An illustrated history of the English branch of the Order of St Lazarus, founded to care for lepers and send leper knights to the Crusades. One of the most unusual contributions to the crusading era was the idea of the leper knight - a response to the scourge of leprosy and the shortage of fighting men which beset the Latin kingdom in the twelfth century. The Order ofSt Lazarus, which saw the idea become a reality, founded establishments across Western Europe to provide essential support for its hospitaller and military vocations. This book explores the important contribution of the English branch of the order, which by 1300 managed a considerable estate from its chief preceptory at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire. Time proved the English Lazarites to be both tough and tenacious, if not always preoccupied with the care of lepers: following the fall of Acre in 1291 they endured a period of bitter internal conflict, only to emerge reformed and reinvigorated in the fifteenth century. Though these late medieval knights were very different from their twelfth-century predecessors, some ideologies lingered on, though subtly readapted to the requirements of a new age, until the order was finally suppressed by Henry VIII in 1544. The modern refoundation of the order, a charitable institution, dates from 1962. The book uses both documentary and archaeological evidence to provide the first ever account of this little-understood crusading order. DAVID MARCOMBE is Director of the Centre for LocalHistory, University of Nottingham.

'A rattling good read' - The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu 2020 sees the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower - the ship that took the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. It's a foundational event in American history, but it began as an English story, which pioneered the idea of religious freedom. The illegal underground movement of Protestant separatists from Elizabeth I's Church of England is a story of subterfuge and danger, arrests and interrogations, prison and executions. It starts with Queen Mary's attempts to burn Protestantism out of England, which created a Protestant underground. Later, when Elizabeth's Protestant reformation didn't go far enough, radicals recreated that underground, meeting illegally throughout England, facing prison and death for their crimes. They went into exile in the Netherlands, where they lived in poverty - and finally the New World. Stephen Tomkins tells this fascinating story - one that is rarely told as an important piece of English, as well as American, history - that is full of contemporary relevance: religious violence, the threat to national security, freedom of religion and tolerance of dangerous opinions. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the untold story of how the Mayflower came to be launched. 'A riveting story ... impeccably researched history ... engaging and entertaining, this book serves as reminder of the importance of upholding religious freedom in our current age.' - Tim Farron MP

In these firsthand accounts of the early church, the spirit of Pentecost burns with prophetic force through the fog enveloping the modern church. A clear and vibrant faith lives on in these writings, providing a guide for Christians today. Its stark simplicity and revolutionary fervor will stun those lulled by conventional Christianity. The Early Christians is a topically arranged collection of primary sources. It includes extra-biblical sayings of Jesus and excerpts from Origen, Tertullian, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Justin, Irenaeus, Hermas, Ignatius, and others. Equally revealing material from pagan contemporaries - critics, detractors, and persecutors - is included as well.

This book tells the story of Holocaust survivor and prominent banker Marcel Goldman, born in Krakow in 1926. Goldman started his studies in economics in Krakow and completed them in Israel, where he became a respected banker. In telling his story, this book analyzes Israel's social and economic development, its causes and circumstances. Following Goldman as our main character, we take a close look at the birth of the private banking sector and the building of modern economy in Israel. The book also describes the life of Polish Jews in Israel in general, the way in which they settled there, and built the prosperity of the state. The story of Marcel Goldman is an example of how Israel's success is the sum of its citizens' successes.

This book tells the story of Holocaust survivor and prominent banker Marcel Goldman, born in Krakow in 1926. Goldman started his studies in economics in Krakow and completed them in Israel, where he became a respected banker. In telling his story, this book analyzes Israel's social and economic development, its causes and circumstances. Following Goldman as our main character, we take a close look at the birth of the private banking sector and the building of modern economy in Israel. The book also describes the life of Polish Jews in Israel in general, the way in which they settled there, and built the prosperity of the state. The story of Marcel Goldman is an example of how Israel's success is the sum of its citizens' successes.

The Muslim Brotherhood in the West remains a mysterious entity. In The Closed Circle, Lorenzo Vidino offers an unprecedented inside view into how one of the world's most influential Islamist groups operates. He marshals unique interviews with prominent former members and associates from Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America, shedding light on why and how people join and leave Western outfits of the Muslim Brotherhood. Drawing on these striking personal accounts, Vidino weaves together the experiences of individuals who participated in and later renounced Brotherhood groups. Their perspectives provide a wealth of new information about the Brotherhood's secretive inner workings and the networks that connecting the small yet highly organized cluster of Brotherhood-influenced groups. The Closed Circle examines the tactics the Brotherhood uses to recruit and retain participants as well as how and why individuals make the difficult decision to leave. Through the stories of diverse former members, Vidino paints a portrait of a highly structured, tight-knit movement. His unprecedented access and understanding of the group's activities and motivations has significant policy implications concerning Western Brotherhood organizations and also illuminates the underlying mechanisms found in a range of extremist groups.

Many people worship not just one but many gods. Yet a relentless prejudice against polytheism denies legitimacy to some of the world's oldest and richest religious traditions. In her examination of polytheistic cultures both ancient and contemporary--those of Greece and Rome, the Bible and the Quran, as well as modern India--Page duBois refutes the idea that the worship of multiple gods naturally evolves over time into the "higher" belief in a single deity. In A Million and One Gods, "she shows that polytheism has endured intact for millennia even in the West, despite the many hidden ways that monotheistic thought continues to shape Western outlooks.

In English usage, the word "polytheism" comes from the seventeenth-century writings of Samuel Purchas. It was pejorative from the beginning--a word to distinguish the belief system of backward peoples from the more theologically advanced religion of Protestant Christians. Today, when monotheistic fundamentalisms too often drive people to commit violent acts, polytheism remains a scandalous presence in societies still oriented according to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim beliefs. Even in the multicultural milieus of twenty-first-century America and Great Britain, polytheism finds itself marginalized. Yet it persists, perhaps because polytheism corresponds to unconscious needs and deeply held values of tolerance, diversity, and equality that are central to civilized societies.

By examining Jewish experiences between the American Civil War and the African American Civil Rights Revolution, this book focuses on citizens who usually spent their daily lives in Black and white "peoplehoods." Some of the white ones, commanding the nation's "public square," structured a segregated republic and capitalist economy that would experience WWII and the news about the Holocaust that murdered millions of Jews. This political economy sustained a hierarchy of privatized ethnic groups whose race and religion, in their norms of "ethnicking," was used to deprive them of legal and equal collective standing. This Was America is a book about those privatized identities that the years of the Civil Rights Revolution would bring into the republic's public square.

In the spring of 1575, Holland's Northern Quarter--the waterlogged peninsula stretching from Amsterdam to the North Sea--was threatened with imminent invasion by the Spanish army. Since the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt a few years earlier, the Spanish had repeatedly failed to expel the rebels under William of Orange from this remote region, and now there were rumors that the war-weary population harbored traitors conspiring to help the Spanish invade. In response, rebel leaders arrested a number of vagrants and peasants, put them on the rack, and brutally tortured them until they confessed and named their principals--a witch-hunt that eventually led to a young Catholic lawyer named Jan Jeroenszoon. Treason in the Northern Quarter tells how Jan Jeroenszoon, through great personal courage and faith in the rule of law, managed to survive gruesome torture and vindicate himself by successfully arguing at trial that the authorities remained subject to the law even in times of war. Henk van Nierop uses Jan Jeroenszoon's exceptional story to give the first account of the Dutch Revolt from the point of view of its ordinary victims--town burghers, fugitive Catholic clergy, peasants, and vagabonds. For them the Dutch Revolt was not a heroic struggle for national liberation but an ordinary dirty war, something to be survived, not won. An enthralling account of an unsuspected story with surprising modern resonance, Treason in the Northern Quarter presents a new image of the Dutch Revolt, one that will fascinate anyone interested in the nature of revolution and civil war or the fate of law during wartime.

While religious conflict receives plenty of attention, the everyday negotiation of religious diversity does not. Questions of how to accommodate religious minorities and of the limits of tolerance resonate in a variety of contexts and have become central preoccupations for many Western democracies. What might we see if we turned our attention to the positive narratives and success stories of the everyday working out of religious difference? Rather than 'tolerance' and 'accommodation', and through the stories of ordinary people, this book traces deep equality, which is found in the respect, humour, and friendship of seemingly mundane interactions. Deep Equality in an Era of Religious Diversity shows that the telling of such stories can create an alternative narrative to that of diversity as a problem to be solved. It explores the non-event, or micro-processes of interaction that constitute the foundation for deep equality and the conditions under which deep equality emerges, exists, and sometimes flourishes. Through a systematic search for and examination of such narratives, Lori G. Beaman demonstrates the possibility of uncovering, revealing, and recovering deep equality-a recovery that is vital to living in an increasingly diverse society. In achieving deep equality, identities are fluid, shifting in importance and structure as social interaction unfolds. Rigid identity imaginings, especially religious identities, block our vision to the complexities of social life and press us into corners that trap us in identities that we often ourselves do not recognize, want, or know how to escape. Although the focus of this study is deep equality and its existence and persistence in relation to religious difference, deep equality is located beyond the realm of religion. Beaman draws from the work of those whose primary focus is not in fact religion, and who are doing their own 'deep equality' work in other domains, illustrating especially why equality matters. By retelling and exploring stories of negotiation it is possible to reshape our social imaginary to better facilitate what works, which varies from place to place and time to time.

Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania - this study examines jihadist movements from the inside, uncovering their activities and internal struggles over the past three decades. Highlighting the calculations that jihadist field commanders and clerics make, Alexander Thurston shows how leaders improvise, both politically and religiously, as they adjust to fast-moving conflicts. Featuring critical analysis of Arabic-language jihadist statements, this book offers unique insights into the inner workings of jihadist organisations and sheds new light on the phenomenon of mass-based jihadist movements and proto-states.

The Globalization of Hate: Internationalizing Hate Crime? is the first book to examine the impact of globalization on our understanding of hate speech and hate crime. Bringing together internationally acclaimed scholars with researchers, policy makers and practitioners from across the world, it critically scrutinises the concept of hate crime as a global phenomenon, seeking to examine whether hate crime can, or should, be conceptualised within an international framework and, if so, how this might be achieved. Beginning with the global dynamics of hate, the contributions analyse whether hate crime can be defined globally, whether universal principles can be applied to the phenomenon, how hatred is spread, and how it impacts upon our global society. The middle portion of the book moves beyond the broader questions of globalisation to jurisdictional examples of how globalization impacts upon our understanding of, and also our responses to, hate crime. The chapters explore in greater detail what is happening around the world and how the international concepts of hate crime are being operationalised locally, drawing out the themes of globalization and internationalization that are relevant to hate crime, as evidenced by a number of jurisdictions from Europe, the US, Asia, and Africa. The final part of the book concludes with an examination of the different ways in which hate speech and hate crime is being combatted globally. International law, internet regulation and the use of restorative practices are evaluated as methods of addressing hate-based conflict, with the discussions drawn from existing frameworks as well as exploring normative standards for future international efforts. Taken together, these innovative and insightful contributions offer a timely investigation into the effects of hate crime, offering an interdisciplinary approach to tackling what is now a global issue. It will be of interest to scholars and students of criminology, sociology and criminal justice, as well as criminal justice practitioners, police officers and policy makers.

It is a little known fact that as early as the thirteenth century, Europe's political and religious powers tried to physically mark and distinguish the Jews from the rest of society. During the Renaissance, Italian Jews first had to wear a yellow round badge on their chest, and then later, a yellow beret. The discriminatory marks were a widespread phenomenon with serious consequences for Jewish communities and their relations with Christians. Beginning with a sartorial study - how the Jews were marked on their clothing and what these marks meant - the book offers an in-depth analysis of anti-Jewish discrimination across three Italian city-states: Milan, Genoa, and Piedmont. Moving beyond Italy, it also examines the place of Jews and Jewry law in the increasingly interconnected world of Early Modern European politics.

Foreigners and Their Food explores how Jews, Christians, and Muslims conceptualize us" and them" through rules about the preparation of food by adherents of other religions and the act of eating with such outsiders. David M. Freidenreich analyzes the significance of food to religious formation, elucidating the ways ancient and medieval scholars use food restrictions to think about the other." Freidenreich illuminates the subtly different ways Jews, Christians, and Muslims perceive themselves, and he demonstrates how these distinctive self-conceptions shape ideas about religious foreigners and communal boundaries. This work, the first to analyze change over time across the legal literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, makes pathbreaking contributions to the history of interreligious intolerance and to the comparative study of religion.

A New York Times Notable Book A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, the Spectator, the Observer, and BBC History Magazine In Harran, the locals refused to convert. They were dismembered, their limbs hung along the town's main street. In Alexandria, zealots pulled the elderly philosopher-mathematician Hypatia from her chariot and flayed her to death with shards of broken pottery. Not long before, their fellow Christians had invaded the city's greatest temple, smashing its world-famous statues and destroying all that was left of Alexandria's Great Library. Today we refer to Christianity's conquest of the West as a "triumph." But this victory entailed an orgy of destruction in which Jesus's followers attacked and suppressed classical culture, helping to pitch Western civilization into a thousand-year-long decline. In The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey brilliantly resurrects this lost history, offering a wrenching account of the rise of Christianity and its terrible cost. "A feast of tales of murder, vandalism [and] willful destruction . . . Nixey has a great story to tell, and she tells it exceptionally well." -- Guardian "[A] bold, dazzling and provocative book." -- Peter Frankopan, best-selling author of The Silk Roads

The ways in which religious communities interact with one another is an increasing focus of scholarly research and teaching. Issues of interreligious engagement, inclusive of dialogue more specifically and relations more generally, attract widespread interest and concern. In a religiously pluralist world, how different communities get along with each other is not just an academic question; it is very much a focus of socio-political and wider community attention. The study of religions and religion in the 21st century world must necessarily take account of relations within and between religions, whether this is approached from a theological, historical, political, or any other disciplinary point of view. Understanding Interreligious Relations is a reference work of relevance to students and scholars as well as of interest to a wider informed public. It comprises two main parts. The first provides expositions and critical discussions of the ways in which 'the other' has been construed and addressed from within the major religious traditions. The second presents analyses and discussions of key issues and topics in which interreligious relations are an integral constituent. The editors have assembled an authoritative and scholarly work that discusses perspectives on the religious 'other' and interreligious relations that are typical of the major religious traditions; together with substantial original chapters from a cross-section of emerging and established scholars on main debates and issues in the wider field of interreligious relations.

This journey to the edge of Europe mixes history, travelogue and oral testimony to spellbinding and revelatory effect. Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic. Small nations such as the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia found themselves caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated. Subjected to foreign domination and conquest since the Northern crusades in the twelfth century, these lands faced frequent devastation as Germans, Russians and Swedish colonisers asserted control of the territory, religion, government, culture and inhabitants. The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters - contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous - who have lived and fought in the Baltic and made the atmosphere of what was often thought to be western Europe's furthest redoubt. Too often it has seemed to be the destiny of this region to be the front line of other people's wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and Baltic Barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont reveals a fascinating part of Europe, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt. 'Fascinating . . . a rich, nuanced account of life on "the Baltic frontier"' - The Times 'Excellent' - Daily Mail 'Extraordinary' - Literary Review 'Exemplary' - Economist

At the doorstep of the twenty-first century, one would expect that medieval concepts such as blood libel--the accusation that Jews kill children to use their blood in religious ritual--would have been discarded by any civilized human being. Certainly in the Christian world, where the story originated and endured for centuries, modern attitudes have nearly erased these barbaric accusations. But in Arab and Islamic worlds, where enmity towards Israel and Zionism has conditioned beliefs, attitudes, positions, and fantasies, blood libel and similar charges are still part of life.

Most people are unaware of the history of blood libel and do not perceive links between it and many of the false accusations currently hurled against the state of Israel. Raphael Israeli argues that individuals and organizations guilty of human rights crimes project crimes onto Israel to avoid awareness of their own guilt. Certainly when countries ruled by dictators set the agenda of the UN Council for human rights, Israel is consistently censured and condemned.

Accusations of "apartheid" and charges of discrimination against Muslims are frequently made. Israel is accused of plots against Muslims in order to harm their productive sectors, of using weapons of mass destruction to commit "genocide" against Arabs, of injecting poisonous substances into Palestinian children, of poisoning Arab lands under the guise of "agricultural aid," and of laying siege to peaceful citizens. All of these charges are derivatives of blood libel and have been adopted by Middle East Jihadists in their struggle against Israel. This volume aims to explain the origins of the charge of blood libel and define the ways its derivatives have achieved acceptance in certain parts of the world today.

Every day, men and women risk their lives to stop violence in religiously charged conflicts around the world. You may not know their names - but you should. Peacemakers in Action, Volume 2 provides a window into the triumphs, risks, failures, and lessons learned of eight remarkable, religiously motivated peacemakers including: * A Methodist bishop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who confronts armed warlords on his front lawn * A Christian who travels to Syria to coordinate medical aid and rebuild postwar communities * A Muslim woman, not knowing how Kabul's imams will react, arrives to train them on how to treat women - respectfully. Volume 2 offers students of religious and grassroots peacebuilding informative techniques and methods for organizing community action, establishing trust in conflict, and instilling hope amid turmoil. The book also features updates of case studies presented in Volume 1.

This book brings together and subjects to critical scrutiny the core controversies connected to the so-called "War on Terror": When is it legitimate and prudent to use force? Is torture ever justified? Do we need to suspend human rights in order to fight terrorism? Is multi-culturalism the answer to communal conflict? Is Israel's treatment of the Palestinians illegal and immoral, an accelerator of terrorism, or legitimately defensive and largely irrelevant to the terrorism problem? Are terrorists responding to concrete U.S. policies or do they simply hate and wish to destroy Western societies? Liberal intellectuals and political leaders have been slow to articulate a grand strategy informed by liberal values for confronting these issues surrounding global terrorism. The book outlines the framework of a liberal strategy, and exposes the costs of the neo-conservative alternative that has driven US foreign policy since 9/11.

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes. In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach. In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the memory of this particularly vile event. But not in the world from which the murdered came. All but one were young Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt. Acclaimed literary writer Martin Mosebach traveled to the Egyptian village of El-Aour to meet their families and better understand the faith and culture that shaped such conviction. He finds himself welcomed into simple concrete homes through which swallows dart. Portraits of Jesus and Mary hang on the walls along with roughhewn shrines to now-famous loved ones. Mosebach is amazed time and again as, surrounded by children and goats, the bereaved replay the cruel propaganda video on an iPad. There is never any talk of revenge, but only the pride of having a martyr in the family, a saint in heaven. "The 21" appear on icons crowned like kings, celebrated even as their community grieves. A skeptical Westerner, Mosebach finds himself a stranger in this world in which everything is the reflection or fulfillment of biblical events, and facing persecution with courage is part of daily life. In twenty-one symbolic chapters, each preceded by a picture, Mosebach offers a travelogue of his encounter with a foreign culture and a church that has preserved the faith and liturgy of early Christianity - the "Church of the Martyrs." As a religious minority in Muslim Egypt, the Copts find themselves caught in a clash of civilizations. This book, then, is also an account of the spiritual life of an Arab country stretched between extremism and pluralism, between a rich biblical past and the shopping centers of New Cairo.

In 1095 Pope Urban II granted absolution to anyone who would fight to reclaim the Holy Land. With God at their backs, the first Christian crusaders embarked on an unprecedented religious war. While addressing the contribution of flamboyant characters like Saladin and Richard the Lionheart, Malcolm Billings also looks at the experiences of the peasants, knights and fighting monks who took the cross for Christendom and the Holy Warriors of Islam who, after battle on battle, emerged victorious. He analyses the ebb and flow of crusade and counter-crusade and details the shifting structures of government in the Levant, which became the perennial battleground of East and West.