While religious leaders and the state generally have different aims, both are concerned with power and order.
Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntosh
Public Historian
Brewminate
Introduction
Forced conversion is the adoption of a different religion or the adoption of irreligion under duress.[1] Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which were originally held, while outwardly behaving as a convert. Crypto-Jews, crypto-Christians, crypto-Muslims and crypto-Pagans are historical examples of the latter.
In general, anthropologists have shown that the relationship between religion and politics is complex, especially when viewed over the expanse of human history.[2] While religious leaders and the state generally have different aims, both are concerned with power and order; both use reason and emotion to motivate behavior. Throughout history, leaders of religious and political institutions have cooperated, opposed one another, and or attempted to co-opt each other, for purposes which are both noble and base, and they have implemented programs with a wide range of driving values, from compassion which is aimed at alleviating current suffering to brutal change which is aimed at achieving long-term goals, for the benefit of groups ranging from small cliques to all of humanity. The relationship is far from simple. But religion has often been used coercively, and it has also used coercion.[2]
Christianity
Overview
Christianity was a minority religion during much of the middle RomanClassical Period, and the early Christians were persecuted during that time. When Constantine I converted to Christianity, it had already grown to be the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Already under the reign of Constantine I, Christian heretics were being persecuted; beginning in the late 4th century, the ancient pagan religions were also actively suppressed. In the view of many historians, the Constantinian shift turned Christianity from a persecuted religion into a religion which was capable of persecuting and sometimes eager to persecute.[3]
Late Antiquity
On 27 February 380, together with Gratian and Valentinian II, Theodosius I issued the decree Cunctos populos, the so-called Edict of Thessalonica, recorded in the Codex Theodosianus xvi.1.2. This declared Trinitarian Nicene Christianity to be the only legitimate imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself Catholic. Other Christians he described as “foolish madmen”.[4] He also ended official state support for the traditional polytheist religions and customs.[5]
The Codex Theodosianus (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429[6][7] and the compilation was published by a constitution of 15 February 438. It went into force in the eastern and western parts of the empire on 1 January 439.[6]
It is Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans…. The rest, whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative (Codex Theodosianus XVI 1.2.).[8]
Forced conversions of Jews were carried out with the support of rulers during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Gaul, the Iberian peninsula and in the Byzantine Empire.[9]
Medieval Western Europe
During the Saxon Wars, Charlemagne, King of the Franks, forcibly converted the Saxons from their native Germanic paganism by way of warfare, and law upon conquest. Examples are the Massacre of Verden in 782, when Charlemagne reportedly had 4,500 captive Saxons massacred for rebelling,[10] and the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae, a law imposed on conquered Saxons in 785, after another rebellion and destruction of churches and killing of missionary priests and monks,[11] that prescribed death to those who refused to convert to Christianity.[12]
Forced conversion that occurred after the seventh century generally took place during riots and massacres carried out by mobs and clergy without support of the rulers. In contrast, royal persecutions of Jews from the late eleventh century onward generally took the form of expulsions, with some exceptions, such as conversions of Jews in southern Italy of the 13th century, which were carried out by Dominican Inquisitors but instigated by King Charles II of Naples.[9]
Jews were forced to convert to Christianity by the Crusaders in Lorraine, on the Lower Rhine, in Bavaria and Bohemia, in Mainz and in Worms[13] (see Rhineland massacres, Worms massacre (1096)).
Pope Innocent III pronounced in 1201 that if one agreed to be baptized to avoid torture and intimidation, one nevertheless could be compelled to outwardly observe Christianity:[14]
[T]hose who are immersed even though reluctant, do belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction at least by reason of the sacrament, and might therefore be reasonably compelled to observe the rules of the Christian Faith. It is, to be sure, contrary to the Christian Faith that anyone who is unwilling and wholly opposed to it should be compelled to adopt and observe Christianity. For this reason a valid distinction is made by some between kinds of unwilling ones and kinds of compelled ones. Thus one who is drawn to Christianity by violence, through fear and through torture, and receives the sacrament of Baptism in order to avoid loss, he (like one who comes to Baptism in dissimulation) does receive the impress of Christianity, and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling …
During the Northern Crusades against the pagan Balts and Slavs of northern Europe, forced conversions were a widely used tactic, which received papal sanction.[15] These tactics were first adopted during the Wendish Crusade, but became more widespread during the Livonian Crusade and Prussian Crusade, in which tactics included the killing of hostages, massacre, and the devastation of the lands of tribes that had not yet submitted.[16] Most of the populations of these regions were converted only after the repeated rebellion of native populations that did not want to accept Christianity even after initial forced conversion; in Old Prussia, the tactics employed in the initial conquest and subsequent conversion of the territory resulted in the death of most of the native population, whose language consequently became extinct.[17]
Early Modern Iberian Peninsula
After the end of Islamic control of Spain, Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.[18] In Portugal, following an order for their expulsion in 1496, only a handful were allowed to leave and the rest were forced to convert.[19] Muslims were expelled from Portugal in 1497, and they were gradually forced to convert in the constituent kingdoms of Spain. The forced conversion of Muslims was implemented in the Crown of Castile from 1500 to 1502 and in the Crown of Aragon in the 1520s.[20] After the conversions, the so-called “New Christians” were those inhabitants (Sephardic Jews or Mudéjar Muslims) who were baptized under coercion and in the face of execution, becoming forced converts from Islam (Moriscos, Conversos and “secret Moors”) or from Judaism (Conversos, Crypto-Jews and Marranos).
After the forced conversion, when all former Muslims and Jews had ostensibly become Catholic, the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition targeted primarily forced converts from Judaism and Islam, who came under suspicion of either continuing to adhere to their old religion or having fallen back into it. Jewish conversos still resided in Spain and often practised Judaism secretly and were suspected by the “Old Christians” of being Crypto-Jews. The Spanish Inquisition generated much wealth and income for the church and individual inquisitors by confiscating the property of the persecuted. The end of Al-Andalus and the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula went hand in hand with the increase of Spanish and Portuguese influence in the world, as exemplified in the Christian conquest of the Americas and their aboriginal Indian population. The Ottoman Empire and Morocco absorbed most of the Jewish and Muslim refugees, although a large majority remained as Conversos.[21]
Colonial Americas
During the European colonization of the Americas, forced conversion of the continents’ indigenous, non-Christian population was common, especially in South America and Mesoamerica, where the conquest of large indigenous polities like the Inca and Aztec Empires placed colonizers in control of large non-Christian populations. According to some South American leaders and indigenous groups, there were cases among native populations of conversion under the threat of violence, often because they were compelled to after being conquered, and that the Catholic Church cooperated with civil authority to achieve this end.[22]
Eastern Europe
Upon converting to Christianity in the 10th century, Vladimir the Great, the ruler of Kievan Rus’, ordered Kiev’s citizens to undergo a mass baptism in the Dnieper river.[23]
In the 13th century the pagan populations of the Baltics faced campaigns of forcible conversion by crusading knight corps such as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Teutonic Order, which often meant simply dispossessing these populations of their lands and property.[24][25]
After Ivan the Terrible’s conquest of the Khanate of Kazan, the Muslim population faced slaughter, expulsion, forced resettlement and conversion to Christianity.[26]
In the 18th century, Elizabeth of Russia launched a campaign of forced conversion of Russia’s non-Orthodox subjects, including Muslims and Jews.[27]
Goa Inquisition
The Portuguese carried out the Christianisation of Goa in India in the 16th and 17th centuries. The majority of the natives of Goa had converted to Christianity by the end of the 16th century. The Portuguese rulers had implemented state policies encouraging and even rewarding conversions among Hindu subjects. The rapid rise of converts in Goa was mostly the result of Portuguese economic and political control over the Hindus, who were vassals of the Portuguese crown.[28]
In 1567, the conversion of the majority of the native villagers to Christianity allowed the Portuguese to destroy temples in Bardez, with 300 Hindu temples destroyed. Prohibitions were then declared from December 4, 1567, on public performances of Hindu marriages, sacred thread wearing and cremation. All persons above 15 years of age were compelled to listen to Christian preaching, failing which they were punished.
In 1583, Hindu temples at Assolna and Cuncolim were also destroyed by the Portuguese army after the majority of the native villagers there had also converted to Christianity.[29] “The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshiped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers”, wrote Filippo Sassetti, who was in India from 1578 to 1588.[30]
Others
In 1858, Edgardo Mortara was taken from his Jewish parents and raised as a Catholic, because he had been baptized by a maid without his parents’ consent or knowledge. This incident was called the Mortara case.
During World War II in Yugoslavia, Orthodox Serbs were forcibly converted to Catholicism by the Ustashe.[31][32]
In 2009, the Assam Times reported that a group of Hmar militants with about 15 members calling themselves the Manmasi National Christian Army, tried to force Hindu residents of Bhuvan Pahar, Assam to convert to Christianity.[33]
Buddhism and Hinduism
The person can express he/her faith through the act of taking refuge and the usual conversion require a recital of accepting the Triple Gems of Buddhism. However, the person can always practice Buddhism without fully abandoning his/her own religion.[34] According to Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), Christians from the Chin ethnic minority group in Myanmar are facing coercion to convert to Buddhism by State actors and programme.[35]
In the medieval era, Buddhists faced forced conversion by Muslim invaders.[36][37][38] During the rule of Pushyamitra Shunga, Buddhist art was patronised.[39][40] In the 13th century, Buddhists faced forced conversion from Hindu ruler Kalinga Magha, who destroyed many stupas.[41]
Indian Christians have alleged that Hindu groups in Odisha have forced Christian converts from Hinduism to revert[42] to Hinduism. In the aftermath of the violence, American Christian evangelical groups have claimed that Hindu groups are forcibly reverting Christian converts from Hinduism back to Hinduism.[42] It has also been alleged that these same Hindu groups have used allurements to convert poor Muslims and Christians to Hinduism against their will.[43][44]
Post 2014 in India, several radical Hindu groups have been accused of converting Christians[45] and Muslims to Hinduism.[46][47] In December 2014, 57 Muslim families were reportedly converted to Hinduism.[48] In 2020, several Muslim families were forcibly converted to Hinduism.[49] In other states like Uttar Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, Christians were converted to Hinduism by Hindu nationalist groups.[50][51]
Islam
Overview
Islamic law prohibits forced conversion, following the Quranic principle that there is “no compulsion in religion” (Quran 2:256).[52][53][54] However, episodes of forced conversions have occurred in the history of Islam. Upon payment of the tax (jizya), the dhimmi would receive a receipt of payment, either in the form of a piece of paper or parchment or as a seal humiliatingly placed upon their neck, and was thereafter compelled to carry this receipt wherever he went within the realms of Islam. Failure to produce an up-to-date jizya receipt on the request of a Muslim could result in death or forced conversion to Islam of the dhimmi in question[55]. Jews and Christians were required to pay the jizyah while pagans were required to either accept Islam or die.[56] Some historians believe that forced conversion was rare in Islamic history,[57][52][58] and most conversions to Islam were voluntary.[58] Muslim rulers were often more interested in conquest than conversion.[58] Ira Lapidus points towards “interwoven terms of political and economic benefits and of a sophisticated culture and religion” as appealing to the masses. He writes that:
The question of why people convert to Islam has always generated the intense feeling. Earlier generations of European scholars believed that conversions to Islam were made at the point of the sword, and that conquered peoples were given the choice of conversion or death. It is now apparent that conversion by force, while not unknown in Muslim countries, was, in fact, rare. Muslim conquerors ordinarily wished to dominate rather than convert, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. (…) In most cases, worldly and spiritual motives for conversion blended together. Moreover, conversion to Islam did not necessarily imply a complete turning from an old to a totally new life. While it entailed the acceptance of new religious beliefs and membership in a new religious community, most converts retained a deep attachment to the cultures and communities from which they came.[59]
Muslim scholars like Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf stated that the jizya tax should be paid by Non-Muslims (Kuffar) regardless of their religion, some later and also earlier Muslim jurists did not permit Non-Muslims who are not People of the Book or Ahle-Kitab (Jews, Christians, Sabians) pay the jizya. Instead, they only allowed them (non-Ahle-Kitab) to avoid death by choosing to convert to Islam.[60] Of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi and Maliki schools allow polytheists to be granted dhimmi status, except Arab polytheists. However, the Shafi’i, Hanbali and Zahiri schools only consider Christians, Jews, and Sabians to be eligible to belong to the dhimmi category.[61]
Wael Hallaq states that in theory, Islamic religious tolerance only applied to those religious groups that Islamic jurisprudence considered to be monotheistic “People of the Book”, i.e. Christians, Jews, and Sabians if they paid the jizya tax, while to those excluded from the “People of the Book” were only offered two choices: convert to Islam or fight to the death. In practice, the “People of the Book” designation and dhimmi status were even extended to the non-monotheistic religions of the conquered peoples, such as Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and other non-monotheists.[62]
The Druze have frequently experienced persecution by different Muslim regimes such as the Shia Ismaili Fatimid State,[63] Mamluk,[64] Sunni Ottoman Empire,[65] and Egypt Eyalet.[66][67] The persecution of the Druze included massacres, demolishing Druze prayer houses and holy places and forced conversion to Islam.[68] Those were no ordinary killings in the Druze’s narrative, they were meant to eradicate the whole community according to the Druze narrative.[69]
In recent times, forced conversions to Islam have been threatened or carried out in the context of war, insurgency and intercommunal violence. Cases affecting thousands of people are reported to have occurred during the Partition of India, the Bangladesh Liberation War, in Pakistan, and areas controlled by ISIS.
Early Period
The wars of the Ridda (lit. apostasy) undertaken by Abu Bakr, the first caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, against Arab tribes who had accepted Islam but refused to pay Zakat and Jizya Tax, have been described by some historians as an instance of forced conversion[70] or “reconversion”.[71] The rebellion of these Arab tribes was less a relapse to the pre-Islamic Arabian religion than termination of a political contract they had made with Muhammad.[71] Some of these tribal leaders claimed prophethood, bringing themselves in direct conflict with the Muslim Caliphate.[72] Although, the exact reason according to other sources are not only that these tribes refused to pay Zakat, which is one of the five main pillars of Islam, but were also responsible for leading rebellious campaigns against the Muslim state.[73]
A well-known classical scholar, Allama Badr al-Din al-Aini (1360–1453), writes in his commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari:
Hazrat Abu Bakr al-Siddiq fought those who refused to pay Zakat because they had taken up the sword and started a war against the Muslim community … Hazrat Abu Hanifa took the ground that he who refuses to pay Zakat must neither be killed nor even fought. However, he must be forced to pay it without the use of the sword, and must only be killed if he rose up to attack. This is exactly what Hazrat Abu Bakr did with those who refused to pay Zakat during his caliphate. He did not fight them until they rose up to attack him[74]
Two out of the four schools of Islamic law, i.e. Hanafi and Maliki schools, accepted non-Arab polytheists to be eligible for the dhimmi status. Under this doctrine, Arab polytheists were forced to choose between conversion and death. However, according to perception of most Muslim jurists, all Arabs had embraced Islam during the lifetime of Muhammad. Their exclusion therefore had little practical significance after his death in 632.[61]
In the 9th century, the Samaritan population of Palestine faced persecution and attempts at forced conversion at the hands of the rebel leader ibn Firāsa, against whom they were defended by Abbasid caliphal troops.[75] Historians recognize that during the Early Middle Ages, the Christian populations living in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies between the 7th and 10th centuries suffered religious discrimination, religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers.[76][77]
As People of the Book, Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to dhimmi status (along with Jews, Samaritans, Gnostics, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians), which was inferior to the status of Muslims.[77][78][79] Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and religious persecution in that they were banned from proselytising (for Christians, it was forbidden to evangelize or spread Christianity) in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.[78]
Under sharia, Non-Muslims were obligated to pay jizya and kharaj taxes,[77][78][79] together with periodic heavy ransom levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam.[78] Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would sell them as slaves to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam.[78] Many Christian martyrs were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of the Islamic religion and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.[76]
Almohad Caliphate
There were forced conversions in the 12th century under the Almohad dynasty of North Africa and al-Andalus, who suppressed the dhimmi status of Jews and Christians and gave them the choice between conversion, exile, and being executed. The treatment and persecution of Jews under Almohad rule was a drastic change.[80] Prior to Almohad rule during the Caliphate of Córdoba, Jewish culture experienced a Golden Age. María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University, has argued that “tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society”, and that the Jewish dhimmis living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were still better off than in Christian Europe.[81] Many Jews migrated to al-Andalus, where they were not just tolerated but allowed to practice their faith openly. Christians had also practiced their religion openly in Córdoba, and both Jews and Christians lived openly in Morocco as well.
The first Almohad ruler, Abd al-Mumin, allowed an initial seven-month grace period.[82] Then he forced most of the urban dhimmi population in Morocco, both Jewish and Christian, to convert to Islam.[83] In 1198, the Almohad emir Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur decreed that Jews must wear a dark blue garb, with very large sleeves and a grotesquely oversized hat;[84] hs son altered the colour to yellow, a change that may have influenced Catholic ordinances some time later.[84] Those who converted had to wear clothing that identified them as Jews since they were not regarded as sincere Muslims.[83] Cases of mass martyrdom of Jews who refused to convert to Islam are recorded.[82]
Many of the conversions were superficial. Maimonides urged Jews to choose the superficial conversion over martyrdom and argued, “Muslims know very well that we do not mean what we say, and that what we say is only to escape the ruler’s punishment and to satisfy him with this simple confession.”[80][83] Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1164), who himself fled the persecutions of the Almohads, composed an elegy mourning the destruction of many Jewish communities throughout Spain and the Maghreb under the Almohads.[80][85] Many Jews fled from territories ruled by the Almohads to Christian lands, and others, like the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands.[86] However, a few Jewish traders still working in North Africa are recorded.[82]
The treatment and persecution of Christians under Almohad rule was a drastic change as well.[87] Many Christians were killed, forced to convert, or forced to flee. Some Christians fled to the Christian kingdoms in the north and west and helped fuel the Reconquista. Christian martyrs who refused to convert to Islam under Almohad rule included:
- Daniel and companions, d. 1221
- John of Perugia and Peter of Sassoferrato, d. 1231
- Saint Serapion of Algiers, d. 1240
Christians under the Almohad rule generally chose to relocate to the Christian principalities (most notably the Kingdom of Asturias) in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, whereas Jews decided to stay in order to keep their properties, and many of them feigned conversion to Islam, while continuing to believe and practice Judaism in secrecy.[88]
During the Almohad persecution, the medieval Jewish philosopher and rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), one of the leading exponents of the Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, wrote his Epistle on Apostasy, in which he permitted Jews to feign apostasy under duress, though strongly recommending leaving the country instead.[89] There is dispute amongst scholars as to whether Maimonides himself converted to Islam in order to freely escape from Almohad territory, and then reconverted back to Judaism in either the Levant or in Egypt.[90] He was later denounced as an apostate and tried in an Islamic court.[91]
Yemen
In the late 1160s, the Yemenite ruler ‘Abd-al-Nabī ibn Mahdi left Jews with the choice between conversion to Islam or martyrdom.[92][93] Ibn Mahdi also imposed his beliefs upon the Muslims besides the Jews. This led to a revival of Jewish messianism, but also led to mass-conversion.[93] The persecution ended in 1173 with the defeat of Ibn Mahdi and conquest of Yemen by the brother of Saladin, and they were allowed to return to their Jewish faith.[93][94]
According to two Cairo Genizah documents, the Ayyubid ruler of Yemen, al-Malik al-Mu’izz al-Ismail (reigned from 1197 to 1202) had attempted to force the Jews of Aden to convert. The second document details the relief of Jewish community after his murder, and those who had been forced to convert reverted to Judaism.[95] While he did not impose Islam upon the foreign merchants, they were forced to pay triple the normal rate of poll tax.[93]
A measure listed in the legal works by Al-Shawkānī is of forced conversion of Jewish orphans. No date is given for this decree by modern studies nor who issued it.[96] The forced conversion of Jewish orphans was reintroduced under Imam Yahya in 1922. The Orphans’ Decree was implemented aggressively for the first ten years. It was re-promulgated in 1928.[97]
Ottoman Empire
A form of forced conversion became institutionalized during the Ottoman Empire in the practice of devşirme,[98] a human levy in which Christian boys were seized and collected from their families (usually in the Balkans), enslaved, forcefully converted to Islam, and then trained as elite military unit within the Ottoman army or for high-ranking service to the sultan.[98][99] From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, the devşirme–janissary system enslaved an estimated 500,000 to one million non-Muslim adolescent males.[100] These boys would attain a great education and high social standing after their training and conversion.[101]
In the 17th century, Sabbatai Zevi, a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors were welcomed in the Ottoman Empire during the Spanish Inquisition, proclaimed himself as the Jewish Messiah and called for the abolition of major Jewish laws and customs. After he attracted a large following, he was arrested by the Ottoman authorities and given a choice between execution or conversion to Islam.[102] Zevi opted for a feigned conversion solely to escape the death penalty,[102] and continued to believe and practice Judaism along with his followers in secrecy.[102][103][104] The Byzantine historian Doukas recounts two other cases of forced or attempted forced conversion: one of a Christian official who had offended Sultan Murad II, and the other of an archbishop.[105]
During the genocide and persecution of Greeks in the 20th century, there were cases of forced conversion to Islam[106] (see also Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide, and Hamidian massacres).
Persia
Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, decreed Twelver Shiism to be the official religion of state and ordered executions of a number of Sunni intellectuals who refused to accept Shiism.[107][108] Non-Muslims faced frequent persecutions and at times forced conversions under the rule of his dynastic successors.[109] Thus, after the capture of the Hormuz Island, Abbas I required local Christians to convert to Twelver Shia Islam, Abbas II granted his ministers authority to force Jews to become Shia Muslims, and Sultan Husayn decreed forcible conversion of Zoroastrians.[110] In 1839, during the Qajar era the Jewish community in the city of Mashhad was attacked by a mob and subsequently forced to convert to Shia Islam.[111]
India
In an invasion of the Kashmir valley (1015), Mahmud of Ghazni plundered the valley, took many prisoners and carried out conversions to Islam.[112] In his later campaigns, in Mathura, Baran and Kanauj, again, many conversions took place. Those soldiers who surrendered to him were converted to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted to Islam including the king.[113] Tarikh-i-Yamini, Rausat-us-Safa and Tarikh-i-Ferishtah speak of construction of mosques and schools and appointment of preachers and teachers by Mahmud and his successor Masud. Wherever Mahmud went, he insisted on the people to convert to Islam.[114] The raids by Muhammad Ghori and his generals brought in thousands of slaves in the late 12th century, most of whom were compelled to convert as one of the preconditions of their freedom.[114][115][116][117] Sikandar Butshikan (1394–1417) demolished Hindu temples and forcefully converted Hindus.[118]
Aurangzeb employed a number of means to encourage conversions to Islam.[119] The ninth guru of Sikhs, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was beheaded in Delhi on orders of Aurangzeb for refusing to convert to Islam.[120][121] In a Mughal-Sikh war in 1715, 700 followers of Banda Singh Bahadur were beheaded.[122] Sikhs were executed for not apostatizing from Sikhism.[123] Banda Singh Bahadur was offered a pardon if he converted to Islam.[124] Upon refusal, he was tortured,[125][126] and was killed with his five-year-old son.[123] Following the execution of Banda, the emperor ordered to apprehend Sikhs anywhere they were found.[124]
18th century ruler Tipu Sultan persecuted the Hindus, Christians and Mappla Muslims.[127][128] During Sultan’s Mysorean invasion of Kerala, hundreds of temples and churches were demolished and ten thousands of Christians and Hindus were killed or converted to Islam by force.[129][130]
Contemporary Period
In Bangladesh, the International Crimes Tribunal tried and convicted several leaders of the Islamic Razakar militias, as well as Bangladesh Muslim Awami league (Forid Uddin Mausood), of war crimes committed against Hindus during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. The charges included forced conversion of Bengali Hindus to Islam.[131][132][133]
Coptic women and girls are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men.[134][135] In 2009, the Washington, D.C.-based group Christian Solidarity International published a study of the abductions and forced marriages and the anguish felt by the young women because returning to Christianity is against the law. Further allegations of organised abduction of Copts, trafficking and police collusion continue in 2017.[136]
In April 2010, a bipartisan group of 17 members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Office about Coptic women who faced “physical and sexual violence, captivity … exploitation in forced domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation, and financial benefit to the individuals who secure the forced conversion of the victim.”[134]
In the 1998 Prankote massacre, 26 Kashmiri Hindus were beheaded by Islamist militants after their refusal to convert to Islam. The militants struck when the villagers refused demands from the gunmen to convert to Islam and prove their conversion by eating beef.[137] During the Noakhali riots in 1946, several thousand Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim mobs.[138][139]
The rise of Taliban insurgency in Pakistan has been an influential and increasing factor in the persecution of and discrimination against religious minorities, such as Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and other minorities.[140]
The Human Rights Council of Pakistan has reported that cases of forced conversion are increasing.[141][142] A 2014 report by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace (MSP) says about 1,000 women in Pakistan are forcibly converted to Islam every year (700 Christian and 300 Hindu).[143][144][145]
In 2003, a six-year-old Sikh girl was kidnapped by a member of the Afridi tribe in Northwest Frontier Province; the alleged kidnapper claimed the girl was actually 12 years old, had converted to Islam, and therefore could not be returned to her non-Muslim family.[146]
In May 2007, members of the Christian community of Charsadda in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, close to the border of Afghanistan, reported that they had received letters threatening bombings if they did not convert to Islam, and that the police were not taking their fears seriously.[147] In June 2009, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported the rape and killing of a Christian man in Pakistan for refusing to convert to Islam.[148]
Rinkle Kumari, a 19-year Pakistani student, Lata Kumari, and Asha Kumari, a Hindu working in a beauty parlor, were allegedly forced to convert from Hinduism to Islam.[149][150] They told the judge that they wanted to go with their parents.[151] Their cases were appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The appeal was admitted but remained unheard ever after.[152] Rinkle was abducted by a gang and “forced” to convert to Islam, before being head shaved.[153]
Sikhs in Hangu district stated they were being pressured to convert to Islam by Yaqoob Khan, the assistant commissioner of Tall Tehsil, in December 2017. However, the Deputy Commissioner of Hangu Shahid Mehmood denied it occurred and claimed that Sikhs were offended during a conversation with Yaqub though it was not intentional.[154][155][156][157]
Many Hindu girls living in Pakistan are kidnapped, forcibly converted and married to Muslims.[158] According to the Pakistan Hindu Council, religious persecution, especially forced conversions, remains the foremost reason for migration of Hindus from Pakistan. Religious institutions like Bharchundi Sharif and Sarhandi Pir support forced conversions and are known to have support and protection of ruling political parties of Sindh.[159] According to the National Commission of Justice and Peace and the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC) around 1000 Christian and Hindu minority women are converted to Islam and then forcibly married off to their abductors or rapists. This practice is being reported increasingly in the districts of Tharparkar, Umerkot and Mirpur Khas in Sindh.[159] According to another report from the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about 1,000 non-Muslim girls are converted to Islam each year in Pakistan.[160] According to the Amarnath Motumal, the vice chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, every month, an estimated 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted and converted, although exact figures are impossible to gather.[161] In 2014 alone, 265 legal cases of forced conversion were reported mostly involving Hindu girls.[162]
A total of 57 Hindus converted in Pasrur during May 14–19. On May 14, 35 Hindus of the same family were forced to convert by their employer because his sales dropped after Muslims started boycotting his eatable items as they were prepared by Hindus as well as their persecution by the Muslim employees of neighbouring shops according to their relatives. Since the impoverished Hindu had no other way to earn and needed to keep the job to survive, they converted. 14 members of another family converted on May 17 since no one was employing them, later another Hindu man and his family of eight under pressure from Muslims to avoid their land being grabbed.[163]
In 2017, the Sikh community in Hangu district of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alleged that they were “being forced to convert to Islam” by a government official. Farid Chand Singh, who filed the complaint, has claimed that Assistant Commissioner Tehsil Tall Yaqoob Khan was allegedly forcing Sikhs to convert to Islam and the residents of Doaba area are being tortured religiously.[164][165] According to reports, about 60 Sikhs of Doaba had demanded security from the administration.[166]
Many Hindus voluntarily convert to Islam in order to acquire Watan Cards and National Identification Cards. These converts are also given land and money. For example, 428 poor Hindus in Matli were converted between 2009 and 2011 by the Madrassa Baitul Islam, a Deobandi seminary in Matli, which pays off the debts of Hindus converting to Islam.[167] Another example is the conversion of 250 Hindus to Islam in Chohar Jamali area in Thatta.[168] Conversions are also carried out by Ex Hindu Baba Deen Mohammad Shaikh mission which converted 108,000 people to Islam since 1989.[169]
Within Pakistan, the province of the southern Sindh had over 1,000 forced conversions of Christian and Hindu girls according to the annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in 2018. According to victims’ families and activists, Mian Abdul Haq, who is a local political and religious leader in Sindh, has been accused of being responsible for forced conversions of girls within the province.[170]
More than 100 Hindus in Sindh converted to Islam in June 2020 to escape discrimination and economic pressures. Islamic charities and clerics offer incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minorities on the condition that they convert. New York Times summarised the view of Hindu groups that these seemingly voluntary conversions “take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.”[171]
In October 2020, the Pakistani High Court upheld the validity of a forced marriage between 44-year-old Ali Azhar and 13-year-old Christian Arzoo Raja. Raja was abducted by Azhar, forcibly wed to Azhar and then forcibly converted to Islam by Azhar.[172]
In 2012, over 1000 Catholic children in East Timor, removed from their families, were reported to being held in Indonesia without consent of their parents, forcibly converted to Islam, educated in Islamic schools and naturalized.[173] Other reports claim forced conversion of minority Ahmadiyya sect Muslims to Sunni Islam, with the use of violence.[174][175][176]
In 2001 the Indonesian army evacuated hundreds of Christian refugees from the remote Kesui and Teor islands in Maluku after the refugees stated that they had been forced to convert to Islam. According to reports, some of the men had been circumcised against their will, and a paramilitary group involved in the incident confirmed that circumcisions had taken place while denying any element of coercion.[177]
In 2017, many members of the Orang Rimba tribe, especially children, were being forced to renounce their folk religion and convert to Islam.[178]
There have been a number of reports of attempts to forcibly convert religious minorities in Iraq. The Yazidi people of northern Iraq, who follow an ethnoreligious syncretic faith, have been threatened with forced conversion by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who consider their practices to be Satanism.[179] UN investigators have reported mass killings of Yazidi men and boys who refused to convert to Islam.[180] In Baghdad, hundreds of Assyrian Christians fled their homes in 2007 when a local extremist group announced that they had to convert to Islam, pay the jizya or die.[181] In March 2007, the BBC reported that people in the Mandaean ethnic and religious minority in Iraq alleged that they were being targeted by Islamist insurgents, who offered them the choice of conversion or death.[182]
Allegations of Coptic Christian girls being forced to marry Arab Muslim men and convert to Islam in Egypt have been reported by a number of news and advocacy organizations[183][184][185] and have sparked public protests.[186] According to a 2009 report by the US State Department, observers have found it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, and in recent years no such cases have been independently verified.[187]
In 2006, two journalists of the Fox News Network were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Gaza Strip by a previously unknown militant group. After being forced to read statements on videotape proclaiming that they had converted to Islam, they were released by their captors.[188]
In August 2009, International Christian Concern reported that four Christians working to help orphans in Somalia were beheaded by Islamist extremists when they refused to convert to Islam.[189]
In the early 2010s, the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram is reported to have forced a kidnapped Christian woman to convert to Islam at knifepoint.[190] A Christian woman in 2018 was raped repeatedly by a Boko Haram terrorist for refusing to convert to Islam and her son was killed.[191]
In 2015, a Christian girl named Ese Oruru was kidnapped in Bayelsa State and transported to Kano where she was forced to convert to Islam and marry a Muslim man in the palace of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.[192]
According to the UK prison officers’ union, some Muslim prisoners in the UK have been forcibly converting fellow inmates to Islam in prisons.[193]
In 2007, a Sikh girl’s family claimed that she had been forcibly converted to Islam, and they received a police guard after being attacked by an armed gang, although the “Police said no one was injured in the incident”.[194]
In response to these news stories, an open letter to Sir Ian Blair, signed by ten Hindu academics, argued that claims that Hindu and Sikh girls were being forcefully converted were “part of an arsenal of myths propagated by right-wing Hindu supremacist organisations in India”.[195] The Muslim Council of Britain issued a press release pointing out there is a lack of evidence of any forced conversions and suggested it is an underhand attempt to smear the British Muslim population.[196]
An academic paper by Katy Sian published in the journal South Asian Popular Culture in 2011 explored the question of how “‘forced’ conversion narratives” arose around the Sikh diaspora in the United Kingdom.[197] Sian, who reports that claims of conversion through courtship on campuses are widespread in the UK, indicates that rather than relying on actual evidence they primarily rest on the word of “a friend of a friend” or on personal anecdote. According to Sian, the narrative is similar to accusations of “white slavery” lodged against the Jewish community and foreigners to the UK and the US, with the former having ties to antisemitism that mirror the Islamophobia betrayed by the modern narrative. Sian expanded on these views in 2013’s Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations.[198]
In 2018, a report by a Sikh activist organisation, Sikh Youth UK, entitled “The Religiously Aggravated Sexual Exploitation of Young Sikh Women Across the UK” made allegations of similarities between the case of Sikh Women and the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal.[199] However in 2019, this report was criticised by researchers and an official UK government report lead by two Sikh academics for false and misleading information.[200][201] It noted: “The RASE report lacks solid data, methodological transparency and rigour. It is filled instead with sweeping generalisations and poorly substantiated claims around the nature and scale of abuse of Sikh girls and causal factors driving it. It appealed heavily to historical tensions between Sikhs and Muslims and narratives of honour in a way that seemed designed to whip up fear and hate”.[201]
Judaism
Forced conversions occurred under the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Idumeans were forced to convert to Judaism, by threat of exile or death, depending on the source.[202][203] In Eusebíus, Christianity, and Judaism, Harold W. Attridge claims that “there is reason to think that Josephus’ account of their conversion is substantially accurate.” He also writes: “that these were not isolated instances, but that forced conversion was a national policy, is clear from the fact that Alexander Jannaeus (around 80 BC) demolished the city of Pella in Moab, ‘because the inhabitants would not agree to adopt the national custom of the Jews.'” Josephus, Antiquities. 13.15.4.[204]
Maurice Sartre has written of the “policy of forced Judaization adopted by Hyrcanos, Aristobulus I and Jannaeus”, who offered “the conquered peoples a choice between expulsion or conversion,”[205] William Horbury has written that “The evidence is best explained by postulating that an existing small Jewish population in Lower Galilee was massively expanded by the forced conversion in c.104 BC of their Gentile neighbours in the north.”[206]
In 2009, the BBC defended a claim that in AD 524 the Yemeni Jewish Himyar tribe, led by King Yusuf Dhu Nuwas, had offered Christian residents of a village in what is now Saudi Arabia the choice between conversion to Judaism or death, and that 20,000 Christians had then been massacred. The BBC stated that “The production team spoke to many historians over 18 months, among them Nigel Groom, who was our consultant, and Professor Abdul Rahman Al-Ansary [former professor of archaeology at the King Saud University in Riyadh].”[207] Inscriptions documented by Yousef himself show the great pride he expressed after massacring more than 22,000 Christians in Zafar and Najran.[208]
Atheism
Eastern Bloc
Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a “government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism” conducted by Communists.[210][211][212] This program included the overarching objective to establish not only a fundamentally materialistic conception of the universe, but to foster “direct and open criticism of the religious outlook” by means of establishing an “anti-religious trend” across the entire school.[213] The Russian Orthodox Church, for centuries the strongest of all Orthodox Churches, was violently suppressed.[214] Revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin wrote that every religious idea and every idea of God “is unutterable vileness… of the most dangerous kind, ‘contagion of the most abominable kind”.[215] Many priests were killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches were closed, some turned into hospitals. In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution.[216]
Christopher Marsh, a professor at Baylor University writes that “Tracing the social nature of religion from Schleiermacher and Feurbach to Marx, Engels, and Lenin… the idea of religion as a social product evolved to the point of policies aimed at the forced conversion of believers to atheism.”[217] Jonathan Blake of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University elucidates the history of this practice in the USSR, stating that:[218]
God, however, did not simply vanish after the Bolshevik revolution. Soviet authorities relied heavily on coercion to spread their idea of scientific atheism. This included confiscating church goods and property, forcibly closing religious institutions and executing religious leaders and believers or sending them to the gulag. … Later, the United States passed the Jackson-Vanik amendment which harmed US-Soviet trade relations until the USSR permitted the emigration of religious minorities, primarily Jews. Despite the threat from coreligionists abroad, however, the Soviet Union engaged in forced atheism from its earliest days.[218]
Across Eastern Europe following World War II, the parts of the Nazi Empire conquered by the Soviet Red Army, and Yugoslavia became one party Communist states and the project of coercive conversion continued.[219][220] The Soviet Union ended its war time truce against the Russian Orthodox Church, and extended its persecutions to the newly Communist Eastern bloc: “In Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated or imprisoned by the Communists. Leaders of the national Orthodox Churches in Romania and Bulgaria had to be cautious and submissive”, wrote Blainey.[214] While the churches were generally not as severely treated as they had been in the USSR, nearly all their schools and many of their churches were closed, and they lost their formerly prominent roles in public life. Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands.[221]
In the Eastern Bloc, Christian churches, Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques were forcibly “converted into museums of atheism.”[222][223] Historical essayist Andrei Brezianu expounds upon this situation, specifically in the Socialist Republic of Romania, writing that scientific atheism was “aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited”; he provides an example of this phenomenon, further writing that “St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city’s Museum of Scientific Atheism”.[209] Marxist-Leninist regimes treated religious believers as subversives or abnormal, sometimes relegating them to psychiatric hospitals and reeducation.[224][225] Nevertheless, historian Emily Baran writes that “some accounts suggest the conversion to militant atheism did not always end individuals’ existential questions”.[226]
French Revolution
During the French Revolution, a campaign of dechristianization happened which included removal and destruction of religious objects from places of worship; English librarian Thomas Hartwell Horne and biblical scholar Samuel Davidson write that “churches were converted into ‘temples of reason,’ in which atheistical and licentious homilies were substituted for the proscribed service”.[227][228][229][230]
Unlike later establishments of state atheism by communist regimes, the French Revolutionary experiment was short (seven months), incomplete and inconsistent.[231] Although brief, the French experiment was particularly notable for the influence upon atheists Ludwig Feuerbach, Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx.[224]
East Asia
The emergence of Communist states across East Asia after World War Two saw religion purged by atheist regimes across China, North Korea and much of Indo-China.[232] In 1949, China became a Communist state under the leadership of Mao Zedong’s Communist Party of China. Prior to this takeover, China itself was previously a cradle of religious thought since ancient times, being the birthplace of Confucianism and Daoism, and Buddhists arrived in the first century AD. Under Mao, China became an officially atheist state, and though some religious practices were permitted to continue under State supervision, religious groups which are deemed a threat to law and order have been suppressed—such as Tibetan Buddhism from 1959 and Falun Gong in recent years.[233]
Religious schools and social institutions were closed, foreign missionaries were expelled, and local religious practices were discouraged.[232] During the Cultural Revolution, Mao instigated “struggles” against the Four Olds: “old ideas, customs, culture, and habits of mind”.[234] In 1999, the Communist Party launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in Tibet, saying that intensifying atheist propaganda is “especially important for Tibet because atheism plays an extremely important role in promoting economic construction, social advancement and socialist spiritual civilization in the region”.[235]
As of November 2018, in present-day China, the government has detained many people in internment camps, “where Uighur Muslims are remade into atheist Chinese subjects”.[236] For children who were forcibly taken away from their parents, the Chinese government has established “orphanages” with the aim of “converting future generations of Uighur Muslim children into loyal subjects who embrace atheism”.[236]
Revolutionary Mexico
Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, and 130 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 as originally enacted were anticlerical and enormously restricted religious freedoms.[237] At first the anticlerical provisions were only sporadically enforced, but when President Plutarco Elías Calles took office, he enforced the provisions strictly.[237] Calles’ Mexico has been characterized as an atheist state[238] and his program as being one to eradicate religion in Mexico.[239]
All religions had their properties expropriated, and these became part of government wealth. There was a forced expulsion of foreign clergy and the seizure of Church properties.[240] Article 27 prohibited any future acquisition of such property by the churches, and prohibited religious corporations and ministers from establishing or directing primary schools.[240] This second prohibition was sometimes interpreted to mean that the Church could not give religious instruction to children within the churches on Sundays, seen as destroying the ability of Catholics to be educated in their own religion.[241]
The Constitution of 1917 also closed and forbade the existence of monastic orders (article 5), forbade any religious activity outside of church buildings (now owned by the government), and mandated that such religious activity would be overseen by the government (article 24).[240]
On June 14, 1926, President Calles enacted anticlerical legislation known formally as The Law Reforming the Penal Code and unofficially as the Calles Law.[242] His anti-Catholic actions included outlawing religious orders, depriving the Church of property rights and depriving the clergy of civil liberties, including their right to a trial by jury (in cases involving anti-clerical laws) and the right to vote.[242][243] Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vocal atheism.[244] He was also a Freemason.[245] Regarding this period, recent President Vicente Fox stated, “After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juárez of the 1880s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a more savage lot than Juarez.”[246]
Due to the strict enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly Catholic areas, especially the states of Jalisco, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Colima and Michoacán, began to oppose him, and this opposition led to the Cristero War from 1926 to 1929, which was characterized by brutal atrocities on both sides. Some Cristeros applied terrorist tactics, while the Mexican government persecuted the clergy, killing suspected Cristeros and supporters and often retaliating against innocent individuals.[247] On May 28, 1926, Calles was awarded a medal of merit from the head of Mexico’s Scottish rite of Freemasonry for his actions against the Catholics.[248] In Tabasco state, the so-called “Red Shirts” began to act.
A truce was negotiated with the assistance of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow.[249] Calles, however, did not abide by the terms of the truce – in violation of its terms, he had approximately 500 Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their spouses and children.[249] Particularly offensive to Catholics after the supposed truce was Calles’ insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing “socialist” education in its place: “We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth”.[249] The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his Maximato and did not relent until 1940, when President Manuel Ávila Camacho, a believing Catholic, took office.[249] This attempt to indoctrinate the youth in atheism was begun in 1934 by amending Article 3 to the Mexican Constitution to eradicate religion by mandating “socialist education”, which “in addition to removing all religious doctrine” would “combat fanaticism and prejudices”, “build[ing] in the youth a rational and exact concept of the universe and of social life”.[237] In 1946 this “socialist education” was removed from the constitution and the document returned to the less egregious generalized secular education. The effects of the war on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed.[249] Where there were 4,500 priests operating within the country before the rebellion, in 1934 there were only 334 priests licensed by the government to serve fifteen million people, the rest having been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, and assassination.[249][250] By 1935, 17 states had no priest at all.[251]
Endnotes
- “International Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief”. Human Rights. United Nations.
- Firth, Raymond (1981) Spiritual Aroma: Religion and Politics. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 582–601
- see e.g. John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration on Protestant England 1558–1689, 2000, p.22
- “Internet History Sourcebooks Project”. sourcebooks.fordham.edu.
- Noel Harold Kaylor; Philip Edward Phillips (3 May 2012), A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, BRILL, pp. 14–
- “Codex Theodosianus” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 475.
- “LacusCurtius • Roman Law — Theodosian Code (Smith’s Dictionary, 1875)”. penelope.uchicago.edu.
- The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions. Translated by Pharr, Clyde. 1952., qtd. in Grout, James (1 October 2014). “The End of Paganism”. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
- F.J.F. Soyer (2007). The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7). Brill. pp. 3–4.
- Alessandro Barbero (23 February 2018). Charlemagne: Father of a Continent. Univ of California Press. pp. 46–.
- Michael Frassetto (14 March 2013). The Early Medieval World: From the Fall of Rome to the Time of Charlemagne [2 Volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 489–.
- For the Massacre of Verden, see Barbero, Alessandro (2004).
- Abraham Joshua Heschel; Joachim Neugroschel; Sylvia Heschel (1983). Maimonides: A Biography. Macmillan. p. 43.
- Chazan, Robert, ed., Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages, West Orange, NJ:Behrman House, 1980, p. 103.
- Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. pg. 71
- Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. pg. 95
- The German Hansa, P. Dollinger, page 34, 1999, Routledge
- Lowenstein, Steven (2001). The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions. Oxford University Press. p. 36.
- F.J.F. Soyer (2007). The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7). Brill. p. 182.
- Harvey, L. P. (16 May 2005). Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614. University of Chicago Press. p. 64.
- Neese, Shelley (17 November 2008). “3000 Years of Sephardic History”. The Jerusalem Connection, International. Archived from the original on 8 January 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2017.
- Fisher, Ian (May 24, 2007). “Pope Concedes Unjustifiable Crimes in Converting South Americans”. New York Times.
- Maureen Perrie, ed. (2006). The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Cambridge University Press. p. 66.
- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Britannica Educational Publishing. 2013-06-01. p. 48.
- Mara Kalnins (2015). “Latvia: A Short History”. Oxford University Press. p. 55.
- Maureen Perrie, ed. (2006). The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus’ to 1689. Cambridge University Press. pp. 319–320.
- Dominic Lieven, ed. (2006). The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 2, Imperial Russia, 1689–1917. Cambridge University Press. p. 186.
- de Mendonça 2002, p. 397
- Machado Prabhu, Alan (1999). Sarasvati’s Children: A History of the Mangalorean Christians. I.J.A. Publications.
- de Souza, Teotonio (1989). Essays in Goan History. Concept Publishing Company.
- Sabrina P. Ramet (31 October 2011). Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 237–.
- Rory Yeomans (April 2013). Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945. University of Pittsburgh Pre. pp. 21–.
- “Christianity threat looms over Bhuvan Pahar”. Assam Times. June 23, 2009. Archived from the original on June 26, 2009.
- “How to Convert to Buddhism – the Buddha Garden”.
- https://burmacampaign.org.uk/media/Threats_to_Our_Existence.pdf
- Shaw, Julia (12 August 2016). Buddhist Landscapes in Central India: Sanchi Hill and Archaeologies of Religious and Social Change, c. Third Century BC to Fifth Century AD.
- Elverskog, Johan (6 June 2011). Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road.
- “Stop Forced Religious Conversions!”. outlookindia.com. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
- “A Guide to Sanchi”. 1918.
- Ghosh, J.C.,”The Dynastic-Name of the Kings of the Pushyamitra Family,” J.B.O.R.S, Vol. XXXIII, 1937, p.360
- Wright, Arnold (1907-01-01). Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources. Asian Educational Services.
- the word revert is used in this context; not convert; see Older than the Church: Christianity and Caste in The God of Small Things India by A Sekhar; Washington post article
- “Indian Agra Muslim fear conversions to Hinduism”. BBC News. 2014-12-11. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “CatholicHerald.co.uk » Cardinal protests against forced conversions to Hinduism”. 2014-12-30. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “India investigates reports of mass ‘reconversion’ of Christians”. the Guardian. 29 January 2015. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
- “India parliament uproar over conversions by Hindu groups”. BBC News. 22 December 2014.
- “Hundreds of Indian Muslim girls being forced into converting to Hinduism”. The Express Tribune. 17 January 2017.
- “Indian Agra Muslim fear conversions to Hinduism”. BBC News. 11 December 2014.
- “After Mob Attacks and Trade Boycott, Muslims Being Forced to Convert to Hinduism in Delhi and Haryana Villages”. IndiaTomorrow.net.
- “23 Forced Conversion Cases Alleged in Just 23 Days in Central India”. persecution.org. 13 February 2021.
- “Andhra Pradesh, nationalists push Christians to mass conversion to Hinduism”. www.asianews.it. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
- Michael Bonner (2008). Jihad in Islamic History. Princeton University Press. pp. 89–90.
To begin with, there was no forced conversion, no choice between “Islam and the Sword”. Islamic law, following a clear Quranic principle (2:256), prohibited any such things […] although there have been instances of forced conversion in Islamic history, these have been exceptional.
- Winter, T. J., & Williams, J. A. (2002). Understanding Islam and the Muslims: The Muslim Family Islam and World Peace. Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae. p. 82. Quote: The laws of Muslim warfare forbid any forced conversions, and regard them as invalid if they occur.
- A.C. Brown, Jonathan (2014). “3. The Fragile Truth Of Scripture”. Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 92.
‘No compulsion in religion’ (2:256) was a Qur’anic command revealed in Medina when a child from one of the Muslim families who had been educated in the town’s Jewish schools decided to depart with the Jewish tribe being expelled from Medina. His distraught parents were told by God and the Prophet in this verse that they could not compel their son to stay. The verse, however, has been understood over the centuries as a general command that people cannot be forced to convert to Islam.
- Yeʼor, B (2011). The decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 79.
- “Islam”. Encyclopedia Britannica. New York. 17 August 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
- Waines (2003) “An Introduction to Islam” Cambridge University Press. p. 53
- Ira M. Lapidus. Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History. p. 345.
- A History of Islamic Societies. Ira M. Lapidus. 1988. pp. Lapidus, 271.
- Kishori Saran Lal. “Political conditions of the Hindus under the Khaljis”. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Indian History Congress. 9: 232.
- Gerhard Bowering, ed. (2009). Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction. Princeton University Press. pp. 127–128.
- Wael B. Hallaq (2009). Sharī’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge University Press. pp. 327–328
- Parsons, L. (2000). The Druze between Palestine and Israel 1947–49. Springer. p. 2.
With the succession of al-Zahir to the Fatimid caliphate a mass persecution (known by the Druze as the period of the mihna) of the Muwaḥḥidūn was instigated …
- Hitti 1924.
- C. Tucker, Spencer C. (2019). Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 364–366.
- Taraze Fawaz, Leila. An occasion for war: civil conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860. p.63.
- Goren, Haim. Dead Sea Level: Science, Exploration and Imperial Interests in the Near East. p.95-96.
- C. Tucker, Spencer C. (2019). Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 364.
- Zabad, Ibrahim (2017). Middle Eastern Minorities: The Impact of the Arab Spring. Routledge.
- Richard W. Bullient (2013). “Conversion”. In Gerhard Böwering, Patricia Crone (ed.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press.
- Lewis, Bernard (2002). Arabs in History. Oxford University Press (Kindle edition). p. 50.
- “Ridda Wars”. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-25.
- “Ridda Wars: Why Did Hazrat Abu Bakr Fight Against Apostates and Rejecters of Zakat? | Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam”. www.newageislam.com. Retrieved 2021-06-25.
- The Development of Apostasy And Punishment Law in Islam (PDF). Faculty of Divinity of Glasgow University: Allama Badr al-Din al-Aini (1360–1453). 2002. pp. Lamarti page 131–132.
- Moshe Gil (1992). A History of Palestine, 634–1099. CUP Archive. p. 822.
- Sahner, Christian C. (2020) [2018]. “Introduction: Christian Martyrs under Islam”. Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World. Princeton, New Jersey and Woodstock, Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press. pp. 1–28.
- Runciman, Steven (1987) [1951]. “The Reign of Antichrist”. A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–37.
- Stillman, Norman A. (1998) [1979]. “Under the New Order”. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society. pp. 22–28.
- Ye’or, Bat (2002) [2001]. “The Orient on the Eve of Islam: Political and Economic Aspects of Dhimmitude”. Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide. Madison, New Jersey and Vancouver, British Columbia: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 33–80.
- Verskin, Alan (2020). “Medieval Jewish Perspectives on Almohad Persecutions: Memory, Repression, and Impact”. In García-Arenal, Mercedes; Glazer-Eytan, Yonatan (eds.). Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond. Numen Book Series. 164. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 155–172.
- María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval Spain
- Amira K. Bennison and María Ángeles Gallego. “Jewish Trading in Fes On The Eve of the Almohad Conquest.” MEAH, sección Hebreo 56 (2007), 33–51
- M.J. Viguera, “Almohads”. In Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. First published online: 2010 First print edition
- Silverman, Eric (2013). “Bitter Bonnets and Badges”. A Cultural History of Jewish Dress. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 47–48.
- Ross Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain, Princeton University Press, 2009, pp. 121–122.
- Frank and Leaman, 2003, pp. 137–138.
- Wasserstein, David J. (2020). “The Intellectual Genealogy of Almohad Policy towards Christians and Jews”. In García-Arenal, Mercedes; Glazer-Eytan, Yonatan (eds.). Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond. Numen Book Series. 164. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 133–154. doi:10.1163/9789004416826_007. ISBN 978-90-04-41681-9. ISSN 0169-8834. S2CID 211665760.
- Maribel Fierro (2010). “The Almohads (524 668/1130 1269) and the Hafsids (627 932/1229 1526)”. In Maribel Fierro (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 86.
- Lawrence Fine (2001-11-18). Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages Through the Early Modern Period. p. 414.
- “The Great Rambam: Joel Kraemer’s ‘Maimonides’ – The New York Sun”. Nysun.com. 2008-09-24. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
- Bernard Lewis (2014). The Jews of Islam. Princeton University Press. p. 100.
- The Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership, ed.:Abraham S. Halkin, David Hartman, Jewish Publication Society, 1982. p.91
- Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen. Brill Publishers. 2014. p. 181.
- Herbert Davidson (2004-12-09). Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Oxford University Press. p. 489.
- Reuben Ahroni (1994). The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations. Brill Publishers. p. 21.
- Ahmad Dallal (16 November 2011). “On Muslim Curiosity and the Historiography of the Jews of Yemen”. In Joseph V. Montville (ed.). History as Prelude: Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean. Lexington Books. pp. 75–76.
- Tudor Parfitt (1996-01-01). The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900–1950. Brill Publishers. pp. 66–67, 69.
- Wittek, Paul (1955). “Devs̱ẖirme and s̱ẖarī’a”. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17 (2): 271–278. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00111735. JSTOR 610423. OCLC 427969669.
- Krstić, Tijana (2009). “Conversion”. In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Facts On File. pp. 145–146.
As a part of their education, devşirme children underwent compulsory conversion to Islam, which is the only documented forced form of conversion organized by the Ottoman state.
- A. E. Vacalopoulos. The Greek Nation, 1453–1669, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1976, p. 41; Vasiliki Papoulia, The Impact of Devshirme on Greek Society, in War and Society in East Central Europe, Editor—in—Chief, Bela K. Kiraly, 1982, Vol. II, pp. 561—562.
- David Nicolle (1995-05-15), The Janissaries, p. 12, ISBN 9781855324138
- Kohler, Kaufmann; Malter, Henry (1906). “Shabbetai Ẓevi”. Jewish Encyclopedia. Kopelman Foundation. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
At the command [of the sultan], Shabbetai was now taken from Abydos to Adrianople, where the sultan’s physician, a former Jew, advised Shabbetai to embrace Islam as the only means of saving his life. Shabbetai realized the danger of his situation and adopted the physician’s advice. On the following day […] being brought before the sultan, he cast off his Jewish garb and put a Turkish turban on his head; and thus his conversion to Islam was accomplished. The sultan was much pleased, and rewarded Shabbetai by conferring on him the title (Mahmed) “Effendi” and appointing him as his doorkeeper with a high salary. […] To complete his acceptance of Mohammedanism, Shabbetai was ordered to take an additional wife, a Mohammedan slave, which order he obeyed. […] Meanwhile, Shabbetai secretly continued his plots, playing a double game. At times he would assume the role of a pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into relations with Jews as one of their own faith. Thus in March, 1668, he gave out anew that he had been filled with the Holy Spirit at Passover and had received a revelation. He, or one of his followers, published a mystic work addressed to the Jews in which the most fantastic notions were set forth, e.g., that he was the true Redeemer, in spite of his conversion, his object being to bring over thousands of Mohammedans to Judaism. To the sultan he said that his activity among the Jews was to bring them over to Islam. He therefore received permission to associate with his former coreligionists, and even to preach in their synagogues. He thus succeeded in bringing over a number of Mohammedans to his cabalistic views, and, on the other hand, in converting many Jews to Islam, thus forming a Judæo-Turkish sect (see Dönmeh), whose followers implicitly believed in him [as the Jewish Messiah]. This double-dealing with Jews and Mohammedans, however, could not last very long. Gradually the Turks tired of Shabbetai’s schemes. He was deprived of his salary, and banished from Adrianople to Constantinople. In a village near the latter city he was one day surprised while singing psalms in a tent with Jews, whereupon the grand vizier ordered his banishment to Dulcigno, a small place in Albania, where he died in loneliness and obscurity.
- Editors (23 January 2020). “Judaism – The Lurianic Kabbalah: Shabbetaianism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Edinburgh: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
Rabbi Shabbetai Tzevi of Smyrna (1626–76), who proclaimed himself messiah in 1665. Although the “messiah” was forcibly converted to Islam in 1666 and ended his life in exile 10 years later, he continued to have faithful followers. A sect was thus born and survived, largely thanks to the activity of Nathan of Gaza (c. 1644–90), an unwearying propagandist who justified the actions of Shabbetai Tzevi, including his final apostasy, with theories based on the Lurian doctrine of “repair”. Tzevi’s actions, according to Nathan, should be understood as the descent of the just into the abyss of the “shells” in order to liberate the captive particles of divine light. The Shabbetaian crisis lasted nearly a century, and some of its aftereffects lasted even longer. It led to the formation of sects whose members were externally converted to Islam—e.g., the Dönme (Turkish: “Apostates”) of Salonika, whose descendants still live in Turkey—or to Roman Catholicism—e.g., the Polish supporters of Jacob Frank (1726–91), the self-proclaimed messiah and Catholic convert (in Bohemia-Moravia, however, the Frankists outwardly remained Jews).
- Kirsch, Adam (15 February 2010). “”The Other Secret Jews”, review of Marc David Baer, The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks“. The New Republic. New York. Archived from the original on 17 February 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
- Nevra Necipoğlu (2009). Byzantium Between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 142–143.
- Persecution of the Greeks in Turkey, 1914–1918. Constantinople [London, Printed by the Hesperia Press]. 1919.
- Savory, R.M.; Gandjeï, T. (2012). “Ismāʿīl I”. In P. Bearman; Th. Bianquis; C.E. Bosworth; E. van Donzel; W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. 4 (2nd ed.). Brill. p. 186.
- H.R. Roemer (1986). “The Safavid Period”. In William Bayne Fisher; Peter Jackson; Lawrence Lockhart (eds.). The Cambridge History of Iran. 6. Cambridge University Press. p. 218.
- Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p.52
- Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition). pp. 385–386.
- Pirnazar, Jaleh. “The “Jadid al-Islams” of Mashhad”. Foundation for Iranian Studies. Bethesda, MD, USA: Foundation for Iranian Studies. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
- Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (1951). The History and Culture of the Indian People: The struggle for empire. p. 12.
- Catherine B. Asher. India 2001: Reference Encyclopedia, Volume 1. South Asia Publications. p. 29.
- Lal, K.S. (2004). “1”. Indian Muslims:Who Are They.
- Habibullah, The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India, (Allahabad, 1961), pp.69 and 334
- Hasan Nizami, Taj-ul-Maasir, II, p.216
- Titus, Murray. Islam in India and Pakistan, (Calcutta, 1959), p.31
- Shiri Ram Bakshi (1997). Kashmir: Valley and Its Culture. Sarup & Sons. p. 70.
- Claude Markovits. A History of Modern India, 1480–1950. Anthem Press. p. 108.
- Grewal, J. S (1998). The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge University Press. p. 72.
- Pashaura Singh, Louis E. Fenech (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies. Oxford. p. 236.
- Singh, Khushwant (2017). Ranjit Singh: Maharaja of the Punjab. Penguin UK. p. 22.
- Rachel Fell McDermott; Leonard A. Gordon; Ainslie T. Embree; Frances W. Pritchett; Dennis Dalton (2014). Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Columbia University Press. p. 9.
- Kristen Haar, Sewa Singh Kalsi. Sikhism. Infobase publishing. p. 110.
- Harbans Kaur Sagoo (2001). Banda Singh Bahadur and Sikh Sovereignty. Deep and Deep Publications. p. 226.
- Singh, Ganda (1935). Life of Banda Singh Bahadur: Based on Contemporary and Original Records. Sikh History Research Department. p. 229.
- Varghese, Alexander (2008). India: History, Religion, Vision and Contribution to the World, Volume 1. Atlantic Publishers.
- Paul, Thomas (1954). Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan: a general survey of the progress of Christianity in India from apostolic times to the present day. Allen & Unwin. p. 235.
- Jain, Meenakshi (2019). Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples: Episodes from Indian History. Pooja Apartments, 4B, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi – 110 002 INDIA: Aryan Books International.
- Sanjeev Sanyal. The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History. Penguin UK. p. 188.
- Anis Ahmed (February 28, 2013). “Bangladesh Islamist’s death sentence sparks deadly riots”. Reuters. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
- Arun Devnath; Andrew MacAskill (March 1, 2013). “Clashes Kill 35 in Bangladesh After Islamist Sentenced to Hang”. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
- Julfikar Ali Manik; Jim Yardley (March 1, 2013). “Death Toll From Bangladesh Unrest Reaches 44”. The New York Times. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
- Abrams, Joseph (April 21, 2010). “House Members Press White House to Confront Egypt on Forced Marriages”. foxnews.com. Archived from the original on November 23, 2010. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
- “Christian minority under pressure in Egypt”. BBC News. December 17, 2010. Archived from the original on March 22, 2017. Retrieved January 1, 2011.
- “Egypt: ex-kidnapper admits ‘they get paid for every Coptic Christian girl they bring in'”. World Watch Monitor. 2017-09-14. Archived from the original on 2018-09-13. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
- 26 Hindus beheeaded by Islamist militants in Kashmir
- Khan, Yasmin (2007). The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan. Yale University Press. pp. 68–69.
- “Fatal flaw in communal violence bill”. Rediff.com. July 2, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
- Imtiaz, Saba; Walsh, Declan (July 15, 2014). “Extremists Make Inroads in Pakistan’s Diverse South”. The New York Times.
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (30 April 2013). “Refworld – USCIRF Annual Report 2013 – Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan”. Refworld. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “Pakistan: Religious conversion, including treatment of converts and forced conversions (2009–2012)” (PDF). Responses to Information Requests. Government Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. January 14, 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 4, 2017. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
- “1,000 Christian, Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam every year in Pakistan: report”. India Today. April 8, 2014. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- Anwar, Iqbal (2014-04-08). “1,000 minority girls forced in marriage every year: report”. Dawn. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
- Dunya, Author (20 December 2014). “India ruling party chief urges law against religious conversions”. Dunya News. New Delhi. AFP. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
- “Pakistan”. Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, 2004. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, State Dept (US), Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (US). 2005. p. 667.
- “Taliban Tells Pakistani Christians: Convert or Die”. Fox News. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- Zimmett, Nora (June 13, 2009). “Christian Man Raped, Murdered for Refusing to Convert to Islam, Family Says”. FOX News. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
- “Opinion: Rinkle Kumari – the new Marvi of Sindh by Marvi Sirmed”. Thefridaytimes.com. Archived from the original on 2013-02-03. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
- “SC orders release of Rinkle Kumari, others”. Pakistan Observer. April 19, 2012. Archived from the original on 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2012-06-05.
- “Hindus in Pak happy after girl’s statement in SC”. Deccan Herald. 27 March 2012.
- Tribune.com.pk (7 December 2016). “Curbs on forced conversion”. The Express Tribune.
- Walsh, Declan (25 March 2012). “Pakistani Hindus Say Woman’s Conversion to Islam Was Coerced”. Nytimes.com. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
- “Sikh community in Hangu ‘being forced to convert'”. The Express Tribune. 16 December 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
- “Sikhs in Pakistan complain of pressure to convert”. 16 December 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
- “Sikhs told to ‘convert to Islam’ by Pakistani official”. Rabwah Times. December 16, 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
- Anwar, Madeeha (December 23, 2017). “Authorities Investigate Cases of Forced Conversion of Sikh Minority in Pakistan”. Extremism Watch Desk. Voice of America. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
- “Forced conversions torment Pakistan’s Hindus | India | Al Jazeera”.
- “Forced conversions of Pakistani Hindu girls”. September 19, 2017.
- April 8, IndiaToday in; April 8, 2014UPDATED; Ist, 2014 18:30. “1,000 Christian, Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam every year in Pakistan: report”. India Today.
- “Pakistan, Hindus, Forced Conversions, Islam”.
- Ilyas, Faiza (March 20, 2015). “265 cases of forced conversion reported last year, moot told”. DAWN.COM.
- Manan, Abdul (25 May 2010). “57 Hindus convert to Islam in 10 days”. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
- Service, Tribune News. “Sikhs in Pakistan ‘being forced to convert to Islam'”. Tribuneindia News Service.
- “Sikh community in Hangu ‘being forced to convert'”. The Express Tribune. December 15, 2017.
- “Sushma: ‘Conversion’ of Pakistan Sikhs: CM Amarinder seeks Sushma’s help | Amritsar News – Times of India”. The Times of India.
- “Mass conversions: For Matli’s poor Hindus, ‘lakshmi’ lies in another religion”. The Express Tribune. January 20, 2012.
- “250 Hindus convert to Islam in Thatta”. The Nation. September 16, 2017.
- “100,000 conversions and counting, meet the ex-Hindu who herds souls to the Hereafter”. The Express Tribune. January 22, 2012.
- “Forced conversions, marriages spike in Pakistan”. June 6, 2019.
- Abi-Habib, Maria; Ur-Rehman, Zia (4 August 2020). “Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14.
- “Pakistan high court upholds forced marriage of abducted Catholic minor”. Catholic Herald. October 28, 2020.
- “Indonesia: thousands of Catholic children kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam”. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “Sampang Shiites forced to convert to Sunni: Kontras”. Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “Indonesian president condemns mob killing of Ahmadiyah Muslims”. the Guardian. Associated Press. 2011-02-07. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- Crouch, Melissa (2010). “Indonesia, Militant Islam and Ahmadiya” (PDF). University of Melbourne, Australia. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-30. Alt URL
- Maluku refugees allege forced circumcision, BBC News Online, Wednesday, January 31, 2001
- Henschke, Rebecca (2017-11-17). “Indonesia’s Orang Rimba: Forced to renounce their faith”. BBC. Archived from the original on 17 November 2017.
- O’Loughlin, Ed (16 August 2014). “Devil in the detail as Yazidis look to Kurds in withstanding Islamic radicals’ advance”. Irish Times. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
- Nick Cumming-Bruce (June 16, 2016). “ISIS Committed Genocide Against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, U.N. Panel Says”. The New York Times.
- “Christian Minorities in the Islamic Middle East : Rosie Malek-Yonan on the Assyrians”. Radio National. 2006-04-18. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “BBC NEWS – Middle East – Iraq’s Mandaeans ‘face extinction'”. 2007-03-04. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- Shanahan, Angela (May 21, 2011). “No going back for Egypt’s converted Copts”. The Australian. Archived from the original on 23 August 2011. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
- McGrath, Cam (April 16, 2013). “Missing Christian girls leave a trail of tears”. Inter Press Agency.
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “Refworld – 2012 Report on International Religious Freedom – Egypt”. Refworld. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- Heba Saleh (BBC News, Cairo), ‘Conversion’ sparks Copt protest. BBC News Online December 9, 2004.
- “Egypt”. U.S. Department of State. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “CNN.com – Kidnapped Fox journalists released – Aug 27, 2006”. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
- “Al Shabaab Reportedly Beheads 4 Christians, Rips Gold Teeth From Locals’ Mouths”. FOX News. August 12, 2009. Retrieved June 11, 2011.
- ‘Convert or die,’ Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram tells Christian women Fox News (November 2013)
- “Islamic Radicals Drown Christian Woman’s Baby, Rape and Impregnate Her”.
- “Ese Oruru’s abduction: Police would’ve killed the matter, says Ese’s father”. Vanguard. 1 March 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
- Withnall, A. (20 October 2013). “Britain’s jails facing ‘growing problem’ of forced conversion to Islam, officers warn”. The Independent. UK.
- Cowan, Mark (June 6, 2007). “Police guard girl ‘forced to become Muslim'”. Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
- “‘Forced Conversions’ Myth Mongering By British Police”. Islamic Human Rights Commission. Feb 25, 2007. Retrieved Jul 4, 2017.
- Muslim Council of Britain (8 March 2007), MCB calls for evidence of alleged ‘forced conversions’, London, UK: Author, retrieved 4 July 2017
- Sian, Katy P. (2011). “‘Forced’ conversions in the British Sikh diaspora”. South Asian Popular Culture. 9 (2): 115–130. doi:10.1080/14746681003798060. S2CID 54174845.
- Sian, Katy P. (2013). Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 55–71.
- Layton, Josh (December 3, 2018). “Sikh girls ‘abused by grooming gangs for decades'”. BirminghamLive.
- Cockbain, Ella; Tufail, Waqas (2020). “Failing victims, fuelling hate: Challenging the harms of the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative”. Race & Class. 61 (3): 3–32. doi:10.1177/0306396819895727. S2CID 214197388.
- Jagbir Jhutti-Johal; Sunny Hundal (August 2019). The changing nature of activism among Sikhs in the UK today. The Commission For Countering Extremism. University of Birmingham. p. 15. WayBackMachine Link. Retrieved February 17th, 2020.
- Flavius Josephus Antiquities 13.257–258
- Aristobulus
- Harold W. Attridge, Gōhei Hata (eds). Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism Wayne State University Press, 1992: p. 387
- Maurice Sartre. The Middle East Under Rome. Harvard University Press, 2005: p. 15
- William Horbury. The Cambridge History of Judaism 2 Part Set: Volume 3, The Early Roman Period Cambridge University Press, 1999: p. 599
- “Historians back BBC over Jewish massacre claim | The Jewish Chronicle”. Thejc.com. 2009-09-18. Retrieved 2014-06-06.
- Jacques Ryckmans, La persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle, Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Inst. in het Nabije Oosten, 1956 pp 1–24
- Brezianu, Andrei (26 May 2010). The A to Z of Moldova. Scarecrow Press. p. 98.
Communist Atheism. Official doctrine of the Soviet regime, also called “scientific atheism.” It was aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited, and it was applied again throughout the subsequent decades of the Soviet regime, after 1944. … The St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city’s Museum of Scientific Atheism,
- Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival, by Christopher Marsh, page 47. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.
- Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History, by Dilip Hiro. Penguin, 2009.
- Adappur, Abraham (2000). Religion and the Cultural Crisis in India and the West. Intercultural Publications.
Forced Conversion under Atheistic Regimes: It might be added that the most modern example of forced “conversions” came not from any theocratic state, but from a professedly atheist government — that of the Soviet Union under the Communists.
- Statement of Principles and Policy on Atheistic Education in Soviet Russia, translation from Russian, Stephen Schmidt, S.J., transcribed P. Legrand, page 3
- Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.494
- Martin Amis; Koba the Dread; Vintage Books; London; 2003; p.30-31
- Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.494″
- Marsh, Christopher (20 January 2011). Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 13.
- Blake, Jonathan S. (19 April 2014). “By the Sword of God”: Explaining Forced Religious Conversion. Columbia University. pp. 15, 17.
- Peter Hebblethwaite; Paul VI, the First Modern Pope; Harper Collins Religious; 1993; p.211
- Norman Davies; Rising ’44: the Battle for Warsaw; Viking; 2003; p.566 & 568
- Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.508
- Franklin, Simon; Widdis, Emma (2 February 2006). National Identity in Russian Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 104.
Churches, when not destroyed, might find themselves converted into museums of atheism.
- Bevan, Robert (15 February 2016). The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War. Reaktion Books. p. 152.
Churches, synagogues, mosques and monasteries were shut down in the immediate wake of the Revolution. Many were converted to secular uses or Museums of Atheism (antichurches), whitewashed and their fittings removed.
- McGrath 2006, p. 46.
- Froese, Paul (6 August 2008). The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization. University of California Press. p. 122.
Before 1937, the Soviet regime had closed thousands of churches and removed tens of thousands of religious leaders from positions of influence. By the midthirties, Soviet elites set out to conduct a mass liquidation of all religious organizations and leaders… officers in the League of Militant Atheists found themselves in a bind to explain the widespread persistence of religious belief in 1937…. The latest estimates indicate that thousands of individuals were executed for religious crimes and hundreds of thousands of religious believers were imprisoned in labor camps or psychiatric hospitals.
- Baran, Emily (2011). “”I saw the light”: Former Protestant believer testimonials in the Soviet Union, 1957–1987″. Cahiers du Monde Russe. 52 (1): 163–184.
Atheist agitators hoped that such stories would help to convince believers and non-believers alike that the search for purpose in life could be solved with the discovery of atheism and communism. Yet some accounts suggest the conversion to militant atheism did not always end individuals’ existential questions. To begin with, many former believers joined and left several religious organizations prior to renouncing faith altogether. Their life history could not be simply divided into two halves. One man recounted having joined the Baptists, Pentecostals, and the Seventh-Day Adventists before abandoning religion. Another man had been an Old Believer, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Witness. In other words, many believers had spent time as non-believers, but found life without religious faith somehow unsatisfying. As a result, some former believers admitted to having previously left religious organizations, only to return to them later. Many of them noted how after publicly denouncing Protestantism, they continued to receive visits from their former religious leaders asking them to reconsider. Indeed, atheist propaganda sometimes included complaints that once a believer had been convinced to leave his faith, atheist agitators lost interest in him, viewing the case as resolved.
- Horne, Thomas Hartwell; Davidson, Samuel (21 November 2013). An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Cambridge University Press. p. 30.
- Latreille, A. FRENCH REVOLUTION, New Catholic Encyclopedia v. 5, pp. 972–973 (Second Ed. 2002 Thompson/Gale)
- Spielvogel (2005):549.
- Tallet (1991):1
- McGrath, Alistair E. (2006). The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise And Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. Galilee. p. 45.
- Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.508
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online – China: Religion; accessed 10 November 2013
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online – China – History: Cultural Revolution; accessed 10 November 2013
- China announces “civilizing” atheism drive in Tibet; BBC; January 12, 1999
- Beydoun, Khaled A. “For China, Islam is a ‘mental illness’ that needs to be ‘cured'”. Al Jazeera. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
- Soberanes Fernandez, Jose Luis, Mexico and the 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, pp. 437–438 nn. 7–8, BYU Law Review, June 2002
- Haas, Ernst B., Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The dismal fate of new nations, Cornell Univ. Press 2000
- Cronon, E. David “American Catholics and Mexican Anticlericalism, 1933–1936”, pp. 205–208, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLV, Sept. 1948
- “Archived copy”. Archived from the original on 2007-03-03. Retrieved 2007-03-03.
- “THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MARTIN-DEL-CAMPOs Part II”. myheritage.es.
- Joes, Anthony James Resisting Rebellion: The History And Politics of Counterinsurgency p. 70, (2006 University Press of Kentucky)
- Tuck, Jim THE CRISTERO REBELLION – PART 1 Mexico Connect 1996
- David A. Shirk (2005). Mexico’s New Politics. Lynne Rienner Publishers.
- Denslow, William R. 10,000 Famous Freemasons p. 171 (2004 Kessinger Publishing)
- Fox, Vicente and Rob Allyn Revolution of Hope p. 17, Viking, 2007
- Calles, Plutarco Elías The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05 Columbia University Press.
- The Cristeros: 20th century Mexico’s Catholic uprising, from The Angelus, January 2002, Volume XXV, Number 1 Archived 2009-09-03 at the Wayback Machine by Olivier LELIBRE, The Angelus
- Van Hove, Brian (1996), Blood-Drenched Altars: Baltimore’s Archbishop Michael Joseph Curley, Oklahoma’s Bishop Francis Clement Kelley and the Mexican Affair: 1934–1936, Eternal Word Television Network, retrieved 9 May 2017
- Scheina, Robert L. Latin America’s Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899 p. 33 (2003 Brassey’s)
- Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People p.393 (1993 W. W. Norton & Company)
Originally published by Wikipedia, 09.20.2006, under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.