ABSTRACT

This book focuses on religious tolerance and intolerance in terms of practices, institutions, and intellectual habits. It brings together an array of historical and anthropological studies and philosophical, cognitive, and psychological explorations by established scholars from a range of disciplines.

The contributions feature modern and historic instances of tolerance and intolerance across a variety of geographies, societies, and religious traditions. They help readers to gain an understanding of the notion of tolerance and the historical consequences of intolerance from the perspective of different cultures, religions, and philosophies. The volume highlights tolerance’s potential to be a means to build bridges and at the same time determine limits.

Whilst the challenge of promoting tolerance has mostly been treated as a value or practice of demographic or religious majorities, this book offers a broader take and pays attention to minority perspectives. It is a valuable reference for scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and the history of religion.

part Section I|34 pages

Conceptualising tolerance

chapter 1|19 pages

Defining tolerance

Conditions and resources for tolerance

chapter 2|13 pages

A social psychological approach to tolerance

The disapproval–respect model 1

part Section II|50 pages

Tolerance within a religious context and an urban environment

chapter 3|17 pages

Reasons for religious toleration in the Roman Empire

The voice of the Emperor 1

chapter 4|12 pages

Tolerance and lived religion

chapter 5|19 pages

Toleration and cohabitation

Remarks on the Jews and the city in the early modern period

part Section III|46 pages

Tolerance in Jewish and Islamic traditions

chapter 7|16 pages

The Fatimid empire

A case for religious toleration?

chapter 8|18 pages

Between belief and unbelief

Paradigms of toleration in medieval Jewish and Islamic writings 1

part Section V|33 pages

(In)Tolerance in the history of the university

chapter 11|13 pages

De (in)tolerantia Judaeorum

A hitherto almost forgotten source of tolerance studies in German Protestant University Archives—the Dissertationes