This volume is the fruit of the colloquium ""Les Pays-Bas, carrefour de la tolerance aux Temps Modernes,"" held in Wassenaar, the Netherlands, in 1994. Toleration in the strict sense of the word was very much against the grain of sixteenth-century European history. This volume charts the emergence and vicissitudes of the concept of tolerance and its practical implications in the Dutch Republic, from the revolt against Spain in the sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. The various contributions, all by distinguished scholars, address such issues as Erasmus' views on toleration, the relation between tolerance and irenism, and the contemporary intellectual debate about toleration in the Dutch Republic. This important volume will prove indispensable to historians of the Low Countries, students of humanism and all those interested in the intellectual history of the 16th-18th centuries.

"What impulse prompted some newspapers to attribute the murder of 77 Norwegians to Islamic extremists, until it became evident that a right-wing Norwegian terrorist was the perpetrator? Why did Switzerland, a country of four minarets, vote to ban those structures? How did a proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhattan ignite a fevered political debate across the United States? In The New Religious Intolerance, Martha C. Nussbaum surveys such developments and identifies the fear behind these reactions. Drawing inspiration from philosophy, history, and literature, she suggests a route past this limiting response and toward a more equitable, imaginative, and free society." -- Provided by publisher.

Examines the attitudes of Judaism toward other religions. Asserts that, in the course of its long history, Judaism became progressively more tolerant toward Christianity. It was the persecutions suffered by Jews in Christian countries - anti-Jewish accusations, pogroms, forced conversions, accusations against the Talmud, theological disputations - and the atmosphere of fear generated by them, as well as the persecution of Conversos by the Inquisition, which impeded improvement in the Jewish perception of Christianity. Ch. 8 (pp. 133-152), "Post-Holocaust Jewish Thinkers, " examines the impact of Christian theology on Jewish theologians of the Holocaust (Schoeps, Rubenstein, Fackenheim, Maybaum, A.A. Cohen).

Since the beginning of its history, Islam has encountered other religious communities both in Arabia and in the territories conquered during its expansion. Muslims faced other religions from the position of a ruling power and were therefore able to determine the nature of that relationship in accordance with their world-view and beliefs. Yohanan Friedmann's original and erudite study examines questions of religious tolerance as they appear in the Quran and in the prophetic tradition, and analyses the principle that Islam is exalted above all religions, discussing the ways in which this principle was reflected in various legal pronouncements. The book also considers the various interpretations of the Quranic verse according to which 'No compulsion is there in religion', noting that, despite the apparent meaning of this verse, Islamic law allowed the practice of religious coercion against Manichaeans and Arab idolators, as well as against women and children in certain circumstances.

Approximately 200 years of Spanish history (1300-1500) are the focus of this book. Paris sketches the medieval history of the Iberian peninsula, stressing the tolerance of most of the Islamic dynasties, the relative amity between the three major religions of the area, and the flourishing culture that this relatively peaceful era nourished. The 14th century brought division within the Catholic Church itself; a plague that killed 25-30% of the population of Europe; and, in Valencia in 1391, a pogrom that gave its Jewish residents the choice of conversion or death. The "end of days" refers to the second coming of Christ, which would happen only if all the Jews were converted. Over half of the Jewish residents of Spain converted in the 14th and 15th centuries. These "conversos" were the primary target of the early Inquisition. Paris describes the early period of the Inquisition, the motives and actions of the inquisitors, and the fate of those accused. The actual expulsion of the Jews (not the conversos) in 1492 and the Moors (who were also given the opportunity to convert) in 1502 mark the climax of the events of this book.

In 587 the Visigoth rulers decreed that only Christians may live in Spain, but later Spanish kingdoms, which emerged in the process of the Reconquest, were for centuries multicultural and the most tolerant in Europe. In the late 14th-15th centuries, however, Spain became increasingly intolerant toward its minorities, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and the Moriscos in the 16th century. This change occurred because, in the course of the Reconquest, the Church and state power merged. The epitome of this merger was the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, and the power held by Torquemada. The intolerance toward Jews developed racist traits, manifested in the introduction of "purity of blood" statutes and increasing persecution of Conversos by the Inquisition. Traces the stages of this process. Discusses the pogroms of 1391, the disputation of Tortosa (1415), the establishment of the Inquisition, the La Guardia blood libel case of 1491, and the expulsion of 1492. The epilogue (pp. 267-309) reflects on parallels between 15th-century Spain and 20th-century intolerant societies.