment in Tolerance	p. 191
12 Inquisitions and Expulsions	p. 201
13 The Reformation's War Against the Catholic Church	p. 215
14 The Ghetto	p. 231
15 The Religious Wars of Europe	p. 245
16 Sunnis vs Shiites	p. 254
17 The Puritan Who Fought the Puritans	p. 266
18 America Writes God out of the Constitution	p. 287
19 Robespierre's New Religion	p. 303
20 Ibn Abd al-Wahhab vs the Islamic Enlightenment	p. 318
21 Emancipation and the Failure of Tolerance	p. 348
22 The Genocidal Century	p. 376
Conclusion	p. 404
Endnotes	p. 418
Selected Bibliography	p. 430
Acknowledgements	p. 444
Index	p. 445

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Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Table of Contents