Religious Violence Today: Faith and Conflict in the Modern World [2 vols.] 1440859906, 9781440859908

Table of contents :
Volume 1: African Religion to Islam
Contents
Preface
Introduction: The Legacy of Religion and Violence
Timeline
African Religion
Buddhism
Chinese Religion
Christianity
Hinduism
Islam
Volume 2: Jainism to State Violence
Contents
Jainism
Judaism
New Religious Movements
Sikhism
State Violence
Bibliography
About the Editor and Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Religious Violence Today

1



Religious Violence Today Faith and Conflict in the Modern World

VOLUME 1: African Religion to Islam

Michael Jerryson, Editor

Copyright © 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The editors and publishers will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jerryson, Michael K., editor. Title: Religious violence today : faith and conflict in the modern world / Michael Jerryson, editor. Description: 1st edition. | Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: v. 1.—v. 2. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019056919 (print) | LCCN 2019056920 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440859922 (v. 1 ; hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859939 (v. 2 ; hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859908 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859915 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Violence—Religious aspects—History. | Political violence—Religious aspects—History. | Persecution—History. | Hate crimes—History. | Religion and politics—History. Classification: LCC BL65.V55 R568 2020 (print) | LCC BL65.V55 (ebook) | DDC 201/.76332—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056919 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056920 ISBN: 978-1-4408-5990-8 (print) 978-1-4408-5992-2 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-5993-9 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-5991-5 (ebook) 24 23 22 21 20  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. ABC-CLIO An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 ­www​.­abc​-­clio​.­com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface, xiii Introduction: The Legacy of Religion and Violence, xvii Timeline, xxiii VOLUME 1 African Religion, 1 Introduction, 1 Assault Sorcery (War Magic), 11 Bentiu Massacre (South Sudan, 2014), 13 Central African Republic (CAR), Ethnoreligious Violence in, 16 Child Soldiers, 18 Christian and Muslim Responses to Ethnoreligious Violence in Africa, 20 Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: Ethnoreligious Violence in the Horn of Africa, 23 Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion), 24 Holy Spirit Movement, 29 Hunters’ Militias, 33 Lord’s Resistance Army, 35 Mai-Mai Rebels, 39 Millennialism (Africa), 42 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 43 Santeria, 46 Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in, 49 Voodoo (Vodun), 50 Witchcraft, 52

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Buddhism, 58 Introduction, 58 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 66 Ashoka (Asoka) (r. 268–232 BCE), 69 Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–), 71 Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force), 73 Buddhist End Times, 76 Chittagong Buddhists, Persecution of, 78 Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–), 81 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism), 85 International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88 Kachin, Persecution of, 90 Knowing Buddha Organization, 93 Ma Ba Tha, 95 Mahavamsa, 97 969 Movement, 100 Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar), 103 Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), 105 Saffron Revolution (2007), 107 Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, 109 Soldier Monks, 112 Southern Thailand, 114 Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–), 118 Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–), 120 Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), 122 Upayakaushalya Sutra (Skill-in-Means Sutra), 126 Vegetarianism, 128 Chinese Religion, 131 Introduction, 131 Analects, 137 Anti-Christian Attacks, 140 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 142 Art of War (Sunzi), 146 Chinese Atheism, 148 Daodejing, 150 Falun Gong, 153 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion), 155 Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 157 Martial Arts, 160

Contents

Martial Deities, 162 Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE), 165 Self-Inflicted Violence, 168 Spirit Medium (Tang Ki), 169 Xunzi (310–220 BCE), 173 Christianity, 176 Introduction, 176 Anti-Abortion Movement, 184 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 186 Armageddon, 189 Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–), 192 Catholicism and Sexual Abuse, 193 Christian Fundamentalism, 195 Christian Identity Movement, 198 Christian Reconstructionism, 200 Eugenics, 202 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity), 205 Guatemalan Predatory Pastoralism, 207 Ilaga, 210 Jehovah’s Witnesses, Persecution of, 212 Just War Ideology, 214 Ku Klux Klan, 217 Liberation Theology, 219 Martyrdom, 221 Narcoreligious Movements, 223 National Socialist Council of Nagaland, 226 New Testament, 228 Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971), 231 Roof, Dylann (1994–), 233 Sodom and Gomorrah, 235 Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas), 237 Hinduism, 240 Introduction, 240 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 246 Anti-Christian Attacks, 248 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 251 Ayodhya, 253 Bhagavad Gita, 255

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 258 Bhutanese Hindus, Persecution of, 260 Dalits, Violence against, 262 Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism), 265 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism), 269 Gujarat Riots (2002), 273 Hindu Mahasabha, 275 Hindutva, 277 Kandhamal Riots (2007, 2008), 281 Kashmir, 283 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 285 Muzaffarnagar Riots (2013), 286 Pakistani Hindus, Persecution of, 289 Partition (1947), 291 Ramayana, 295 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 298 Saffron Terrorism, 300 Singh, Jyoti (1989–2012), Gang Rape of, 302 Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), 304 Islam, 307 Introduction, 307 Ahmadiyya, Persecution of, 323 Al-Shabaab, 325 Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict, 328 Blasphemy, 332 Boko Haram, 335 Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), 338 Charlie Hebdo Attack (2015), 341 “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Huntington, 1993), 342 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam), 345 Hadith, 347 Hamas, 350 Hezbollah, 353 ISIS (Islamic State), 356 Islamophobia, 359 Jihad, 362 Kashmir and Global Jihad, 367 Martyrdom (Shia Islam), 369 Martyrdom (Sunni Islam), 372

Contents

Maute Group (Islamic State of Lanao), 375 Muslim Brotherhood, 376 The Neglected Duty (1981), 380 9/11 and al-Qaeda, 382 Qur’an, 386 Rohingya, Persecution of, 389 Salafism, 395 Takfir, 398 Taliban, 401 Uyghurs, 403 Uzbeks and Islamism, 406 Wahhabism, 409 VOLUME 2 Jainism, 413 Introduction, 413 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 425 Anekantavada, 428 Anup Mandal, 430 Asceticism, 433 Bahubali Hill Affair (1980s), 436 Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict, 439 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism), 443 Mahavira (Fifth Century BCE), 446 Sallekhana (Santhara), 449 Svastika (Swastika), 451 Tirthankaras, 455 Vegetarianism, 458 Judaism, 463 Introduction, 463 Amalekites, 472 Antisemitism, 474 Antisemitism in the Arab World, 477 BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement, 479 Blood Libel, 481 Crusades, 484 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism), 487 Gog and Magog, 490

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Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994), 493 Gush Emunim, 494 Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh), 497 Holocaust and World War II, 501 Lehava, 508 Maimonides (1135–1204), 510 Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God), 512 Messianism/Messiah, 516 Operation Defensive Shield (2002), 520 Price-Tag Policy, 523 The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, 527 Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995), 528 Sikrikim, 530 Temple Mount, 532 Zealots, 535 Zionism and Anti-Zionism, 539 New Religious Movements, 547 Introduction, 547 Anticult Movement (ACM), 557 Atheists, Persecution by, 562 Atheists, Persecution of, 566 Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph and Hikari no Wa), 569 Black Separatism, 572 Branch Davidians, 575 Deprogramming, 578 The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (Strauss and Howe, 1997), 580 International Raëlian Movement, 583 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Occupation of (2016), 585 Millennialism, 588 Nativist Extremism, 593 Neo-Nazis, 597 Odinism, 600 Order of the Solar Temple, 603 Rodnoverie, 605 Satanism, 608 Scientology, 612 Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM), 617 The Turner Diaries (MacDonald, 1978), 622 United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, 625 White Nationalist Groups, 627

Contents

Sikhism, 633 Introduction, 633 Babbar Khalsa International, 642 Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984), 644 Dal Khalsa, 647 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism), 650 Ghadr Movement, 652 Granth-Panth, 655 Guru Granth Sahib, 658 International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation), 661 Justice, Sikh Concern for, 664 Khalistan, 666 Khalistan Commando Force, 669 Khalistan Zindabad Force, 672 Khalsa, 674 Khanda, 677 Kirpan, 680 Martyrdom, 683 Miri-Piri, 686 Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012), 689 Operation Blue Star (1984), 691 Persecution of Sikhs (India), 694 Persecution of Sikhs (United States), 696 Sikh Activists, 699 Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999), 701 State Violence, 705 Introduction, 705 Cambodia: Truth and Reconciliation Process, 714 China: Taiwan Conflict, 716 Egypt: Coptic Church Conflict, 719 Indonesia: Maluku Conflict, 721 Iraq: Muslim Crisis, 723 Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict, 726 Israel: Palestinian Conflict, 728 Mexico: Cartel Saints, 733 Mexico: Chiapas Conflict, 735 Myanmar: Muslim Crisis, 738 Nigeria: Christian-Muslim Conflict, 740 Pakistan: Christian Crisis, 742 Philippines: Moro Conflict, 745

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Religious Nationalism, 747 Russia: Chechnya Conflict, 751 Russian Orthodox Resurgence, 753 Secularism, 756 Singapore and Religious Diversity, 761 Sri Lanka: Muslim Crisis, 764 Sri Lankan Civil War, 766 Tunisia and Religious Freedom, 769 Turkey: Armenian Christian Conflict, 771 United States: Muslim Crisis, 773 United States: Standing Rock Crisis, 778 Uzbekistan: Muslim Crisis, 780 Bibliography, 783 About the Editor and Contributors, 855 Index, 861

Preface

On November 14, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released their hate crime statistics for the United States. They found a marked increase in hate crimes, many of which were directed at particular religious groups. For example, attacks against Muslims increased by over 60 percent; this rise was also found with Sikhs, Jews, and other religious minorities (U.S. Department of Justice 2016). Since January 2017, the U.S. media and government have given greater attention to the status of religious identity and violence, whether it is with regard to refugees, international politics, or border patrol. Because of these and other developments, the academic study of religion and violence is more important now than ever before. Aimed at high school students, college undergraduates, and interested nonspecialist readers, Religious Violence Today: Faith and Conflict in the Modern World is the most comprehensive and in-depth analysis of religion and violence in the modern age. By chronicling religious terrorism and religiously motivated violence, this encyclopedia has two intentions: first, to shed light on the relationship between the various religions and violence in the twenty-first century, and, second, to illuminate the role that religion has in our daily lives and in our societies. The two volumes of this work are divided into the following eleven chapters: • • • • • • • • •

African Religion Buddhism Chinese Religion Christianity Hinduism Islam Jainism Judaism New Religious Movements

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• •

Sikhism State Violence

Each chapter is devoted to the relationship between a religion and violence, with the exception of the chapter “State Violence,” which explicitly examines governments and their role in religiously motivated violence. Every religion has contemporary instances of justified violence as well as persecution. Thus, the chapter on Islam contains entries that cover contemporary acts of justified violence, such as the rise of the militant Muslim organization ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), as well as recent Islamophobic attacks against Muslims in places such as India, Myanmar, and the United States. Every chapter contains an overview and a listing of relevant entries, with each entry concluding with a bibliography of additional print and electronic information resources. The overviews summarize the historical relationship between violence and a specific religion. They are followed by alphabetically arranged reference entries on people, places, events, doctrines, movements, and other topics related to violence and the specific religion over the last twenty to twenty-five years. Besides a bibliography, each entry concludes with cross-references to other entries in the volumes that relate to the specific entry topic. Beyond the relationship between religion and violence, Religion and Violence Today exposes the power and influence religion has in the modern world. To understand the social power of religion, we must study religion not simply from a believer’s point of view, or what anthropologists call the emic perspective, but also from an outsider’s point of view that locates religion in particular social, cultural, and political contexts (what anthropologists call the etic perspective). According to Stephen Prothero, a prominent scholar of religion in the United States, most people in the United States exhibit a low level of religious literacy. This does not mean that they are not religious, but rather that they do not have a strong education about their religion or the religion of others. For instance, the majority of people in the United States cannot name the Four Gospels in Christianity, the Ten Commandments, or even identify who Joan of Arc is (you can go online to take Prothero’s religious literacy quiz [Deseret News 2007]). To address this low level of religious literacy, Religious Violence Today provides a background to the ten most-populated religions in the world. In doing so, this encyclopedia contains some of the more familiar religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and also some of the less known in the West, but equally impactful religions, such as New Religion, Buddhism, Sikhism, and African Traditional Religion. The chapters not only provide backgrounds to each religion but also how violence is understood within that religion. One of the largest and most persistent

Preface

mistakes about religion by journalists and scholars is their mistaken assumption that the definition of violence is shared across all religions. This is not the case historically or culturally. Tibetan Buddhists have self-immolated (set themselves on fire) in recent years as a response to China’s harsh treatments and policies. While some may label these self-immolations as form of violence, Buddhists label them as nonharm or noninjury (ahimsa). As the Tibetan self-immolators do not exhibit pain and are not harming others in the process, Buddhists, such as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, do not identify the practice as violence. If we use a uniform definition of violence, we will study the ways we see violence, not the ways others view it. Overall, these volumes do not seek to critique religion, a prescriptive approach that is not healthy, nor argue that some religions are more violent than others. Such comparisons are never productive and, as history reveals, lack sufficient data for balanced analyses. Rather, this encyclopedia provides a view balanced by emic and etic perspectives. Both perspectives are necessary in the study of religion. This is especially the case when it comes to the relationship religion has with violence. People use religion for many purposes, the vast majority for self-improvement and social welfare. They also use religion for violence. To clean a space, we need to shine light on the area to identify the spots to clean. The study of religion and violence acts in a similar capacity. The more we become aware of the intersections between religion and violence, the easier it will become for us to generate healthy and more peaceful societies. Michael Jerryson FURTHER READING Deseret News. 2007. “Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy Quiz.” March 24, 2007. ­https://​ ­www​.­deseretnews​.­com​/­article​/­660205799​/­Stephen​-­Protheros​-­religious​-­literacy​-­quiz​ .­html. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2016. “2016 Hate Crime ­Statistics.” ­https://​­ucr​.­fbi​.­gov​/­hate​-­crime​/­2016​/­topic​-­pages​/­incidentsandoffenses​.

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Should one perhaps not dare to speak about Abraham? I think one should. If I myself were to talk about him I would first depict the pain of the trial. For that I suck all the fear, distress, and torment out of the father’s suffering, like a leech, in order to be able to describe all that Abraham suffered while still believing. —Søren Kierkegaard (1843)

In the epigraph above, Kierkegaard refers to the test of Abraham, a narrative found within three global religious systems: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. According to the book of Genesis, God asks that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac (or in the Qur’an, it is Ishmael, 37:101105) on a mountain in the land of Moriah, and Abraham proceeds to do so. He rides a donkey slowly down a path, climbs a mountain, all with the intent of killing his son. Finally, when he reaches the designated area, he builds an altar, binds his son to it, and draws his knife—at which point a sacrificial ram appears (Gen. 22:2–22:13). In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard takes a literary approach to Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac and, in doing so, provokes a rich context for psychoanalysis. Abraham would have been undoubtedly traumatized by the experience (as would Isaac). His resolve to kill his son did not require minutes or hours, but three and a half days. Faith is a powerful trust, which empowers people to give and help others. It also justifies their killing of their own children. Whether it is the Hindu god Krishna, who mandates the hero Arjuna to start the war and attack his family and friends in the Bhagavad Gita, or the Abrahamic god, who mandates the genocide (and memory) of the Amalekites in the book of Exodus, narratives of the divine advocating violence is present among the various religious traditions of the world. Each religion contains elements of peace, goodwill, and compassion; however, people are violent, and they belong to every religion.

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Rarely is religion a cause of violence. More often than not, politics, economics, and the psychologies of fear and humiliation serve as the underlining conditions for violence. But just as throwing oil on a fire changes the ways in which it can be put out, adding a religious justification to violence usually alters the ferocity and tenacity of the conflict. People will sacrifice themselves only so much for money or fame. But if it is about defending good against evil, many have sacrificed their lives. The study of religion and violence is a glimpse into the darker sides of religion and of humanity. While it may not be a pleasurable subject, it is an important one. For the lack of knowledge in this area allows people to underestimate the power of religion and the conditions that lead to religiously motivated violence.

RELIGION AND VIOLENCE Religion One of the challenges in documenting the relationship between religion and violence is identifying what “religion” is and what “violence” is. The process of defining terms such as these is also a means of limiting the scope of what is universally undefined. If religion is defined as having X, Y, and Z components, then communities with only Y and Z are not religions. The problem with this is that, as of yet, there are no agreed-upon components for what constitutes a religion. One eminent historian of religion, Jonathan Z. Smith, explains this impasse with his famous declaration, “There is no data for religion” (Smith 1988, xi). The challenge is furthered by the tendency for people to see the world and religions through their own religious lenses. Through exposures to the normative religion and/or our own, we typically assume characteristics and categories that belong to what is familiar to us. For instance, Christians, Jews, and Muslims may see religion as a set of beliefs, rituals, and behavior that pertain to a god or gods. They may also consider the foundation of a religion and its authority vested in scriptures. While these assumptions may hold true for many of the contemporary Abrahamic traditions, they are far from universal. Some religions, such as Buddhism, do not hold a god or gods central to their beliefs. Jains recognize that there are gods, but they see them as irrelevant to their ultimate goals of salvation from rebirth (­moksha). Sometimes scholars classify Jainism as an “atheist” religion because divinity is not central to its doctrine. Too often, we use the word atheism as a synonym for the absence of religion, when atheism really means the absence of divinities (theism), which is a quite different stance entirely.

Introduction: The Legacy of Religion and Violence

Religious scriptures may be authoritative for Muslims with the Qur’an, for Jews with the Tanakh, or for Christians with the Bible, but they do not carry the same weight and significance for other religions. For instance, Buddhists in Southeast Asia view their monks as embodiments of their religion. They are, in effect, living scriptures. A Western Buddhist may point to particular passages in the Buddhist texts or a specific scripture, but a respected Burmese monk’s views will carry more weight for his Burmese audience. To avoid a particular religion’s biases that it must revolve around a belief in a divinity or place scriptures as instrumental to people’s faith (as well as others), Religious Violence Today: Faith and Conflict in the Modern World defines religion through a sociological lens. If a person identifies as Christian, he or she is Christian. If a group identifies as a religion, then it is a religion. As there are hundreds of religions in the world, the chapters in these volumes are restricted to the largest populations: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese Religion, Sikhism, Judaism, New Religious Movements, African Traditional Religion, and Jainism.

Violence Another challenge to the study of religion and violence is the treatment of violence. Most books on religion and violence incorrectly assume that all religions understand violence in the same way. We may think that violence comprises the physical acts of destruction and violation, such as killings, conflicts, and wars, but people have viewed violence as a much larger category than this. It can include emotional and psychological harm; structural forms such as poverty that impact such violence; or even symbolic violence, such as the cross, which derives from the Roman practice of crucifixion. In addition to these considerations, violence is often framed as a negative or unwanted action. This is not always the case. The Hindu god Shiva is known as the destroyer, but also the creator. Just as a farmer who needs to plow the land to plant the seed, Shiva bestows the necessary conditions for life to generate. Violence is not a simple term to define, nor one that remains static. Prior to the advent of the internet, people may not have considered cyber-attacks a type of violence; however, many do now. To avoid advocating a definition that may work for some religions, but not others, each chapter in these volumes provides a definition of violence that is based on the respective religion. In John Soboslai’s chapter about Christianity, he defines violence as “harm done by (or to) those who self-identify as Christians, and is seen by its perpetrators as promoting Christian influence or dominance.” Pashaura Singh provides a similar definition in his chapter about Sikhism. He explains that

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the Sikhs view violence as “hansu or hinsā, referring to the ‘infliction of injury’ in the situation of conflict.” In a slightly different manner, Jennifer Bryson and Ismail Royer write in their chapter about Islam that violence is “the intentional use of physical force against persons or property.” Viewing these various definitions across the chapters can make some comparisons difficult, but also provides new and illuminating comparisons. It also makes it difficult for a follower within a particular religion to discredit the examples, as the examples draw upon her/his own religion.

COMPARISONS AND CATEGORIES If there are only examples of a religion causing violence, doesn’t this paint a negative picture of the religion? There is a danger in categorizing religion and violence only by the ways in which religion is used to justify or legitimate violence. This tendency can lead people to mistakenly think religions are wholly violent or that some religions are more violent than others. This last consideration has grown more popular in the twenty-first century. Some may argue that Islam is more violent than Buddhism, but this leaves the question: how does one measure this? Aside from the dilemma that there is no universal definition of violence, there are even greater problems. For such a comparison of which religion is more violent to work, it is necessary to locate similar characteristics or variables in each religion. This is done to exclude other causes for the violence, save the religion. Currently, this is not feasible. In the contemporary age, there are more Islamic countries than there are Buddhist countries (and many more Muslims than Buddhists). In addition, Islamic countries suffer from more poverty than Buddhist countries, but this economic disparity is only recent and not reflective in the previous centuries (and in which the data is much less available than the data since the nineteenth century). To address these problems, each chapter has an overview that reflects on the historical relationship between religion and violence and a diverse assortment of contemporary examples in the entries. The overviews provide a context and foundation in which to understand the entries for the respective religion. These entries are snapshots into the ways in which people use a religion to commit violence, but also how people are persecuted because of their religion. Thus, the chapter on Islam contains entries on contemporary militant Islamic organizations, but also cases of Islamophobia (persecution of Muslims). The chapter on Buddhism has entries on contemporary militant Buddhist organizations, such as the 969 Movement, and also entries on how Buddhists are persecuted, such as those living in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh. Through the discussion of both religiously

Introduction: The Legacy of Religion and Violence

motivated violence and persecutions of religious followers, the chapters paint each religion as containing both aggressor and victim. Which religions should be included in these volumes? One of the toughest chores for an encyclopedia such as this is to identify and limit which religions to include and which to exclude. While there are some religions that are incredibly influential due to their sheer populations, such as Christianity (2.2 billion followers), Islam (1.8 billion followers), and Buddhism (1.3 billion people who practice the religion), there are other considerations. There are fewer Jews than the margin of error in the Chinese census. While Judaism may not have a large population, it has been active for millennia and has influenced many other religions. The same holds true for Jainism, which became active in South Asia at the same time as Buddhism. Around the world, Jainism is viewed as the most peaceful religion. Jain monks wear masks so that they do not accidentally breathe in small insects and sweep the ground as they walk to avoid stepping on anything. Yet Jains, like every other religion in the world, have a history of violence. These volumes also provide chapters for the largest and most neglected of the globally recognized religions. The most misunderstood is African Religion. To address this neglect, this encyclopedia provides a chapter on religious traditions such as the Yoruba and Vodun, all under the umbrella of African Traditional Religion. Perhaps the most persecuted religion in the world is the Vodun, whose followers suffer from the negative portrayal of Voodoo. Similarly, there is a lot of confusion or lack of awareness about New Religious Movements. Many people identify New Religious Movements with violent apocalyptic movements, such as the People’s Temple (Jonestown) or Heaven’s Gate. Yet some of the most persecuted followers in the world belong to New Religious Movements, such as the Jehovah Witnesses. Last, throughout the centuries, governments have played integral parts in enhancing the relationship between religion and violence. It was only in the modern era that governments were not endowed with religious legitimacy (and thereby, a perceived distinction between religion and government). As such, this encyclopedia has a chapter devoted to “State Violence” to shed light on this enduring legacy and influence.

CONCLUSION While some intellectuals, such as psychologist Steven Pinker, argue that violence is on the decline over history (e.g., Pinker 2017), there is not enough historical data or even a definitive definition for violence to support such an assertion. Violence is all around us. It is in the acquisition of food, in our interpersonal relationships,

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in the sports we play. The title of this volume may suggest this book is only about religious violence “today.” However, if you examine the chapter overviews, which cover the history of each religion, and discern the connections these backgrounds hold to the contemporary period with their entries, you will discover a legacy of religiously motivated violence. It is optimistic to hope for a better tomorrow in which there is little to no violence. But as long as there is violence, people will be persecuted for their religious identities, and others will justify violence through religion. This encyclopedia provides explanations to the present and the future, as it examines an enduring and mercurial relationship between religion and violence. In this vein, this book is dedicated to all those who see education and knowledge as an invaluable means for a better tomorrow. Michael Jerryson FURTHER READING Kierkegaard, Søren. 2006 (1843). Fear and Trembling. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Edited by C. Stephen Evans and Sylvia Walsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinker, Steven. 2017. “Has the Decline of Violence Reversed since The Better Angels of Our Nature  was  Written?” ­https://​­stevenpinker​.­com​/­files​/­pinker​/­files​/­has​_the​_decline​_of​ _violence​_reversed​_since​_the​_better​_angels​_of​_our​_nature​_was​_written​_2017​.­pdf. Smith, Jonathan Z. 1988. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Reprint ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Timeline

1983–2009

1986–2007 1994–1997

February 25, 1994

July 11, 1996 1999–present

March 11, 2000 September 11, 2001

February 27, 2002

Sri Lankan Civil War, Buddhist government destroys the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are largely Catholic and Hindu fighters Holy Spirit Movement in northern Uganda clashes with authorities and leads to over 10,000 deaths Order of the Solar Temple—or OTS for its French name, l’Ordre du Temple Solaire— commits seventy-four murders and suicides Baruch Goldstein murders twenty-nine Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs and wounds 125 people Bathani Tola Massacre in Bihar against the Dalits, an untouchable caste in India Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) found guilty of war crimes, massacre of marginalized peoples, forced conversions, and rapes in multiple regions Karnataka violence against the Dalits, an untouchable caste in India Al Qaeda organizes four attacks on the United States, including the World Trade Center, murdering 2,996 people and injuring over 6,000 people The Gujarat Pogroms between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat, India, and with over 1,000 murders (three times as many Muslims as Hindu casualties), 223 missing, and 2,500 injured

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Timeline

March 29–May 10, 2002

Israeli military operation called “Operation Defensive Shield” attacks six Palestinian West Bank cities; 497 killed, 1,447 wounded, and 7,000 detained 2004–present Civil War in southern Thailand, Buddhist government fighting a Muslim insurgency (over 7,000 dead, over 10,000 injured) 2009 “Anti-Homosexuality Act of Uganda” is proposed in Uganda, enacted in 2014 (later rejected by the Uganda Supreme Court) April 19, 2010 Al Shabaab murders seventy-six civilians watching a World Cup soccer match in Uganda August 5, 2012 Wade Michael Page murders six people and wounds four at Sikh community of Oak Creek Gurdwara, Wisconsin August 24, 2012 Haitian religious liberties law is repealed that protected practitioners of Vodun (Voodoo) September 29, 2012 The 2012 Ramu Violence in Chittagong, Bangladesh, destroying Buddhist homes and businesses and leaving thousands of Buddhists homeless December 16, 2012 Gang rape of twenty-three-year-old Jyoti Singh in Delhi, India, which triggered a nationwide awareness of female rapes, is condoned by Hindu swamis August 21–September 7, 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots between Hindus and Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, India, results in ­ more than sixty-two deaths (42 Muslims and 20 ­Hindus), ninety-three injured, and more than 50,000 displaced April 14, 2014 Boko Haram kidnaps three hundred schoolgirls in Borno, Nigeria June 15, 2014 Buddhist riots against Muslims in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka June 17, 2015 Dylann Roof’s racialized terrorism at Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, murdering nine members, including State Senator Clementa C. Pickney 2016–present Up to one million Muslims in Xinjiang, China, are detained in “political reeducation camps”

Timeline

June 16, 2016

March 6, 2017 August 11–12, 2017

August 25–October 2017 2018 October 27, 2018

Christian pastors voice praise for the mass-shooter of the Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ+ safe place, in Orlando, Florida, with nearly fifty people murdered Jehovah Witnesses officially banned as extremist in Russia, with attacks against them afterward The “Unite the Right” protests by white nationalists in Charlottesville, United States, and the death of Heather Danielle Heyer by white nationalist James Alex Fields Jr. Displacement of over 700,000 Rohingyas, and raping and killing of thousands Over four million Congolese displaced in the Central Africa Republic (CAR) Robert Gregory Bowers murders eleven people and injures seven at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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AFRICAN RELIGION

INTRODUCTION It was when Lucifer first congratulated himself on his angelic behavior that he became the tool of evil. —Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations

“Afro-pessimism” is a term that is sometimes used to focus on the problems and negative realities that people experience across the vast continent of Africa. Whenever non-Africans think about Africa’s recent political and social history (since 2000), it is not uncommon to focus on that which is residual from centuries of colonial oppression and economic injustice, including the painful and lingering legacies of slavery and injustice. The African context is often portrayed by various media sources as a part of the world where human rights and political, religious, and individual freedoms are often denied to those without wealth, privilege, status, or political or social power. This chapter focuses on something very negative—a history of violence in the name of religion—but I fully recognize that the religious traditions of Africa have made amazing and important contributions to the positive development of world civilizations. It is instructive, however, to focus on incidences of violence among diverse traditional religious movements in recent decades. It should be stressed that this chapter will only introduce a few instances of violence committed in the name of religion across Africa. It would be impossible to provide a simple analysis of the vastly diverse contexts of African culture in terms of recent religious violence, so the modest ambition of this chapter is to provide an introductory overview to the ways that violence has recently been expressed in African societies. Violence in the name of religion can take on many different forms and be understood in many different ways. Sometimes violence can be expressed in sustained ways known as persecution, while in other instances, there are attacks that are not repeated but are one-time events. There are many different ways to think about violence. For the purposes of this chapter the term “violence” 1

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refers to the threat or use of aggression and physical force against an individual or group that might cause physical, mental, material, or psychological harm. Slavoj Zizek (2008) is correct that any discussion of violence necessarily reaches across a wide range of experiences and often express itself in structural, political, and symbolic forms of oppression as well as in actual acts of aggression. In this chapter, religiously sanctioned violence, like other forms of violence, refers to violent interactions between agents where there is an inequitable and illegitimate relationship based on religious claims of various adherents of religion. Research into this subject assumes religion is a form of “soft power” that can either promote violence or foster peace. Religious authorities and agencies have great social power across many African cultures and contexts. The political scientist Daniel Philpott claims that, in many forms, the influences of religion often shape political outcomes (Philpott 2001). This is especially true in Africa, where religion is often a key factor in determining the fine line between whether or not a person should rebel or accept a given situation as being acceptable. A question for those studying ethnoreligious violence is what should be viewed through a religious lens and what is motivated by ideology. One helpful guideline in addressing this question comes from Mark Juergensmeyer, who wrote that both religion and ideology “conceive the world in coherent and manageable ways; both provide levels of meaning behind the day-to-day world that gives to coherence of things unseen; both provides authority that gives social and political order its reason for being” and both offer a definitive understanding of evil and goodness in the world (Juergensmeyer 2008, 20). Another issue that merits delineation are the ways in which ethnic tensions relate to contexts where religious extremism is expressed with violence. Religious differences may not be the key reason why a situation becomes violent or is framed by actors in terms of a righteous cause. A fluid interchange between ethnic tensions is often expressed in ethnoreligious terms because religious impulses are effective vehicles for community leaders to rely on their skills as entrepreneurs to describe their ethnicity and religion in terms that motivate and mobilize people to enact their objectives. Africans are often very religious. Many Africans cherish faith as the most meaningful component of life and willingly undertake sacrifices for religious ideals. Specifically, African Traditional Religions (ATR), rooted as they are in local contexts, offer a fresh way to reimagine the ways that the sacred relates to everyday challenges. Although many Africans profess to be Christians or Muslims, it is not uncommon to turn to traditional religions during times and seasons of perplexing troubles. Importantly, the expression of what is broadly categorized as ATR often includes a range of experiences that are often framed in Christian or Muslim terms, because these two major faith traditions have interacted in many fluid ways with

African Religion: Introduction

traditional ideas about the nature of the spiritual and supernatural realities experienced in life. It is also helpful to understand that, in some instances across the vast sweep of Africa, the forms of religious violence are often only about religious themes or even identities in very superficial ways. Many other factors and considerations beyond religious affiliations or assertions may be primary motivators for violent actions. For example, although some ethnoreligious conflicts are waged in the name of addressing injustices or opposing rivals, some are actually “resource wars,” where there are no actual religious enemies or ideals but only a struggle to survive. In long and drawn-out contexts of social and political crisis that take root over a long period of time, the extent and experience of conflict can become routine, further blurring a cogent analysis of circumstances and religiously motivated violence begins from a host of complicated factors. For example, during times of instability, radicals offer pseudoreligious solutions to pressing problems, focusing on the very real fears of those they seek to control. In such situations, extremist ideologies can often take existing problems and work them to their own calculated advantage, while often accenting one element and distorting or ignoring another element to suit their objectives. Where a form of aggression is presented in religious contexts, it is not always the case across Africa that the motivation for such expressions of violence are actually rooted in ideological, doctrinal, or historical and traditional religious terms. The study of African ethnoreligious violence may pose unique challenges to those who try to distinguish between violence originating in religious motivations and those that only use religion as an excuse for the advancement of personal or corporate power, wealth, and influence. One reason for this is that African violence is often seen to be rooted in religious difference or extremism, even when other factors are far more vital. In addition to mentioning some movements rooted in Christianity and Islam, some instances described in this chapter go beyond such categories by mixing traditional and local religious ideas with such larger religions. Traditional or indigenous religious movements are often new expressions of precolonial, traditional religious ideals that are not entirely local or premodern but often express new forms of ideas that are already gaining global consideration. Religion and ethnicity are often intertwined, reinforcing each other. For the purposes of this chapter, themes surrounding ethnoreligious identity refer to those sets of meanings that individuals ascribe to an ethnic community and that work to bring unity and a sense of identity, including those ideas or values that distinguish them from others. Although ethnoreligious identity is usually self-promoted in a positive light by adherents, the identities of the rival “other” is often framed in a negative or inferior light. Inevitably, a vital concern in any ethnographic approach that considers religion is how to translate the spaces contested between religious adherents, opponents,

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and observers. This is particularly true in Africa, where ethnoreligious identities are sometimes presented in a severely biased way, sometimes presenting Africa as a “Dark Continent” that is overflowing with strange traditions. The perpetration of “negative myths about Africa” may facilitate non-Africans in maintaining “dominance over Africans” because “exotic portrayals African culture as excitingly different” place adherents beyond empathy but it does not promote a nuanced understanding of actual events (Keim 1999, 8–9).

Precolonial History Although the continent of Africa has a long history of empires and kingdoms, very little of this rich past is well known throughout the world. The first people of the world came from East Africa, and there are traces of civilizations in southern Europe that date back over 100,000 years. The great civilizations of Egypt and the Sudan are well known to the world, as Egyptian rulers began to assert their military control over their neighbors around 4000 BCE. Another major change took place when cattle began to be domesticated and farming communities were first established in sub-Saharan Africa between 6000 and 3000 BCE. Following the desertification of the Sahara, the North became closely linked to the Muslim Empires, while the first millennia BCE was marked by numerous Bantu Empires, which led to linguistic common ground among South and Central African peoples. Bantu-related languages spread all the way from modern-day Cameroon to the Great Lakes of East Africa. Skillful ironworkers spread their craft across sub-Saharan Africa as early as 3000 BCE. Where a common language and religion united the North, the rest of Africa splayed into over 10,000 different states and distinct people groups. Extensive trade led to partnerships and alliances among groups, as well as wars and divisions. There were many notable precolonial empires across sub-Saharan Africa, perhaps most notably the Songhai, Benin, Oyo, Mali, Ashanti, Ife, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kongo, and Aksumite Empires. By 1000 BCE, Bantu kingdoms reached South Africa. A rival they faced in the region was the Luba Empires of central and southern Africa, which reached their height of influence by 1400 CE. Other empires such as the Kanem were established in modern-day Chad by 1000 CE and was eventually replaced by the by 1500 CE. Massive stone buildings bear witness to the power of the Kingdom of Great Bornu and Shilluk empires Zimbabwe, which reached its zenith in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE. The Kingdom of Kongo came to its highest authority between 1500 and 1600 CE. Centuries of rival wars for power and resources were abated when powerful empires became strong enough to foster trade patterns, which intermittently spread across sub-Saharan Africa. While sub-Saharan Africa often encountered raiders from North Africa, unimaginable changes were about

African Religion: Introduction

to change the continent entirely. The precolonial era came to an end with the rise of the European slave trade, beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century. The Portuguese, British, Dutch, French, and Spanish often undermined trade routes and set up puppet rulers and set group against group in search of slaves and natural resource wealth.

Colonial History Beginning in the 1500s CE, Africa encountered European colonial efforts that began with trade and ended in domination. Today, Africa is home to fifty-four countries and over 1.2 billion people. During the colonization of Africa, which took place primarily between 1700 and 1900, nearly the entire continent was colonized by Europeans. The two exceptions were Ethiopia and Liberia, a country the United States created to send back former enslaved Africans. While colonization manifests in different ways, this form focused on human trafficking—namely, enslaving Africans and sending them across the Atlantic to North and South America. This tortuous process, called the “Middle Passage,” displaced perhaps as many as twelve million people in one of the largest human migrations in world history. The European colonial justification for this historic volume of human trafficking was religion. Europeans saw Africans who followed African Traditional Religion as primitive. The Roman Catholic Church tacitly condoned the human trafficking, and their justification and those of Protestant denominations helped legitimate violence across the continent. The Roman Catholic view on colonization was formalized after the Valladolid Debate (1550–1551) over the enslavement of Native Americans. Dominican Friar and the bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, Bartolome de las Casas argued that the Catholic value on human life transcended ethnic and religious borders and that the slave trade was immoral. Catholic priests and, most notably, the humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda responded that the Native Americans were godless heathens. Sepúlveda explained that while slavery was not virtuous in itself, serving Christian households would grant the enslaved Africans access to the Christian doctrine and would save their souls. This latter justification became a prevailing mind-set for Europeans as they conquered and enslaved most of the African continent a few centuries later. One of the darkest chapters of the European exploitation of Africa comes from the Congo, which was ruled as the personal domain of the Belgian king Leopold II. Because the Congolese were seen as part of a satanic and primitive religious world, their lives and bodies were viewed as worthless by their overseers. Accounts of rubber tappers being dismembered or killed when unrealistic rubber quotas were not met mark one of the most shameful periods of the colonial era. Notably, European colonizers brought Africans to the Americas, where they worked in the fields and

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harvested crops. Religious historian Albert Raboteau noted that the African Traditional Religion was one of the most important links for the enslaved Africans. He wrote, “One of the most durable and adaptable constituents of the slave’s culture, linking African past with American present, was his religion” (Raboteau 1978, 4). In Haiti, French colonizers placed West Africans from various nations and the former Dahomean empire together. These enslaved Africans merged their religions of Kongo, Dahomey, and Yorubaland with Roman Catholicism. This form of religious syncretism became a way for the colonized Africans to preserve who they were and where they had come from. This religion, called Vodun, is considered one of the signal achievements of African people in the Western hemisphere. In 1791, Toussaint L’Ouverture led a revolt against the French, and the Haitian colonized community became the first to successfully liberate themselves. This and the subsequent 1804 Haitian massacre of white Haitians, sent shockwaves across the colonial world. The liberated Haitians became vilified, especially through their religion, Vodun. Colonizers depicted the Vodun religion as devil worshipping. Art historian Robert Farris Thompson cites the Oxford English Dictionary for attaching the Western stigma to it. Voodoo is defined as “a body of superstitious beliefs and practices including sorcery, serpent worship, and sacrificial rites, current among negroes and persons of negro blood in the West Indies and Southern United States, and ultimately of African origin” (Thompson 1984, 163). This discrimination of ATR continued into the postcolonial period. The perceived lack of religion became the justification for European military expansion. In many social contexts, the first Europeans who encountered traditionally religious African societies were missionaries who assumed that local religions were without merit. Traders followed these Catholic and Protestant zealots and aggressively sought to expand their wealth and influence, often through land purchases made without regard for existing competing arrangements. In one particularly tragic instance of a rivalry exploited by the colonialists, the Herero of Namibia entered into an alliance with German settlers in order to subjugate their rivals, the Nama. Once their foes were defeated, the Germans proceeded to steal their best land and enslaved many Herero before resorting to an extermination policy that almost completely decimated their number. Men equipped with superior weapons, such as repeating rifles, cannons, and Maxim guns—the forerunner to modern machine guns—faced spears and made any battle decidedly uneven. A similar trend took root in South Africa where Dutch-speaking settlers known as Voortrekkers forcibly removed local Xhosa farmers (and other Bantu speakers) through a gruesome series of violent wars. These European settlers then fought English military forces in South Africa until Dutch and English united to subjugate and exploit local communities.

African Religion: Introduction

Famous missionaries, such as the Englishman David Livingstone, felt that Christianity must be joined with European commerce to civilize African peoples. Another explorer in search of Livingstone, Dr. Henry Stanley, referred to Africa as a “Dark Continent” and promoted the idea that Africans were childish and given to fearful religious superstitions rooted in witchcraft. Whatever the initial intentions of such efforts, the result was the rampant exploitation of African raw materials, which fed Europe’s burgeoning factories during the Industrial Revolution. Africa was carved up by the Europeans like a Christmas turkey. Soon vast British empires had been established in West, South, and East Africa, while the French established pockets of rule in West and Central Africa, and the Portuguese took control of Angola.

Postcolonial Period Traditional religions, often essentialized by non-African scholars, are often assumed to be complicit in instances of violence in postcolonial Africa. Misrepresentations are rife when talking about ethnoreligious violence without also emphasizing that religious identities can be positive forces for social justice. While ethnic identities should be factored into any discussion about social violence, one must also be mindful of the intertwinement of other factors, such as political and national boundaries. After the end of World War II, European colonizers loosened their grip over African nations at the same time that African nationalists began to aggressively clamor for self-rule. The devolution of autocratic European influences took place throughout the 1960s, while some colonial powers (such as Portugal, which left Mozambique and Angola in 1975) were more reticent to surrender their oversight. The last British colony in Africa was Zimbabwe, which parted from the United Kingdom in 1980. The racist apartheid system of South Africa was finally overturned in 1994. While reflecting a broad spectrum of political approaches, many of the new nations that emerged from decolonization were beset with poor governance. In some contexts, they experienced a caricature of independence instead of genuine revolutionary change. For some, the departure of European colonialists simply meant that new African generals and politicians maintained traditional colonial structures of social and economic disparity and exploitation for their own interests. After independence, many West and Central African nations experienced repeated coups and corrupt military civil wars that were designed to exploit natural resources. At the same time, fundamental ideological tensions led to violent and destabilizing political storms. For example, in the Congo, a courageous democratic socialist,

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Patrice Lumumba, was overthrown by the brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seke, while Europe and North America failed to intervene on the side of democracy. One of the most dramatically tragic examples of the ways that colonial legacies led to religious violence was the horrific genocide in Rwanda. During Belgian colonial rule, the ethnic identities of the Hutu and Tutsi were emphasized and given mythological proportions. Belgian clergy also speculated about the inferiority of the Tutsi people and preached about this to the Hutu. Traditional patterns to negotiate between the groups were destroyed by the colonizers in the interests of a “divide-and-conquer” strategy for governance. The Belgians required that everyone carry ethnic identity cards, and such cards were used during the 1994 atrocities against the Hutu. After the war, these ethnopolitical fissures exploded into violence, which resulted in the deaths of over a half a million people. Religious leaders avoided any sense of moral responsibility and did nothing to intervene, stop the violence, or confront the spread of ethnic cleansing. In some of the worst instances of massacre, people huddled in churches and mission compounds in hopes of finding safety, only to be handed over by the religious authorities to those who massacred them, sometimes even inside the churches. Many of the instances of sociopolitical chaos that will be introduced in this chapter are rooted in misguided patriotic movements that aided the unaccountable few in impoverishing and robbing the many. Such leaders perpetrated essentialist ideas that Africans were inherently backward and needed to be steered with a firm authoritarianism. In spite of such problems, fragile seeds of progress offer hope for better economic and political times going forward.

Religions and Violence in Africa This chapter explores how violence intersects with religious experiences. Paul Gifford reports that African religions serve as an important force to “legitimize new aspirations, new forms of organization, new relations and a new social order. At the same time, every religion involves struggles to conquer, monopolize or transform the symbolic struggles which order reality” (Ellis 2007, 23). Religion can also play a seminal role in engendering violence among chaotic civil societies. Ideas of bigotry and exclusivity are often at the heart of African ethnoreligious violence but other common threads also merit consideration. In many situations, people have become categorized as the “other.” This process of “othering” forces borders that not only reassure insiders but also isolate outsiders. Jeremy Punt observed, “An insider-outsider mentality” calls for a “strong sense of identity and continuous efforts to maintain and also elaborate notions of identity” that require “procedures of demarcation as much as processes of identification” (Punt 2016, 41).

African Religion: Introduction

Along with other reasons, such as both real and perceived burdens of unresolved histories, economic rivalries, political quarrels, shortages, and uncertainties, the role of religion merits consideration when surveying recent violence in Africa. Ethnoreligious violence may also affect those within the same ethnoreligious group, resisting those who claim to have ultimate authority and the correct approach to crisis situations. Ethnoreligious violence can not only divide already diverse communities, it can also rip apart societies where religion and ethnicity are shared. Ethnic identities that are demarcated by religiocultural traditions are always changing. Ronald Atkinson wrote, “Culture, language, and ethnicity, are not unchanging, single-dimensional givens” (Atkinson 1989, 20). Because of this fluidity, violence in the name of religion often thrives. Highly cohesive forms of what psychologists refer to as polarizing “group-think” empowers those who feel they might have no agency by themselves. Pressures are often in place to suppress differences and stress group unity. Acts of violence can even become indicators that “prove” loyalty and commitment to a given movement or ideal. All forms of ethnoreligious violence cause dramatic displacement in the lives of individuals and in the coherence of communities. A sense of routine chaos, a breakdown of power, and the ability of the state to protect people conspire to create dire situations. In 2017, the Assessment Capacities Project looked at a number of nations, such as Somalia, Nigeria, Mali, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Niger, Sudan, and South Sudan, and asserted that a number of persistent humanitarian crises only show signs of worsening as problems deepen and remain unaddressed. According to their findings, “Displacement across conflict-affected areas in Africa directly impacts a range of social, political, and economic processes and diminishes current development gains on the continent” (Roby 2018). The report continues that, every day across Africa, “an equivalent of 15,000 people” are forced from their homes “due to conflict and violence” (Roby 2018). Cyril Orji observed, “Too often, a culture of hatred and violence continues unabated in a continent where people are extremely ‘religious’” (Orji 2008, 133). While the vast majority of Africans are moderate in their religion, the efforts of extremists, bandits, and murderers, claiming to do God’s work, destroy countless lives and communities. For victims, moderate religious efforts are needed because “violence experienced by individuals and communities begets trauma—a rupturing of the experience of bodily safety, meaning-making, and communal connections” (Walsh 2017, 4). In response to violence in the name of religion, restoration may also have to come from religious visions rooted, not in hatred and fear, but in hope. While David Chidester is correct that the frontiers between tradition and modernity are often zones of conflict, it is also true that such contexts have the potential to be reimagined as places marked by “reciprocal changes, creative interchanges, and

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unexpected possibilities” (Chidester 1996, 266). Needed healings will certainly not be realized through imaginative words alone, but some hopeful anticipation in the face of daunting challenges—hope against hope—may be requisite. Considerations of violence in the name of religion begs the question of how one can hope when despair makes more sense, or how one can embrace religious ideals when such dramatic promises have often led to dark disillusionment and sordid betrayal. Events of violence that people in Africa experience in the name of religion often seem to contradict the very religious values and virtues that people find meaningful in various religious traditions, so how can such incidences of attack or violence be seen as religious? Are religious leaders’ primarily responsible for or simply accessories to acts of violence in the name of religion? The verdict is out on such questions. As one warrior, filled with religious hope and ethnic pride, looking back on his involvement in the battles that raged for his nation related, “They told us that they would build the land. They told us they would take Guinea-Bissau forwards. I thought, when I was a child, I thought like—when I grow up it will be delicious. Bissau will be delicious, I will have a delicious life. But nothing is delicious. They have not built anything; nothing” (Vigh 2006, 186). Christian van Gorder

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank Erik Carlson, Timothy Tovar, Kristjen Pederson, and Michael van Gorder in their research assistance with this chapter. FURTHER READING Atkinson, Ronald R. 1989. “The Evolution of Ethnicity among the Acholi of Uganda: The Precolonial Phase.” Ethnohistory 36, no. 1: 19–43. Chidester, David. 1996. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Ellis, Stephen. 2007. The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War. New York: New York University Press. Fox, Jonathan. 2000. “Religious Causes of Discrimination against Ethno-Religious Minorities.” International Studies Quarterly 44, no. 3: 423–50. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2008. Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Keim, Curtis. 1999. Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind. Boulder: Westview Press. Kügler, Joachim, et al., eds. 2014. The Bible and Violence in Africa: Papers Presented at the BiAS Meeting 2014 in Windhoek (Namibia), with Some Additional Contributions. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, pp. 35–57.

African Religion: Assault Sorcery Olupona, Jacob K., ed. 1991. African Traditional Religions in Contemporary Society. ­London: Paragon House. Orji, Cyril. 2008. Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa: An Analysis of Bias, Decline and Conversion Based on the Works of Bernard Lonergan. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Philpott, Daniel. 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Punt, Jeremy. 2016. “The Bible and Others: Root of Violence in Africa?” In The Bible and Violence in Africa: Papers Presented at the BiAS Meeting 2014 in Windhoek (Nambia), with Some Additional Contributions. Edited by Johannes Hunter and Joachim Kügler, 35–57. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. Raboteau, A.J. 1978. Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press. Roby, Christin. 2018. “Five African Crises to Watch in 2018.” Devex. ­https://​­www​.­devex​ .­com​/­news​/­5​-­african​-­crisis​-­to​-­wtach​-­in​-­2018​-­91836. Thompson, Robert Farris. 1984. Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy. New York: Vintage Books. Vigh, Henrik. 2006. Navigating Terrains of War: Youth and Soldiering in Guinea-Bissau. New York: Berghahn Books. Walsh, Michelle. 2017. Violent Trauma, Culture and Power: An Interdisciplinary Exploration in Lived Religion. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Zizek, Slavoj. 2008. Violence. London: Picador Press.

ASSAULT SORCERY(WAR MAGIC) The concept of sorcery has often been used as a fulcrum against traditions to assert backward, exotic otherness. Discussions of sorcery can also offer a “practical ­discourse on the dynamics of human-generated social and political realities” (Kapferer, 303). This is particularly true of the idea of assault sorcery, also known as war-magic. Foundational to the sociopolitical practice of assault sorcery is the claim that “the right to kill is the defining characteristic of leadership” (Gottlieb 1989, 254). It is a royal transgression that is assumed because, sometimes, no other choices but life or death are available. The twisted logic becomes vividly illustrated when, in a number of ethnoreligious conflicts, certain combatants have claimed to rely on assault sorcery in order to influence the outcome of battles. Such movements arise as people turn to traditional religious practices to help them gain supernatural defenses against enemies. Such efforts are initiated by sorcerers who rely on traditional practices to produce harm to enemies. Robin Wright observed, “One of its outstanding features is that it is performed secretly, often under the cover of darkness in silence, sometimes with effigies symbolizing the victim or sometimes as the result of a shaman’s dream or inquest” (Wright 2015). Some recipients are those who claim to have

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been given by God a sense of divine kingship. According to Jeremy Punt, “Absolute claims inevitably lead to rigid categories, as much as strong boundaries, have a way of calling out for their own protection, and for the custody of those on the inside” (Punt 2016, 42). It is necessary to appreciate the distinction between witchcraft, which is always evil, to sorcery, which can be a force for either healing or destruction. Another distinction is that sorcery happens through magic and can be done by anyone, while witchcraft is performed by witches. All such distinctions are part of an “invisible constant . . . the accuser, accused, evil-doer, and believed victim are joined by intimate bonds” and are interrelated in fundamental ways (Marwick 1965, 295). In any event, the two terms are often interchanged. Similar to the distinction between terrorism and freedom-fighting, one person’s sorcerer can be another person’s witch. Sorcery during times of war is seen as a necessary strategy to counter the evil witchcraft that is war itself. Among the Dogon of Mali, the term for something that is evil (dugo) can be translated as a poison. In the Dogon understanding of evil, sorcery is a neutral force until it takes root through words, ritual objects, and practices. Evil is not conceptual but a tangible potent, such as a poison, which is able to kill people from a distance and from a hidden source. The power of evil must be combated by correct (ritual) words and actions. Every battle is an ordeal, a conflict between good and evil, between purity and impurity, and victory or defeat; injury or causing injury reflects spiritual impurity or purity. Although a battle happens in an earthly arena, the results of every battle are won or lost in an unseen world. Only sorcerers (dudugonu) who know the ancient secrets of the poison through initiation can counter its force. In fact, in some cultures, a term for a sorcerer is simply “someone who knows something.” Sorcerers in warfare are often expected to anticipate the movements of the opposition before they are revealed to common soldiers. Those in authority must have this power and be able to “use their wisdom and powers to combat the destructive sorcery of others . . . a sorcery of construction” (West 1997, 681). Each sorcerer often claims a unique approach to his or her magic that ensures success in battle. For example, in Mozambique, sorcerers are seen as healers of evil and have the power to turn people into lions or other animals in the heat of a battle. They are also able to motivate actual lions to attack their enemies, just as one would use a knife during a battle. Because such powers are used only to attack evil, they are not considered witchcraft, which is only used in the service of evil. Leaders in battle must either be sorcerers or have strong sorcerers around them to protect their efforts to ensure victory. Practitioners of assault sorcery are in tune with occult methodologies and manipulate these for the cause of good; they either negate or redirect the power of evil toward some positive result. Christian van Gorder

African Religion: Bentiu Massacre

See also: African Religion: Holy Spirit Movement; Lord’s Resistance Army; Witchcraft FURTHER READING Gottlieb, Alma. 1989. “Witches, Kings, and the Sacrifice of Identity or the Power of Paradox and the Paradox of Power among the Beng of the Ivory Coast.” In W. Arens and Ivan Karp, eds. Creativity and Power: Cosmology and Action in African Societies. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 245–72. Kapferer, Bruce. 1997. The Feast of the Sorcerer: Practices of Consciousness and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marwick, M. G. 1965. Sorcery in Its Social Setting: A Study of the Northern Rhodesian Cew ˆ a. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Punt, Jeremy. 2016. “The Bible and Others: Root of Violence in Africa?” In Johannes Hunter and Joachim Kügler, eds. The Bible and Violence in Africa: Papers Presented at the BiAS Meeting 2014 in Windhoek (Namibia), with Some Additional Contributions. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, pp. 35–57. West, Harry. 1997. “Creative Destruction and Sorcery of Construction: Power, Hope, and Suspicion in Post-War Mozambique.” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 147, no. 3: 675–98. Wright, Robin M. 2015. “Assault Sorcery.” Oxford Handbooks Online, June 2015. ­www​ .­oxfordhandbooks​.­com.

BENTIU MASSACRE(SOUTH SUDAN, 2014) The South Sudan, formed in 2011, is rich in ethnic diversity, with over sixty different identifiable ethnic communities. It is an incredibly poor country despite a huge amount of international aid, which is often redirected away from needed infrastructure and humanitarian needs to pay for a growing army and the whims of the nation’s political elite. The birth of this new nation has seen horrific interethnic and interreligious violence, with as many as two million victims of the conflicts. Ethnic groups include the Arabs, Azande, Bari, and Shilluk/Anuak, as well as the two largest ethnic groups, the Nuer and the Dinka, along with many other ethnicities with differing religious loyalties. A battle between the Nuer and the Dinka took root, as leaders from these two groups formed militia motivated by greed, opportunism, and ethnic hatred. These militia began to capture key villages and control lucrative resources. The South Sudan faced an impending crisis, as the grim forces of ethnocentrism and hunger deepened the crisis. Only dim hopes for humanitarian aid or personal religious hopes for divine intervention held any promise. Bentiu City is a strategically located oil hub and the capital of the South Sudanese State of Unity. Despite its relative wealth and oil resources, Bentiu has dire

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infrastructure problems, with much of its electrical power coming from generators and with sewage flowing freely in unpaved streets. The town is a major point of contention between the government and rebels. In 2014, it was described as a ticking time bomb after changing hands between government and rebel forces many times. Another factor from a strategic perspective is that Bentiu is only about seventy miles from the Sudanese border; making it a place on edge, waiting for any hint that the Sudanese Armed Forces might step into the fragile sociopolitical stalemate. Unmistakable warnings of an impending crisis loomed, as militia leaders claimed that only the extinction of rival ethnicities would end the tensions. Nuer troops who were loyal to the deposed vice president of the South Sudan (Vice President Riek Machar, of Nuer ethnicity) began calling themselves the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). These rebels entered Bentiu on the morning of April 15, 2014. Their first task was to capture the radio station Bentiu FM, with the intent of broadcasting calls that urged troops to rape women of Dinka ethnicity. Radio personalities broadcast hate speech against President Kiir and called for violence against Dinka communities. One report claimed that soldiers were told to take women and children captive as their personal slaves instead of being paid. It was also broadcast that all Dinka should be expelled from Bentiu. The Nuer were told that it was their duty to attack Dinka neighbors and kill them without mercy; any Nuer who refused should also have been killed. What followed was one of the worst ethnically motivated massacres in recent history. SPLM rebels plundered Bentiu. Because they covered their faces with white ash, they have sometimes been called “the white army.” Rebel troops went street by street, hunting down Dinka civilians who were sheltered in masjids, churches, and religiously sponsored hospitals. People were separated on the basis of their nationality and religion, with the Dinka set aside to be murdered. Those who fled, including children, were hunted down. An estimated four hundred people were massacred. Thousands more were wounded and, fearing future atrocities, fled their homes in the wake of the violence. There was no official count, but over two hundred bodies were found inside the Kali-Ballee masjid. Other victims were slaughtered in their beds in the local Catholic hospital; in a local Catholic church, where people had taken refuge; in an abandoned UN compound; and in private homes throughout the town. In addition to Dinka, some victims were Sudanese traders who had fled from Darfur, a region also known to support President Kiir, and those seen to have ties with the government. Some Nuer, however, were also killed when they challenged marauding SPLM troops or refused to support their efforts. Other Nuer were killed when they resisted the plundering of their homes. Some victims were caught in the cross

African Religion: Bentiu Massacre

fire. One UN official reported, “Piles and piles of bodies of people who had been slaughtered” (The Economist 2014). Bulldozers had to be used to bury the bodies. SPLM rebels vehemently denied claims made by supporters of President Salva Kiir (from the Dinka nationality) that they had planned a coup against the president and were responsible for the massacre. The SPLM claimed that the massacre was actually the work of government agents who were intent on discrediting their cause. They also claimed that when they arrived in Bentiu, the dead were already lying in the streets, and their task was simply to mop and clean the city after past atrocities. They also claimed that eyewitnesses who saw them killing people actually saw government officials dressed in stolen SPLM uniforms. One thing is certain. Atrocities have been carried out against civilians from all ethnicities and religious backgrounds. Both sides committed crimes against humanity in this hellish context that left a humanitarian crisis in its wake, as many who survived fled to a nearby UN peacekeeping base across the border in the Sudan, which was unprepared for them. This UN base immediately faced overwhelming lack of resources and poor sanitary conditions due to the large number of refugees—up to twenty-two thousand. Months after the massacre, many refused to leave. One refugee explained, “When the violence has such a cycle of revenge you can’t tell what will come next” (The Economist 2014). In August 2015, a peace agreement was finally signed, which involved the reinstatement of Machar as vice president. The peace, however, could not be sustained on the ground due to weak governmental control and seething unrest. Within a year, Machar was, once again, deposed from the vice presidency. The sociopolitical situation continues to deteriorate. As of 2018, the New York Times estimated that over two million South Sudanese people have fled the country, while another one hundred and fifty thousand people are at risk of famine. Many project that violence will continue as long as humanitarian needs are in a fevered state of crisis, and the entire region continues to be unstable and unsafe for both aid workers and local civilians. There are international efforts to bring forty known perpetrators of the Bentiu massacre to justice in the International Court of the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. For survivors and family members, however, deep psychological scars remain; no criminal trial can ease the extent of their suffering and horrific losses. While once “the strong stench of decomposing remains filled the air, while vultures and dogs ate of limbs, scalps and abdomen flesh” (Barbash 2014), such horrors currently live on in the seared memories of those who survived Bentiu. Christian van Gorder

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See also: African Religion: Assault Sorcery (War Magic); Lord’s Resistance Army; Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in FURTHER READING Barbash, Fred. 2014. “An ‘Abomination’: Slaughter in the Mosques and Churches of Bentiu, South Sudan.” The Washington Post, April 23, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​ .­com​/­news​/­morning​-­mix​/­wp​/­2014​/­04​/­23​/­an​-­abomination​-­slaughter​-­in​-­the​-­mosques​ -­and​-­churches​-­of​-­bentiu​-­south​-­sudan​/. The Economist. 2014. “A New Depth of Horror.” April 26, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­economist​ .­com​/­news​/­middle​-­east​-­and​-­africa​/­21601244​-­civil​-­wars​-­worst​-­massacre​-­ensures​-­war​ -­will​-­get​-­still​-­bloodier​-­new. Smith, David. 2014. “Bentiu Massacre Is a Game-Changer in South Sudan Conflict, Says UN Official.” The Guardian, April 22, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​ /­2014​/­apr​/­22​/­bentiu​-­massacre​-­south​-­sudan​-­united​-­nations.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR), ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN What has been described as one of the world’s most ignored wars has been raging in the Central African Republic (CAR) for decades. The CAR, chartered as an independent nation in 1960, fell into violence after a (mainly) Muslim militia seized power. This led, in 2014, to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force, working with African Union troops. In the CAR alone, a nation of about five million, a report from the U.S. Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs claims that “1.1 million face extreme food insecurity, 460,000 are displaced, and 64,000 of those displaced people have become international refugees” (Congress 2014). Another cause for conflict has come from strife that was stirred up in the tri-border region of the CAR, Sudan, and Chad. In all of these traumas, religious assertions have been violently expressed in a number of different ways. If it is true that governance is fundamentally a form of conflict management, then the seemingly debilitating chaos masquerading as governance in the CAR is almost completely absent. Ethnicity and religious identities are often intertwined in the CAR, and these connections may explain why conflicts often seem so intractable. Recently, fighting in the CAR has increased dramatically. Armed conflicts have led to widespread displacement, as well as new food, shelter, and protection needs for local communities. At the start of 2018, CARE International claimed that there were over four million Congolese displaced, with over “620,000 seeking refuge in neighboring countries. An additional 7.5 million people are believed to be food insecure,” which represents a 30 percent increase from 2017 (Roby 2018). Rebel troops have enlisted many child soldiers. According to the UN News

African Religion: Central African Republic, Ethnoreligious Violence in

(2014), there were over six thousand children unwillingly forced into armed conflicts. These children, in addition to serving as servants, are subjected to sexual violence, ill-treatment, and use by rebels as human shields. Such strife in the CAR is exemplified by the misdeeds of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Interreligious tensions are also visible in the CAR. In 2012, Muslim militias called “Seleka” and Christian militias known as the “anti-Balaka” (anti-machete) began to war, after the Catholic president of the CAR, Francois Bozize, was deposed. In 2016, violence diminished after the relatively peaceful election of Faustin Archange Touadera. In 2017, thirteen of fourteen combatants in the CAR agreed to a peace treaty, but clashes have continued on the ground. When international peace-keepers left the CAR, fighting between warring militias increased. Christin Roby (2018) reports that there were more than 230 incidents of violence in 2017. In one incident that year, two thousand Muslims were trapped in a Catholic Church, while militia outside waited to kill them. Militias often rely on ethnoreligious justifications for acts of violence. Twisting religious loyalties have often fueled violence across ethnic and religious lines. Widespread fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) erupted when President Kabila refused to cede power at the end of his term, and attempts to stage elections were postponed until 2018. Incidents of violence have been particularly high in areas (central and southeastern) of the country where opposition to Kabila is strong (Greater Kasai, Nord and Sud Kivu, and Tanganyika). The displacement of communities is also a major problem in the CAR. Religious voices, both in the CAR and around the world, have sought to support efforts for healing. In 2015, Pope Francis visited the CAR, focusing on Muslim enclaves and calling for peace and reconciliation among different ethnoreligious groups in the country. Other religious advocates have supported the efforts of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague at the opening of 2014 investigations that focused on human rights abuses in the CAR. The ICC became involved because local efforts (such as the Special Criminal Court) were deemed ineffective. At least the CAR government, in conjunction with the UN and other international organizations, is trying to put in place a road map for long-term, concrete solutions. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Lord’s Resistance Army FURTHER READING Mudge, Lewis. 2017. “World’s Most Neglected Conflict Rages on in the CAR.” Al Jazeera, June 3, 2017. ­www​.­aljazeera​.­com​/­indepth​/­opinion​/­2017​/­06​/­world​-­neglected​-­conflict​ -­rages​-­car​-­170601100006071​.­html.

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CHILD SOLDIERS According to the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is a person under the age of eighteen. Instances of forcibly recruiting children into militias are present in Uganda, the Sudan and South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), the DRC, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Gabon, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Mozambique, to name just a few. In Mozambique, Olivier Furley reported, “Among the most horrific aspects of the war in Mozambique was [the militia] Renamo’s use of children as slaves and soldiers, thousands of them under 16, some only 6 years old” (Furley 1995, 32). Across Africa, for more than one hundred and twenty thousand children, deep traumas are left from the harrowing scars from years of being enslaved in rebel militias. More than thirty thousand child soldiers are reported in the DRC alone. Recently, worldwide attention has spotlighted the plight of children forced into active military service (almost always) against their will. Some of the most renowned examples spring from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, the DRC, and the Sudan. These groups frequently abducted children, sending them to the front lines of battle. When children are kidnapped, captors often turn to so-called witchcraft rituals in order to terrify them, deepening their fear of death if they ever attempt escape. Children are especially vulnerable because they can be more easily indoctrinated and are more likely to become loyal to the group that they are forced to join. What often emerges is a relationship where the children become dependent on the group and gradually come to accept the virtue of their cause and the needed actions. Sometimes loyalty is forged by forcing children to kill members of their own families or those in their own villages. One child recounted that he was rewarded for exhibitions of brutality: “The more you killed, the better your chance of survival” (Ojara 2018). Boys and girls being abducted into militias is also a harrowing reality in raging wars across the CAR and the DRC. As many as thirteen thousand children, most between the ages of fourteen and seventeen are abducted, with some of them

African Religion: Child Soldiers

reported to be as young as six years of age. An estimated 40 percent of those captured are young girls. While some serve as fighters, most are forced into marriages or sex slavery, where it is highly likely they will contract HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. When they are not being forced to perform sexual duties—what is called man business—these young girls are consigned to unending domestic services for the troops. Some children are willingly “recruited” into militias because they are seeking revenge after family members were killed in sectarian violence. Still others are promised money, or at least food and shelter, if they join the militia. When children grow up in a context of war, they may view taking a gun as a meal ticket and a better option than staying at home and being powerless and hungry. This is a strong inducement in the South Sudan where, since 2013, over seventeen thousand child soldiers have been “recruited” into various militias. According to the Washington Post, children sometimes feel that they face a choice between dying slowly of hunger and (perhaps) avoiding death if they fight in a militia. The LRA in Uganda, the DRC, and the Sudan have abducted thousands of children for their armies. Children are assigned new names and are forced to speak only in the Acholi language (which they must learn if it is not their native language). Children are frequently beaten in public for minor offences and forced to participate in the beating (or killing) of other children. Witchcraft (gris-gris as it is known in the DRC) rituals are also performed on abducted children. A brutal training process ensues. “Terror and the breaking of previous ties may take the form of committing the most extreme forms of violence against one’s own community. This serves to undermine earlier morals as well as make new recruits feel isolated and bound to a new set of values” (Kelly, Branham, and Decker, 2) with demands that the children kill and rape as common methods. Children are easily replaced for the militia and are inexpensive to maintain on a daily basis. They are also more easily disassociated from deep ethnic loyalties. It is common for child soldiers to be drugged, often with injections of cocaine directly to their faces, to activate the drugs more quickly in the brains and make the children become more unaware of their assigned violence. There are many charitable efforts, especially those sponsored by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), to aid child soldiers in returning to more normal lives after years of fighting and dealing with the hidden wounds of their hearts and souls. Rehabilitation centers have been established to address post-traumatic stress disorders that often leave deep wounds. Girls who have been repeatedly raped are stigmatized as being “dirty” when they attempt to return to normal lives and find suitable marriage partners. Every trauma is tragic, but some defy the imagination. For example, one fifteen-year old in the DRC was forced to “kill a family, to cut up their bodies, and eat them” (Child Soldiers International).

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Such youth feel they have no reason to live and are filled with guilt and a lifetime of painful remorse. Parents often spend all their money to ransom their children, while government funds are limited (or nonexistent) to help children once they are demobilized from militia and seeking reintegration into a more normal life. Situations are further complicated because children who are seeking to restart their lives are often forced to live in close proximity to their previous captors, military overseers, rapists, and abusers. Such a complex process of slow healing and recovery toward sanity demands persistent effort to make the lives of these childhood victims more productive and healthy. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Holy Spirit Movement; Lord’s Resistance Army; Revolutionary United Front (RUF) FURTHER READING Child Soldiers International. ­https://​­www​.­child​-­soldiers​.­org. Cohn, Ilene, and Guy S. Goodwin-Gill. 1994. Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Furley, Olivier. 1995. “Child Soldiers in Africa.” In Olivier Furley, ed. Conflict in Africa. London: Tauris Academic Studies, pp. 28–45. Kelly, Jocelyn, Lindsay Branham, and Michele Decker. “Abducted Children and Youth in Lord’s Resistance Army in Northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Mechanisms of Indoctrination and Control.” Conflict and Health 10.11 (2016): 1–11. Ojara, Denis. 2018. “I Would Do What It Takes to Survive.” The Journal. ­http://​­www​ .­thejournal​.­ie​/­a​-­former​-­lra​-­child​-­soldier​-­talks​-­about​-­being​-­abducted​-­and​-­serving​-­in​ -­joseph​-­konys​-­amry​-­3885920​-­Mar2018. Wessells, Michael. 2006. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM RESPONSES TO ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN AFRICA Many African Muslim and Christian clergy oppose the claims of those who assert that inflicting violence to eliminate violence. Indeed, every religious tradition, including indigenous traditional religious expressions, “encourages non-violent means to resolving disputes” (Burns 1996, 217). Sadly, religious voices have sometimes encouraged religious violence. B. J. van der Walt argued, “Churches have played and continue to play an important role in the misrule of Africa . . . some

African Religion: Christian and Muslim Responses to Ethnoreligious Violence

sections of the church have actively supported and continue to support corrupt and progressive regimes” (Van der Walt 2003, 45). In Nigeria (and other countries), tension between Muslims and Christians takes place in a severe competition over resources and power; often framed in ethnoreligious terms. Ruth Marshall-Fratani explained that, for Christians: Central to their strategy of winning Nigeria is the demonization of Islam. The competition that Islamic movements represents, not only in terms of the religious field but also in terms of the appropriation of state-dominated public sphere results in the linking in Pentecostal discourse of the evil spiritual forces at work behind Islam to the current state of economic and political decline, capitalizing on the resentment felt widely among Southern Christians about the Northern (read Muslim) domination of national politics since independence. (Marshall-Fratani 1998, 319)

On the positive side, Muslim and Christian interfaith partnerships have played a significant role in addressing ethnoreligious violence across a wide range of contexts. Such partnerships can take place in many different forms, including (as I suggested in a book I wrote on Nigeria) a devotional focus, where Muslims and Christians pray and fast for each other. At the simplest level, faith communities can examine how their rhetoric affects followers: “Murder germinates in the loamy soil of assertive propaganda. Muslims are accused of being polygamous, violent, and legalistic fanatics while Christians are cast as deceitful, pork-eating, colonialist-loving hedonistic idolaters. What is requisite is that Christians and Muslims be ‘deprogrammed’ from the acerbic logic of their virulent insularity” (Van Gorder 2009, 373). Interfaith partnerships for peace and justice can model alternative resources for conflict resolution. This is vital because there is a long history of combatants using religious identity to pit people against each other. Like most other global citizens, most Africans are deeply ethnic in their core identities. Because of this, religion can often be a force to express feelings for hope and change. When interreligious violence began to spread across Cameroon (bordering the CAR), extensive interfaith efforts between Muslims and Catholic Christians were set in motion to ensure strong civic harmony and the avoidance of violence. Sometimes religious messages are efficacious simply because of their authority. In Liberia, for example, an interreligious council seeking to avert further conflict between Muslims and Christians called all believers to be peacemakers, committed to healing the wounds of war. Pope John Paul II supported the African Synod of Bishops in stressing “the need for all sides involved in the conflict to recognize and celebrate diversity, show mutual respect, and treat each other as equals” (Orji 2008, 50).

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Without jettisoning notions of exclusivity or doctrinal correctness, Africa’s mainstream religious traditions have often espoused that members should emphasize their ethical, relational, and moral responsibilities to those who are religiously or ethnically different from themselves. One interfaith partnership, for example, called the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, is intent on “challenging and exposing cultural principles and practices that undermine the dignity of women” (Owusu-Ansah 2016, 2). Theirs is a concrete mission with a specific focus: social justice for women. Such visions call for great dedication and persistence. Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu stated that the fight for righteousness is often like a “roller-coaster ride” where the “promised land of peace and justice” seems “just around the corner,” but what was most necessary was perseverance because “the prize at the end is so wonderful” because “goodness, and peace and tolerance” are so “wonderful and ultimately uncomplicated” (Tutu 1997, 262). Although such hopes, rooted in religious sentiment, remain elusive and are often dismissed as naïve, the path of dialogue—instead of continued intransigence—may offer the best hope of forestalling future acts of violence, resentment, and hatred executed in God’s name. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); State Violence: Nigeria: Christian-Muslim Conflict

FURTHER READING Burns, J. Patout. 1996. “Towards a Common Heritage.” In J. Patout Burns, ed. War and Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 200–20. Marshall-Fratani, Ruth. 1998. “Mediating the Global and Local in Nigerian Pentecostalism.” Journal of Religion in Africa 28, no. 3 (August): 278–315. Orji, Cyril. 2008. Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa: An Analysis of Bias, Decline and Conversion Based on the Works of Bernard Lonergan. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Owusu-Ansah, Sarah. 2016. “The Role of Circle Women in Curbing Violence against Women and Girls in Africa.” Verbum et Ecclesia 37, no. 2: 1–6. Tutu, Desmond. 1997. No Future without Forgiveness. New York: Random House. Van der Walt, B. J. 2003. Understanding and Rebuilding Africa: From Desperation Today towards Expectations for Tomorrow. London: Institute for Contemporary Christianity in Africa. Van Gorder, A. 2009. Christian. Violence in God’s Name: Muslim and Christian Violence in Nigeria. Nyack, NY: African Diaspora Press.

African Religion: Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia

ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, AND SOMALIA: ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA In the twenty-first century, the nations of the Horn of Africa—Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia—have seen a dramatic rise in ethnoreligious violence. Christopher Clapham reported: No part of Africa . . . has been so riven with conflict as the Horn. Secessionist, irredentist, regional, ethnic, and ideological conflicts combine with straightforward power struggles and disorder resulting with the proliferation of imported weaponry to form a bewildering variety of interrelated acts of violence which has given the region, already the poorest in the world, one of the globes highest concentration of refugees. (Clapham 1995, 73)

Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia are rife with vigilante lawlessness and normalized violence. There are many reasons for these problems. The legacies of colonialism are not one of them because, although some of the region was colonized, it was held with little direct European influence. Some of the conflicts, such as clashes in Eritrea, relate to the differences between Orthodox Coptic Christians and Sunni Muslims. In that country, Christians are generally more educated and wealthier, contributing to deep imbalances. There are further demarcations linguistically between Muslim Arabic speakers and those who are Christians. Many of the problems in the Horn of Africa originate from the activities of the Al-Shabaab militia group. However, other militias have also taken root in the region. Terrorists frequently frame their actions in terms of what is the true religion, in this case, Islam. As is true of Pentecostalism discussed in other contexts of tension, Al-Shabaab reflects “the action-orientedness of African religion,” where “religion is not thought out in the agora of theology, but lived out in the marketplace” and expressed as an “everyday religion” (Van Beek and Blakely 1994, 17). Their terror is, in and of itself, a declaration of what should be normative religion. In addition to drought and other health infrastructure challenges, more than two million people were displaced at the start of 2018 because of food insecurity and the war. As poor harvests continue because of ongoing droughts, livestock continues to die, and prospects for an improved food and health situation continue to decline. In many situations in Somalia, local governments have become criminalized—what William Reno refers to as “Warlord-Politics incorporates a new form of wealth creation” that thrive on weak states and vulnerable societies (Reno 1998, 227). Other nations often fail to address the ways that governments manipulate and reconfigure laws to sow the seeds of chaos where their

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efforts can thrive. The region continues to struggle toward progress in healing deep sectarian and ethnoreligious divisions. Speaking of the Horn of Africa, Paul Dumouchel explains: These states of violence are not wars or evil or otherwise; they are not war as we use to know it but violence as a way of life, a mode of existence, not only for certain individuals like mercenaries or soldiers but for entire regions. Long periods of warfare marked with pillage, looting, and other crimes have continued even though wars are officially concluded. Indeed, these states of violence often do not concern whole states or countries but are limited to particular parts of a state’s territory. Around them, life continues more or less as usual. (Dumouchel 2008–2009, 187)

In the contemporary period, violence as a way of life continues around the Horn of Africa. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Millennialism (Africa); Witchcraft; New Religious Movements: Millennialism FURTHER READING Clapham, Christopher. 1995. “The Horn of Africa: A Conflict Zone.” In O. Furley, ed. Conflict in Africa, 72–91. London: Tauris Academic Studies. Dumouchel, Paul. 2008–2009. “Inside Out: Political Violence in the Age of Globalization.” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis and Culture 15, no. 16: 173–85. Reno, William. 1998. Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Van Beek, Walter E.A., and Thomas D. Blakely. 1994. “Introduction.” In Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E. A. van Beek, and Dennis L. Thomson, eds. Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression. New York: Heinemann, pp. 1–21.

ETHIOPIA. See ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, AND SOMALIA: ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(AFRICAN RELIGION) Across Africa, women, members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) communities and non-gender-conforming individuals often experience marginalization from mainstream Christian and Muslim communities (as well as

African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation

from traditional religions). One reason for discrimination is the strict traditions that are widely ensconced in cultural, communitarian norms about male dominance and the need to protect “threatened” men from outsiders (advocating for the “unnatural” equality of the sexes). Feeling threatened, normative expectations become violent because the “successful performance of masculinity depends on their [men’s] ability to control their female partners and this in turn places women at risk” (Bhana 2012, 353). According to the Bible and the Qur’an, women must submit to men because this is God’s plan; religious scriptures are used often as authoritative sources to justify the marginalization of women, LGBTQ individuals, and non-gender-conforming Africans. These scriptures, for example, have many passages used to keep women “in their place” and away from leadership roles ordained for men. In terms of LGBTQ and non-gender-conforming individuals, such people are seen as “morally deformed” and “socially inferior.” Religious scriptures are used to secure the domination of straight men. For many Christians in Africa, in the language of St. Paul, the Bible teaches that women should “submit” to men. Women are taught that they should know their role in God-ordained family structures: “African traditional religions conceived the position of women as complimentary to that of men” and “men were believed to be superior to women and, to some extent, in control of women” (Uzodike and Isike 2012, 37). The Bible, according to some conservative Christians, claims that men are called to be the “heads” of the households; women must submit. The assertion of social norms is also employed as a club to maintain the status quo. Maureen Kambarami explains that, often because of religious training, “The family as a social institution is a brewery for patriarchal practices by socializing the young to accept sexually differentiated role” (Kambarami 2006, 2). Marriage is often assumed to be the only natural “destination” for an African woman. Women must follow the command of the New Testament to “submit” to their husbands, while their husbands have to respond with love, an imbalance that causes Kambarami to muse, “Love is more difficult to measure than obedience or submissiveness . . . as a result, men control their women and justify their actions basing on Christianity” (Kambarami 2006, 4). A sense of “second-class status” is expressed whenever women are marginalized in schools, including in religiously based educational contexts. Many women, while studying or teaching, have reported instances of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Further, many women report feeling consigned to a life of economic dependence that stems from patriarchal expectations that make violence against women normal. Sometimes, arranged marriages are made in churches between young women and older men who receive prophetic revelations from God, claims that are impossible to challenge. Women are taught that they have been created

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to be fertile, and, when unable to bear children, they are seen to have “failed” in their duty. Some of the clearest examples of abuse against women in the name of religion are the instances of female genital mutilation (FGM), often performed on girls between the ages of four and fourteen. In some traditions, and even supported by the myths of some cultures (such as the Dogon), FGM is a necessary step in a woman’s life, ensuring spiritual purity. In these “rite-of-passage rituals,” antiseptics and anesthesia are seldom used; the cutting is often performed by traditional practitioners—using scissors, razor blades, kitchen knives, or even shards of glass. Inevitably, such unsanitary practices lead to infections, including HIV/AIDS. Tribal ceremonies for conducting FGM are painful but the girls must undergo them without complaint and are often done as part of community-wide celebrations with large groups of girls at a time, often during two-year rituals. Some communities have mercifully abandoned FGM rituals, and efforts to end FGM across the continent are increasingly supported by church and government authorities. Violence against women is especially visible during war. According to the UN 58 percent of women surveyed in Sierra Leone (between 1997 and 1999) were victims of rape, while every woman during that period feared the possibility of being raped (Physicians for Human Rights 2002, 2). In South Africa, “more than 30% of girls . . . are raped in and around school,” while many others are offered “gifts and money in exchange for sex and verbal and physical abuse in the classroom and out of the classroom” (Sideris 2004, 29). Soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army reportedly taught that raping a virgin is a cure for HIV/AIDS. Such problems lead some to conclude that “in the African continent all women are ducks waiting to be shot, whether young, married, or single” (Kambarami 2006, 29). Transgender people are often victims of sexual violence, rape, marginalization, and efforts to attack their identities. They are sometimes disowned by families or forced to marry against their will. They can also experience problems with legal identity and documentation issues when transitioning from their birth sex. There are few African nations that explicitly protect the rights of transgender individuals. The only sub-Saharan nation where hospitals openly provide sex reassignment surgery (SRS) is South Africa. Even there, however, people are not allowed to change their government identity documents, consigning them to a permanent legal limbo. Fortunately, some SRS recipients receive support from family, friends, and church members because they are often accepted for having a medical condition that is resolved by surgery. To varying degrees, politicians across Africa have used strident homophobic rhetoric—framed in religious language—as a way to garner political support. Hateful campaigns are waged against gays in some national media. Media sources often used the refrain that homosexuals are “un-African,” corrupted by Western

African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation

influences. One editor wrote, “Whites from all over the world are coming here to Namibia to turn black Namibians into gays and lesbians” (Human Rights Watch 2003). Fredrick Chiluba, former president of Zambia, suggested laws against gays as a way of protecting Zambia’s “cultural authenticity” because “homosexuality is the deepest level of depravity. It is unbiblical and abnormal” (Human Rights Watch 2003). Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe explained: We don’t believe they [gays] have any rights at all. It cannot be right for human rights groups to dehumanize us to the status of beasts . . . homosexuality is an un-African disease coming from so-called developed nations . . . Animals in the jungle are better than these people because at least they know that this is a man or a woman. (Human Rights Watch 2003)

Former Namibian President Sam Nujoma, expressed a similar view: “We are convinced that homosexuality is not a natural and objective form of moral history but a hideous deviation of decrepit and inhuman sordid behavior. Homosexuality deserves a severe contempt and disdain from the Namibian people” (Human Rights Watch 2003). Christian church leaders have often led the way in promoting homophobic attacks. Some religious people accuse gays of being possessed by demons and in need of exorcisms. It is not uncommon for gay Christians to be silent about their sexuality for fear of being expelled from the church or of being accused of being possessed by demons. One Namibian woman lamented, “I went to church for love and support. The pastor arranged a prayer evening and told everyone I had a demon. They beat me and threw me down and totally controlled my body. I never returned” (Human Rights Watch 2003). In Zambia, clerical authorities have worked closely with evangelical missionaries to stigmatize homosexuality. Bishop Benjamin Kwashi (Nigeria) complained, “Many Africans felt oppressed with this Western problem” (Hoard 2004, 67). Zimbabwean church leaders have also waged war in the court of public opinion against homosexuals. Christians who are gay often discourage other gay Christians from speaking openly about their homosexuality among other Christians. Anglican bishop Jonathan Siyachitema declared that gays would not be allowed to attend religious assemblies. Many other pastors condemned other denominations for “compromising” themselves by being accepting of homosexuality. African homophobia garnered international media attention in 2009, when the Anti-Homosexuality Act of Uganda was proposed. This law was enacted in 2014 by President Yoweri Museveni but was quickly overturned by Ugandan courts. Religious voices were central to the strident advancement of this law throughout the campaign. In the initial proposal, homosexual acts merited

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the death penalty; this was later modified—probably due to international pressure (notably from President Obama)—to severe fines and imprisonment. Life imprisonment was even suggested for gay sex, including oral sex, and “aggravated homosexuality including sex with a minor or while being HIV-positive” (BBC News 2014). Supporters of these laws organized as the National Coalition and spoke of the “sickness” of homosexuals who had embraced a foreign import, strange to traditional sexual norms. Many supporters of the National Coalition were evangelical Christians backed by U.S. pastors, most notably Rick Warren and Lou Engle. The UN reported, “Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people are victims of pervasive violent abuse, harassment, and discrimination including crowds murdering people in Uganda” (Houttuin 2015). After the courts overturned the law, Melanie Kiwagama received a text that illustrated the deep animosities that many face: “Go away! We know who you are. We don’t want you in our country. If we see you we’ll burn you to death” (Houttuin 2015). Tragically, gangs have killed many homosexuals in Uganda, including the noted activist documentarian David Kato. In the public imagination and supported by pastors and imams, homosexuality is often equated with the rise of HIV/AIDS. In fact, HIV/AIDS also affects women who are victimized by religious patriarchies, as well as vulnerable LGBTQ communities, and is a major developmental challenge impacting Africa’s socioeconomic development. According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2018, over twenty-one million lives were lost in the HIV/AIDS pandemic across Africa. At the same time, the safety of gays and gender-non-conforming people, partially because they are associated with HIV/AIDS, continues to be threatened, and they are driven underground in their schools, harassment at work, in hospitals, or in their homes. Some gays and gender-non-conforming people have faced extortion or have been arrested without cause and forced to pay bribes or fines and have experienced police brutality, including, at times, rape and gang rape. Others have been abused and beaten by gangs. Still others have chosen to go into exile, while others committed suicide. Fortunately, there is outspoken opposition to homophobia from some religious leaders. One recipient of SRS in Zambia explained that without the support of their Christian church, they could not have survived their transition. Archbishop Desmond Tutu framed these issues in terms of a human rights obligation for equality for every person and observed that colonial and apartheid rulers were the primary authors of “laws which denied gay and lesbian people their basic human rights and reduced them to social outcasts and criminals in the land of their birth” (Human Rights Watch 2003). Countless policy and humanitarian initiatives have addressed gender-based violence, and religious communities have played a role in reshaping social expectations with calls for embracing acceptance. When asked in an interview by Human Rights Watch how he thought society should deal with gays, one

African Religion: Holy Spirit Movement

Namibian responded, “They have been around since the beginning of time. They are people created by God and they should just be left alone.” Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Holy Spirit Movement; Revolutionary United Front (RUF); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING BBC News. 2014. “Ugandan Court Annuls Anti-Homosexuality Law.” August 1 2014. ­https://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​-­world​-­africa​-­28605400. Bhana, D. 2012. “Girls Are Not Free–In and Out of the South African School.” International Journal of Educational Development 32, no. 2: 352–58. Hoard, Neville. 2004. “Neoliberalism, Homosexuality, Africa, and the Anglican Church: The World Conference of Anglican Bishops at Lambeth, July 18–August 9, 1998.” In Brad Weis, ed. Producing African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a Neo-Liberal Age, 54–78. Leiden: Brill Publishing. Houttuin, Saskia. 2015. “Gay Ugandans Face New Threat from Anti-Homosexuality Law.” The Guardian, January 6, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​/­2015​/­jan​/­06​/-­sp​ -­gay​-­ugandans​-­face​-­new​-­threat​-­from​-­anti​-­homosexuality​-­law. Human Rights Watch. 2003. “More Than a Name: State-Sponsored Homophobia and Its Consequences in Southern Africa.” May 13, 2003. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­report​/­2003​/­05​ /­13​/­more​-­name​/­state​-­sponsored​-­homophobia​-­and​-­its​-­consequences​-­southern​-­africa. Kambarami, Maureen. 2006. Femininity Sexuality, and Culture: Patriarchy and Female Subordination in Zimbabwe. Harare: University of Fort Harare Press. Physicians for Human Rights. 2002. War-Related Sexual Violence in Sierra Leone: A Population-Based Assessment. New York: United Nations Assistance Mission. Sideris, Tina. 2004. “You Have to Change and You Don’t Know How: Contesting What It Means to Be a Man in a Rural Area of South Africa.” Journal of African Studies 63, no. 1: 29–49.

HOLY SPIRIT MOVEMENT The Acholi people of northern Uganda have survived in a constant state of violent imbalance since 1986. People who are extremely poor, constantly afraid, and often displaced, find themselves in the middle of cycles of violence followed by seasons of relative peace. Many depend on humanitarian aid, leading many to not hope their future will offer any improvement.

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Religion among the Acholi has played a major role in decades of unrest. The religious response to the conflict between traditional religions and the new religion of Christianity has led to new, odd expressions of faith that have sought to blend the old with the new. At the same time, some voices are more strident than others, seeking purity instead of compromise with tradition. One way some Acholi have responded to decades of turmoil has been to blame traditional religionists, attacking shrines, and even killing people, especially those elderly people who practiced ancestor worship or who claimed to understand the mysteries of Acholi tradition. One self-proclaimed Acholi prophet in search of purity and who sought to blend traditional practices with Christianity was a woman named Alice Lakwena (Alice Auma). Alice was an ethnic Acholi, born in 1956 in the railway town of Opit, a trading center east of Gulu in northern Uganda. There are many versions of her life story, but it is generally believed that she was a humble fish and flour seller with a seventh-grade education. Alice was accused of prostitution and was married twice but was infertile. To try to reform her life, she converted to Catholicism. At the age of thirty, she was seen talking to spirits, which concerned her father, who then hired eleven different witches to free her from the insanity visited upon her by supernatural oppressors. Because Alice believed that humans had failed to redeem the world, she reportedly went on long sojourns into the forests to consult with giraffes, crocodiles, elephants, hippopotamuses, and other animals about the needed mission to purify the world. In 1986, after one forty-day period of fasting and prayer, Alice emerged from the forest and proclaimed herself to be a “prophetess and warrior” for the Holy Spirit (malaika), called to cleanse the country (and the world) from evil. She founded a religious ministry to heal the nation and to cure physical illnesses of those who followed her message. Alice preached that if enough people trusted her to be the Messiah, their participation would lead to the Second Coming of Jesus and the establishment of a thousand-year reign of paradise, replete with peace on Earth. In Alice’s most transformative, supernatural encounter, she became possessed by “Lakwena” (meaning “messenger” in Acholi), whose name she assumed for the rest of her life. Lakwena, she explained, was the spirit of a dead Italian military officer who spoke seventy-four languages but was drowned in the Nile River during World War I. Lakwena’s power was so strong in Alice that, for some time, she was deaf and mute and voluntarily submitted to being beaten with a stick at least six times, because this was Lakwena’s assigned form of chastisement against Alice. There is some conjecture that because her guiding spirit was a man, she was allowed to rule as a man and not have to face gender-bias for being a woman. Alice also claimed to be possessed by many other spirits, including “Miriam, Medina, Sheban, Invisible Chairman, North Korean, and Wrong Element,” the

African Religion: Holy Spirit Movement

latter being the most dreaded of spirits because he often demanded that certain people should be executed (Allen 1991, 389). It was also common for Wrong Element to command the followers of Alice to kill competing mediums (ajwaka) and healers. Whenever Alice spoke with the voice of the spirit known as Rubanga, she recited the direct words of God, the “Third Person of the Trinity.” The Holy Spirit Movement’s (HSM) mission to purify the nation soon morphed into a military campaign against the National Resistance Army of Ugandan President Yousefi Museveni. The mysticism that Alice preached was more appealing to confused young people than were the cynical and tactical commands of Acholi militia, which offered no promise of success. Another reason she was attractive to her followers was that she saw President Museveni as only a symptom of a much deeper spiritual issue, and she explained to her followers that their God-ordained fight was not against a person but against spiritual evil in the world. In 1986, Alice preached that those who took up arms in rebellion would gain eternal life. At first, she busied herself conducting rituals and giving counsel to those who wanted to meet with her, sitting on a throne wearing a white robe every day (from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.). Eventually, Alice convinced leaders of the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA) to give her command over a battalion. After the miraculous success of her six thousand (and as many as ten thousand) warriors, many flocked to join her special brigade of the UPDA called “The Holy Spirit Battalion” and, later, “The Holy Spirit Movement.” For a time, the HSM enjoyed a series of military triumphs over President Museveni’s unnerved troops, who were unsure how to respond to a throng of unarmed “rampaging hymn singers” who were willing to die in the face of heavy gunfire. At the outset, followers enjoyed two victories and came within one hundred kilometers of taking Kampala, the capital city. As the HSM advanced, they demanded that the villagers they encountered join their crusade, even against their will. If they refused, they, or their families, were sometimes executed. Alice commanded the HSM by performing different rituals for purification, which ensured success. Whenever she went into a trance, some of her followers were tasked with taking care of her needs. Most of her rituals were designed to provide safety to those who went into battle. According to varying accounts, Alice anointed soldiers with shea-nut oil on their chests and promised that those who received her blessings would not die in battle. If they did, it was because they were not pure enough before God. Another strategy Alice used in commanding HSM fighters was to demand that they line up in the form of a cross and sing well-known Catholic hymns as they marched into battle. Alice had followers write down her instructions “neatly in school exercises books” and taught them to not carry guns (although some did) but only to carry stones, sticks, fly whisks, and common tools because their lives were pure and holy. She promised followers that if they selected the right stones to

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throw at the enemy, they would miraculously turn into grenades. She also gave a specific prayer that warriors should recite as they went into battle: “Medicine give power, guide me guidance. Anthill, give me respect!” (Allen 1991, 377). While battles raged, Alice busied herself covering altars with Bibles and flowers and conducting rituals with slaughtered cats and chameleons. Alice also gave a number of strict orders, including the eating of pork and white ants. It was also forbidden to step on anthills or kill snakes. In a series of “Thou Shalt Not Declarations,” Alice commanded that her followers use “no walking sticks, no hiding, no smoking, and that every man should have two testicles, no more and no less” (Allen 1991, 376). This last command related to traditional views that any unusual bodily occurrence, such as bearing twins, having hernias, or having extra fingers or odd birthmarks were supernatural signs that meant of someone not to be trusted. Alice also forbade any practice of witchcraft or the wearing of any charm or amulet. Eventually, however, the nut oil failed to protect the soldiers from government bullets, and the HSM was defeated, with Lakwena being forced to flee on bicycle to a refugee camp in Kenya. Most followers resumed civilian life, but some joined Joseph Kony’s LRA, and a smaller group of followers reformed a militia in March 1988, calling themselves “Lakwena Part Two.” Alice, however, was no longer leading rebellions. Instead, she spent the rest of her life surrounded by followers who called her “your holiness” and asked her to heal their diseases. When she was fifty, she died in exile on January 17, 2007, reportedly of HIV/AIDS. Although the HSM is often connected with the misdeeds of the LRA, Lakwena herself denied these connections, despite the claim that LRA founder Kony is a distant relative. It is probable that they are related, and it is certain that their movements are dynamically interrelated. Rivalry and harsh words between both groups sprung from Kony’s offer to create an alliance with Alice, which she dismissed because she viewed him as ridiculous. The HSM has long passed; its scarring legacies remain. Over ten thousand civilians were killed by this movement, while countless more had their lives turned upside down. Even today, people still accidently step on landmines that were planted decades ago. While this movement was relatively brief, it had a lasting effect on the people of northern Uganda. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Assault Sorcery (War Magic); Hunters’ Militias; Lord’s Resistance Army FURTHER READING Allen, Tim. 1991. “Understanding Alice: Uganda’s Holy Spirit Movement in Context.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 61, no. 3: 370–99.

African Religion: Hunters’ Militias Finnström, Sverker. 2008. Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Movements in Northern Uganda. Durham: Duke University Press. Kaplan, Jeffrey. 2009. “The Lord’s Resistance Army: Millenarianism, Violence, and Timeless Dreams.” Religious Studies and Theology 28, no. 1: 95–127.

HOMOSEXUALS AND GENDER-NON-CONFORMING INDIVIDUALS. See GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION (AFRICAN RELIGION) HUNTERS’ MILITIAS Hunters’ brotherhoods in West Africa have a long tradition as an exclusive society for men only. Although there are a few exceptions, women are not allowed to participate in hunters’ brotherhoods because they are generally viewed as being unable to keep secrets or as being polluted by sexual desires. At the same time, women are visible in supporting certain hunters’ traditions and even participating in certain rituals. At the end of the day, final authority rests with the men because hunters’ organizations “offer an archetype of masculinity, social and ecological control and political authority” (Leach 2000, 578). A long civil war in Sierra Leone (also affecting Liberia and Guinea) created deep humanitarian challenges. Fighters known as hunters’ (Kamajors among the Mende [Mande] chieftainships of southeastern Sierra Leone, gbethis in Temne, donsos in Kono, and tambaros among the Koranko) existed before the civil war and remained intact after its conclusion. During times of strife, hunters’ brotherhoods became hunters’ militias. Kamajors were enlisted by state authorities to fight rebel groups. They were the local arm of a civil state, even when the state was unable to enforce the rule of law. Hunters’ militias broadly refer to irregular combatants, loyal to local political in hierarchies who express a total disregard for civilian liberties and lives. Hunters worked in close contact with governmental “Civil Defense Forces” (CDF) in their war against rebels of the RUF. What these different groups shared in common was a sense that they were grassroots loyalists tasked with defending local communities from abuses. Kamajors were helpful to government efforts in quelling violence because they knew the rural terrain and were ideal trackers when fighting rebels in the bush. Because local Kamajors were respected as elders, they further swayed the villagers to support the status quo. Villagers sought the protection of hunters from the “wild animals” of the RUF, who sought to plunder their farms. They were courageous because acts of desertion or surrender or any wavering at all in the heat of battle were seen as a betrayal of traditional Kamajor values.

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Throughout West Africa, Kamajors were believed to fraternize with the spirits of the bush, and they knew the esoteric fetish medicine passed down from generation to generation. Hunters’ brotherhoods have always shared a clear relationship with traditional religious ideals. Kamajors relied on traditional folklore as the foundational rationale for their actions in war, virtuous or otherwise. They use special medicines, charms, amulets, and esoteric rituals that originate from long-standing traditional ceremonies. Their efforts are believed to transform the dynamics of any battlefield in favor of their cause. Kamajors, like other groups, gave orders to kill their enemies, claiming that they were doing so in the name of a righteous cause for God and country. They sang songs and recited scriptures as a way to remind themselves that they were fighting a battle in the name of righteousness. It is often claimed, for example, that Kamajors have magical bulletproof vests to protect them during battles. One villager recounted that Kamajors “have hats and they do worship on them, and when it happens that they are shot at, the bullet will not enter. Because there is a witch-effect on the helmet. It happens physically. I’m not saying this by parable—it happens. It really happens” (Peters and Richards 1998, 199). Some also claim to have powers to transform themselves into animals. Others claim that they reveal the plans of their rivals in advance. Such powers come from secret knowledge given to them through sorcery. Because of this, the Kamajors are sometimes accused by Muslims and Christians as being blasphemers, in league with demonic powers. The civil war in Sierra Leone was known for atrocities against noncombatants, including public beatings; executions; rape; the pillage and plunder of property; and later, the mutilation of enemies’ bodies, living or dead. When hunters’ brotherhoods became hunters’ militias, they were still supposed to be guided by a traditional code of conduct when forced to fight people instead of animals. One Kamajor belief is that when a hunter is on a hunt, he must never retreat for any reason. Another belief is that a Kamajor should seek to outdo fellow hunters in bravery. This has sometimes led to translating bravery into merciless brutality against enemies because it is claimed that the harsher the Kamajor’s actions, the more devoted he is. Perhaps inevitable for any army of irregulars during war, there have been times when some Kamajors have been known to be rapacious. Kamajors justify even their most nefarious actions by “invoking Mande hunting folklore and a much more ancient historical heritage” (Ferme and Hoffman 2004, 75). Although claiming to cherish a higher standard, there have been reports of brutal attacks against civilians, probably because chaos is often seen as an opportunity to gain personal advantage. Despite a few reports of abuses, most Kamajors continued to pursue higher “norms of right conduct”; not seeking to take advantage of locals during times of

African Religion: Lord’s Resistance Army

conflict. It can be safely assumed that abuses from Kamajors were less frequent than those of other militias. Generally, Kamajors sought to exercise a level of military discipline in keeping with ancient values. Indeed, when abuses were recorded to leaders, strict punishments awaited those Kamajors who violate traditions. In a positive example of channeling social traditions for social justice, in Guinea, Kamajor brotherhoods have been commissioned to serve as an environmental defense in support of conservation projects sponsored in that nation’s national parks and game preserves. Perhaps because of an “idealist image of the past,” Kamajors are seen as ideal protectors of environmental programs, as they are “respected for their knowledge and authority as custodians of the bush” (Fairhead and Leach 2003, 96), while also being enlisted as supporters of requisite conservation initiatives. Such opportunities spring from deep traditional values. Despite of some opposition from local Muslim and Christian leaders, Kamajors have the potential to be vital resources in addressing contemporary challenges. During times of peace, for example, hunters’ brotherhoods are sometimes seen by international aid organizations and NGOs as an ideal bridge with local communities. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Millennialism (Africa); New Religious Movements: Millennialism FURTHER READING Fairhead, James, and Melissa Leach. 2003. Science, Society and Power: Environmental Knowledge and Policy in West Africa and the Caribbean. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ferme, Mariane C., and Danny Hoffman. 2004. “Hunter Militias and the International Human Rights Discourse in Sierra Leone and Beyond.” Africa Today 50, no. 4: 73–95. Leach, Melissa. 2000. “New Shapes to Shift War, Parks and the Hunting Person in Modern West Africa.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 6: 577–95. Peters, Krijn, and Paul Richards. 1998. “‘Why We Fight’: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone.” Africa: African Journal of the International Institute 68, no. 2: 183–210.

LORD’S RESISTANCE ARMY The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was founded in northern and eastern Uganda in 1987 by Joseph Kony and Vincent Otti. Although some suggest that the group’s reason for existing was to oppose Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, others assert that the LRA really has no political objectives. From Uganda, LRA fighters fled to the Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African

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Republic. Joseph Kony, like Alice Lakwena of the Holy Spirit Movement, was an ethnic Acholi, a devout catechist, and former choirboy who sought refuge from the world in spiritual retreats. After one retreat when he was eighteen, Kony “came back wearing white clothes,” saying that he was now “with God” (Mutaizibwa 2011). Many members of the HSM later joined the LRA because it seemed to mirror their desire to mix passionate religion with rebellion. Also like Alice, Kony also claimed to be filled by spirits with European names (Major Bianca, King Bruce, and Silver are the names that Kony gave to his spiritual guides). The LRA is considered “one of the most notorious rebel armies in the world” because it waged war with “breathtaking brutality, political maneuvering, and propaganda” in ways marked by “ruthless attacks and abductions,” including mutilations and the creation of an army of child soldiers (Schomerus 2007, 10). Kony and the LRA are also well-known through a controversial advocacy campaign launched by the organization Invisible Children, which aired a thirty-minute video that was viewed over one hundred million times; it is one of the most-watched videos of all time. Rape, sexual assaults, sexual slavery, and other crimes by the LRA were horrific in severity. Kony abducted many women as his brides. Opponents had their lips and ears chopped off, and “stragglers in the LRA ranks were routinely beaten to death while abducted conscripts who failed to follow orders were flogged or executed” (Green 2006). In a new moral order based on Kony’s reading of the Bible, he demanded institutionalized forced marriages and sexual fidelity from followers, while commanding believers to rape and commit acts of sexual violence. Kony claimed he was a modern Prophet Noah, sent to punish the sinful people of the world for their godlessness. Those who joined the LRA were not simply rebels; they were actually serving as righteous representatives and intermediaries for the cause of God. Because the name of the organization employs a religious term, many assume the LRA was a pseudo-Christian group. Kony explained, “While many of the members of the LRA are practicing Christians, they did not intend to become fundamentalist Christians” (Schomerus 2007, 15). The LRA often quoted biblical passages and claimed “their major objective” was the establishment of a society based on the Bible’s Ten Commandments. Traditional views encouraged those oppressed by Museveni to embrace their solutions because the problems they faced were associated “with the weakness of their own spirits,” which led them “to both the appropriation of more successful spirits and also a view that conflict is a form of healing though which people can be purified” (Jackson 2015). The fear of being controlled by magical powers was a motivating force for its members. The LRA’s reliance on religious rituals for their protection affirmed the claim that it is not just a militia but an army of spiritual warriors against unseen

African Religion: Lord’s Resistance Army

powers. Before battles, LRA rebels were taught that once they underwent purification rituals, they would not be harmed in battle. One way to ensure their success was to make the sign of the cross before they began to fight. Failure to follow these rituals exactly would result in death. Kony is described as a raving lunatic who bantered with unseen devils. He is described as having a split personality, with one side being rational, and the other a fiery evangelist filled with a “holy spirit” who gives guidance for leading the LRA. Kony’s religious background was rooted in traditional religions where, as a youth, he became a traditional faith-healer and regular participant in traditional Acholi dances. Throughout his leadership, he claimed to receive revelations from God. He succeeded in persuading most of his followers that he was in possession of supernatural powers that would help him predict what would happen in future battles or who might try to escape if given the opportunity. He also conducted rituals where he appeared in a blue or white robe and held ceremonies at night beside a fire, where he spoke in heavenly languages and communicate with the spirits watching the conflict. Such reliance on rituals was a consistent feature of his assumed authority since 1987, when he conducted a four-day fasting session, and God commanded him to form a militia and overthrow President Museveni. While some describe the LRA as a militaristic cult group and Kony a lunatic, Matthew Green argues such caricatures obscure “the real man whose movement is rooted in a history of political alienation and whose mysticism masks a raw instinct for survival” (Green 2006). Certainly, individual identity became subsumed into a loyalty to the larger group mission of the LRA. What began as a war of grievance against Museveni eventually morphed into a “resource war,” with the LRA plundering the population (and readily available resources) as a way to survive. This is why the LRA entered the Sudan in 1993. One way they were able to obtain food involved sending troops to slaughter elephants in game preserves to collect their tusks for sale on the black market. In 2002, the Sudanese Armed Forces that had supported the LRA turned against them and joined with troops from Uganda (the UPDF) in a joint effort called Operation Iron Fist in order to destroy the LRA’s outposts (reportedly housing between 3000 and 4000 troops) in the Sudan once and for all. While most military actions were carried out by the UPDF, their presence brought a host of problems to the Sudan. The UPDF used helicopter gunships to strafe LRA bases, forcing the LRA to move southward toward the DRC and into regions of the Sudan where they had not previously been located. Further, UPDF forces in the Sudan often committed atrocities against local communities, raising resentments and renewed support for the LRA. There are also many reports of the UPDF logging timber and other lucrative cross-border businesses. Because of their actions, many international observers also wondered if the UPDF was not actually

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committed to keeping the LRA in existence as a way to justify their continued financial support. When the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Sudan and the South Sudan Independence Movement theoretically ended the Second Sudanese Civil War (2005), the government did an about-face and announced an alliance with the LRA as a way to counter the efforts of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, factions of the Equatorian Defense Force, and other armed insurgents. In pseudoreligious ceremonies, leaders of the LRA and the Sudanese government shared a bitter drink known as mato oput as an expression of reconciliation and amnesty. By the end of 2006, however, this strange relationship with the “Arabs” of the Sudan and the LRA ended when the Sudanese government stopped providing them with airdrops of food, medicine, and military supplies. One reason for this shift may have been that other groups, using the confusion on the ground, claimed to be the LRA. Despite renewed efforts (such as the Juba Peace Talks, launched in 2007), people are still fighting, and sporadic outbreaks of violence have continued in the name of the LRA. As part of its history of military involvement in East and Central Africa, the United States sent a small number of troops into the region to work with Ugandan troops to track down Kony. Critics saw this involvement, framed as a humanitarian crusade, as a cynical chance to extend U.S. military influence in Central Africa and support a consistent ally. No matter the motive, the effort failed to produce its stated goals. In April 2017, the United States formally ended its search for Kony, claiming that most of his military generals had already been arrested or killed, and there were suspicions that aid funds were being diverted from the hunt. Kony himself has not yet been arrested and is now believed to have only a few followers. Many people think he is dead, while others say he is hiding in the Sudan. The Voice of America reports that, there were fewer than two hundred troops still fighting (Diallo 2015). In March 2018, however, reports emerged of the “birth of a new LRA” in the Sudan. In 2003, the ICC in The Hague began to press for convictions against LRA leaders. Such efforts, however, have met with little success, especially because those convicted cannot be brought to a courtroom. Hope remains high, however, that such international “criminal indictments can have the effect of undermining the authority of individuals and constraining their actions even when they are not yet in court” (Allen 2006, 180). Their legacy continues to evoke bitter remorse and controversy. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Holy Spirit Movement; Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in

African Religion: Mai-Mai Rebels FURTHER READING Allen, Tim. 2006. Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord’s Resistance Army. London: ZED Books. Diallo, Mariama. 2015. “Activists! Now Is the Time to Press LRA, Kony Fight.” The Voice of America. ­https://​­www​.­voanews​.­com​/­africa​/­activists​-­now​-­time​-­press​-­lra​-­kony​-­fight. Green, Matthew. 2006. “Uganda: Demystifying Kony—Global Voices Africa.” Institute for War and Peace Reporting, July 3, 2006. ­https://​­iwpr​.­net​/­global​-­voices​/­uganda​-­demystifying​ -­kony. Jackson, Paul. 2015. “Politics, Religion, and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda.” ResearchGate, January, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­researchgate​.­net​/­publication​/­266015954. Mutaizibwa, Emma. 2011. “The Roots of War: How Alice Lakwena Gave Way to Joseph Kony.” The Observer, August 11, 2011. ­www​.­observer​.­ug​/­news​-­headlines​/­14665​-­the​ -­roots​-­of​-­war​-­how​-­alice​-­lakwena​-­gave​-­way​-­to​-­joseph​-­kony​.­html. Schomerus, Mareike. 2007. The Lord’s Resistance Army in Sudan: A History and Overview. Geneva: The Small Arms Survey, Graduate Institute of International Studies.

MAI-MAI REBELS The DRC is one of the world’s poorest nations. Efforts to foster democratic processes have been quashed by a parade of dictators. The DRC has been marked with relentless problems for decades. More than 5.5 million people have died in countless conflicts since 1994. One group of combatants based in Kivu State, known as Mai-Mai, were formed to fight DRC governmental forces as early as 1960, becoming predominant during the 1990s (especially among the Tembo). The term Mai-Mai (or Mayi-Mayi) can be translated as “water-water” in Swahili (maji); they are so named because they resort to traditional bathing rituals to protect themselves in battle. The term is a catch-all phrase, encompassing a wide range of differing, informal rebel organizations, rather than one specific group. During the 1960s, in a revolt against President Mobutu by rebel leader Pierre Mulele, he promised his fighters that bullets of the Mobutu forces would turn to water before reaching their bodies. Following the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the DRC became even more unstable. In response, Mai-Mai were formed again as local militia organizing efforts (especially in the eastern region in response to corrupt officials). During the Second Congo War (1998), the Mai-Mai emerged as a significant factor. Jeffrey Gettleman (2008) referred to the Mai-Mai as “the third piece of eastern Congo’s violent puzzle, with the rebels on one side, the government forces on the other, and the Mai-Mai often terrorizing the uncontrolled areas in-between.” Mai-Mai rebels, however, have also carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania.

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The stated objective of most Mai-Mai rebels has been to protect their own limited natural resources (such as coltan) from “foreign invaders” (government officials), but they sometimes also fight each other in bids to gain regional control. The Mai-Mai claim that they alone provide protection for community members. One of the largest groups (and the one claiming to be the original Mai-Mai) has also formed a political group called the Alliance des Force Populaires et Patriotiques du Congo. New groups are forming or merging all the time, all with different reasons for taking up arms. Each group is based in a separate locale and has different leaders and distinct names. Most Mai-Mai militia lack unified leadership and have poor equipment, little training or discipline, and few coherent rules for systematic operation. Many Mai-Mai groups invoke traditional religious rituals to enhance their authority. Initiation rites, receiving tattoos, and dedication to magic practices, often orchestrated by elderly women in the militia, are frequent common characteristics among Mai-Mai militia. Using esoteric religious rituals, militia protect themselves from shame by soaking their bodies in “magic water”—stored rainwater mixed with palm oil—before committing acts of rape, pillage, plunder, and murder. Using magic water and ritually prepared homemade necklaces and bracelets is also seen as a strategy to protect themselves from bullets. Because all battles are fundamentally spiritual and involve unseen forces, traditional religious practices are seen as necessary ways to gain protection from the witchcraft victims will probably employ against their aggressors. Mai-Mai are also known to participate in rituals, such as drinking magic porridge or being scarred and doused by magic water. Some of their potions—which they claim are traditional—are actually hallucinogenic drugs. When they win victories, soldiers repeat such rituals as a sign of gratitude to the hidden powers that have brought success. Although some rebels claim adherence to some form of Christianity, most combine this with a belief in witchcraft and traditional rituals; both are needed. One rebel explained, “While the Christian God is in Heaven, it is necessary to practice witchcraft here on the earth” (Guy n.d.). Mai-Mai rebels are known for recruiting and often abducting children to be soldiers. Children are particularly vulnerable to such abuses because of their unstable living conditions. One reason that children, especially girls, are desirable is that they are viewed as “pure” and thus in possession of “special powers making them particularly suitable for preparing and administering potions” (Guy n.d.). There are many reports of locals, especially youth, being forced into labor teams and becoming victims of rape and sex trafficking. Rebels also frequently resort to sexual violence on defenseless villagers. Rape is a major crime committed by various Mai-Mai groups. One militia leader, Lieutenant Colonel Mayele, was arrested by the UN in relation to the rape of more than three hundred civilians. In fact, more than 1.8 million

African Religion: Mai-Mai Rebels

women (between the ages of 15 and 49) in the DRC have been raped at some point in their lives; many during war-time. Initially, Mai-Mai rebels celebrated the virtues of “virgin-warriors” who abstained from all sex, but, over time, sex came to be seen as a way to strengthen personal magic. Rape, often gang rape, was justified by many Mai-Mai as a supernatural path to gain power and as a “right” for those who were proud of their manhood. According to Kitwe Mulunda Guy, over fifteen thousand women were raped in the DRC in 2016 alone, making it the world’s “leader” in sexual violence. In the wake of such sexual abuse, countless women undergo unsanitary abortions or contract HIV/AIDS and other STDs while also being seen as defiled by their own shame-filled communities. One Mai-Mai leader who was renowned for crimes against humanity, Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, surrendered in July 2017 after being hunted for over six years. Sheka’s troops frequently “cut off the body parts of those they killed and later paraded the legs or heads or other body parts of the victims around the town they had destroyed” (Sawyer 2017). Although a source of massive relief to many villagers, this capture did not bring Mai-Mai attacks to an end. At the time of this writing (2018), the activities of these machete-wielding groups continue to increase at an exponential rate, with their power coming not from their numbers or strength but from being out-of-control and sporadic, fighting anywhere with little predictability. They sometimes set entire villages on fire and tie villagers inside burning buildings. Such attacks are successful because they are waged against unsuspecting, unprepared civilians without any protection. In January 2018, for example, a Mai-Mai group attacked two different health centers sponsored by the United Methodist Church in the Samba province of the DRC. Mai-Mai groups have attacked wildlife preserves and game parks (especially the Virunga National Park) to cause disruption, gain attention, and find food. In 2006, Mai-Mai groups slaughtered hundreds of hippopotamuses and, in 2007, began targeting rare mountain gorillas for food. While some Mai-Mai have surrendered to peace-keepers and government troops, and most fighting has stopped, most Mai-Mai have refused to disband. Those who remain have often resorted to stealing food and supplies from locals, even as they express a desire to return to normal lives as regular members of the community. One rebel explained that “no soldier is allowed to go farm; his fields are the population” (CBS News). Frequent acts of exploitative disregard for human rights only alienate their supporters, those they claim to protect but who are actually being terrorized by Mai-Mai for their own capricious pleasure. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Assault Sorcery (War Magic); Holy Spirit Movement; Millennialism (Africa); New Religious Movements: Millennialism

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING CBS News. “U.S. Woman Hides in Trees to Survive Deadly Militia Attack.” CBS News, July  17. ­https://​­www​.­cbsnews​.­com​/­news​/­congo​-­okapi​-­wildlife​-­reserve​-­mai​-­mai​ -­militia​-­us​-­journalist​-­escapes. Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2008. “Mai-Mai Fighters Third Piece in Congo’s Violent Puzzle.” New York Times, November 21, 2008. ­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2008​/­11​/­21​/­world​/­Africa​ /­21congo. Guy, Kitwe Mulunda. n.d. “Mai-Mai Militia and Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” OMICS International. ­www​.­omicsonline​.­org​/­open​-­access​/­maimai​ -­militia​-­and​-­sexual​-­violence​-­in​-­democratic​-­republic​-­of​-­the​-­congo​-­1522​-­4821​-­16​ -­130​.­php​?­aid​=​­31892. Sawyer, Ida. “Congolese Warlord Wanted for Mass Rape Surrenders.” Human Rights Watch, July 26, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­news​/­2017​/­07​/­26​/­congolese​-­warlord​-­wanted​-­mass​ -­rape​-­surrenders.

MILLENNIALISM (AFRICA) Millennialism (Millenarianism) has been a noteworthy factor in both Christianity and Islam for centuries, and this theme has also been found in variant religions in Africa. Such movements in Africa thrive when disposed people feel “that their old way of life and its traditional cultural systems are no longer workable, out of date, and apparently worthless in the presence of more powerful forces of modernization forced into these cultures by Western power” (Rinehart 2006, 163). In 1989, a beer merchant, Credonia Mwerinde, claimed that the Virgin Mary had appeared to convince her to begin a crusade to reform Uganda. School teacher Joseph Kibwetere chose to commit his life to this vision and opened his home to other believers, who immediately began to punish him and his family in the name of the Virgin Mary. Claiming to offer eternal salvation and a life of miracles to anyone who joined, the group continued to grow and soon became known as the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments. Finally, prophet Mwerinde claimed that the world would end on December 31, 1999. When this failed to happen and supporters who had made donations began to ask for their money back, those same members were systematically murdered. For example, five hundred followers died in a fire on March 17, 2000, which Mwerinde claimed was the revised date on which the world would end. In the coming weeks, more mass graves were found, with members having been poisoned. Although numbers cannot be verified, between eight hundred and one thousand people died at the hands of the Kanunga Cult. Amazingly, some members reorganized the group in Kenya and changed its name to Choma (Swahili for “to burn”) and prophesied a new date for the end of

African Religion: Revolutionary United Front

the world. Recent scholarship relating to such movements is that they are actually a response to massive social confusion and uncertainty, framed against a clash of cultures, religions, values, and traditions. When societies are in dramatic flux, people often feel insecure and seek explanations for changes. Millennial movements offer emotionally rewarding and clear solutions to problems, and these are presented as fact. Although there are many different millenarian groups, two in particular stand out, the Holy Spirit Movement and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). All these groups made grand promises to followers that led to terrible consequences. Those who followed these groups believed that their leaders were bringing them to salvation, but what actually happened was that these leaders led them to their deaths and to the destruction of their communities and traditions. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in; Holy Spirit Movement; Lord’s Resistance Army; New Religious Movements: Millennialism FURTHER READING Rinehart, James F. 2006. Apocalyptic Faith and Political Violence: Prophets of Terror. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Snow, Robert L. 2003. Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers. Westport: Praeger Publishers.

MUSLIM RESPONSE TO VIOLENCE IN AFRICA. See CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM RESPONSES TO ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN AFRICA REVOLUTIONARY UNITED FRONT(RUF) Ethnic assertion conjoined with the contagion of religious distortions has long been an undercurrent in West Africa’s sociopolitical divisions, destabilizing many nations. For decades, West Africa has been a crucible for religious violence. In Nigeria, the largest nation by population in Africa, there are more incidences of violence in the name of religion than have taken place in any other part of the continent combined. While Boko Haram’s atrocities in northern Nigeria are broadcast worldwide, many conflicts in West Africa receive scant (or no) attention. In Mali, after many previous outbursts, another extremist revolt of the Tuareg (ethnic minority) in the

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name of religion engendered civil war in 2012. Only attacks against Timbuktu’s historic archeological sites roused international attention. Islamic radicalization has also fostered outbreaks of violence in Ghana. Similarly, zealots rooted in doctrinal rivalries have called for jihad across Francophone Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, and even in Senegal and Lusophone Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Intense socioeconomic battles become religious whenever zealots claim a divine obligation to stone adulterers to death, cut off the hands of thieves, or wage war in the name of God. In addition, economic distress and political corruption have pushed people toward simplistic religious solutions. In many contexts, external pressures, sources of funding, and even external advisors and military agents have recruited alienated youth, who are desperately looking for clear answers to confusing problems. During times of war, local populations are the first to suffer, as combatants offer protection or instill fear in helpless communities. Sometimes rebels feel they have no other option but to generate terror to gain attention locally, nationally, and even at the international level. One group that has followed this approach is the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a brutally violent militia. The RUF was started by a corporal named Foday Saybana Sankoh, previously a leader of a failed coup attempt against Siaka Stevens, and was formed largely from disaffected youth. At first, the RUF was based in the southern and eastern regions of Sierra Leone, but it soon spread across the region, as it morphed into one of Africa’s more infamous paramilitary organizations for its conflation of ethnic and religious identities in order to garner support from local communities. The RUF fought a failed eleven-year civil war from 1991 to 2002. Although the RUF eventually disbanded as a militia, it remained as a political party (RUFP), which ran in national elections, winning only a tiny number of votes before eventually merging with the All People’s Congress Party. Some RUF leaders who survived, including Issa Sesay, Morris Kallon, and Augustine Gabao, were finally tried as war criminals for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. The RUF began as a nationalist rebel movement that evoked traditional religions to justify their cause. Although active in Sierra Leone, the RUF trained troops in Liberia, where many of their militia originated. One of their ideological documents speaks mysteriously of “the comforting bosom of our mother earth—the forest” (Abdullah 1998, 223). The RUF portrayed themselves as a righteous family of liberators and freedom fighters against evil, with an attack on one member seen as an attack on all. This view may shed light on how unthinkable social behaviors become normative, as these justifications guided rebels who committed

African Religion: Revolutionary United Front

horrific acts of violence in the name of a higher cause. When waging an all-out war against its own communities, the RUF relied on ideological appeals to cleanse the land of sin. Despite of such rhetoric, the RUF was not always viewed as being particularly sectarian, partly because of the diversity of Muslims, Christians, and traditional religionists in its ranks. What was distinctive about RUF rebels was that they were usually uneducated, young “urban riffraff and rural drifters” with few economic prospects (Kandeh 1996, 391). Many simply joined the RUF because they saw an opportunity to plunder and pillage. Their youthfulness also showed in the fact that RUF rebels often went into battle listening to local rock bands or stars such as Bob Marley and Fela Kuti. With heavy reliance on cocaine, RUF rebels were even reported to recreate scenes from Rambo or Bruce Lee films during battles. The RUF rose while other groups did not because of their image as a band of young rebels combined with aid from Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. Over the years, the RUF became known for systematic barbarity, even being accused of resorting to cannibalism. During their 1999 campaign, Operation No Living Thing, it was not uncommon for RUF rebels to use machetes to hack off the arms of those they met. The frequent cutting off of hands, feet, lips, ears, and noses was justified as a way to prevent locals from voting and to stop farmers from gathering crops, useful in feeding government troops. The RUF also chopped off the hands of those who resisted working as slaves in the diamond fields, the wealth from which lined the pockets of Taylor’s government. Taylor, in turn, supported the RUF with weapons as a way to keep Sierra Leone in constant turmoil. Illegal arms trading and enslaving people to find diamonds became the RUF’s primary sources of income. One aide worker observed, “They are armed and trained there [in Liberia] and then pushed through into Sierra Leone solely to get diamonds for Liberia. It is a case of ‘we’ll support you to take over the country and in return you get us diamonds’” (Durham 2001). Sexual violence was also endemic during the years of RUF attacks. Human Rights Watch (2003) reported, “Throughout the conflict, thousands of women and girls were raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence of unimaginable brutality, including sexual slavery.” What must never be forgotten is that such atrocities were not theoretical events but actual experiences that destroyed tens of thousands of individuals. One eighteen-year-old girl related, “When I was begging them not to take me, a little boy, about ten years old who was with them piped up ‘if she doesn’t want to come, pass her over to me and I’ll chop off her hands.’ I agreed to go. I was raped and held there in the bush. I wanted to escape but there was no way. If you were caught trying to escape you were killed or put in a box” (Physicians for Human Rights 2002, 70).

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One obvious question arising from such horrific narratives is how the RUF gained any local support at all. Another question was asked by Ibrahim Abdullah, “How revolutionary is a revolutionary movement which slaughters and terrorizes the very people it claims to be liberating?” (Abdullah 1998, 222). Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Lord’s Resistance Army; Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in; Islam: Boko Haram; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam) FURTHER READING Abdullah, Ibrahim. 1998. “Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2: 203–35. Durham, Dick. 2001. “Diamond Trade Fuels Bloody Wars.” CNN News, January 18, 2001. ­http://​­cnnstudentnews​.­conn​.­com​/­2001​/­WORLD​/­africa​/­01​/­18​/­diamonds​.­overview​ /­index​.­html​.­ Human Rights Watch. 2003. “‘We Will Kill You If You Cry’: Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict.” January 16, 2003. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­report​/­2003​/­01​/­16​ /­well​-­kill​-­you​-­if​-­you​-­cry​/­sexual​-­violence​-­sierra​-­leone​-­conflict​#­5c269b. Kandeh, Jimmy D. 1996. “What Does the ‘Militariat’ Do When It Rules? Military Regimes: The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.” Review of African Political Economy 23, no. 69 (September): 387–404. Physicians for Human Rights. 2002. War-Related Sexual Violence in Sierra Leone: A Population Based Assessment. New York: United Nations Assistance Mission. Richards, Paul. 1998. “Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: A Crisis of Youth?” In ­Christopher Clapham, ed. African Guerillas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 134–98.

SANTERIA Santeria, a worldwide non-creedal religious movement, rooted in African traditional practices, is often described in exotic and malicious terms. Because “all stories bear the mark of the teller, all stories are subject to interpretation,” any discussion about the persecution of Santeros must include the motive and source of any blatant misjudgments and unfair portrayals (Busia 2003, 257). Accusations that were first generated by religious rivals have taken root in popular perceptions. Observing a penchant for sensationalism, Raul Canizares argued, “Misinformation about Santeria in the media appears to be the norm rather than the exception” (Canizares 1999, 1). The developmental progression of what is now called Santeria “is the product of a long cultural process wherein African and European beliefs and symbols were combined to create the bases of a new religious system,” with Yoruba beliefs “constituting

African Religion: Santeria

the African core of Santeria” (Sandoval 2004, 81). There is also the influence of ideas borrowed from the Catholic Church once slaves learned about local Cuban cultures. It is a religion forged from the fires of frustration, discontent, powerlessness, and deep feelings of loss. Cubans have carried Santeria with them to cities throughout North America and Europe, constantly adapting it with each transition. Distinct forms, evolving along different lines, often assumed variant names. However, clear similarities originating from a shared heritage can be observed. The movement (also known as Regla de Ocha or La Regla de Ifa) originated among African Americans in the Caribbean. This explains the Spanish word for the movement, Santeria, which is often translated as “worship” or (“veneration”) of the saints. In effect, Santeria is a transmission of Yoruba traditional religious practices (also known as Lukumi) in the New World, stressing contact with deceased loved ones and supernatural powers who aid individuals, families, and communities in times of need. Santeros call on spirits to seek a good or evil result for themselves or against their enemies. This explains why the spirits are sometimes evoked to “to torment or visit harm on a particular person,” leading to torment that calls for a “long process of sacrifices and dispojos (cleansings)” to “get rid of the spirit” (De La Torre 2004, 28). There are a number of rituals, sacred objects, and ceremonies used by Santeros to aid in worship. Opposition often comes from the Santeros conducting elaborate healing rituals that rely on herbs, herbalist wisdom, and spiritual deliverances, which are judged to be backward. These are viewed as efficacious by believers but dangerous to health and in violation of medical standards by skeptics. In a number of contexts, Santeros have experienced intensive waves of persecution within certain African contexts, as well as in the Caribbean and South America. While adherents were able to practice openly with priests (and other functionaries) in Africa, such religious practices became hidden from the public (except during holiday and carnival seasons) once they arrived in the New World. Even some family members did not realize their relatives were Santeros. Suspicions about Santeria are also are raised because of the tendency for Santeros to be secretive and “mask” their sacrifices and rituals from nonbelievers. While claiming to worship Catholic saints, Santeros actually conduct rituals directed to African orishas (and other spirits). This is why Santeros were opposed by Catholic forces, who viewed Santeria rituals as forms of divination—deemed sinful—while also condemning other rituals regarded by the Church as being intentionally confusing deviations from the correct veneration of saints. This explains why Santeria has often been practiced in secret to bypass social criticism or blatant expressions of persecution. Despite a relative sense of hiddenness, Santeria has made a deep contribution to the ethos and cultures of Cuba (as well as in other contexts). One of the largest Santeria communities outside of Cuba is around Miami. Miguel de La Torre noted that, in one instance, “fear and misinformation led over

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five thousand individuals to sign petitions urging the Hialeah City Council to prevent the opening” of a Santeria church known as Lukumi Babalu Aye (De La Torre 2004, 211). Even before charges were brought against these Santeros, they suffered from microagressions, delays, and discriminations against their religious rights from the community. Once the Santeros were called to court, claims of abuses began to mount. During the trial, one critic asserted, “Santeria is not a religion. It is a throwback to the dark ages. It is a cannibalistic, voodoo-like sect which attracts the worst elements of society, people who mutilate animals in a crude and most inhumane manner” (O’Brien 2004, 35). One pastor ranted against Santeria, “We pray for their conversion to Christianity and we pray for authorities to have the power not to allow animal sacrifice. It’s black magic, a cult . . . This is not a question of freedom of religion. It’s a question of civilized behavior” (O’Brien 2004, 35). The rationale for claims to block their building efforts was that Santeros would be performing odd rituals that included animals being slaughtered and would thus be in violation of animal cruelty laws. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled, in June 1993, by a five-to-four vote, that the sacrifice of animals in connection with religious rituals was protected as a justified religious freedom. Although the main case focused on Hialeah, Florida, the findings also cited related sites—such as New York City; Atlantic City; and Falls Church, Virginia, where animal sacrifices for religious purposes had been legally practiced. This Supreme Court verdict allowed all of these Santeria-related communities to continue to practice their rituals. Even with this ruling, some Santeros have willingly entered into agreements not to sacrifice animals in response to animal rights activists and health and safety inspectors. Santeria has continued to flourish in North America as well as in the Caribbean. De La Torre concluded, “What was once the religion of the uneducated black lower economic class is becoming the religion of educated middle-class whites. Consequently, as a growing religion in the United States, we can expect Santeria to continue changing and adapting to the realities and challenges faced by its followers” (De La Torre 2004, 224). Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Voodoo (Vodun); Witchcraft FURTHER READING Busia, Abena. 2003. “In Search of Chains without Irons: On Sisterhood, History and the Politics of Location.” In Oyeronke Oyewumi, ed. African Women and Feminism: Reflecting on the Politics of Sisterhood. Trenton: Africa World Press, pp. 257–67. Canizares, Raul. 1999. Cuban Santeria: Walking with the Night. Merrimac: Destiny Books.

African Religion: Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in De La Torre, Miguel. 2004. Santeria: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. O’Brien, David. 2004. Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Sandoval, Mercedes Cros. 2004. “Afro-Cuban Religion in Perspective.” In Anthony Stevens-Arroyo and Andres Perez-Mena, eds. Enigmatic Powers: Syncretism with African and Indigenous Peoples’ Religions among Latinos. New York: Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, pp. 81–96.

SOMALIA. See ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, AND SOMALIA: ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN, ETHNORELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IN Destabilizing wars have raged across the Sudan and South Sudan for decades. Past colonial powers seemed intent on creating a country fraught with deep ethnoreligious differences, unable to cohere from the outset. When the Sudan gained its independence from Britain in 1956, the new nation was unprepared to deal with the fissures between Arab and Muslim majorities in the North and African and Christian majorities in the South. While this simple equation may provide one perspective in understanding the nation, it is woefully inadequate. This conflict “has usually been misunderstood because the historical roots of the conflict have been misrepresented” (Johnson 2003, 1). At its heart is a polarizing ethnic contempt felt by northerners to those in the South with a different culture and a false god. This sense of superiority leads them to conclude that they have a duty to control the region and exploit the resources of the region for God’s glory. After years of fighting, little was accomplished. Finally, a negotiated peace agreement was reached between the dominant Muslim Sudan and the predominantly Christian South Sudan. Despite this settlement, violence continues to rage, especially along the border between the two countries. Throughout 2017, for example, a stream of violence continued across both the Sudan and South Sudan despite there being no major military offensives in the region. Ongoing problems in the region have forced international humanitarian aid organizations to limit the effective scope of relief activities. Although at the outset of 2017, a negotiated cease-fire eased tensions between government and nonstate militias, those agreements were effectively inactive by the end of that same year. The UN reports that more than 2.3 million people remain internally displaced and 3.8 million people across the region are deemed to be food-insecure (Roby 2018). Prognosticators predict that the ongoing effects of these problems will

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continue to deteriorate in the coming years. One reason for this assessment is that the region’s poor sanitary conditions and weak health care infrastructure have led to a dramatic rise in incidences of acute watery diarrhea (AWD). In November 2017, for example, the World Health Organization reported more than thirty-five thousand suspected AWD cases and more than eight hundred associated deaths, along with new outbreaks of cholera (Roby 2018). For these, and for many other reasons, the Sudan is often described as a “failed state.” Security remains uncertain, and basic infrastructure needs are sparse to nonexistent. In such a context, ethnoreligious extremists will continue to expand. It is hoped that the international community will continue to provide aid for education, training, psychiatric counseling, and financial support to the many civilian victims of decades of war in God’s name. Accounts of such problems must never lead us to forget that the costs of violence in the name of religion are not paid in theory but in the tragic lives of victims. One victim of the LRA in the Sudan, named Esther Ruth Atim, reported: I cannot count how many times I was raped in Sudan by LRA rebels . . . rape was on a daily basis. I was raped so I couldn’t even move like a normal person. I could only move like a jumping frog . . . There was no food, no water. If you wanted water you would force a fellow child to urinate so you could drink . . . I was forced to eat leaves. (Batha 2014)

Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Child Soldiers; Holy Spirit Movement FURTHER READING Batha, Emma. 2014. “‘Rape Was on a Daily Basis,’ Former Child Sex Slave Tells Angelina Jolie.” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, June 11, 2014. ­http://​­news​.­trust​.­org​/­item​ /­20140611153723​-­rdo21​/. Johnson, Douglas. 2003. The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Roby, Christin. 2018. “Five African Crises to Watch in 2018.” Devex News, January 8, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­devex​.­com​/­news​/­5​-­african​-­crises​-­to​-­watch​-­in​-­2018​-­91836​.­html.

VOODOO (VODUN) Vodun, known more commonly as Voodoo, is a term used to describe a number of distinct diasporic West African traditional religious practices that are often opposed by Christian and Muslim mainstream constituents. Slaves brought traditional views

African Religion: Voodoo

about the supernatural world with them to Haiti, throughout the Caribbean, and in the U.S. South (through the port of New Orleans). Although often misunderstood, Robert Lawless describes Voodoo as “essentially a family religion practiced within the household and consisting largely of healing rituals and ancestor worship” (Lawless 2002, 40). Because it is often practiced among lower- and middle-class people (with some exceptions), the persecution of Voodooists can also serve as a vehicle for class warfare and a self-righteous fulcrum in enhancing civic control. The term Voodoo conjures up images of zombies, satanic curses, witches, black magic, animal sacrifices, and strange trance-induced dances. The very term is rooted in “racialized perceptions of cultures that treats them as if they were insular or distinct,” rooted in a “pejorative view of all things African” (Roberts 2015, 6). Earliest racialized citations of the term date to Haiti in the 1790s, reoccurring in New Orleans during the 1880s. It should be remembered that the use of the term applies across a wide range of rituals and diasporic expressions of traditional religious practices, first imported from West Africa, which includes ancestor veneration, animism, and contacts with the spirit world. Ron Bodin claimed that the West African “Dahomey religion, filled with a multitude of gods and divine beings, used music as a channel for communicating with the deities, and represented the gods by using fetishes” which are all “strikingly similar to Haitian Vodun and Louisiana Voodoo” (Bodin 1990, 9). Something like Voodoo is also practiced in the West African nations of Benin, Ghana, and Togo. Beliefs held in both Africa and the Caribbean, for example, include the ability to arouse vampires and initiate secretive rituals around “zombification”; the combining of various powders administered to corpses, which brings them back to life to serve as slaves. Whenever practitioners misuse the power of these traditions for malevolent ends, the entire movement becomes discredited as dangerous and demonic, thus eliciting persecution or marginalization. In Haiti, for example, after the earthquake of 2010, Voodoo was largely blamed for the subsequent outbreak of cholera. Dozens of people were reportedly killed at this time for the crime of being Voodooists. In 2012, a Haitian religious liberties law (Article 297) was repealed, which had previously allowed people to “partake in superstitious practices including rites, dances, sacrifices, and many other practices in Voodoo” (Ulysses 2012). This repeal launched an “antisuperstition campaign” mirroring previous attacks led by the Catholic Church. Umbrella organizations of Voodooists, such as Bode Nasyonal, Zantray, and the Foundation Ayizan Velekete, assert that their religious freedoms, labeled as superstitious, is now under threat, along with the rich religious history of Haiti. In African contexts, such as in Benin and Togo, Voodoo practices are often mixed with traditional Christian practices and beliefs. A recent community service

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in Togo saw Christians and Muslims join with Voodoo priestesses to bless the crowds by sprinkling them with water. In one horrific instance, five people suffocated to death “waiting for the Holy Spirit” in a sealed-off prayer room, filled with charcoal smoke that was tinged with incense borrowed from Vodun rituals. This event incited numerous Protestant pastors to level strident verbal attacks against the victims, who they argued were actually practicing demonic Voodoo practices. Many in Benin assert that Voodooists are active in shaping the nation’s political sphere. Such claims have led to acts of violence against Voodooists, who are also accused of using demonic rituals to murder noted politicians before the 2016 national elections. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Santeria; Witchcraft FURTHER READING Bodin, Ron. 1990. Voodoo Past and Present. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana Press. Lawless, Robert. 2002. “Haiti: Voodoo, Christianity, and Politics.” In Rolin Mainuddin, ed. Religion and Politics in the Developing World: Explosive Interactions. London: Ashgate, pp. 39–49. Roberts, Kodi A. 2015. Voodoo and Power: The Politics of Religion in New Orleans, 1881– 1940. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Ulysses, Gina Athena. 2012. “Defending Voodoo in Haiti.” The Huffington Post, October 18,  2012. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.­com​/­gina​-­athena​-­ulysse​/­defending​-­vodou​-­in​ -­haiti​_b​_1973374​.­html.

WAR MAGIC. See ASSAULT SORCERY (WAR MAGIC) WITCHCRAFT Many assume that witchcraft does not exist and is only a fanciful illusion in the minds of uneducated individuals. In fact, few ideas are more ingrained in the mental furniture of many African religious adherents than a belief in witches. Few ideas have induced more ire, persecution, and discrimination than accusations that someone is a witch or practicing witchcraft. It is not an imaginary offense. Discussions surrounding the concept of such a powerful trope as the “dark arts” of witchcraft often serve as metanarratives that underscore a penchant for a primitive unscientific fetish and fearful, backward illogicality of Africans in the face of encroaching modernity. Such a reading obviously conflates the assumptions

African Religion: Witchcraft

of non-Africans without understanding distinct African dynamics. Depending on one’s perspective, a person called a witch is either a cherished “voice of tradition” filled with creative potentialities or a despised, malevolent occult enemy of mainstream society. Power and powerlessness, domination, exploitation, marginalization, and tropes of insiders and outsiders are at the heart of almost all variant views of witchcraft across Africa. One thing is certain: many ideas about witchcraft are not rooted in ancient history but are seen as facts that help make the very real problems of everyday life clear. Views about witchcraft are not holdovers from a bygone era; they are resources for contemporary societies to understand uncertainties and to help people grapple with the challenges of a changing world. When discussing the iconography of the ways that evil is imagined, views about witchcraft vary widely from region to region. In some contexts, it can seem that people are constantly talking about witches and witchcraft. Money and its increase (or decrease) is often at the center of such discussions. Generally speaking, whenever things go wrong in a given social context, group-agency and “group-think” can work to transfer frustration to appropriate targets, who are accused of witchcraft. These individuals are often unable to easily defend themselves from attack. A sudden death, sterility, the desecration of a tombstone, an instance of adultery, a fire, sudden job loss, a change in weather, a nightmare, an illness, or any other negative event could give rise to suspicions of witchcraft at work. Adam Ashforth observed, “People worry about acts of witchcraft mostly in connection with events surrounding premature death and serious illness and events that could have resulted in death such as accidents or an assault” (Ashforth 2005, 70). Witches are often portrayed as capable of doing anything. Almost any event can be seen as a possible context for witchcraft. In Cameroon, for example, one report claimed that a fortune-teller predicted that the winner or loser of an important football match would depend on whose fans first entered the stadium, so it was not unusual for organizers to delay spectators. Misty Bastian observed, “Witches are predators, bloodhounds who have no friends” (Bastian 2012, 129). The heart of a witch is mysteriously beyond comprehension. Foreigners, outsiders, the deviant or mentally disturbed, those with limps and other impediments (proof of a deal with evil), those on the social periphery, and those with odd behaviors often become targets for suspicion as witches. Women who have no children and even women who are “flat-chested” have been accused of surrendering their natural rights of womanhood to gain supernatural powers. Others are thought to inherit their powers from their mothers. Sometimes aggrieved children have been known to turn in their parents as being guilty of witchcraft. Perhaps such accusations are voiced to bring revenge for perceived (or real) offenses. Some people assume that members of organized youth or prison

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gangs probably seek the aid of the supernatural forces of witchcraft. Sometimes police and firemen are accused of being witches because their role as protectors of society make them vulnerable to infiltration by evil forces taking advantage of people’s trust. Both men and women can be accused of witchcraft. What they usually have in common is a sense that they are connected with traditional rituals in some ways. Certain tribes—such as the Tonga of Zambia—assume that all witches are men, while the opposite is true among the Shona of Zimbabwe. In some communities, women who seem to garner benefits without explanation are sometimes accused of witchcraft. Those from Christian backgrounds note that the Bible teaches that men are given divine leadership in the family ever since Eve seduced Adam to sin in the Garden of Eden. Among the Ewe in the nation of Ghana, the spirits of some witch women (adzetogbogbo) reportedly turn into owls (or goats), and when one hears an owl hooting at night, one recite the Lord’s Prayer or read the Bible to avoid having one’s blood sucked by a witch. Oyeronke Olademo explained, “More often than not, accusations of witchcraft are a sign of insecurity of the accuser. The witch is perceived to be a non-conformist who cannot be retained within the confines of the patriarchal religious and social construction of womanhood” (Olademo 2010, 199). They are those who “threaten life but they also provide relief from coping with everyday problems” by providing “a foil for normal ethical life” (Sundermeier 1998, 195). Widows and other antisocial women (those who “eat alone”) are often accused of witchcraft because they are seen to be beyond the control of men. In Sierra Leone, accusations that some people cause harm to a community by turning themselves into leopards, crocodiles, or chimpanzees are not uncommon. In Niger, some women, said to be motivated by jealousy, are accused of being “soul eaters.” They can affect people by proxy and even from a great distance if they are able to procure an item or a piece of clothing belonging to whomever they are trying to curse or destroy. “Soul eaters,” given such powers by their father’s semen or mother’s milk are able to, if needed, transform themselves into animals such as lizards, vultures, or snakes. Women accused of witchcraft face “persecution, killing, and social ostracism,” sometimes expressed by “witch-snooping” movements, which offer to heal a society by finding the witches responsible for all the problems. Witches are sometimes exposed through elaborate witch-hunts. Such events are meant to receive the full support of everyone in the community, and those who do not willingly submit to such efforts are seen to be indicting themselves as witches. In South Africa, some who had formerly claimed to be witches now presented themselves to the public as “witch finders.” This status gives them a steady income because they claim to have skills in knowing what “potions or poisons should be

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used in order to prove the guilt or innocence” of a person accused of witchcraft. Potions, medicines, mirrors, temperature-monitors, foot-washing rituals, and other strategies are also used in some trials. Particularly well-known ‘witch-hunters’ are actually money-making entrepreneurs who are skilled at capturing the imagination of those who are already suspicious that there are hidden witches in their midst. Pentecostal pastors are some of Africa’s most strident witch-hunters. This is notable because it has been argued that Pentecostalism itself (in its worldview) provides a connection to the past traditional worldview in ways that modern ideals fail to embrace. Some Pentecostals are self-proclaimed prophets, who claim a desire to “cleanse” a community from spiritual pollution and satanic spiritual attack. Some pastors claim God has given them the gift of “discernment,” the ability to hear messages in dreams or when in a Holy Spirit trance. Church members whose revelations have exposed witches in their family are expected to make large financial offerings to the exorcist for divine deliverance from demonic power. If those identified do not repent or if they deny that they are witches, a range of punishments ensues, from small fines to extreme punishments, even death by beating, stoning, or “necklacing” (murder with a gasoline-saturated tire tied around one’s neck). Children who misbehave are sometimes thought to be directed by witches and are beaten by family members or pastors to drive away their demonic influences. Accusations against child witches are quite common in Angola, and those children who do not confess to being witches are often beaten. In Liberia, during the tragic Ebola outbreak, children were accused of using witchcraft to spread the disease. In Nigeria, “a place of horrifying realities, where people are daily outraged by events and practices unheard of in the precolonial period,” accusations of witchcraft are common, often with lethal effect (Bastian 2012, 197). According to many Nigerians, the power of witches affects not only everyday life but can even extend beyond the grave. Christian and Muslim burial services often include specific precautions to prevent witches from harvesting relics from the corpses. In Nigeria, some witches are accused of being cannibals (and especially of being baby eaters), having doppelgangers, and exercising the power to place a mouse inside a person’s stomach to eat away the organs. Among those of Igbo ethnicity, anthropologists note an increase in suspicions about witchcraft in direct relation to degrees of wealth and poverty and between urban and rural communities. Deep social divides encourage both sides of the equation to suspect others of using witchcraft to their economic advantage. Witchcraft is used, depending on one’s perspective, to either weaken or strengthen economic power. One way in which witchcraft is advanced, according to some, is through the acquisition of stolen human organs or other body parts from both the living and the dead. The desire for human meat is believed to be a motive for witches

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to convene. “Juju-men” (witches) are contracted by some young selfish, greedy people (so-called 419-men or con artists), who use credit-card and land-seizure scams to become wealthy without working hard or without sharing their wealth once they have gained it. In Nigeria, it is often claimed that witches use “witch guns” or “love potions” to cause infertility or infidelity. Some women have claimed that they sought to become witches as a “profession” or a way to escape crippling poverty. Others seek powers in order to wreak revenge or out of jealousy. One prostitute confessed (after becoming a Pentecostal) that she had been a witch: “The power in my vagina is the one I use to destroy men. I destroy their sperm so that they will become impotent and their business will not prosper. I’ll just make them useless” (Bastian 2012, 83). Witches are often linked to secret societies or connected to ancestral powers. The Reformed Ogboni Fraternity, Freemasons, and other groups are often connected with Nigerian witchcraft. Every year across Nigeria, gang’s beat (or burn) to death those accused of witchcraft (or of transforming into a “vulture man” or another animal), while local police do nothing but stand by and watch these extrajudicial murders. Sometimes, government officials take an active role in prosecuting witchcraft in the courts because it is understood to be a force of societal subversion. Where laws are not in place, many hope that they can soon be enacted so that witches can be punished in courts of law. Maia Green contends that state-sponsored witch-hunts “occur at specific points in history where the state and the church have experienced the greatest resistance to intervention in or failure of policies involving local village politics” (Green 1997, 342). When officials arrest witches, they prove that they are protecting communities. For example, during a long season of drought in Tanzania, one traditionalist rain diviner was arrested ten times for stopping the rain from falling. Cameroon is another nation where witches have been arrested by civil authorities who claim a duty to “ensure order in society,” with officials acting as surrogate chieftains, valorizing the wishes of local communities. Peter Geschiere reports that in state-sponsored witchcraft trials, “accused witches are condemned without any concrete proof and, moreover, without their own admission of guilt. Legal sentences are issued; including fines and imprisonment for periods up to ten years” (Geschiere and Fisiy 2009, 169). In contrast, laws have been put on the books in South Africa that make it a serious crime to accuse someone of witchcraft without proof. Similar laws have been enacted in Malawi. Laws, however, have not stopped over eighty people from being arrested in Malawi and serving between four and six years in prison, with no chance of parole. Although legal protections offer a positive step forward, the very accusation and the rumors surrounding such slander usually result in social

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ostracism against those accused. Across Africa, accusing someone of being a witch is often connected to economic inequities. It seems that, as long as there are those who are envious of their neighbors or seek their own advantage by resolving old scores or new hatreds by falsely accusing others of witchcraft, such problems will remain across Africa. Christian van Gorder See also: African Religion: Santeria; Voodoo (Vodun) FURTHER READING Ashforth, Adam. 2005. Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bastian, Misty. 2012. “Bloodhounds Who Have No Friends: Witchcraft and Locality in the Nigerian Popular Press.” In Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, eds. Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 129–65. Geschiere, Peter, and Cyprian Fisiy. 2009. “Domesticating Personal Violence: Witchcraft, Courts, and Confessions in Cameroon.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 64, no. 3: 323–41. Green, Maia. 1997. “Witchcraft Suppression Practices and Movements: Public Policies and the Logic of Purification.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39, no. 2: 319–45. Olademo, Oyeronke. 2010. “Religion and Women’s Sexuality in Africa: The Intersection of Power and Vulnerability.” In Lilian Ashcroft-Eason, Darnise Martin, and Oyeronke Olademo, eds. Women and New and Africana Religions. Santa Barbara: Praeger Books, pp. 191–204. Sundermeier, Theo. 1998. The Individual and the Community in African Traditional Religions. Berlin: LIT Verlag. Uzodike, Ufo Okeke, and Christopher Isike. 2012. “Towards a Theoretical and Cultural Analysis of Dangerous Masculinities in Contemporary Africa: Can We Reinvent African Patriarchies to Curb HIV and AIDS?” In Ezra Chitando and Sophie Chirongoma, eds. Redemptive Masculinities: Men, HIV, and Religion. Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, pp. 31–53.

WOMEN. See GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION (AFRICAN RELIGION)

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INTRODUCTION Buddhism is commonly characterized as the most peaceful religion in the world. A quick Google image search yields correlating photos of meditating Buddhist monks, Buddhist statues, and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. All these images are associated with contemplativeness, serenity, and peace. Unfortunately, these images represent Buddhism only partially. While officially there are around 350 million Buddhists in the world, this number does not reflect the full global reach of the religion. Buddhism is one of the largest global religions in the world with over 1.3 billion people practicing the religion. Such diversity in populations, cultures, and histories results in, as with any other religion, episodes of violence. Although Buddhists and Buddhist doctrine are well-known for their advocacy of peace and non-violence, there is a long legacy of violence in the religion’s history. This overview reviews the basic tenets and beliefs of Buddhism, the early relationship Buddhists had with violence, and the ways in which they have been persecuted.

Terms and Tenets The word Buddhism did not derive from Asia. Buddhism is a Western term that comes from the merging of the Sanskrit word buddha, which means “the awakened one,” and the Greek suffix “ism,” which creates nouns of action or doctrine. As such, the word Buddhism (or Doctrine of the Awakened One) was artificially constructed; however, during the contemporary period people have self-identified as Buddhists or followers of Buddhism. Well into the twenty-first century, Western information on Buddhism is partly inaccurate. Part of this comes from trying to read and understand Asian Buddhism through a Western perspective. For instance, Western scholars and followers often use the terms “enlightened” and “enlightenment” for the Buddha and for Buddhism. But “enlightenment” is a Western term that is used to describe Western 58

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events, such as the Enlightenment Period. Buddhist scriptures come in many different languages; for example, Thai, Burmese, Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese. The two oldest and most respected languages are Sanskrit and Pali (thus, some of the words in this overview have both Sanskrit and Pali translations). The Sanskrit verbal root budh means “to wake up” or “to be awakened.” The term Buddha is a title given to people who have become “awakened” to the ultimate truths of existence. Waking up versus illumination (enlightenment) may have some nuanced differences, but this singular distinction points to one of the many ways in which translation errors and incomplete historical records muddy Buddhism’s past in Western records. Providing a culturally sensitive explanation of Buddhism requires close attention to diversity. With over a billion people practicing Buddhism, there are many different traditions and beliefs followed in the religion. Thus, there is no unified council or closed canonical text source, and while there are global Buddhist organizations, each draws on its own specific doctrines and traditions. This makes it difficult to provide any global assertions or parameters for Buddhism. In terms of doctrinal distinctions, there are three different branches: Theravada (Path of the Elders), Mahayana (Great Vehicle), and Vajrayana (Thunderbolt Vehicle). The majority of Theravada followers reside in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. Mahayana practitioners predominantly live in China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Most Vajrayana adherents live in ­Mongolia and the Tibetan regions of China, as well as the Tibetan diaspora in Bhutan, Nepal, and India. Perhaps the most important distinction for this chapter is that Theravada Buddhism uses Pali as the liturgical language, while Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism consider Sanskrit as their liturgical language. Hence, some terms have different transliterations in this chapter in order to reflect both positions. While these doctrinal distinctions are important, they are not the most important distinctions. Asian Buddhists do not identify themselves as “Theravada Buddhists,” or “Vajrayana Buddhists” but rather identify themselves based on their national or regional specifications. This diversity poses challenges, but there are a few consistent threads that unite all these various traditions together. The core principles and beliefs that all Buddhists share are the five global characteristics of Buddhism: 1. Buddhists see the Buddha as the one founder of their religion. Some Hindus believe in the Buddha but see him as an avatar of Vishnu. 2. Buddhists believe there are two types of truths: conventional truths, which we find in our lives of rebirths, and ultimate truths, which are beyond our comprehension.

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3. Buddhists believe there are Three Jewels that provide them with refuge: the Buddha; the Dharma (Pali: Dhamma), which is the doctrine, law, and teachings; and the Sangha, the monastic institution. They also divide their various scriptures into three baskets, the Tripitaka: the Vinaya Pitaka, which is the collection of scriptures pertaining to monastic order; the Abhidharma Pitaka (Pali: Abhidhamma), which is the scientific work that includes medicine and astrology; and the Sutras (Pali: Suttas), which contain parables and stories of the Buddha. 4. Buddhists believe in the four noble truths (Sanskrit: catvāri āryasatyāni; Pali: cattāri ariyasaccāni): life is suffering; the suffering is due to ignorance, attachment, and hatred; there is a cessation of suffering, and this cessation is found in the Eightfold Path. 5. Lay Buddhists uphold five moral precepts: no harm or injury to sentient beings, no lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, and no intoxicants that cloud the mind. Beyond these five global characteristics, Buddhists build their sense of existence and religion on two very important philosophical stances. The first is that everything that exists is impermanent (Sanskrit: anitya; Pali: anicca), including the sense of the self (atman). This makes Buddhism the only prominent South Asian religion to argue against the existence of a soul/self. The next argument is that everything is dependent on something else for existence. A seed needs water, sunshine, and healthy soil to grow. If you take one of these away, the seed (or plant) will die. It is dependent on other things to exist and thus considered “empty” of any true existence in Buddhism. While these five global characteristics and two philosophical stances represent the skeletal formation of Buddhism, it is much more than this. If these doctrinal components represent Buddhism’s skeleton, culture is the flesh. Culture was instrumental in the formation of Buddhism and has continued to instruct Buddhism’s permutations as the religion spreads into other communities and societies. As there are incredibly different linguistic and cultural distinctions, this only furthers the multitude of possible interpretations of the scriptures, beliefs, and rituals. For instance, some Buddhist traditions do not provide strong support to monks and nuns; for them, lay meditation and the individual use of mantras are the most important. Conversely, there are Buddhist traditions that consider monks and nuns as models of their religion, the third and sacred refuge in Buddhism. Still other Buddhists, such as followers of the Heart Sutra, believe that devotion to a particular scripture saves them. These differences are evident even in dietary restrictions. Some Buddhists are vegan (e.g., Taiwanese and Chinese traditions), some eat only

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large animals (e.g., Tibetan and Mongolian traditions), while some others eat only small animals (e.g., Thai, Burmese, and Lao traditions). Due to these variations, historical analyses of Buddhism and violence require close and critical attention to the specific tradition(s) involved. For the purposes of this chapter, violence will follow the Buddhist definition of himsa. While Western scholars often translate himsa as “violence,” the word literally means “harm” or “injury.” Thus, violence becomes nuanced specifically as harm or injury for the examples and events in this chapter. One example of this nuance is illuminated with the rise of Tibetan Buddhist self-immolation in recent years. Nearly two hundred Tibetan Buddhists set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese treatment of the Tibet Autonomous Region. As the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has pointed out, their acts did not harm or injure others, nor did they cry out in pain (about harm to themselves). These acts are not “violent” within the Buddhist definition of himsa (Jerryson 2018, 9).

Historical Examples of Buddhism and Violence Scholars generally set the birth of Buddhism in the late fifth century BCE. Scholars of this period believe that this was the time of a large-scale urbanization in South Asia. One of the results of this rapid urbanization was the growth of religious traditions that shirked the Vedic system, which was built on a particular religiously fixed caste system. The most well-known religious traditions to emerge from this period were Buddhism and Jainism. The historical Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama (Pali: Siddhattha Gotama), prince of the Shakya clan. He abandoned his princely role and established a new order, which he called the Sangha. He and his monks needed political and financial support in order to survive. As a former prince, the Buddha fostered support from the nearby kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala. Buddhism’s very beginnings illuminate the important intersections between religion and politics. Beyond limited archeological records, we have little evidence about Buddhists until the time of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (268–232 BCE). Historians often emphasize Emperor Ashoka’s “Edicts of Tolerance,” which outline tolerance and compassion. He is also cherished by Buddhists as an ideal ruler. Although Ashoka’s family were Jains, Ashoka converted to Buddhism after he conquered two thirds of South Asia. According to the scriptures, Ashoka turned to Buddhism in order to make amends for his role in the deaths and carnages of war. In this way, Ashoka became a model of a righteous ruler in Buddhism (Sanskrit, cakravartin; Pali: cakkavattin). Although Ashoka stood as a peaceful ruler, scriptures note that he continued to use capital and corporal punishment well after his conversion to Buddhism (Jenkins 2017, 161–62).

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Over the centuries, Buddhists fought for their religion in wars and conflicts. Some of these wars were based on millennial concerns, such as the return of Mara—the adversary to the Buddha—and the prophetic arrival of the next Buddha, Maitreya. Chinese monks, such as Faquing, told his followers that killing their adversaries would lead to their awakening (enlightenment). From the 1700s until the mid-1900s, Thai and Lao Buddhist monks staged holy revolts against their governments. Other wars were based on sectarian differences, such as the wars between Burmese and Thai armies (Jerryson 2018). Perhaps the most significant wars that involved Buddhist justifications were the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), the Japanese involvement in World War II, and the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009). During the Japanese wars, Rinzai, Soto-Zen, and Pure Land Buddhists fought to subjugate Koreans, Chinese, and other Asians, who they thought were practicing a debased and flawed version of Buddhism. Zen Buddhist monks, such as D. T. Suzuki and his mentor, Shaku Soen, advocated for the state to expand and spread “civilization” to the barbaric regions of the world (Victoria 2006). The Sri Lankan Civil War in the late twentieth century lasted twenty-six years and occurred between the Sinhalese Buddhist government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE comprised Christian and Hindu Tamils, who used religious symbols and rhetoric in support of their cause. The Sinhalese Buddhists joined political organizations such as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which advocated against the LTTE and Tamil welfare. Prominent Buddhist monks, such as Walpola Rahula, argued that the government should not negotiate with the LTTE but, rather, use militarily force. Buddhist monks were charged for assassinating and intimidating moderates who were not in support of the war (Seneviratne 1999).

Buddhism’s Ethical Parameters to Violence One of Buddhism’s five moral precepts is to abstain from harming or injuring sentient beings. This is a clear moral guideline with regard to violence. One common mistake when we study other religions is to read the scriptures and inculcate them into our lived experiences. Just as not all Christians, Muslims, and Jews regularly follow the Ten Commandments, the same is true with Buddhists and their five moral precepts. Beyond this point, with every religious rule there are exceptions. In the case of violence, these exceptions provide room for morally justified violence. Throughout the diverse world of Buddhism, there are ethical patterns of condoning acts of violence. One pattern pertains to the role of intent. In Buddhist doctrine, the demerit one accrues is based more on the intention of the act than the act itself. For instance, it is more sinful to try to kill someone and fail than to accidentally kill a person. Another example of the power of intention comes in the

Buddhism: Introduction

Buddhist virtue of correct understanding. Within the Chinese Buddhist scripture Susthitamati-Paripriccha, which is often referred to as How to Kill with the Sword of Wisdom, the embodiment of wisdom called Manjushri explains Buddhist devotees that once you realize there is no “thing” to kill, there are no negative intentions to kill. Thus, so long as you keep your mind clear of ill intent, killing is without a demerit (Jerryson 2018). Another ethical exception is when violence is committed out of compassion. Buddhists have embraced many different forms of compassionate violence. The Tibetan king Lang Darma (838–842) had desired to return to the indigenous Tibetan religion. He was assassinated by a Tibetan lama who thought that Lang Darma was persecuting and threatening the vitality of Tibetan Buddhism. The murder of Lang Darma is commemorated in the Tibetan sacred dance called cham, which is part of an annual Tibetan Monlam Prayer Festival. From the Buddhist perspective, the lama committed the murder only to preserve true Buddhism. By killing Lang Darma and putting an end to his attack on Tibetan Buddhism, the lama saved Lang Darma and the land from innumerable rebirths of suffering. During World War II, Japanese Pure Land and Zen Buddhist priests explained to soldiers that by killing Chinese, Korean, and other Asian Buddhists, they were helping them. China, Korea, and other countries had been overridden by corrupt Buddhist teachings. As such, people living under these conditions would continue to be reborn, suffer, and not achieve awakening (enlightenment). Since Buddhism argues that there is no self/soul (Sanskrit: anātman; Pali: anattā), nothing was being killed. Rather, by conquering the areas and installing true Buddhism, these Buddhists would be reborn in a place where they would receive proper teaching and become awakened. A second pattern of condoning violence is the exercise of prima facie rationale. In prima facie thinking, nonviolence is the ethical standard as long as more important values do not contradict it. In Buddhism, the ethic of nonviolence is quite pronounced; some Buddhist traditions even forsake dairy for vegan lifestyles and avoid hurting flies or insects. While the desire for nonharm is strong, historically, this ethic has been overshadowed by the need to defend Buddhism. The Japanese Buddhist monks and priests saw the Russo-Japanese and World War II as battles over civilization and the vitality of true Buddhism. True to most conflicts and wars, the Japanese antagonists saw themselves as protecting and defending their nation and their religions (Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism). In a similar way, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, the Sinhalese Buddhist monks argued that they were fighting to protect the vitality of true Buddhism. The desire to defend Buddhism becomes more pronounced in apocalyptic contexts. Similar to other Asian religions, Buddhism does not view time as linear but as cyclical. The universe expands and contracts repeatedly, and there is no “beginning”

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to this. The only question is the speed at which the cycle moves toward the end. Buddhists believe that the health and vitality of their religion signals the speed of the cycle. The more the Buddhist doctrine and monks are present and preserved, the slower the cycle proceeds. Thus, Buddhists believe that when Buddhism is threatened, it is not only the religion that is threatened but the welfare of every living creature. This concern takes precedence over the commitment to nonviolence in many Buddhist traditions. In millenarian and apocalyptic conflicts, the concern is that the world might end (and Buddhism with it), unless Buddhists take up arms to defend the new Buddha-to-be (Sanskrit: Maitreya; Pali: Metteyya) and to attack his nemesis of illusion and desire, Mara (Demiéville 2010).

Historical Persecutions of Buddhists Similar to other religious practitioners discussed in this volume, Buddhists have faced persecution for their religious beliefs and practices. One of the primary reasons for this persecution is ignorance. Because it is a non-Abrahamic religion whose followers do not believe in the existence of a soul (Sanskrit: anātman; Pali: anattā), Christians, Muslims, and Jews have approached Buddhists with skepticism and confusion. An extended history of confusion exists between Buddhists and Muslims. Muslims have called Buddhists idol worshippers and attached imaginative and inaccurate details to their religion. Johan Elverskog identifies the Islamic scholar Yahya ibn Khalid’s accounts of Buddhists as idol worshippers as a primary source of such biases (2010, 62–64). Idol worshipping is a derogatory term, not used for Christians who have the Virgin Mary or Jesus, but rather for others who worship “false” gods. Most Buddhists do not pray to statues, but they often use statues to call attention to the deities, known as bodhisattvas. These Buddhists believe that the bodhisattvas are not in the actual physical relic. However, some Buddhists do believe that spirits are embedded within sacred relics, such as the Phra Kaeo Buddhist statue in Bangkok, Thailand. These are palladiums and not seen as “the Buddha” for the practitioners. Even still, this has not stopped influential Muslims and Christians from accusing them of being idol worshippers. Many Buddhists throughout Asia believe that Muslims destroyed the legacy of Buddhism in India. However, these legends have been thoroughly debunked by scholars. Indian Buddhist colleges and monasteries were active well after the entrance of the Mughal Empire that controlled most of South Asia (1527–1857; Elverskog 2010). Even so, Buddhists have attacked Muslims in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, citing the legend as justification for the violence. Christian missionaries sought to draw Buddhists away from their religion. Some of the earliest Christian missionaries were in China at the time of Marco Polo, but the greatest impact of Christian missionaries was during the colonial

Buddhism: Introduction

period, when Christian countries colonized non-Western countries and imposed their cultures, religions, and laws upon them. In Sri Lanka, the British colonized the area, dismissed the Buddhist monks from any political protection, and began to missionize the darker-skinned people. U.S. Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832– 1907) visited Sri Lanka and helped the Buddhists respond and preserve their religion. Olcott created what has been termed a “Buddhist catechism” and reformed the tradition to make it more relatable to modernity (Gombrich and Obeyesekere 1990). While Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the legacy of Christian and Western influence did not fade away. In light of this, Western Christian persecution and colonization remains at the forefront of Buddhist social memory in Sri Lanka and in other previously colonized Buddhist countries. Perhaps the most consistent antagonism toward Buddhists was from socialist governments. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Mongolian People’s Republic killed Buddhist lamas and their contacts. This genocide resulted in the elimination of nearly one-seventh of their entire population to eliminate the “opiate of the masses” (Mongolia was anything but a manufacturing society at this point). One of the most notorious stories was that Joseph Stalin gave the Mongolian Prime Minister Choibalsan a gift of four rifles and thirty thousand bullets, with an implicit message. Choibalsan executed thirty thousand Buddhist lamas shortly afterward (Jerryson 2008). The persecution of Buddhism did not end until 1991, after the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the political changeover in Mongolia. Even now, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party that was a part of the genocide in the 1930s and 1940s has political clout and has sealed the records in government archives. In China, Mao Zedong also argued that Buddhism was an opiate of the masses. The People’s Republic of China persecuted Buddhists throughout their mainland. In 1951 they conquered Tibet, and put down a Tibetan uprising in 1959. Tibetans living in what is now called the Autonomous Tibetan Region cite Chinese discriminatory politics and practices. In Mongolia, shortly after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge came to power, they found Cambodian Buddhist monks as the biggest threat to their new government. In 1975, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge executed nearly 20 percent of their entire population, a massacre referenced as “the Killing Fields.” Due to socialist purges in countries such as Mongolia, China, and Cambodia, Buddhist institutional memory was eliminated, traditions destroyed, and millions died. Some countries, such as Mongolia, have tried to recover but must cope with the influx of wealthy Christian missionaries. These Christian missionaries target Buddhist countries and continue the rhetoric of idol worshippers.

Conclusion Buddhism does not make anyone violent. People are violent, and some of them happen to be Buddhists. This overview touches on some of the more prominent

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historical examples of Buddhist-justified violence and the ways in which Buddhists have been persecuted. It is by no means comprehensive. It dispels the myth that Buddhists are nonviolent and that Buddhism is a panacea to violence. No religion is without violent histories and people; what is important is learning their triggers, nuances, and conditions that foment violence. Some Buddhists are atheists; some are theists. Some Buddhists are vegetarian, and some are vegan; however, most are omnivores. The world of Buddhism is incredibly diverse (Jerryson 2016). While incredibly rich in diversity, this has not shielded Buddhists from forms of discrimination and persecution. Michael Jerryson See also: Hinduism: Introduction; Jainism: Introduction FURTHER READING Demiéville, Paul. 2010. “Buddhism and War.” Translated by Michelle Kendall. In Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. Buddhist Warfare. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 17–58. Elverskog, Johan. 2010. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Gombrich, Richard, and Gananath Obeyesekere. 1990. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jenkins, Stephen. 2017. “Once the Buddha Was a Warrior: Buddhist Pragmatism in the Ethics of Peace and Armed Conflict.” In Florian Demont-Biaggi, ed. The Nature of Peace and the Morality of Armed Conflict. New York: Palgrave, pp. 159–78. Jerryson, Michael. 2008. Mongolian Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of the Sangha. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Jerryson, Michael, ed. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “Buddhist Paths to Violence.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence, 17–48. New York: Oxford University Press. Jerryson, Michael, and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. 2010. Buddhist Warfare. New York: Oxford University Press. Seneviratne, H. L. 1999. The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Victoria, Brian. 2006. Zen at War. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

AHIMSA (NONHARM) Ahimsa is not an ethical stance simply in Buddhism; it is also present in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. In Buddhism, ahimsa is one of the most important tenets and is often translated as nonviolence. In Sanskrit, himsa means harm or injury,

Buddhism: Ahimsa

while ahimsa means no harm or no injury. This is an important nuance to consider when analyzing the relationship between Buddhism and violence. Buddhists commonly observe five moral precepts (pancasila): no harm, no lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, and no taking of intoxicants that cloud the mind. The interpretations of these precepts differ among Buddhism’s various traditions. For some laity, the pledge is more an admonition of being Buddhist. For some, it is a way of life. For others, it is a pledge to strictly follow the five moral precepts every year during the Buddhist Lent, which is during the rainy season. The five moral precepts are prescribed for the laity. Male and female monastics commit to these five and more than an additional 250 vows. The number of vows varies with the tradition and whether it pertains to a male or female monastic. It is the principle of ahimsa that leads some Buddhist traditions to advocate forms of vegetarianism (for the Taiwanese Buddhist organization, the Fo Guang Shan, it is veganism). Some Buddhists are pacifists who ground their decisions on the Buddhist principle of ahimsa. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama has established a global platform around the notion of compassion, wisdom, and ahimsa. Following in the footsteps of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s use of ahimsa accrues for him political capital and affords him a moral high ground. One internationally renowned Buddhist organization that has upheld compassion and ahimsa is Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. It was founded by A. T. Ariyaratne in 1958 and is a volunteer organization that provides help to more than eleven million people in Sri Lanka. The Movement’s focus is on comprehensive development and conflict resolution. One of the core features in their conflict resolution programs, which are open to all religions, is ahimsa. While ahimsa encourages compassionate behavior, it does not necessarily prevent violence. In Buddhist countries such as Thailand, you may purchase a bird’s freedom from a cage. This act of compassion, coupled with the bird’s escape from harm, is meritorious. What paying patrons may not realize is that the birds are trained to return to the cage afterward (Darlington 2016). The attraction to pay is based on ahimsa and compassion; however, the results do not correlate with patrons’ intentions. Sometimes, the advocating of ahimsa does not result in nonviolence but, rather, the opposite. When Buddhist scholars or monks advocate for violence, they need to address ahimsa. Some monks within the Japanese Pure Land and Zen traditions argue that people do not truly exist, as there is no soul in Buddhism. Hence, there is nothing to harm or injure; rather, the issue is the Buddhist clearing his or her consciousness from the desire to harm or injure. In this way, they argue, it is the desire, or intention, that provides negative karma; it is not the act of killing itself. Hence, the Tibetan act of self-immolation is not violent, unless the person burning alive expresses pain (or harms another in the process).

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More recently, Buddhists have negotiated the status of the people or persons that they wish to harm. In Buddhist doctrine, it is less sinful to harm an animal than it is to harm a human (early Buddhist scriptures differentiated humans from other animals). As such, Buddhist monks, such as the Burmese Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, calls Muslims “African carps.” It is common for people to dehumanize their victims; in Buddhism, it is not only psychologically helpful, but it is morally helpful. In the Sinhalese Buddhist mytho-history called the Mahavamsa, the Buddhist king killed millions, but they were no more than “beasts.” This devaluation from human to animal reduces the sin of himsa (harm or injury). When Buddhists who advocate violence to Muslims in Sri Lanka are pressed about ahimsa, they explain that they are simply trying to protect themselves and their religion. For members of the Bodu Bala Sena, their calls on banning halal food and Islamophobic sermons may be harmful, but this harm is necessary to prevent a greater harm, which would be the elimination of their religion. This prima facie logic is not unique to contemporary Sri Lanka, but has been, in fact, present across many different Buddhist traditions (Jerryson 2018). This “compassionate violence” is best expressed in the famous Upayakaushalya Sutra, which explains that murder is sometimes necessary to prevent greater harm. As indicated in this entry, ahimsa is an important precept in Buddhism. It is used to advocate peace, such as in Buddhist organizations such as Sarvodaya; conversely, some followers use it to justify violence, in contexts such as contemporary Myanmar or Sri Lanka. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–); Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); Mahavamsa; 969 Movement; Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement; Upayakaushalya Sutra (Skill-in-Means Sutra); Vegetarianism; Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Vegetarianism; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Collins, Steven. 1990. The Selfless Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darlington, Susan M. 2006. “Contemporary Buddhism and Ecology.” In Michael K. Jerryson, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 487–503. Jenkins, Stephen. 2017. “Once the Buddha Was a Warrior: Buddhist Pragmatism in the Ethics of Peace and Armed Conflict.” In Florian Demont-Biaggi, ed. The Nature of Peace and the Morality of Armed Conflict. New York: Palgrave, pp. 159–78. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “Buddhist Paths to Violence.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Buddhism: Ashoka

ASHOKA(ASOKA) (R. 268–232 BCE) Ashoka Maurya was the third king of the Mauryan Empire. Across various Buddhist traditions, he is known for being the ideal Buddhist ruler (Sanskrit: cakravartin; Pali: cakkavattin) and for spreading the Buddhism across South Asia and beyond. Outside the Buddhist perspective, academics praise Ashoka for his Edicts of Tolerance and for promoting civil society. Although he is known for his greatness and tolerance, Ashoka did not begin his rule as a Buddhist, nor as being tolerant. In the first part of his reign, he enacted ruthless punishments and led extremely violent conquests. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) notes that eight hundred years after his rule, South Asians still refer to Ashoka’s prison as “Ashoka’s Hell.” In this prison, Ashoka subjected people to extreme acts of torture and mandated that no one should ever leave alive. In 261 BCE, Ashoka and his armies waged war on the Kalinga (present-day Orissa, northeastern India). His grandfather Chandragupta Maurya (322–298 BCE) had tried to conquer the Kalinga in the past but had failed. Ashoka was determined to succeed. Some historians consider the war one of the bloodiest battles in global history. After nearly three hundred thousand people died, Ashoka conquered the Kalinga and, with that, nearly all of South Asia (all but the southernmost region). While he had been ruthless before, Ashoka expressed remorse after the bloody war with the Kalinga. He issued his famous Edicts of Tolerance, which highlighted religious freedom, religious tolerance, ethics of welfare, and a good livelihood. The edicts were inscribed on rocks and pillars and found as far away as modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. They were written in both Greek, Aramaic, and Prakrit (the language of Ashoka’s courts), in order to be as accessible as possible. Many scholars point to Ashoka’s edicts as a promotion of peace, good will, and civility. Buddhists believe that Ashoka converted to Buddhism and, with this conversion, issued the Edicts of Tolerance and transitioned from conqueror to statesman. Buddhist portrayals of Ashoka focus primarily on his transformation and the second half of his reign. They characterize this time as his peaceful period; it was when he maintained the rule of Dharma (Buddhist doctrine). However, scholars note that this is not entirely true. Ashoka continued to fight battles and implement corporal and capital punishment well into his “peaceful period.” Although Ashoka was not as peaceful as he is characterized, he helped make Buddhism a state religion. Every global religion has enjoyed state patronage in order to thrive. Just as Constantine is credited for expanding and promoting Christianity into a transnational religion, so too is Ashoka viewed as the primary agent in making Buddhism a transnational religion. While Ashoka is upheld in all Buddhist traditions, he takes one a unique religious role within Theravada Buddhism. Cakkavattin is one of the most important

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titles in Theravada Buddhism (Tambiah 1976), second only to awakened (enlightened) persons. Theravada is one of the three doctrinal branches of Buddhism. Buddhist scholars considered Theravada the oldest surviving branch, with adherents in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. There are many Theravada scriptures that highlight the moral importance of a good ruler, such as the “Cakkavatti-Sīhanandā Sutta” (The Lion’s Roar on the Turning of the Wheel). These scriptures underscore the need for Buddhists to have a good ruler. The good ruler will uphold the Dharma and promote Buddhism in the process. As this title confers moral stature, many Buddhist rulers have declared themselves a cakkavattin throughout the centuries. This practice has continued well into the contemporary period. During the uncontested rule of the Burmese junta (1962–2011), the military strove to present themselves as righteous rulers in order to receive the political moral authority that Buddhism confers. They were less successful than their Thai neighbors; their efforts eventually sparked a monastic uprising called the Saffron Revolution. In Thailand, King Bhumipol Adulyadej reigned from 1946 to 2006. He was adored by Thais and commemorated for being an ideal ruler. The Thai press, government, and monks related King Bhumipol’s rule and his temperament to King Ashoka and his righteous path. This moral prestige provided King Bhumipol with considerable political capital. A close equivalent to his stature for Thais is the Fourteenth Dalai Lama for Tibetans. In accordance with Buddhist scriptures, as long as the ruler is working in accordance with the Dharma, his decisions are inviolable. In May 1992, this became poignant when King Bhumipol pardoned the Thai military who had participated in the violence against student political demonstrations. There was no major backlash or criticism of his pardon. Thai Major-General Chamlong Srimuang identified the power of King Bhumipol in this moment: “[W]hen the King gives royal commands, you have to bow your head and carry them out” (McCargo 2005, 506). Ashoka Maurya is a symbol in Buddhism as a righteous ruler. He is praised for his benevolence, following of Buddhist ethics, and spreading the religion. A closer examination of his biography reveals that he was not as peaceful as he has been depicted. Moreover, his legacy has been used to justify and legitimate rulers throughout the ages. Each of them has argued that, as righteous rulers, they should receive the same moral and political authority. Perhaps the most successful modern ruler to do this is King Bhumipol of Thailand. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); Saffron Revolution (2007)

Buddhism: Aung San Suu Kyi FURTHER READING Handley, Paul M. 2006. The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “State Violence and Buddhist Monks.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 49–79. Keuning, Wytze. 2015. Ashoka the Great. New Delhi: Rupa Publications. McCargo, Duncan. 2005. “Network Monarchy and Legitimacy Crisis in Thailand.” The Pacific Review 18, no. 4 (December): 499–519. Strong, John S. 1989. The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation of the Aśokāvadāna. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Tambiah, Stanley J. 1976. World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thapar, Romila. 1997. Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ­http://​­projects​.­mcah​.­columbia​.­edu​/­indianart​/­pdf​/­asoka​_thapar​.­pdf.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI(1945–) Aung San Suu Kyi is a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the National League of Democracy. She is also the de facto political leader of Myanmar. In 1999, Time Magazine identified her among the “Children of Gandhi” for her work on nonviolence and peaceful resistance. However, since her rise in political power, human rights activists and scholars have criticized Aung San Suu Kyi for her role in the mass Rohingya violence. Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of the Burmese military major general Aung San. During her doctoral studies at Oxford University, she met her future husband, Michael Aris (1946–1999). After working for the United Nations, Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar to take care of her ill mother. There, she renewed her work in Burmese politics and became a leader during the Burmese democratic uprising of 1988. After the elections, the military rejected her party’s victory. Her work resulted in the junta placing her under house arrest, which intermittently lasted from 1989 to 2010. When Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband was dying of cancer, the junta refused to lift the ban, wishing to have Aung San Suu Kyi leave Myanmar. Aung San Suu Kyi refused to leave Myanmar, even to see her terminal husband, for fear that the junta would not allow her to return home. Steadfast in her Gandhian application of satyagraha (truth force), she remained in Myanmar to support the movement for democracy. The government slowly began to open up to democratic processes. In 2015, the country held nationwide elections. Her party, the National League of Democracy,

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won in a landslide. While her party wanted her to become president, the junta had revised Burmese constitution, prohibiting this. According to the guidelines, the president may not have any “foreign” family members; since Aung San Suu Kyi’s late husband and children are not Burmese, she was unable to become president. The government created a new role for her: state counsellor. Her close friend and confidant Htin Kyaw promised to work for her interests. He was elected as president, thereby making Aung San Suu Kyi the de facto political leader of Myanmar. While Aung San Suu Kyi is the civilian leader of her government, the Burmese military still possess the majority of control over the country. As such, much of her political actions and abilities are limited. This has become evident in the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya by the Burmese military. Although the military are wielding the guns and are behind the physical violence, Aung San Suu Kyi has not delivered any public condemnations or remonstrations. Instead, she has characterized the Rohingya in accordance with the military’s racist framing and has turned a blind eye to their suffering. Her lack of empathy for the Rohingya surfaced on September 19, 2017, when she delivered a speech in English to the international community (YouTube 2017). Aung San Suu Kyi explained that her newly formed democratic government was hard at work to rectify systemic nationwide problems caused to decades of neglect. She also addressed the ongoing crisis in which over four hundred and twenty thousand Rohingya had fled across her country’s borders to Bangladesh in just few weeks (Press Trust of India 2017). In doing so, she explains: I am aware of the fact that the world’s attention is focused on the situation in the Rakhine State. And, as I said at the General Assembly last year, as a responsible member of the community of nations, Myanmar does not fear international scrutiny, and we are committed to a sustainable solution that would lead to peace, stability and development for all communities within that state . . . Since the 5th of September, there have been no armed clashes, and there have been no clearance operations. Nevertheless, we are concerned to hear that numbers of Muslims are fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. We want to find out why this exodus is happening.

The problem with her assertion is that in the same speech, she cites Kofi Annan’s final report of the advisory commission on the Rakhine State (Advisory Committee on Rakhine State 2017) several times. On the first page of the introduction, the report states, “The Muslims in Rakhine constitute the single biggest stateless community in the world,” that one hundred and twenty thousand Rohingya have been left in camps for internally displaced people (IDP), and that “the community has been denied political representation, and is generally excluded from Myanmar’s body politic.” Thus, her decision to feign ignorance about why the

Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena

Rohingya (number of Muslims) fled her country makes her, at best, complicit in the genocide underway. The political climate in Myanmar provides challenges for any analysis of Aung San Suu Kyi’s intentions. Some scholars think her behavior was affected by living under house arrest for many years. Others argue that she must engage in internal politics in order to maintain Myanmar’s limited democracy. Whether or not these or other assertions are correct, Aung San Suu Kyi provides a very unique and troubling legacy as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Ma Ba Tha; 969 Movement; Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Saffron Revolution (2007); Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas (1869– 1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism); Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. 2017. Towards a Peaceful, Fair and Prosperous Future for the People of Rakhine: Final Report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. English Version. August 2017. ­http://​­www​.­rakhinecommission​.­org​ /­app​/­uploads​/­2017​/­08​/­FinalReport​_Eng​.­pdf. Aung San Suu Kyi. 1991. Freedom from Fear: And Other Writings. Edited by Michael Aris. New York: Penguin Books. Jerryson, Michael. “Shocked by Aung San Suu Kyi’s Insensitivity to Ethnic Cleansing? Don’t Be.” Rewire News, September 21, 2017. ­http://​­religiondispatches​.­org​ /­shocked​-­by​-­aung​-­san​-­suu​-­kyis​-­insensitivity​-­to​-­ethnic​-­cleaning​-­dont​-­be​/. Popham, Peter. 2012. The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi. New York: The Experiment. Press Trust of India. 2017. “UN Chief Urges Myanmar to Halt Military Campaign against Rohingyas.” September 19, 2017. ­http://​­ptinews​.­com​/­news​/­9084919​_UN​-­chief​-­urges​ -­Myanmar​-­to​-­halt​-­military​-­campaign​-­against​-­Rohingyas. Walton, Matthew J. 2017. Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. YouTube. 2017. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s Speech in Full: ‘We Condemn All Human Rights Violations.’” September 19, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­NJkg2​_72uU.

BODU BALA SENA(BUDDHIST POWER FORCE) The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) is a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist organization created to protect Sri Lankan Buddhism from any perceived threats. Its most notable members include Venerable Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara and Dilanthe Withanage.

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Founding member Gnanasara Thero was a member of another Buddhist organization, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, but felt the organization was not moving in the right direction. He and other Buddhist monks split from this organization and helped established the BBS in 2012. Since its very creation, the BBS identified Islam and Muslims as the biggest threats to Sri Lankan Buddhism. The group believes that Sri Lankan Buddhism is the true Buddhism and points out that, historically, it is the oldest surviving Buddhist lineage in the world. The BBS argues that it is trying to protect this very sacred lineage from being eliminated by Islamification. The group’s stance was made clear when the it organized a conference in Colombo on February 17, 2013. According to the BBS, more than 1300 Buddhist monks attended the gathering, along with over fifteen thousand people. At the conference, Gnarasara Thero lectured that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala country and that the government must remain Sinhalese Buddhist. He told the attendants that they “must become an unofficial civilian police force against Muslim extremism” (Sri Lankan Mirror 2013). During this conference, the BBS also presented its “Maharagama Declaration,” which was a ten-point resolution designed to end halal certification, ban Sri Lankan women from going to work in the Middle East, block mosque building in Sri Lanka (and alleged that this was primarily financed by the Middle East), and other concerns related to Islam. Gnarasara Thero has been involved in numerous activities that have led to anti-Muslim violence. One of the more destructive events took place in one of Sri Lanka’s coastal towns, Aluthgama, on June 15, 2014. Only three days earlier, a Buddhist monk and his driver were allegedly attacked by Sri Lankan Muslims. Gnarasara Thero delivered a passionate speech to the local Buddhists about the fragility of Buddhism in Sri Lanka. He pointed to Muslims and declared that their desire to make Sri Lanka an Islamic state was one of the most dangerous threats to Sri Lankan Buddhism. Shortly after his sermon, local Buddhists marched into the Muslim neighborhood of Aluthgama, attacking Sri Lankan Muslims and burning and looting Muslim businesses. Around one hundred people were injured or killed, with over ten thousand people displaced from their homes. Since this tragedy, many smaller riots and attacks on Muslim shops and businesses have occurred in Sri Lanka. Some of these have been triggered by the BBS’s anti-halal certification campaign. Observant Muslims need to eat food that is religiously safe (halal).Muslims often buy meat from kosher delis, as the criteria for halal is similar to kosher. The BBS’s attack on halal has raised religious tensions and false beliefs about Islam. The BBS believes that the halal certification system profits only Muslims. In an interview, Dilanthe Withanage argued that the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) receives the money from the halal certifications and that his Islamic

Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena

council’s primary interest is to spread Islam in Sri Lanka. Dilanthe Withanage concluded that because of this, Buddhists should not have to pay a higher price on products due to this certification (Jerryson 2015). What he fails to acknowledge is that in February 2013, the ACJU offered to hand the halal certification over to the Sri Lankan government. The BBS has been guilty of quite a few false statements about halal, which have escalated religious tensions and attacks. For instance, they charged into a meat-inspection facility on March 1, 2013, arguing that young calves, pregnant cows, and water buffaloes were being slaughtered at the premises. If this were true, the meat inspection facility would be in violation of Colombo law, which states that the slaughter of calves is illegal. However, the BBS was incorrect; the facility was only being used by the officials to inspect meat before it was distributed around the city. This attack on the meat-inspection facility and other false statements have harmed the Muslim community (BBC 2013). In addition to the threat of Islam, the BBS regards the West with a high level of suspicion. Dilanthe Withanage explained that while the Western world has intervened with the persecution of Christians in Asia, it has never intervened to protect Buddhists. He believes that the reason for this is connected to a long legacy of Western Christian bias. Sri Lanka was colonized by the British from 1815 to 1948. During this time, British colonizers and missionaries strove to convert the Sri Lankans to Christianity and remove Buddhist influence throughout the country. This Christian missionary legacy has left many Sinhalese Buddhists with a negative view of Western intents and interests. For these reasons, the BBS has acted against Christians as well as Muslims. During its first year of operation, BBS followers broke into a house in Batakettara, Homagama, Piliyandala, where they alleged that the Christian evangelical pastor Dinesh and his followers of The Name of Lord Jesus were trying to convert Sinhalese Buddhists. In 2014, the BBS approached the 969 Movement about creating a transnational Buddhist Alliance to protect Buddhists throughout Asia. Members of the groups opine that this is a peaceful group seeking to reduce extremism and violence. Analysts consider this alliance a dangerous merging of hypernationalist groups, who have incited violence in their countries. On October 26, 2018, the Sri Lankan president appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former Sri Lankan president and BBS sympathizer, as the country’s prime minister. Since then, the BBS has taken to increased political pressure to make Buddhism more overtly present in Sri Lanka’s government and society. One of the more explicit examples came from a rally the group organized for its baseline supporters on July 7, 2019. The BBS called upon ten thousand monastics to join their base and urged them for support in taking control of parliament to protect the

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community (Aneez and Shah 2017). Their efforts may or may not become realized, but a strong and concerted number of Sri Lankan Buddhists are looking for change in their direction. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Chittagong Buddhists, Persecution of; Ma Ba Tha; 969 Movement; Saffron Revolution (2007); Soldier Monks; State Violence: Sri Lanka: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Aneez, Shibar, and Aditi Shah. 2017. “Hardline Sri Lanka Monk Calls for Buddhist Sinhalese Government.” Reuters, July 2017. ­https://​­www​.­reuters​.­com​/­article​/­us​-­sri​-­lanka​ -­buddhist​ /­h ardline​ -­s ri​ -­l anka​ -­m onk​ -­c alls​ -­f or​ -­buddhist​ -­s inhalese​ -­g overnment​ -­idUSKCN1U2078. BBC. 2013. “The Hardline Buddhists Targeting Sri Lanka’s Muslims.” March 25, 2013. ­https://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­asia​-­21840600. Deegalle, Mahinda. 2016. “The ‘Army of Buddhist Power’ in Sri Lankan Politics.” In Hiroko Kawanami, ed. Buddhism and the Political Process. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 121–44. Jerryson, Michael. 2015. “Buddhists and Violence: Historical Continuity/Academic Incongruities.” Religion Compass 9, no. 5 (May): 141–50. Schonthal, Benjamin, and Matthew Walton. 2016. “The (New) Buddhist Nationalisms? Symmetries and Specificities in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.” Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal 17, no. 1: 81–115. Sri Lankan Mirror. 2013. “Bodu Bala Sena Gives Ultimatum to Ban Halal Certification.” February 13, 2013. ­https://​­web​.­archive​.­org​/­web​/­20130222051222​/­http://­www​.­mirror​ .­lk​/­news​/­5366​-­bodu​-­bala​-­sena​-­gives​-­ultimatum​-­to​-­ban​-­halal​-­certification.

BUDDHIST END TIMES The Buddhist doctrine adheres to South Asian perspectives on time, which is cyclical (as opposed to being linear). While some religious traditions view time as having an absolute end point, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and other South Asian religious groups see only the ending of a cycle but not of time itself. In Buddhism, the cosmological cycle of time is divided into four parts called kalpas. Early Buddhist sources do not measure the kalpas in numerical years but, rather, through analogies. For instance, in the Prajnaparamita Sutra (Perfect of Wisdom Sutra) one kalpa is as long as the time required to wear away a rock that is eighteen thousand meters by eighteen thousand meters by brushing it with a cloth once every hundred years. Each full cycle (or eon) is a mahakalpa, and its process reflects the deterioration of the cosmos.

Buddhism: Buddhist End Times

Buddhist scriptures explain that we are living in the middle to late part of the fourth kalpa. This kalpa is known as the age of destruction and is marked by extreme increases in mental afflictions and the shortening of human life-spans (near the very end, the maximum life-span becomes ten years). There is a moral dimension to this period as well. The fourth kalpa’s progression inversely matches the health and vitality of Buddhism. This connection becomes an important motivator for Buddhist-inspired violence. Buddhism’s health is measured by the strength and fortitude of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (Buddhist doctrine), and the Sangha (monastics). The healthier and richer the Three Jewels are, the slower the progression of the fourth kalpa. However, as the end approaches, societies reach the peak of their misunderstanding of the Buddhist doctrine (Dharma). In addition, Buddhist monastics devolve into immoral lifestyles and behavior (Sangha). In this way, the decline in Buddhist vitality (monastics or doctrine) is paired with the approaching of End Times. Embedded within this view is the logic that in order to stave off a Buddhist End Times, it may be necessary to commit violence. Buddhist traditions have different markers for an End Times. Some Buddhist traditions cite the appearance of Buddhist relics as the sacred sign. Among the more popular relics are the Buddha’s begging bowl and his robe (Strong 2004, 211–28). While there are different views on what the signs are, all Buddhist traditions recognize the presence of the future Buddha-to-be (Sanskrit: Maitreya; Pali: Metteyya). Throughout the centuries, Buddhists have claimed that the world had entered into a Buddhist End Times and that either the future Buddha-to-be or his nemesis Mara, the lord of desire and illusion, had arrived. Paul Demiéville provides a powerful example of this with his description of the Chinese Buddhist monk Faqing. In 515, Faqing commanded an uprising against the state. He told his soldiers that the battle was a holy war. If they were able to kill their adversaries, they were participating in the Buddhist crusade against Mara. Faqing also told his army that the deaths were for the “new Buddha.” Demiéville postulates that this new Buddha is Maitreya, the Buddha-to-be (2010, 25). There are other examples of this rhetoric throughout history, such as the Chinese White Lotus Society and the “Holy Man Revolts” in Southeast Asia (Nartsupha 1984). Japanese and Chinese Buddhist traditions possess important distinctions with regard to Buddhist End Times. These East Asian traditions see the life of Buddhism divided into three different ages. The third and final stage is Mappō, which is the Age of the Dharma’s Decline. This decline will last for ten thousand years, and, near its end, no one will be able to understand or benefit from the Buddhist teachings. Some traditions blame the allowing of female monastics as the cause of this decline. Others point to the rise of false teachings or poor monastic behavior.

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There are several recent examples of violence connected to the fear of Buddhist End Times. During the Sri Lankan Civil War against the LTTE (1983–2009), Sinhalese Buddhist monks protested against any negotiations with the insurgents. They stressed the need to protect Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Buddhism. In this manner, they saw the LTTE’s fight to claim independence from the rest of Sri Lanka as an attack on the vitality of Buddhism. If the LTTE became successful, this would spell a quickening of the Buddhist End Times. Buddhists who live in contemporary Buddhist conflicts areas, such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and southern Thailand, also invoke the rhetoric of defending Buddhism. For them, it is important to protect the sanctity and purity of the Buddhist doctrine. Behind their expressions of protecting Buddhism are more expansive implications, namely, eschatological destruction. The failure to protect Buddhism becomes the marker for quickening a Buddhist End Times. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Soldier Monks; Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Christianity: Armageddon; Judaism: Messianism/Messiah FURTHER READING Collins, Steven. 1998. Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Demiéville, Paul. 2010. “Buddhism and War.” In Michael Jerryson and Mark Juergensmeyer, eds. Buddhist Warfare. Translated by Michelle Kendall. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 17–58. Nartsupha, Chatthip. 1984. “The Ideology of ‘Holy Men’ Revolts in North East Thailand.” In Andrew Turton and Shigeru Tanabe, eds. History and Peasant Consciousness in Southeast Asia. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, pp. 111–34. Nattier, Jan. 1991. Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline. Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press. Nattier, Jan. 2008. “Buddhist Eschatology.” In Jerry L. Walls, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 151–69. Stone, Jacqueline I. 1985. “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age: Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist 18, no. 1: 28–56 and 18, no. 2: 35–64. Strong, John S. 2004. Relics of the Buddha. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

CHITTAGONG BUDDHISTS, PERSECUTION OF The Chittagong Buddhists live in Bangladesh, South Asia. Bangladesh’s official state religion is Islam. It is the fourth–most–populated Muslim country in the world, next to India, Pakistan, and Indonesia. While over 90 percent of Bangladeshis are

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Muslim, the third-largest religious population is Buddhism. More than half of the Buddhist population lives in the southeastern region of Bangladesh called the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and have lived alongside their Muslim and Hindu neighbors for centuries. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, colonialism and decolonization redrew many national borders. One of the more powerful changes came after the British withdrew from India. This led to the partition of India, in which over twelve million people left their homes. In 1947, this process led to the creation of Pakistan and made eastern Bengal part of the country. The actors on both sides had what they wanted in the great partition; India became principally Hindu, while Pakistan became principally Muslim. Whether it was India or Pakistan, there was no inclusion or direction for the Bengali Buddhists. In addition, there was no way Pakistan would grant them their own country, as they lived in one of the country’s largest ports. This economic importance became amplified in 1971, when the Bengal region split from Pakistan and became Bangladesh. The minority Buddhist population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts faced persecutions from their Muslim neighbors under the Pakistani and Bangladeshi governments. Part of the Chittagong Buddhist marginalization and persecution was due to the fragility of these young nation-states. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh had to mount nationalist campaigns to create national identity and loyalty. The efforts drew heavily upon religious nationalism. This first occurred after the creation of Pakistan, with a newfound sense of Islamic nationalism. The Chittagong Buddhists encountered Islamic nationalism in a slightly different manner with the rise of Bangladesh’s Bengali nationalism in the 1970s. When Bangladesh was formed, the newly crafted constitution imposed Bengali as the sole official language and Islam as the state religion. To make the cultural and religious affiliations clear, the new Bangladeshi government provided no cultural or linguistic rights to minority populations. Following these changes, the government encouraged massive migration of Muslims into the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Such preferential legal actions led many non-Muslim Bangladeshis, especially the Bengali Buddhists, to feel marginalized in their own country. The Bengali Buddhists’ marginalization intensified in 2012, largely due to a conflict and persecution of the Rohingya in the nearby country of Myanmar. Bangladesh shares its borders with Myanmar. In contrast to Bangladesh, Myanmar is a Buddhist country, with the majority of its citizens Buddhist. Muslims are a minority in Myanmar; one Muslim community are the Rohingya, whom the Burmese call Bengali Muslims. The Rohingya, while culturally distinct, are ethnically related to Bengali Muslims who live in Bangladesh. Many Burmese historians have cited the long pattern of Rohingya migration from Bengal into Myanmar over the last several centuries. This continual migration has led to close ties between Muslim communities in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

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During the 1980s and 1990s, the continual Buddhist persecution of Muslims in Myanmar led to over one hundred thousand Rohingya leaving their country and making their way across the border to Bangladesh. They had fled the Buddhist persecution and sought new homes for themselves. Unfortunately, Bangladesh had no place for them other than in temporary shelters. These shelters grew exponentially in 2012. From June to October 2012, Myanmar’s far western Rakhine state had a series of conflicts and riots against the Rohingya. Over one hundred and fifty thousand Rohingya fled across the border during this period. They came with horrendous stories of the persecutions by the Burmese Buddhists. These stories spread across Muslim towns in Bangladesh and led to an escalation of tensions between the Bangladeshi Muslims and their Chittagong Buddhist neighbors. The proverbial levee broke on September 29 in what has been called the 2012 Ramu Violence. There were allegations that a Bengali Buddhist had posted a photo of a partially burned Qur’an on his Facebook page. Over twenty-five thousand Bangladeshi Muslims took to the streets en masse, waved anti-Buddhist slogans, destroyed Buddhist villages, and set fire to ancient Buddhist temples. Thousands of Buddhists became homeless overnight, and more than twenty temples were attacked. This left the Bengali Buddhist community across the Chittagong region and beyond shaken and scared. As the Burmese persecution of the Rohingya continued, the tensions continued to boil in Bangladesh. In August 2017, the Arakanese Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked the Burmese police in the Rakhine state. The Rohingya’s small attack led to a massive Burmese military response. Villages were torched, and women were raped. Some of the more vicious reports in shelters came from Rohingya survivors who recounted how their Buddhist neighbors drove them out of their homes. By the end of October 2017, over six hundred and thirty thousand Rohingya had fled across the borders of Myanmar to Bangladesh. These increased numbers did not change the earlier problems in Bangladesh; the country had no place for the Rohingya, who now numbered close to a million refugees. The overwhelming refugee shelters, the stories from the refugees, and reports on the ongoing Burmese Buddhist persecution continue to worsen relations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Bangladesh’s Buddhist-Muslim relations was impacted by the Rohingya persecutions in Myanmar; they also impacted their own Buddhist-Muslim relations in Sri Lanka. Shortly after the 2012 Ramu violence, Sri Lankan Buddhists went to the streets and attacked Muslim stores and businesses. The Buddhist-Muslim relations in South and Southeast Asia have had transnational impacts. These especially affect the marginalized communities in these countries, such as the Chittagong Buddhists in Bangladesh. Michael Jerryson

Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama

See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Ma Ba Tha; 969 Movement; Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Hinduism: Kashmir; Islam: Kashmir and Global Jihad; Rohingya, Persecution of; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Barua, Mitra. 2020. “Arakanese Chittagong Became Mughal Islamabad: Buddhist-Muslim Relationship in Chittagong, Bangladesh.” In Iselin Frydenlund and Michael Jerryson, eds. Buddhist-Muslim Relations in a Theravada World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming). Chowdhury, Nazmul Hasan. 2006. “The Resistance Movement in the Chittagong Hill Tracts: Global and Regional Connections.” Asian Affairs 28, no. 4 (October–December): 36–51. Mohsin, Amena. 2003. The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On the Difficult Road to Peace. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.

FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA(TENZIN GYATSO) (1935–) Perhaps the most visible and well-known Buddhist figure in the contemporary world is Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He was born on July 6, 1935, as Llhamo Thondup but was named Tenzin Gyatso and recognized as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama on February 22, 1940. A few confusing popular assumptions of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama are that he is simply the “Dalai Lama,” when this is a title (and his numbered rebirth should be included), and that he has been the political leader of the Tibetans rather than the religious leader (his school views him as a religious leader, and he renounced this political role in 2011) (Page 2011). Since coming of age, he is known for his staunch nonviolent approach to the Chinese government’s treatment of his peoples in the Tibet regions of China. According to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, he is the fourteenth incarnation of the awakened (enlightened) embodiment of compassion, Avalokiteshvara. In Tibetan Buddhism, two of the most important virtues are compassion and wisdom. It is believed that the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara holds a special place in his heart for the Tibetans, and he chooses to be reborn as a dalai lama to help them and the world. However, this particular belief and this narrative of history has been promoted by the Geluk school, which stands to profit from the popularity of their political leader. There are four different schools in Tibetan Buddhism: the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Geluk. The Fourteenth Dalai recognized the Bon as a fifth school (which was the indigenous religion before Buddhism). Out of the five different Tibetan Buddhist schools, the Geluk have enjoyed the most political

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influence over the past few centuries. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama has worked to provide an ecumenical leadership and bridge sectarian divisions within Tibetan Buddhism. The political status that comes from this provides the Fourteenth Dalai Lama with the most influential Tibetan Buddhist platform in the modern world. The title of dalai lama derives from a sixteenth-century merging of Tibetan and Mongolian titles. A Mongol ruler named Altan Khan bestowed the title upon Sonam Gyatso, the third Dalai Lama (1543–1588). The word “dalai” is the Mongolian word for ocean or great, while “lama” is Tibetan for teacher but is commonly translated as master. As the embodiment of compassion, the Dalai Lama is fully awakened but chooses to return to this world of suffering to help other sentient beings become awakened. When one Dalai Lama dies, his students conduct a search for his rebirth. Following with their tradition, the school identified the Fourteenth Dalai Lama when he was four years old. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama officially accepted his full political duties on November 17, 1950 at ten years of age. During the same year, Mao Zedong’s Chinese government assumed control over Tibet but provided the former government with limited autonomy. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s administration struggled to prevent the Chinese from taking over their territory. Their political struggles reached a boiling point in 1959, when Tibetan uprisings began. The Fourteenth Dalai and roughly eighty thousand lamas fled the Tibetan regions of China for India, as well as for Bhutan and Nepal. There, they created refugee communities and established the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamsala. In China, the Great Leap Forward policies cost the Tibetan region over two hundred thousand lives, and the Cultural Revolution destroyed over five thousand monasteries. In the 1960s, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s administration accepted over $1.7 million from the Central Intelligence Agency in its opposition to China’s takeover of Tibet. As he continued to speak out against the Chinese mistreatment of the Tibetans, he helped launch the first Tibetan democratic constitution in 1963. Due to the overwhelming military advantage by the Chinese government, part of his administration’s strategy was to align the Tibetan cause to Western interests. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama did this, promoting comparisons between Western science and Tibetan practices, and toured the Western world (for a historical overview of this subject, see Donald Lopez’s Buddhist and Science). While the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was fostering positive relations with Western dignitaries, he faced fierce criticism and problems within his community. In 1975, a book named The Yellow Book was published about the protector deity Dorje Shugden and decried any non-Gelug impurities in the Gelug community. The following year, due to allegations of violence and persecution, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama rejected the support of The Yellow Book and renounced the veneration

Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama

of Dorje Shugden. His 1976 decision caused intense debates and divisions within the Tibetan Gelug community. In the 1980s, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama adopted a Gandhian policy of opposition to China. This peaceful resistance has provided him with the symbolism of peace and a moral high ground in his calls for better treatment of Tibetans in the Tibetan regions of China. His efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In 2013, Time Magazine named him one of the “children of Mahatma Gandhi,” in reference to his adherence and promotion of Gandhi’s theory of satyagraha (truth force), a nonviolent means of disobedience. While the Fourteenth Dalai Lama enjoys a global recognition for his peace efforts, he also has been involved in some crises and persecutions. In 1991, the diverging interests between his followers and those of Dorje Shugden led to the creation of a splinter of the Geluk school, the New Kadampa Tradition. Protests have been staged against the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and allegations made that he has persecuted the New Kadampa Tradition. One particularly prominent incident occurred in 1997, when the New Kadampa Tradition was accused of murdering the principal of the Buddhist School of Dialectics, Lobsang Gyatso. While the New Kadampa Tradition argues that they are being persecuted, there have been accusations that their own followers have plotted assassinations against the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. During the 1990s, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama received public criticism for his lack of support to LGBTQ+ people. His 1996 book Beyond Dogma provides a clear view on Buddhist ethics and sexual orientation: “A sexual act is deemed proper when the couples use the organs intended for sexual intercourse and nothing else . . . Homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate for sexual contact” (47). While the Fourteenth Dalai Lama does not support nonheterosexual activities, he has publicly spoken out against the persecution of people based on their sexual orientation and/or gender. Since 2009, over 140 Tibetan Buddhists have self-immolated in protest of the Chinese treatment of the Tibetan suffering. This recent surge in self-immolations has caused public concern. When asked about these deaths, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama argued that the causes behind them is China’s cultural genocide. Beyond the stated justifications for self-immolation, deaths by self-immolation raise ethical questions, such as the meaning of the self-immolations. Is self-immolation a form of suicide? If it is, is it an act of violence? On March 25, 2013, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama addressed the nature of Tibetan self-immolations in an interview with the Times of India, in which he explained that “any action, whether violence or non-violence, is ultimately dependent on motivation” (YouTube 2013).

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The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s explanation underscores a Buddhist perspective on violence. In Buddhist doctrine, intention is paramount to assessing whether or not harm or injury occurred. Some may consider self-immolations an act of violence, but the Fourteenth Dalai Lama argues that when a person retains a positive and calm mind while committing a self-immolation, there is no violation. As the Fourteenth Dalai Lama became older, concern spread about his possible replacement. Tibetans and others have argued that the Chinese government would try and usurp his platform by promoting a puppet as the next Dalai Lama. The Chinese have branded the Fourteenth Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist, and the self-immolations and Tibetan advocates for autonomy draw upon his image and sacrality. There is a precedent for Chinese intervention—and the Chinese have long been involved in Tibetan politics. In order to quash the concerns over his death and rebirth, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama announced in March 2019 that, when he dies, he would choose to be reborn anywhere but in China and that any Chinese candidate should not be respected (Das and Kataria 2019). While the future is unknown for the Tibetan efforts for autonomy, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s legacy of peaceful reconciliation efforts and Gandhian style leadership will remain a symbol for Tibetans and Buddhists around the world for years to come. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Ashoka (Asoka) (r. 268–232 BCE); Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–); Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–); Vegetarianism; Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Vegetarianism FURTHER READING Das, Krishna N., and Sunil Kataria. 2019. “Exclusive: Dalai Lama Contemplates Chinese Gambit after His Death.” Reuters, March 18, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­reuters​.­com​/­article​ /­us​-­china​-­tibet​-­dalai​-­lama​-­exclusive​/­exclusive​-­dalai​-­lama​-­contemplates​-­chinese​ -­gambit​-­after​-­his​-­death​-­idUSKCN1QZ1NS. Goldstein, Melvyn C. 1997. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama. Berkeley: University of California Press. His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 1996. Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Lopez, Donald S., Jr. 1999. Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lopez, Donald S., Jr. 2008. Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation McGranahan, Carole, and Ralph Litzinger, eds. 2012. “Self-Immolation as Protest in Tibet.” Cultural Anthropology (special edition), April 9, 2012. ­https://​­culanth​.­org​/­fieldsights​ /­series​/­self​-­immolation​-­as​-­protest​-­in​-­tibet. Page, Jeremy. 2011. “Dalai Lama to Hand over Political Leader Role.” Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2011. ­https://​­www​.­wsj​.­com​/­articles​/­SB1000142405274870345380457619 1542646350586. YouTube. 2013. “Times Now Special: The Dalai Lama (Full Interview).” March 25, 2013. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​-­XXZslT3mmE.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(BUDDHISM) According to Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha was beseeched by his aunt, who was also his stepmother, to become ordained. He refused her on the grounds that his monastic community only accepted men, like the other religious traditions at that time. Longing to join the community and become awakened (enlightenment), the Buddha’s stepmother and aunt Mahāpajāpatī (Sanskrit: Mahāprajāpatī), visited the Buddha’s cousin, Ananda. Ananda agreed to support her cause and visit the Buddha on her behalf. Ananda visited the Buddha and asked him three times before the Buddha provided his consent to allow women into his monastic community. Following this, he warned that this change shortened the life-span of the Dharma (Buddhist doctrine). In addition, the Buddha also made rules for female monastics that made them subordinate to male monastics. In the monastic tradition, seniority is based on a person’s duration as a monastic. If a thirty-year-old man was a monk for twenty years, he would have seniority over a forty-five-year-old man who had been a monk for five years. However, a female monastic who had been ordained over thirty years earlier would have to pay respects to a recently ordained male monastic. These rules also stipulated that female monastics must endure two ordinations, one in front of the male monastics, and that they must perpetually confess their transgressions in front of the male monastic community. Although he exhibited unfair treatments toward women, the Buddha’s decision to allow women into his monastic community made Buddhism one of the earliest religions to allow female ordination. As a new religious movement, the Buddha was competing against Jains and the supporters of the Brahmanical system that we would later call Hinduism. Neither Jain monks nor the Brahmans allowed women to become ordained. Hence, while the Buddha was restrictive to women in his monastic community, he was also a progressive of his time. The example of the Buddha’s treatment of female dynamics reflects the dual nature embedded in Buddhism’s gender dynamics. While historically, Buddhist practices and beliefs have provided inroads for women, the religion also maintains a persistent and systemic patriarchal structure throughout. Early South Asia did

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not have the gender constructs of the contemporary world. In the early Buddhist traditions of South Asia, certain nonheterosexual men were allowed to join the monastic order, but many were excluded. Yet even with the allowances of women and nonheterosexuals into their monastic traditions, Buddhist doctrine attacked women for their biology. In early South Asia, Buddhist scriptures likened a woman’s menstruating body as an “outhouse, cesspool, or rotting cadaver,” and blamed the female womb for humanity’s impurity (Langenberg 2017, 158). While there are scriptures that condemn women’s bodies, there are scriptures that uphold women’s agency toward liberation. For instance, the Vimalkirti provides an argument that gender is a complete construct. In it, a goddess, challenged by the sexist rhetoric of the Buddha’s disciple Shariputra, briefly turns the Buddha’s disciple into a woman. The goddess does this to illustrate gender’s lack of relevance in the pursuit of awakening (enlightenment). At the same time, other scriptures, such as the Larger Sukhavati-vyuja in the Pure Land tradition, explain to a woman that she will be reborn as a male in order to become awakened. In contemporary times, women and LGBTQ members have expressed their frustrations and triumphs within their respective Buddhist communities. Among the chief frustrations are the frequency of sexual assaults and the barring of women and LGBTQ members from becoming ordained. Throughout the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, there have been numerous sexual scandals. Some of these were consensual between Buddhist monk and lay person, while others were not. Since the Me Too movement, Buddhists have become more open with reporting their attacks. Some Buddhist traditions promote female monastics and their legacy. One of the more prominent supporters is the Taiwanese Buddhist organization, the Fo Guang Shan, which has over 3500 monastics worldwide. Conversely, other Buddhist traditions have blocked women from becoming ordained, most particularly Theravada Buddhist traditions. During the Eleventh Annual United Nation’s Day of Vesak Convention in Vietnam, one of the invited speakers, Ajahn Brahm, was denied a chance to deliver his accepted paper due to the subject matter. The Australian Buddhist monk had flown to Vietnam in anticipation of giving his paper on supporting women to receive full ordination in Theravada Buddhism. However, the day before the conference, he was informed that he could not present it (West Wight Sangha 2014). A case example of this struggle is in Thailand. Thailand has never had a female monastic lineage. Because of this, conservative Buddhists argued that there was no way to “start” a new lineage. Beyond the religious argument is the social repercussions of such a decision. Men are provided with clear social mobility through ordaining and getting access to free education, lodging, and governmental assistance. Temporarily, ordination is typical in Thailand. Many Thai males ordained for a brief time to gain merit and grant their mothers with enough merit to go to

Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

heaven. Historically, women were prevented from these material and moral benefits. Some have expressed being hurt and injured (Jerryson 2018). In 2003, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh became the first Thai female monastic to be accepted by the Thai Buddhist monastic community. This acceptance had its limitations. While the Thai Buddhist community regards Dhammanada with respect and acknowledges that she is a Theravada Buddhist female monastic, they do not view her as part of the Thai Theravada Buddhist community. She assumed the monastic name Dhammanada Bhikkhuni and took up residence in her mother’s monastery outside of Bangkok. After she had been a female monastic long enough to ordain her own disciples, the Thai government disallowed women from becoming ordained in Thailand. Dhammanada Bhikkhuni is not alone in her efforts to advance the rights of women. The Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women holds a biannual conference and provides many resources for female Buddhists. They publish free online publications and their conference proceedings, as well as offer online videos. While there are more resources becoming available for Buddhist women, there is still a healthy amount of opposition and lack of support to Buddhist LGBTQ members. Very few monastics support the ordination of trans persons. Western Buddhist organizations, such as the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, have been open to the LGBTQ community, but their perspective is not widely shared in Asia. For instance, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has consistently held that homosexual activity is a sexual misconduct (Walden 2013). There are over 1.3 billion people who practice Buddhism. In studying Buddhism, one learns that there are many differing understandings of sacred rituals, mantras, and beliefs. Often, Buddhism is presented as a progressive religion in the Western world. This presentation provides a glimpse into Buddhism’s practices and potentials but neglects to acknowledge the deeply conservative views entrenched in Buddhist societies. Throughout history, Buddhist conservative views have been held predominantly by men. Today, we find that these masculine perspectives continue to include restrictions based on a person’s gender and sexual orientation. Michael Jerryson See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Buddhist End Times; Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); International Network of Engaged Buddhists; Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Buddhist Peace Fellowship. ­www​.­buddhistpeacefellowship​.­org. Cabezón, José Iganacio. 2017. Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism. Somerville: Wisdom Publications. Faure, Bernard. 1998. The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gyatso, Janet. 2005. “Sex.” In Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ed. Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, 271–290. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “The Violence of Gender Discrimination.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 80–109. Langenberg, Amy Paris. 2017. Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom. New York: Routledge. Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. ­http://​­www​.­sakyadhita​.­org​/. Walden, Andrew. 2013. Dalai Lama: ‘They Want Me to Condone Homosexuality  .  .  . a Relationship between Two Men Is Wrong.’” Hawai’i Free Press, August 27, 2013. ­h ttp://​­ w ww​.­h awaiifreepress​ .­c om​ /­A rticlesMain​ /­t abid​ /­5 6​ /­I D​ /­1 0443​ /­D alai​ -­L ama​ -­ldquoThey​-­want​-­me​-­to​-­condone​-­homosexualityhellipa​-­relationship​-­between​-­two​ -­men​-­is​-­wrongrdquo​.­aspx. West Wight Sangha. 2014. “Ajahn Brahm Speech Banned.” May 30, 2014. h­ttp://​ ­west​-­wight​-­sangha​.­blogspot​.­com​/­2014​/­05​/­ajahn​-­brahm​-­speech​-­banned​.­html.

INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF ENGAGED BUDDHISTS The International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) is one of the first nongovernmental organizations (NGO) that emerged out of Asia rather than a Western country. It was founded in 1987 by Sulak Sivaraksa, a Thai Buddhist intellectual and Nobel Peace Prize laureate nominee. Its patrons include the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. The INEB has an organizational structure based in Bangkok, Thailand, where it coordinates activities with a small staff. It has orchestrated conference meetings around Asia. More recently, it has provided meetings in Nepal (2018), Taiwan (2017), Sri Lanka (2016), Myanmar (2014), Malaysia (2013), Japan (2012), and India (2011). The INEB members hail from more than twenty-five different countries, and many of the members are male and female monastics. According to its website, the INEB is devoted to expanding Buddhist principles of social action toward a healthy, just, and peaceful world. To meet its mission, the INEB often collaborates with other NGOs and organizations and seeks contributions and grants. The name for the organization derives from a contemporary Buddhist platform. The term “engaged Buddhist” was first coined by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to describe the implementation of Buddhist principles to

Buddhism: International Network of Engaged Buddhists

address the suffering of sentient beings around the world. Thich Nhat Hanh saw this principle as a way to connect to Gandhian principles through Buddhist values. Scholars Christopher Queen and Sallie King have edited several collections of books that chart the activities of important Buddhists who have been “engaged” in the contemporary world. Sulak Sivaraksa was one of the Buddhists noted in their collection; his launching of the INEB in 1987 was a furthering of his vision that connected with Thich Nhat Hanh and other international Buddhist concerns. Its global interests coincide with the larger global movement to make Buddhists more engaged in peacemaking. The INEB sends its members to help alleviate suffering, such as in the southern Thai conflict zone. It also publishes an international magazine three times a year called Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society. The magazine includes articles by Buddhist scholars, updates on Buddhist development projects, and activities that support peace. Their issues are free and are made available through their website. While there is some work about the NGO, the majority of the scholarship about the INEB comes from the INEB’s founder, Sulak Sivaraksa. Sulak has written extensive on his views on the INEB. In his Conflict, Culture, Change, he explains that his NGO links together engaged Buddhists around the world, “deals with alternative education and spiritual training, gender issues, human rights, ecology, alternative concepts of development, and activism” (Sulak 2005, 146). The INEB has been involved in promoting the highly contentious allowance of ordaining female monastics in Thailand. In December 2018, the organization issued a statement in support of establishing a female monastic order in Thailand (INEB 2014). In addition to gender equality, the INEB also addresses issues of climate change, art, economics, Buddhist chaplaincies, and interfaith dialogue. The NGO has focused recently on Buddhist-Muslim relations in Myanmar, which involves the persecution of the Rohingya population. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Southern Thailand; Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–); Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–) FURTHER READING International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). ­http://​­inebnetwork​.­org​/­about​/. International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). Patron, Honorary Advisors, Advisory Committee and Executive Committee Name Lists. ­http://​­inebnetwork​.­org​/­committee​/ International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). Seeds of Peace: A Buddhist Vision for Renewing Society. ­http://​­inebnetwork​.­org​/­engagements​/­seeds​-­of​-­peace​/.

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Religious Violence Today International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB). 2014. “A Statement to Support Establishing the Bhikkhuni Sangha in Siam (Thailand).” December 15, 2014. h­ ttp://​ ­inebnetwork​.­org​/­a​-­statement​-­to​-­support​-­establishing​-­the​-­bhikkhuni​-­sangha​-­in​-­siam​ -­thailand​-­vvvvvvv​/. Queen, Christopher, ed. 2000. Engaged Buddhism in the West. Somerville: Wisdom Publications. Queen, Christopher, and Sallie King, eds. 1996. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: Albany State University Press. Sulak Sivaraksa. 2005. Conflict, Culture, Change: Engaged Buddhism in a Globalizing World. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

KACHIN, PERSECUTION OF Myanmar is known for its genocidal persecution of the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim community that has lived in the country for over a century. However, what the media often fails to capture is the persecution of another ethnic group in Myanmar, the Kachin, by the Buddhist government due to their different religious and ethnic identities. The Kachin state is in the northernmost state in Myanmar and shares its northern border with Tibet and its eastern border with Yunnan, China. Over 1.6 million people live in the state, the majority of which are Kachin. The Kachin comprise six subgroups: the Jinghpaw, Lisu, Rawang, Lachik, Zaiwa, and Maru. Due to the Transatlantic Charter, in 1948, the Burmese gained their independence and formed a new government. As Burmese Buddhists, they strove to bring together the minority ethnic groups that had been under the British rule into a united union. The union’s original vision was similar to the European Union (EU) today. In the process of creating a national identity, they promised the Kachin and other ethnic groups a high level of autonomy, equality, and shared governance in the Panglong Agreement. The Panglong Agreement is comparable to the United States’ Declaration of Independence, as it serves as the primary document prior to the Burmese Constitution and continues to define the nation. The government failed to fulfill its promise of shared governance and equality as the years progressed. Nearly all Kachin are U.S. Baptist Christians or Roman Catholic who, due to their different religion and ethnicity, faced discriminatory practices. As Burma became more nationalized, the government asserted a pro-Burmese, pro-Buddhist campaign. This led to a lack of support for minorities who were outside of the established identities. The Burmese government began to draw resources from the Kachin state, such as its jade, gold, and amber mines, not to mention huge hardwood logging

Buddhism: Kachin, Persecution of

operations, but would not share the wealth it extracted proportionally with Kachin state. In response to this and the outlawing of teaching the Kachin language and curriculum in the schools, the Kachin launched the Kachin Independence Organisation in 1960 to provide a platform for their grievances. The following year, they established an armed division called the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Starting in 1961, the KIA fought with the Burmese government for independence. This conflict lasted until a cease-fire in 1994, but then resumed in 2011. Since 2011, many Kachin Christians live outside the jurisdiction of the protection of the Burmese government. The Burmese and Chinese governments have blocked most visitors and communications to and from Kachin in order to isolate them and keep their situation from being widely known. Kachin Christians claim that their internet access is blocked through Chinese servers. As such, little information is allowed in or out of the Kachin state. Many Kachin fled to China but were forced to return to the conflict areas. Today, about 15 percent of the whole Kachin population live in internally displaced peoples camps, often just ten miles or less from active fighting and without proper access to international humanitarian aid. Civilians have been killed and raped by the Burmese military, and many face dangers such as land mines. In 2018, the new Burmese government under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi approached the KIA for the National Ceasefire Agreement. However, due to the Burmese military’s continued bombing of Kachin villages, the KIA refused to lay down their arms. Since April 2018, over eight thousand villagers have been forced to flee the military bombardments, bringing the Kachin refugee total to one hundred and thirty thousand over the years. In addition, aid agencies have complained about being blocked from providing aid to the Kachin, which is a violation of international humanitarian law (Hogan 2018). Ryan Libre, a documentary photographer and founder of Documentary Arts Asia, has worked with the Kachin for over a decade, recording their struggles and the Buddhist discrimination through photos and narratives, as well as empowering and supporting local media makers. His work has been noted for bringing to light the Buddhist persecution of the Kachin through individual accounts. He writes: I have witnessed this oppression first hand, from churches and Kachin villages still smoldering after being razed by the Burmese Army, government clerks being told plainly they will never get a promotion if they don’t formally convert to Buddhism, to Churches in disrepair whose pastors have been waiting years for permission to remodel from the Buddhist government, to the majority of Kachin peoples ID cards which the government refuses to put their family/clan names on, to a ban on all non-national religious teachers and missionary work. This oppression is very palatable everywhere I look. (personal communication)

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Today in the Union of Myanmar, not only is Burmese the only official language in a union with well over one hundred languages, but it has become illegal to even call it Burmese. It must be referred to as Myanmar language, which would be the equivalent of the EU making German the only official language and forcing everyone to call it “European Language” (Cadigan 2014). The Kachin crisis became more formally recognized by the United Nations in 2018. The United Nations published a report on Myanmar’s infringement of human rights. They found Buddhist preferential treatment by the Burmese government and the mistreatment of the Rohingya and the Kachin. In the report, Marzuki Darusman writes, “The report also sets out the findings of its detailed investigation into violations perpetrated in the northern states of Shan and Kachin. The report finds that the actions of the Tatmadaw in both Kachin and Shan States since 2011 amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity” (United Nations 2018). Whether or not the conflict persists, the Burmese persecution of the Kachin stands as a powerful example of Buddhist discrimination of Christians in the modern world. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Cadigan, Hilary. 2014. “Pictures Worth a Thousand Words: Catching Up with Ryan Libre of Documentary Arts Asia.” City Life (Chiang Mai), May 3, 2014. ­https://​­www​ .­chiangmaicitylife​.­com​/­citylife​-­articles​/­pictures​-­worth​-­a​-­thousand​-­words​-­catching​ -­up​-­with​-­ryan​-­libre​-­of​-­documentary​-­arts​-­asia​/. Hellmann-Rajanayagam, Dagmar, and Sascha Helbardt. 2015. “The Kachin of Myanmar. An Approach to a Complex Political and Social History.” International Quarterly for Asian Studies 46, nos. 3–4: 347–78. ­https://​­crossasia​-­journals​.­ub​.­uni​-­heidelberg​.­de​ /­index​.­php​/­iaf​/­article​/­view​/­3729​/­3831. Hogan, Libby. 2018. “‘Slow Genocide’: Myanmar’s Invisible War on the Kachin Christian Minority.” The Guardian, May 13, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​/­2018​ /­may​/­14​/­slow​-­genocide​-­myanmars​-­invisible​-­war​-­on​-­the​-­kachin​-­christian​-­minority. Lahtaw, Ja Nana. 2007. “Peace Initiatives among Ethnic Nationalities: The Kachin Case.” In N. Ganesan and Kyaw Yin Hlaing, eds. Myanmar: State, Society and Ethnicity. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 236–56. Song, Lili. 2018. “Forced Migration of Ethnic Kachins from Myanmar to China: Law and Politics behind China’s Response.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (April). ­https://​­journals​.­sagepub​.­com​/­doi​/­full​/­10​.­1177​/­0117196818766905. Sun, Yun. 2014. “China, the United States, and the Kachin Conflict.” Stimson: Great Powers and the Changing Myanmar no. 2 (January). ­http://​­www​.­burmalibrary​.­org​/­docs17​ /­Stimson​-­China​_US+­Kachin​_Conflict​.­pdf.

Buddhism: Knowing Buddha Organization United Nations Human Rights Council. 2018. “Myanmar: UN Fact-Finding Mission Releases Its Full Account of Massive Violations by Military in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan States.” September 18, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­ohchr​.­org​/­EN​/­HRBodies​/­HRC​/­Pages​ /­NewsDetail​.­aspx​?­NewsID​=​­23575​&­LangID​=​­E.

KNOWING BUDDHA ORGANIZATION The Knowing Buddha Organization (KBO) was created to protect images of Buddha from violence in Thailand and worldwide. Buddhist doctrine views Buddha images as sacred (uddesika) and treats them as existing in more than simple corporeal form. Many Buddhists find the mistreatment of Buddha images as not only hurtful to see but harmful to the sacred images themselves. A young organization, the KBO membership has grown to over six thousand members. Since its foundation in 2011, the organization has successfully launched campaigns to protect Buddha images in Thailand and worldwide. The founder of the KBO is Thai entrepreneur and Buddhist meditator Acharawadee Wongsakon. From its inception, Acharawadee has channeled her entrepreneurial skills and business tactics into artistically powerful productions on the KBO website, its Facebook page, LCD displays, billboards, DVDs, magazines, and booklets. Her efforts have not gone unrewarded. There is wide and growing support for the KBO in Thailand. In addition to its growing number of members, the organization receives significant contributions from local and national Thai businesses. The KBO is composed largely of educated Thais, the majority of whom are female. Their wide membership also attracts local Thais who occasionally join their marches, such as the annual protest down the famous backpacker streets of Khao Sarn Road. The organization publishes the magazine ­5000s​.­Org: Modern Lifestyle with Buddhist Thought Magazine and Dharma books, as well as brochures that appear in the Grand Palace (a favorite tourist site) and warning signs at the Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports. The KBO was formed to protect the Buddha image from violence. Its genesis occurred in 2011, when Acharawadee visited France. At one point, she came upon a “Buddha Bar” and became greatly distressed. A KBO volunteer recounted: [Acharawadee] came to a bar—and filled up [with] tears. She felt pain and felt alone there. And she said, “It is not right. Why put the Buddha in the middle of the bar? It is what the Buddha taught that is not right: to drink, to dance, and everything [are] not the way of the Buddha.” She said she could not do anything. She cried at the bar. (Jerryson 2018, 166)

The KBO identifies the protection of Buddhism as its primary purpose. It sees such disrespectful treatments as harmful to Buddhists and, in one of its brochures,

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explains, “True Buddhists who see a Buddha image placed as objects in inappropriate places will feel very unhappy and may become subject to conflict arising from such situations.” Whether it is a Buddha beer, Buddhist toilet lids, Buddha skateboards, Buddha headphones, or psychedelic art of the Buddha, KBO members see these uses of the Buddha image as disrespectful—and feel harmed. KBO members state that though harmed by these acts, they would never resort to violence in order to redress it. In addition, volunteers believe such measures would violate the Buddhist precept against violence. Thailand has laws with regard to the defamation of religion, but the KBO considers the current language too ambiguous, which leads to a lack of enforcement. In contrast, they look favorably upon the recent actions of Buddhist governments such as Sri Lanka’s, which has arrested and deported tourists because of Buddha tattoos. During one of the more recent cases, a Sri Lankan police spokesperson stated that the tourist “was arrested for ‘hurting others’ religious feelings” (BBC News 2014). The KBO considers many of these problems the result of general ignorance about Buddhism. One prominent example is an email the KBO received in 2013. A group of Europeans had inquired about the correct way to create a Buddha image carpet for the Buddha’s birthday. Implicit in their question is an unawareness that Buddha images should be placed up high as a sign of respect in Asia; the dirtiest and most impolite parts of the body are the soles of the feet. Currently, the KBO—under its sister organization ­5000s​.­org​—­has five international petitions against United States’ and England’s spa companies, night clubs, and sweet shops that use “the Buddha’s name and image with extreme inappropriateness.” The first case is Olive Spa in the United States, which uses a Buddha head at the shop and in its spa rooms. The second is the Las Vegas space Encore, which uses Buddha statues as decorations for its spa. The third case is the British nightclub Sugar Buddha Deansgate Locks, which is named after the Buddha. The fourth case is the Chicago-based specialty store Sweet Buddha, which offers sweets, jewelry, and apparel in the shape of the Buddha. The fifth case is the U.S. brewery, The Funky Buddha Lounge and Brewery, which decorates its lounge, logos, and beer taps with Buddha images (­5000s​.­org 2016). One of the doctrinal concerns with disrespecting and harming Buddha images is that some Buddhists believe these acts indicate the acceleration of a Buddhist End Times. As such, combating such behavior protects the images and the lives of all sentient beings. The KBO has attracted many followers due to its ethical stances and has made a long-lasting impact on the global treatment of Buddha images. Michael Jerryson

Buddhism: Ma Ba Tha

See also: Buddhism: Buddhist End Times; Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Islam: Blasphemy FURTHER READING BBC News. 2014. “Sri Lanka to Deport Buddha Tattoo British Woman.” April 22, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­asia​-­27107857. ­5000s​.­org. 2016. “5 Disrespectful International Cases.” June 26, 2016. ­http://​­www​.­5000s​ .­org​/­campaign​/­index​/­id​/­1. Jerryson, Michael. 2016. “Introduction: Buddhism, Blasphemy, and Violence.” Journal of Religion and Violence 4, no. 2: 119–27. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “Violence against Buddha: A History of Blasphemy.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 152–74.

MA BA THA The Ma Ba Tha is an English transliterated abbreviation for the Patriotic Association of Myanmar. A Burmese Buddhist nationalist organization, it was an offshoot of the 969 Movement. It was founded in January 2014 with the purpose of defending Theravada Buddhism. As a nationwide network, it provided educational facilities and resources, job training, food pantries, and many other social services to low-income areas. On an international level, it became a platform for anti-Muslim rhetoric. Shortly after the Ma Ba Tha was formed in 2014, it placed considerable focus on promoting four laws for the country, collectively known as the Race and Religion Protection Laws. Members canvassed areas, organized speeches, and put pressure on politicians. Partly due to their political clout, the laws were passed and enacted into law in 2015. The four laws are summarized as follows: • • • •

The Monogamy Law prosecutes any Burmese who has more than one spouse. The Population Control Law regulates birth rates for certain women in particular regions. The Religious Conversion Law restricts the ability for Burmese to change their religious identities. The Interfaith Marriage Law disallows Buddhist women from marrying non-Buddhists if there are any public objections to their union. (Library of Congress, 2015)

According to Ma Ba Tha members, these four laws attempt to balance the inequalities that exist between Buddhists and Muslims. NGO critics, such as Human Rights

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Watch and Amnesty International, argue that these measures were not made in a sociopolitical vacuum but were designed to persecute marginalized females, particularly Muslim women, in Myanmar (Human Rights Watch 2016). Buddhist advocates of the bills argue that Islamic doctrine provides strong penalties for leaving the faith, whereas Buddhist doctrine does not. As such, there is an imbalance of societal pressures when a Buddhist and Muslim marry. They also argue that Muslims are “breeding out” Buddhists. In light of these dangers, Buddhist monks such as U Wirathu believe that these laws protect Buddhism and the future of Myanmar (Colombo Telegraph 2013). The International Crisis Group released a detailed report on the membership, activity, and interests of Ma Ba Tha members. Due to their social work and outspoken push for Buddhist nationalism, the Ma Ba Tha enjoyed significant popular support. Thus, the organization’s views are shared widely among Burmese Buddhists. The report states, “Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar is not just about promoting the faith, but also protecting the culture. This makes it impossible to draw a clear distinction between political and non-political nationalist activism” (International Crisis Group 2017). Eventually, the Ma Ba Tha lost considerable political support due to its antagonistic behavior with the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) elected civilian administration. The NLD government is led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who enjoys strong popular support. The contestation between the Ma Ba Tha and the Burmese government became public in 2016, when the Yangon Region Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein “described the group as ‘unnecessary’ while addressing a gathering of Myanmar residents in Singapore in June 2016” (Moe 2018). The dismemberment of the Ma Ba Tha may signal an end to its official political platform, but it does not remove the popular views and practices it helped cultivate and bring together. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–); Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); 969 Movement; Saffron Revolution (2007); State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Colombo Telegraph. 2013. “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” July 3. 2013. ­https://​­www​ .­colombotelegraph​.­com​/­index​.­php​/­full​-­text​-­of​-­the​-­banned​-­time​-­story​-­the​-­face​-­of​ -­buddhist​-­terror​/. Human Rights Watch. 2016. “Burma: Events of 2015.” ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­world​-­report​ /­2016​/­country​-­chapters​/­burma.

Buddhism: Mahavamsa International Crisis Group. 2017. “Buddhism and State Power in Myanmar.” September 5, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­crisisgroup​.­org​/­asia​/­south​-­east​-­asia​/­myanmar​/­290​-­buddhism​-­and​ -­state​-­power​-­myanmar. Kyaw, Nyi Nyi. 2014. “Myanmar’s Rising Buddhist Nationalism: Impact on Foreign Investors.” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, May 15, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­rsis​ .­edu​.­sg​/­wp​-­content​/­uploads​/­2014​/­09​/­CO14090​.­pdf. Library of Congress. 2015. “Burma: Four Race and Religion Protection Laws Adopted.” Global Legal Monitor, September 14, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­loc​.­gov​/­law​/­foreign​-­news​/­article​ /­burma​-­four​-­race​-­and​-­religion​-­protection​-­laws​-­adopted​/ Moe, Moe. 2018. “Ma Ba Tha Changes Name, Still Officially Illegal.” The Irrawaddy, September 3, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­irrawaddy​.­com​/­news​/­ma​-­ba​-­tha​-­changes​-­name​-­still ​-­officially​-­illegal​.­html. Walton, Matthew J., and Susan Hayward. 2014. “Contesting Buddhist Narratives: Democratization, Nationalism, and Communal Violence in Myanmar.” East-West Center: Policy Studies 71. Honolulu: East-West Center. ­https://​­scholarspace​.­manoa​.­hawaii​ .­edu​/­bitstream​/­10125​/­35836​/­1​/­ps071​.­pdf.

MAHAVAMSA The Mahavamsa is a mytho-historical narrative of the Sinhalese Buddhists written in the fifth century CE. Initially recorded in Pali, it literally means “The Great Branch,” as Sinhalese view its history as the main part of their heritage. While Buddhist scholars do not consider this text as canonical, Sri Lankan Buddhists treat it as such. The book chronicles the legendary visits of the Buddha to the island in the sixth century BCE and includes chapters about the development of the Sinhala people. Much of the narrative provides theological explanations of historical events, such as the Hebrew Bible; however, the most quoted section comes from chapter twenty-five, “The Victory of Dutthagamani.” Chapter twenty-five chronicles an illustrious battle between the righteous Buddhist king Dutthagamani (also known as Dutugamunu; r. 161–137 BCE) and the Tamil king Elara. Dutthagamani explains at the onset of the chapter that he fights to “bring glory to the [Buddhist] doctrine” (Geiger 1912, 170). A great war commences, and Dutthagamani emerges victorious. However, after the victory, Dutthagamani returned to his royal palace and reflects on the cost of the battle. He expresses deep remorse for all the Tamils who died, which the narrative explains was “the destruction of millions (of beings)” (Geiger 1912, 177). King Dutthagamani is visited by eight arahants (fully awakened Buddhists), who comfort him. At first, the king rejects their efforts, explaining: “How shall there be any comfort for me, O venerable sirs, since by me was caused the slaughter of a great host numbering millions?”

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Religious Violence Today The eight fully awakened (enlightened) Buddhists answer: “From this deed arises no hindrance in thy way to heaven. Only one and a half human beings have been slain here by thee, O lord of men. The one had come unto the (three) refuges, the other had taken on himself the five precepts. Unbelievers and men of evil life were the rest, not more to be esteemed than beasts. But as for thee, thou wilt bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha in manifold ways; therefore, cast away from thy heart, O ruler of men!” (Geiger 1912, 178)

The passage above provides a just-war explanation that has persisted in modern times. When the awakened beings explained that the king had only killed 1.5 people, it is because they had assessed the value of each human. Only one Tamil had converted to Buddhism (coming unto the three refuges); another Tamil had practiced the Buddhist moral code (five precepts), making him worth half a person. From this section of the Mahavamsa, we learn that only men are considered fighters (due to the male pronouns used), and that murder is only murder when you kill Buddhists. Further, the intention to defend Buddhism and bring glory to the Buddhist doctrine earns a person a direct path to heaven. While this mytho-historical battle took place centuries ago, Sinhalese Buddhists have applied its rhetoric to justify contemporary violence. One of the more explicit cases was during the twenty-six-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE (1983–2009). The civil war began on July 23, 1983, which has been called Black July. The LTTE, a collection of Christian and Hindu fighters, were fighting for independence. Their first large assault was on the Sri Lankan military. Fifteen people died—and due to the high tensions around the country, the government tried to downplay the incident. This lack of transparency led to rumors. Between July 24 and 26, Sinhala Buddhists engaged in riots against Tamils throughout the country. In three days, three thousand Tamils died, over ten thousand of their homes were destroyed, and there was a massive Tamil migration out of Sri Lanka. Notable Buddhist monks such as Walpola Rahula wrote that the “Sangha is ready to lay down their lives” to prevent the government from negotiating with the Tamil insurgents. He told the then-President Jayewardene that the government must militarily eradicate terrorism (Abeysekara 2002, 211). The highly respected Buddhist monk Maduluwawe Sobhita echoed Rahula’s position, arguing, “Some say that monks do not need politics; but we cannot do anything except through politics. Even if we do not endorse party politics, we have to take certain decisions in important situations. We should have the right to comment on good and bad things that the government does . . . [I]f a government engages in things that are against the religion [Buddhism] and the nation it becomes necessary for Buddhist monks to appoint a new government” (Abeysekara 2002, 206).

Buddhism: Mahavamsa

Throughout the Buddhist push to eradicate the Tamil insurgents, monks and lay Buddhists cited the Mahavamsa and the need to “protect” Buddhism from the heathens. The most explicit framing came from the famous monk Piyadassi, who explained in 1997, “You have to defend yourself. These are difficult questions. If someone goes to kill my mother, I’m going to stop him. So this could be a condition in which I am forced to kill” (Bartholomeusz 2002, 44). Embedded in his explanation is the metaphor of Sri Lanka, which is the Sinhala Buddhists’ “motherland.” The LTTE fight for independence was “killing” the unity of the motherland. By 2009, the Sri Lankan government had destroyed all military vestiges of the LTTE including UN sanctioned areas for medical help and assistance (Thottam 2015). These events display that even through the Mahavamsa is a sacred record for Sinhala Buddhists, it also holds powerful moral justifications for violence. The text and its just-war principles permeated into Southeast Asia. As early as the 1970s, Cambodians used “Tamils” in their anti-Communist campaigns. The Mahavamsa’s moral code became a useful tool for Burmese Buddhists in their fight against the Rohingya. On October 30, 2017, one of the most prominent Burmese Buddhist monks, Sitagu Sayadaw, delivered a sermon to Burmese soldiers at the Bayintnaung garrison and military training school in the Karen state. His sermon took place during the Burmese military atrocities against Rohingya civilians. For his sermon, he drew sections from Mahavamsa, specifically the victory of Dutthagamani. In doing so, he provided the soldiers with reasons for the Sri Lankan Buddhist king’s victory, explaining: We are talking about the powers of the Dhamma. The victory of this battle is due to the power/quality of the Dhamma over King Duttagamani. The battle was won because of the effects of the power of the Dhamma. And as a result of the unity of the monks in fighting the battle together, the battle was over. That was how they had a landslide victory in beating the invaders. (YouTube 2017)

Sitagu Sayadaw’s sermon’s use of the Mahavamsa to condone the killings of non-Buddhists indicates that the text’s influence is not bound to Sri Lanka, nor to fighting against Tamils. Whether or not the Buddhist community will change its views of this text in the future is unclear; while it is venerated, it holds a powerful tool to justify violence. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna); Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Hinduism: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Abeysekara, Ananda. 2002. The Colors of the Robe: Religion, Identity, and Difference. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Bartholomeusz, Tessa J. 2002. In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka. New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Geiger, Wilhelm, trans. 1912. The Mahāvamsa or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon. London: Pali Text Society. Jerryson, Michael, and Iselin Frydenlund. 2020. “Buddhists, Muslims and the Construction of Difference.” In Iselin Frydenlund and Michael Jerryson, eds. Buddhist-Muslim Relations in a Theravada World. New York: Palgrave (forthcoming). Tambiah, Stanley J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thottam, Jyoti. 2017. “New UN Report Details Alleged Sri Lankan War Crimes.” Aljazeera America, September 17, 2017. ­http://​­america​.­aljazeera​.­com​/­articles​/­2015​/­9​/­17​/­new​ -­un​-­report​-­details​-­sri​-­lanka​-­war​-­crimes​.­html. YouTube. 2017. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­GAukEq​-­GzMs.

969 MOVEMENT The most prominent contemporary Burmese conservative face of Buddhism is the 969 Movement. The 969 Movement is largely anti-Western but is especially anti-Muslim, with leaders referring to an Islamic conspiracy to destroy Buddhism. One of its leaders is the high-ranking monk Ashin Wirathu (1968–), who was dubbed by Time Magazine (on their July 1, 2013 cover) as the “The Face of Buddhist Terror.” The 969 Movement, which emerged in 1999, took a decisive turn in its mission when Ashin Wirathu joined in 2001. Wirathu promoted a nationalist 969 campaign, which included boycotting Muslim businesses. The 969 Movement’s name reflects Myanmar’s obsession with numerology. It is numerical shorthand for the Triple Jewel (Tiratana): the nine supreme qualities of the Buddha, six traits of the Dhamma (Sanskrit: Dharma) and nine traits of the Sangha. Buddhist traditions are inundated with numbers and categories that stretch back for hundreds of years; however, the Burmese context for 969 was quite recent. In the 1990s, a Burmese monk, U Kyaw Lwin, used 969 as a numerological counter to the South Asian Muslim use of 786. While not a global phenomenon, South Asian and Southeast Asian Muslim business owners have displayed 786 to indicate that they are Muslims. The term acts as a surrogate for writing out sacred words such as Basmala (in the name of Allah) or bismillah-ir-rahman-ir-rahim (in the name of Allah, the compassionate and merciful), which is a phrase that begins most suras in the Qur’an. As one of the more prominent monks of the movement, Ashin Wirathu argued that Muslims are a threat to Myanmar and to Burmese Buddhism. He explained

Buddhism: 969 Movement

to his 969 members and supporters that the numbers 7-8-6 are a covert way of promoting a Muslim agenda to take over the world in the twenty-first century. His evidence is that since 7+8+6 equals 21, the 21 stands for the time of the Muslim takeover, which will happen in the twenty-first century. As the countermovement to this global threat, the 969 movement has called for a boycott on Muslim businesses and their goods. The 969 Movement’s anti-Muslim campaign was cancelled after Wirathu’s imprisonment in 2003. The Burmese government found him guilty of inciting religious hatred after he distributed anti-Muslim leaflets, which led to the killing of ten Muslims in Kyaukse, Mandalay. His prison sentence was for twenty-five years, but Wirathu was released with other political prisoners in 2010. Once released, Wirathu rejoined the 969 Movement and resumed his work to incite fear of Muslims. After Wirathu’s release from prison, he immediately spoke favorably of government efforts to expel Muslim communities, supporting the Buddhist nationalism of President Thein Sein (1945–). Upon Wirathu’s return, the 969 Movement renewed its demands that Buddhists boycott Muslim stores and shops, marking Buddhist-owned businesses with special stickers. Although the relationship between the 969 Movement and the Myanmar government remains unclear, the powerful military has been tacitly supportive of the group’s demands and has turned a blind eye to it. One instance of military support came in 2013, when the Burmese government banned the controversial Time Magazine article that labelled Wirathu “The Buddhist Face of Terror.” This apparent alliance between the 969 Movement and the Burmese military led to several new developments. Among the more visible is the public persecution and killing of the Rohingya; the 969 Movement spread the anti-Muslim propaganda, and the military raped and executed thousands of Rohingya. The 969 Movement, primarily through Wirathu’s sermons, has focused particular attention to the Rohingya. In his sermons, Wirathu calls them African carp, because both the Rohingya and carp “breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind.” The 969 Movement’s rhetoric on the threat of Islam has provoked Buddhist riots against Muslims; the most violent of these occurred in Meiktila on March 20, 2013. In May 2013, the 969 Movement turned transnational through its online presence. Wirathu and the 969 Movement have demanded the expulsion of Muslims from Myanmar to purify Buddhist lands and have been involved in campaigns to ban halal food certification, limit intermarriage, and prevent Burmese conversion to other faiths. Their efforts were instrumental in Myanmar’s creation and passing of the “four laws to protect religion and race” in 2015. NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have noted that these laws maliciously target Burmese Muslims (including the Rohingya).

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The 969 Movement’s website, Twitter account, and Facebook pages attract contributors from around the world. Through these social media sources, Wirathu is known for his offensive, often gendered language, especially toward United Nations diplomats, such as such as using expletives when referring to the special envoy to Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, in his public sermons. Due to his violent rhetoric and anti-Muslim sermons, Wirathu has been called the “Buddhist Osama bin Laden.” His rhetoric finally landed him in trouble when he defamed Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation’s civilian leader. On May 29, 2019, after accusing Aung San Suu Kyi of sleeping with a foreigner (she was married to a British academic who died in 1999), he was charged with sedition. Prior to this, Wirathu and the 969 Movement had enjoyed the military’s backing. They worked to support the creation of the Ma Ba Tha (literally, Association for the Protection of Race and Religion). While there are members in both organizations, the Ma Ba Tha has many more monastic members and has proven much more effective in political influence and social outreach. Together, both organizations have cooperated with Sri Lanka’s BBS, establishing transnational partnerships of conservative Buddhism. The 969 Movement, the Ma Ba Tha, and the BBS demonstrate the potential for prejudice and violence, even among peaceful religions. Michael Jerryson and Shane Joshua Barter See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–); Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Chittagong Buddhists, Persecution of; Ma Ba Tha; Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar); Saffron Revolution (2007); Soldier Monks; Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Islam: Qur’an; Rohingya, Persecution of; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Frydenlund, Iselin. 2017. “Religious Liberty for Whom? The Buddhist Politics of Religious Freedom during Myanmar’s Transition to Democracy.” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 35, no. 1: 55–73. Jerryson, Michael. 2016. “The Buddhist State of Exception.” In Hiroko Kawanami, ed. Buddhism and the Political Process. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 145–66. Kyaw, Nyi Nyi. 2016. “Islamophobia in Buddhist Myanmar: The 969 Movement and Anti-Muslim Violence.” In Melissa Crouch, ed. Islam and the State in Myanmar: Muslim-Buddhist Relations and the Politics of Belonging. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 183–210. Schissler, Matt, Matthew Walton, and Phyu Phyu Thi. 2017. “Reconciling Contradictions: Buddhist-Muslim Violence, Narrative Making and Memory in Myanmar.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 47, no. 1: 1–20.

Buddhism: Rakhine State Violence

RAKHINE STATE VIOLENCE(MYANMAR) There have been two massive conflicts against the Rohingya in the Rakhine State. The first began in 2012, and the second was in mid-2017. The conflicts emerged due to the change in demographics in the Rakhine State. Since the 1970s, Rakhine Buddhists slowly lost their majority status to the Rohingya Muslims. Buddhist monks have cited that the problems in Rakhine are a signal of what is to come for the country—the decline of Burmese Buddhism and the rise of a hegemonic Islamic culture. However, the Burmese census shows that while the populations in Rakhine changed, the 4.2 percent Muslim populate rate has remained consistent since the 1970s. The persecution of the Rohingya began prior to the British colonization of Burma, with the enslavement of Bengali Muslims. Slave traders brought them as property to the region that later became the Rakhine State. During the British colonization of South Asia, the British encouraged Bengali Muslims to move to Burma. This colonial preference furthered the racial stereotyping of the “slave” image of them. The concerns heightened in 1982, when the country enacted the Myanmar citizenship law. By this time, the Burmese Bengali Muslims called themselves Rohingya. The Burmese government refuses to recognize this ethnic marker, calling them Bengali Muslims. The Rohingya were omitted from the list of official ethnic groups and were denied citizenship. Due to this omission, they were prevented from traveling around Myanmar to other states (and were thus locked in Rakhine). Furthermore, their low social status led to their increased poverty and higher birth rates. During the Burmese junta reign from 1962 until 2011, there were conflicts between different ethnic and religious groups, but this was largely between the Buddhist state and the Karens and the Kachin, who are Christian. Starting at the end of 2011, the Burmese government transitioned to a more democratic rule of governance, and the military stepped back. Buddhist monks became more emboldened to speak out, many from the 969 Movement attacking the Rohingya and warning of an imminent nationwide crisis. In 2012, shortly after this democratic transition, there was a spike in violence in Rakhine. It began with allegations in June 2012 that Rohingyas raped a Rakhine Buddhist woman (The New Humanitarian 2012). There was no legal follow-through to verify this. Instead, the Rakhine Buddhist response was a massive attack on the Rohingya, with the burning of villages. Over one hundred thousand Rohingya became refugees by the end of 2012. These refugees were placed into special camps, and they have been living in the camps since. According to New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof, the conditions within these camps are comparable to concentration camps (Kristof and Ellick 2015).

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A new Buddhist organization called the Ma Ba Tha (Protection of Race and Religion) called for stronger laws and policies to protect Buddhists. This led to the implementation of the infamous four religion and race laws of 2015, and international NGOs declared these laws discriminatory. When the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee critiqued the Burmese government for their support of the four laws, the 969 Movement and Ma Ba Tha member and prominent Burmese Buddhist monk U Wirathu responded with disdain for the UN and her words. He exclaimed, “We already have made public the Race Protection Laws. But this bitch kaungma, without studying it, kept on complaining about how it is against human rights . . . Don’t assume you are a respectable person, just because you have a position in the U.N. In our country, you are just a whore” (YouTube 2015). The international media saw the democratic elections and the rise of Aung San Suu Kyi as a change in the persecution of the Rohingya. She took office in April 2016 and quickly avoided any direct condemnations about the mistreatment of the Rohingya (whom she called Bengali Muslims). During her time in office, she has rejected inquiries by the United Nations into attacks and rape (Agence France-Presse 2017) and refused to acknowledge the human rights violations, claiming these stemmed from fake news (Wildman 2017). The second crisis in Rakhine began on August 25, 2017, when a rebel faction of the Rohingya, called the ARSA, claimed responsibility for an attack on police posts and a raid on an army base. The government announced a death toll of 77 Rohingya insurgents and twelve security forces. The government declared ARSA a terrorist organization, and shortly afterward, the Burmese military attacked and burned Rohingya villages, raped Rohingya women, and drove over six hundred thousand Rohingya to flee Myanmar into Bangladesh. Since 2012, the Rohingya have tried to flee Myanmar, but no country has provided resources to receive them. One powerful example of this is the smuggler’s ring discovered in 2015 (Human Rights Watch 2015). The Rohingya had been paying smugglers to take them away from Myanmar. Some smugglers would not bring them to their ultimate destinations. Instead, they stopped in remote areas of southern Thailand. The smugglers would then demand a ransom. If they were not paid, they would kill the Rohingya. A joint military task force found mass graves of these Rohingya, who had been killed by the smugglers. The Rakhine State violence provides raw and massive data on the discriminatory patterns in Burmese Buddhism and the ways in which biases lead to genocidal behavior. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–); Ma Ba Tha; Mahavamsa; 969 Movement; Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of; State Violence: Myanmar: Muslim Crisis

Buddhism: Saffron Army FURTHER READING Agence France-Presse. 2017. “Aung San Suu Kyi Rejects UN Inquiry into Crimes against Rohingya.” The Guardian, May 2, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​/­2017​ /­may​/­03​/­aung​-­san​-­suu​-­kyi​-­rejects​-­un​-­inquiry​-­into​-­crimes​-­against​-­rohingya. Cheesman, Nick. 2017. “How in Myanmar ‘National Races’ Came to Surpass Citizenship and Exclude Rohingya.” Journal of Contemporary Asia. https: ­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1080​ /­00472336​.­2017​.­1297476. Human Rights Watch. 2015. “Thailand: Mass Graves of Rohingya Found in Trafficking Camp.”  May  1,  2015. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­news​/­2015​/­05​/­01​/­thailand​-­mass​-­graves​ -­rohingya​-­found​-­trafficking​-­camp. Kristof, Nicholas, and Adam Ellick. 2015. “21st Century Concentration Camps.” New York Times. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­video​/­opinion​/­100000002939059​/­21st​-­century​ -­concentration​-­camps​.­html. Kyaw, Nyi Nyi. 2014. “Myanmar’s Rising Buddhist Nationalism: Impact on Foreign Investors.” S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, May 15, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­rsis​ .­edu​.­sg​/­wp​-­content​/­uploads​/­2014​/­09​/­CO14090​.­pdf. Leider, Jacques P. 2016. “Rohingya: The Name, the Movement, and the Quest for Identity.” In Nation Building in Myanmar. Yangon: Myanmar Peace Center, pp. 185–232. Maung, Zarni, and Alice Crowley. 2014. “The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya.” Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal Association 23, no. 3 (June). h­ ttp://​ ­digital​.­law​.­washington​.­edu​/­dspace​-­law​/­handle​/­1773​.­1​/­1377. The New Humanitarian. “Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis.” November 16, 2012. ­http://​­www​ .­thenewhumanitarian​.­org​/­news​/­2012​/­11​/­16​/­myanmar​-­s​-­rohingya​-­crisis. Walton, Matthew J., and Susan Hayward. 2014. “Contesting Buddhist Narratives: Democratization, Nationalism, and Communal Violence in Myanmar.” East-West Center: Policy Studies 71. Honolulu: East-West ­Center​. ­https://­scholarspace​.­manoa​.­hawaii​ .­edu​/­bitstream​/­10125​/­35836​/­1​/­ps071​.­pdf. Wildman, Sarah. 2017. “A Nobel Peace Prize Winner Is Standing Idly by as Her Country Moves Closer to Genocide.” Vox, September 11, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­vox​.­com​/­world​/­2017​/­9​/­7​ /­16256164​/­myanmar​-­rohingya​-­muslim​-­flee​-­bangladesh​-­genocide​-­aung​-­san​-­suu​-­kyi. YouTube. 2015. “Wirathu Calls UN Envoy a ‘Whore.’” January 18, 2015. h­ ttps://​­www​ .­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­zAPA7NKynbU.

SAFFRON ARMY(JANATHA VIMUKTHI PERAMUNA) The Saffron Army (Sinhalese: kaha hamudava) is a term for a Sri Lankan Buddhist faction of the organization called the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (The People’s Liberation Front). The word “saffron” refers to the color of the Sinhalese Buddhist monks’ robes and “army” is used to denote the power channeled by its monks and Buddhist followers. Sri Lanka officially recognizes Theravada Buddhism; however, some Buddhist groups, such as the JVP prefers a more overt expression of this religious preference. The Saffron Army made this quite explicit in their work against the LTTE, who attempted to cleave a part of the country for themselves.

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The JVP was founded in 1965 by Rohana Wijeweera, a Sri Lankan Marxist politician. The movement was initially focused on socialist principles. In 1971, the JVP led an unsuccessful Marxist revolt. After this failed attempt, the group began to draw Buddhist monks and Buddhist followers, changing the internal demographics of the organization from socialist leaning to a Theravada Buddhist direction. By 1983, the JVP was aligned with Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalists and was among the organizations blamed by the Sri Lankan government for the Buddhist riots of 1983. The Sri Lankan civil war between the LTTE lasted from 1983 to 2009. During this time, the JVP reorganized to become a political party and won a few seats in 1983. After their poor performance in 1983, the JVP sought to reenergize its base. In 1987, it issued leaflets to Buddhist monks, asking them to lead the fight against the government (Abeysekara 2001, 26). In this way, the JVP positioned itself as a means for Buddhist monks to discharge their religious duties. It explained that by joining the JVP’s army of patriots (deshpremi hamudava), they were supporting a Buddhist movement that sought to “reclaim the glory of their Buddhist country and the nation ‘betrayed’ by the ‘unlawful’” government and to oppose them was to act “unrighteous” (Abeysekara 2001, 27). The Saffron Army berated Buddhists in the Jayewardene administration (1978–1989) for being Buddhist in name only. The Saffron Army marked these so-called Buddhists (and some monks) for death as traitors to Buddhism and the country. The JVP was blamed for many assassinations and attempted assassinations. In 1987, they tried to assassinate the Sri Lankan President Jayewardene (Gunaratna 1995, 237). According to Ananda Abeysekara, young Buddhist monks were integral to these practices (Abeysekara 2001, 29). Stanley Tambiah wrote that the JVP’s engagement with militant violence was primarily against the administrator, security forces, and politicians who were not supportive of their movement (Tambiah 1992, 98). These attacks cowed moderate Buddhists and divided Buddhist loyalties. The Saffron Army also directed their ire toward Western commercialization. Sri Lanka was a former British colony, and Sri Lankans have had an aversion to any undue adverse pressure from Western influences (Tambiah 1992, 97). The JVP’s attacks on moderate Buddhists and Western consumerism became a model for later Buddhist nationalist movements, such as the Jathika Hela Urumaya and the Bodu Bala Sena. By the late 1980s, the majority of Buddhist monastic students across the country had joined the JVP. These new recruits wrote subversive flyers, organized rallies, and hid weapons in their temples (Gunaratna 1995, 235). In the 1990s, the JVP became more respectable in the public eye. However, they continued to venerate their earlier efforts of the 1970s. The JVP continued to target young Buddhist monks as potential recruits. They also created an annual commemoration of the

Buddhism: Saffron Revolution

“martyrs” who died during their 1971 rebellion. H. L. Seneviratne notes that the sight of Buddhist monks making material donations (to them) was an unusual and powerful sight, as Buddhists usually made donations to monks. The organization became more prominent in 1994, becoming a third party in Sri Lankan politics. The party also took charge of the Vinivida, the only Sri Lankan magazine operated by Buddhist monks. The magazine became an important means of spreading JVP Buddhist ideas across Sri Lanka, publishing journal articles, opinion editorials, poems, and short stories, all with a focus on the problem of terrorism and the Western open-market economy (Abeysekara 2001, 30–31). Sri Lankan Buddhist monks became more active in politics, a unique behavior for a Theravada Buddhist society, and a few were elected to Parliament. With this change, the JVP has become less the medium of Buddhist monastic interests; instead, the Jathika Urumaya and the BBS have taken over this role. However, the political use of a “Saffron Army” has left a lasting legacy of Sri Lankan religious and political behavior and will inform generations for years to come. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Mahavamsa; Soldier Monks; Hinduism: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); State Violence: Sri Lankan Civil War FURTHER READING Abeysekara, Ananda. 2001. “The Saffron Army, Violence, Terror(ism): Buddhism, Identity, and Difference in Sri Lanka.” Numen 48, no. 1: 1–46. ­https://​­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1163​ /­156852701300052339. Gunaratna, Rohan. 1995. Sri Lanka: A Lost Revolution? The Inside Story of the JVP. Colombo, Sri Lanka: The Institute of Fundamental Studies. Seneviratne, H. L. 2000. The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago. Tambiah, Stanley J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

SAFFRON REVOLUTION(2007) The Saffron Revolution is a nomenclature for the 2007 Buddhist-led civil resistance in Myanmar. The word “saffron” refers to the Buddhist monks and their catalyzing influence in the revolution. The revolution began as a response to the Burmese junta’s recent economic and political exploitation of its people, particularly the gas prices. It has become a symbol of Buddhist peaceful resistance in modern times.

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From 1962 onward, the military has ruled Myanmar. Throughout their reign, the military has relied on Buddhist monks to legitimize their power. This Burmese relationship between the monks and the state is a phenomenon that stretches far beyond Myanmar to other countries that had Theravada Buddhist societies. In each scenario, the state desired recognition as a righteous government, and the Buddhists conferred this through specific Buddhist rituals and ceremonies. The collective order of monks is called the Sangha and stands for one of Three Jewels in Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma (Buddhist doctrine), and the Sangha (monastics). By recognizing the government as legitimate, the Sangha bestows an ethical and moral mantle upon a Buddhist state. This moral mantle was especially important to the Burmese military, who were aware of the global condemnation of their rule. During their dominate rule (1962–2010), they sought to combat this through state-controlled education and Buddhist influences (Skidmore 2004, 99–100). The junta’s reliance on the Buddhist monks for moral justification was lost in August 2007. On August 15, the junta removed their subsidies on fuel. This caused fuel prices to rapidly increase. As the sole provider of gas, the junta raised the country’s prices from $1.40 to $2.80 a gallon within weeks. They also elevated the price of natural gas by nearly 500 percent (Casey 2007). In an already impoverished society, these changes had drastic impacts. Food prices increased dramatically, and people came to the streets in protest. The junta arrested some of the protestors. However, soon after these occurrences, thousands of Buddhist monks took to the streets, holding their alms bowls upside down. One popular method of earning merit in Theravada Buddhism is by giving food to monks. This manner of merit-making is called alms, and typically takes place in the early morning. As one of the most egalitarian means to make merit, anyone can earn merit by sharing some of food. One is not supposed to kill an animal explicitly for monks, as this would create a karmic connection between the violence of food-gathering and the monk’s food consumption. Instead, they should offer a little of the food they prepared for themselves. In this way, monks are instructed to accept any sort of food: partially cooked rice or nicely seasoned pork or chicken. The more venerated the monk, the more merit one gathers by giving him alms. The understanding is that by accepting the food, the monk now makes the giver connected to his monastic merit-making. When the monks turned their bowls upside in collective marches, this was a sign that they would not accept the merit-making of the junta. The impact was immense. The junta jailed many of these Buddhists; there were accounts of the security forces beating many of these Buddhist monks. Matthew Walton and Susan Hayward note that the monastic responded “expanded rapidly,” when a few protesting monks were beaten by security forces (Walton and Hayward 2014, 11). The reaction was a deluge of monastic involvement. Tens of thousands of Buddhist

Buddhism: Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement

monks and nuns marched in the streets, prayed at Aung San Suu Kyi’s house (in which she was under house arrest), and turned their bowls upside down. These events cost the military their high moral standing in a Buddhist country. For many, these ramifications became the prevailing reason for the successful introduction of a Burmese constitutional referendum in 2008. Its goal was to create a democracy. The Saffron Revolution reflects a Gandhian style of civil disobedience—the avoidance of violence, yet retaining the political power to change socioeconomic conditions for the populace. Many scholars and journalists consider the Saffron Revolution an invaluable catalyst to the recent democratic reforms. At the same time, there may be some unintended consequences that have yet to fully unfold from this period. Many modern and progressive Buddhist monks were jailed during the Saffron Revolution. This loss of an important monastic demographic could explain some of the rise of conservatism seen in recent years, such as with the 969 Movement and the Ma Ba Tha. This will become more evidence in the future years, as Myanmar continues to economically develop and become more politically open. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–); Ma Ba Tha; 969 Movement; Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas (1869– 1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism) FURTHER READING Casey, Michael. 2007. “Monks Put Myanmar Junta in Tight Spot.” The Oklahoman, September 21, 2007. ­https://​­oklahoman​.­com​/­article​/­3131211​/­monks​-­put​-­myanmar​-­junta​ -­in​-­tight​-­spot. Schober, Juliane. 2011. Modern Buddhist Conjunctures in Myanmar: Cultural Narratives, Colonial Legacies, and Civil Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Skidmore, Monique. 2004. Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Walton, Matthew J., and Susan Hayward. 2014. “Contesting Buddhist Narratives: Democratization, Nationalism, and Communal Violence in Myanmar.” East-West Center Policy Studies 71. ­https://​­scholarspace​.­manoa​.­hawaii​.­edu​/­bitstream​/­10125​/­35836​/­1​ /­ps071​.­pdf.

SARVODAYA SHRAMADANA MOVEMENT The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement is a Sri Lankan Buddhist organization founded by A. T. Ariyaratne in 1958. The name draws upon the Sanskrit words sarvodaya (goodwill for everyone) and shramadana (giving of labor) and, in doing so, draws upon Buddhist philosophy and the thoughts of Mohandas Gandhi. The

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organization’s name also provides its intentions, which is found in its mission statement: “a no-poverty, no-affluence society in Sri Lanka through community based efforts and volunteerism.” According to its website, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement provides assistance to nearly half of Sri Lanka’s villages (over 15,000). This far-reaching grassroots network provides a powerful Buddhist example of a nonviolent movement with socioeconomic interventions. In their seminal work on contemporary Buddhist activism, Christopher Queen and Sallie King identify the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement as one of their models of “engaged Buddhism,” a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh to express the application of Buddhist principles to benefit the social world. In its early years, Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement’s founder, A. T. Ariyaratne, drew upon the thoughts of Mohandas Gandhi and Anagarika Dharmapala. Similar to Gandhi’s efforts to revitalize and reorient Hinduism in India, Ariyaratne was interested in enacting similar changes for Buddhism in Sri Lanka. Gandhi coined the term sarvodaya to express a new, nonviolent socioeconomic societal order (Bond 1996, 123). This perspective spoke to Ariyaratne’s environmental and social activism. He also looked to the legacy of the Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933). Dharmapala was instrumental in revolutionizing Sri Lankan Buddhism under British colonialism. Some scholars identify Dharmapala as Buddhism’s first global missionary, traveling to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago (along with other famous Buddhist figures, such as Shaku Soen and D. T. Suzuki) and spreading the Buddhist doctrine throughout Europe, the United States, and Asia. In doing so, Dharmapala left an indelible imprint on contemporary Sri Lankan perspectives of Buddhism. Ariyaratne envisioned a Buddhist organization that was not focused on other-worldly intentions but, instead, rooted in this world and its inhabitants. He distinguished his goals from Gandhi’s by explaining that Gandhi’s Hindu value on the atman (soul/self) is absent in Buddhism. For Ariyaratne, Theravada Buddhist doctrine—specifically Sri Lankan—the anatman (no-soul/no-self), was paramount to his explanation of service to society. Ariyaratne harnessed the anatman philosophy in Buddhism to direct his organization and followers toward selfless service (Bond 1996, 124). The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement is a vast organization with specific units to address social needs in Sri Lanka. The Deshodaya Unit promotes a culture of democracy, reconciliation, and sustainable peace (Sarvodaya, “Deshodaya”). Other units include a disaster management unit, an early childhood development unit, rural technical services unit, and a community health services unit. Each of these units has grassroots extensions in numerous villages throughout Sri Lanka. According to the organization, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement was active in providing relief after the tsunami of 2004, which decimated many parts of coastal

Buddhism: Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement

Sri Lanka. The organization writes, “Sarvodaya was able to get into action within 2 hours of disaster hitting Sri Lanka and continue to work towards reawakening Sri Lanka” (Sarvodaya “From Tsunami to Deshodaya,” 2005). In recent years, the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement continued to expand its reaches in Sri Lanka and has become Sri Lanka’s largest NGO. Its network is vast, supporting thirty-four district centers, and is active in over three thousand Sri Lankan villages. While the organization keeps to its roots, it has also evolved to make use of social media and the internet. The movement maintains an online presence through a Sarvodaya newspaper (Sarvodaya, “Sarvodaya Newspaper”), various publications, and online videos (YouTube 2019). On July 25, 2019, Ariyaratne continued to advance his movement’s mission. In a panel organized by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Ariyaratne criticized Western capitalistic structures and the siphoning of village resources into the Sri Lankan cities. He stressed the need to not only focus on politics and the economy, but also Buddhism, arguing, “If these things are not there and you focus only on the politics and economics, the kind of mess we are in today are bound to happen” (DailyFT 2019). Whether or not Sri Lanka listens, it is evident that the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement has made and will continue to make enormous improvements for many Sri Lankans, as well as provide a model of a Buddhist NGO. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–); Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism) FURTHER READING Ariyaratne, A. T. 1986. “Asian Values as a Basis for Asian Development.” In D. C. Korten, ed. Community Management: Asian Experience and Perspectives. West Hartford: Kumarian Press, pp. 32–39. Bond, George D. 1996. “A. T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka.” In Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, eds. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 121–46. Collins, Steven. 1990. The Selfless Persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DailyFT. 2019. “Developing Villages to Develop a Nation.” July 25, 2019. h­ ttp://​­www​.­ft​.­lk​ /­opinion​/­Developing​-­villages​-­to​-­develop​-­a​-­nation​/­14​-­682563. Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya (Sarvodaya). ­https://​­www​.­sarvodaya​.­org​/. Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya (Sarvodaya). “Deshodaya.” ­https://​­www​ .­sarvodaya​.­org​/­deshodaya. Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya (Sarvodaya). 2005. “From Tsunami to Deshodaya; 6 Months and Beyond.” September 19, 2005. h­ ttps://​­www​.­sarvodaya​.­org​ /­2005​/­09​/­19​/­from​-­tsunami​-­to​-­deshodaya​-­6​-­months​-­and​-­beyond.

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SOLDIER MONKS Soldier monks are fully ordained Buddhist monks who serve as armed soldiers, marines, navy, or air force personnel. The simultaneous occupation of monk and soldier provides many ethical and doctrinal complications and refutations in Buddhist doctrine. Collectively, monks represent the Sangha, one of the Three Jewels in Buddhism. A monk’s purpose is to avoid life’s vulgarities and to aspire toward awakening (enlightenment). A soldier’s life is virtually the opposite—one committed to a job that requires confrontation with life’s vulgarities. While these two purposes seem to conflict, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhist monastics have made use of soldier monks. The more recent example of soldier monks is found in Thailand’s southern conflict (2004–). According to the monastic guidelines found in a collection of Buddhist scriptures called the Vinaya, there are many rules and restrictions for Buddhists who want to ordain. Many of these rules revolve around physical or social characteristics that would preclude their ordination, such as if a person is diseased, a criminal, or handicapped. Most of these guidelines resulted from the historical Buddha trying to cope with specific sociopolitical and economic dilemmas. For example, a prohibition evolved that specifically relates to the ordaining of soldiers: During the time of the Buddha there was a war on the border of the northern Indian kingdom of Magadha, one of the primary supporters of Buddhist monasticism. Several generals who did not want to join the battle entered the Buddhist Sangha. At the request of the king, the Buddha declared that henceforth soldiers were not allowed into the Sangha. (Vinaya I, 73–74; Wijayaratna 1990, 15)

Since this historic incident, the official doctrinal stance for Buddhist monastic institutions (Sanghas) has been to prohibit active soldiers from joining. Nevertheless, the appearances of soldier monks are traceable across Asia and in different branches of Buddhism. Under the canopy of Mahayana Buddhism, there were situations historically in East Asia in which monks became soldiers (Kleine 2006, 76). In China, there are numerous instances of Buddhist-related conflicts, such as the Maitreya Messianic rebellions during the Sui and Tang Dynasties (Kleine 2006, 613–26), when soldier monks led revolts and rebellions, in part due to the Buddhist longevity in the region.

Buddhism: Soldier Monks

Perhaps one of the richest histories of militarized monks is found in Japan. Historian Mikael Adolphson cites more than four hundred conflicts involving Buddhist soldier monks in Japan’s premodern era (Adolphson 2000, 75). During this period and beyond, Japanese Buddhist monks saw their roles in relation to the deteriorating health of the world (Japanese: mappō). According to Buddhist cosmology, we are in the last stage of the fourth and final quarter of the cycle, called the mahakalpa. During this period, it is more difficult to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and awaken. The rationale for many of these monks was that their conduct, while unethical, was necessary in this deteriorated state of the world. To put it quite simply, an armed monk was better than no monks at all. Near the turn of the century, Japanese began to recruit soldier monks for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). The call was to defend Buddhism and help create fertile ground for people to become reborn in a correct Buddhist environment. Answering the call, Japanese Zen monks marched in the front lines of the military to preserve the nation (Victoria 1997, 137). Thailand has acknowledged and supported the ecclesiastical interdiction toward ordaining soldiers. In 1905, to avoid the overlapping of duties to the state and Sangha, the Chulalongkorn administration created a legal provision called the Thai Military Service Act to exempt monks from military service. The Act also eliminated the tensions concerning the possibility of monks enlisting in the army. Thus, in accordance with ecclesiastical restrictions, the Thai Military Service Act was designed to prevent the monk-to-soldier process. However, as early as 2002, a covert military unit, authorized by a confidential department, began directing Buddhist soldiers to ordain while remaining on active duty. Every year since, military monks were assigned to work at specific posts around the country (Jerryson 2011, 118). One clear indication of this strategy is the commissioning of military monks throughout the three southernmost provinces: the majority of military monks are sent to Narathiwat, the second largest group is assigned to Yala, and the fewest to Pattani. These proportions correspond to the level of violence and instability in the three provinces since 2004. Typically, a soldier training in southern Thailand would learn before his graduation that he had been selected to become a military monk. To proceed through full ordination, he would attend a local monastery as a military monk, one in his home neighborhood, or at more clandestine locations in southern Thailand. From that point, the military monk serves as an active and vigilant protector of the monastery and its monks. Stanley Tambiah argues that militancy separates a monk from his sacred identity. In a Durkheimian fashion, we can view the identity of the military monk as a collusion of sacred and profane principles. The inclusion of violence—a profane act—into a sacred persona removes the quintessential attribute of the sacred, distancing it from the profane. Referring to the militant activities of the Saffron Army

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in Sri Lanka, Tambiah explains, “The monk who has finally taken to the gun can no longer be considered a vehicle of the Buddha’s religion” (Tambiah 1992, 99). The nebulous nature of soldier monks makes for intractable documentation, but nonetheless displays the embodied militarization of Buddhist roles. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Buddhist End Times; 969 Movement; Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna); Southern Thailand; Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) FURTHER READING Adolphson, Mikael S. 2000. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Jerryson, Michael. 2011. “Militarization.” In Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 114–42. Kleine, Christoph. 2006. “Evil Monks with Good Intentions? Remarks on Buddhist Monastic Violence and Its Doctrinal Background.” In Michael Zimmermann, ed. Buddhism and Violence. Kathmandu: Lumbini International Research Institute, pp. 65–98. Tambiah, Stanley J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Victoria, Brian. 1997. Zen at War. New York: Weatherhill. Wijayaratna, Mohan. 1990. Buddhist Monastic Life: According to the Texts of the Theravāda Tradition. Translated by Claude Grangier and Steven Collins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SOUTHERN THAILAND Southern Thailand or Deep South refer to the three southernmost provinces of Thailand that border Malaysia: Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat (and sometimes the southern districts of Songkhla). This region has suffered one of the longest active Buddhist conflicts in the world (2004–). Since its early beginnings, the Thai government has imposed martial law over the region in response to violence. Scholars have identified the conflict as political but also ethnoreligious, as the crisis is between a Thai Buddhist government and a Malay Muslim insurgency. Among the more unique characteristics to the conflict are religious demographics. Whereas Buddhists represent a majority in the country overall, they are a minority in the southernmost provinces, which are predominantly Muslim. The two largest political combatants in the violence are the Thai security forces (such as the military, volunteer militia, and police), who are predominantly Buddhist, and the Malay separatists, who are Muslim. Although Buddhists are in the

Buddhism: Southern Thailand

minority in southern Thailand, Buddhist principles dominate the national political and military stages. This presence is not portrayed in the media, which often references the conflict as an Islamic conflict, without the necessary corollary—a Buddhist conflict (McCargo 2009, 2). The inclination to label the conflict as Islamic is due, in part, to global assumptions. In the twenty-first century, Malay Muslim separatists are fueled by political and religious tensions dating back to the sixteenth century, when the three southernmost provinces were an Islamic kingdom called Patani. This Islamic kingdom was not independent, as it had to pay tribute to Thailand (then called Siam). As Southeast Asia became colonized, Thailand’s borders were internationally drawn by French and British colonial powers. The southern border of Thailand was a direct byproduct of Thailand’s struggle with the British, who had colonized what is now Malaysia. Within the boundaries of Siam’s struggle with the British lay another internal one, the kingdom of Patani’s fight for independence, which persisted from the 1300s to 1800s. In 1817, after Patani made multiple attempts to separate from Siam, the Thai State partitioned the kingdom into the smaller present-day province of Pattani and several other principalities, which are collectively known as the provinces of Yala and Narathiwat. This tactic was effective in diminishing the solidified force of Pattani’s resistance, but it did not end the area’s strong claim for independence. Patani’s struggle for independence became redefined in relation to modernity and the advent of nation-states. During the early 1900s, Thailand was intent on nation building and congealing the disparate ethnoreligious groups into a national identity. In 1902, the last sultan of Pattani, along with the previously constructed provinces, refused to yield further local control to Siamese authorities. As with past attempts, this effort failed; the ethnically and religiously distinct population of the south became part of the new, centralized Siamese society. Throughout the twentieth century, the southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat continued to contest State authority, and they evolved with each new political tension and context. This continual tension led the Thai State to direct troops in southern regions to deal with organized resistance from groups such as the PULO (Pattani United Liberation Organization) or the BRN (Barisan Revolusi Nasional). Separatist groups such as PULO and the BRN have been active in the three southernmost provinces, but many believe the majority of attacks are led by a new grassroots organization loosely affiliated with the older resistance groups, such as the Barisan Revolusi Nasional-Coordinate (BRN-C) (McCargo 2008, 168–74). The contemporary conflict began on January 4, 2004, when Malay Muslim insurgents organized a raid on a Thai military base in Narathiwat. Within weeks, southern schools were bombed, and Buddhist monks were shot while on their morning alms rounds. The Thai government responded by imposing martial law

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over the three border provinces. Malay Muslim militant reacted to this with more attacks in the border provinces, making the conflict politically relevant throughout the country. The declaration of martial law made the southern issue a matter of national security and raised the stakes in the conflict. Since the declaration of martial law, there have been three large conflicts between militants and the Thai State, two of which occurred during 2004. The first was the conflict at the Khru Se Mosque, the second was the Tak Bai massacre, and the third was a series of attacks on the 2007 Chinese New Year. On April 28, 2004, Malay militants waged a comprehensive attack throughout the southern provinces of Songkhla, Pattani, and Yala. Malay Muslim youths, labeled by the media as “separatist militants,” charged seven police outposts before dawn. Some, dressed in fatigues with red cloth strips wrapped around their heads, were said to be as young as fifteen. One of the more critical clashes climaxed at the Khru Se Mosque in Pattani. After exchanging fire for six hours, Thai police and military shot tear gas and rocket-propelled grenades into the mosque, leveling the mosque and killing the thirty-two Malay Muslims inside. The overall body count for the day’s attacks exceeded one hundred, nearly all of whom were Malay Muslims. The destruction of the famous mosque and the heavy-handed approach to the militants resulted in increased religious tension between Buddhists and Muslims in Pattani province (Jerryson 2011, 43). After the violence, the soldiers—all Buddhist—went and made merit to compensate for their acts. On October 25, 2004—six months after the multiple attacks and the assault on the Khru Se Mosque—the Tak Bai massacre in Narathiwat added to the Malay body count. More than two thousand locals protested outside the Tak Bai police station. Reports vary as to which group instigated the violence. Regardless, the police response was brutal. According to the International Crisis Group, the Forty-Fifth Ranger Regiment arrested and transported protestors from the Tak Bai police station to the Ingkayut military base in Pattani (International Crisis Group 6). Over 1300 protestors were arrested and more than seventy-eight people died en route to provisional quarters in Pattani Province. In addition, others were shot by police firing into the crowd (YouTube 2008). Unlike the conflict at the Khru Se Mosque, most of those who died at Tak Bai were Muslim civilians. Once again, the police involved were Buddhist, and the victims were Muslim. Islam is not the cause of the violence; rather, reactive social forces against the practice of Islamic traditions have become the locus of contestation in southern Thailand. One example of this is found in the Malay Muslims’ desire for Islamic education. Malay Muslims are united in their disapproval of the Thai educational system and its centralizing effect on their pondoks (schools). As a result, parents began sending their children to study in Muslim schools located in other countries, particularly in Malaysia, Pakistan, the Middle East, and Egypt. Egypt’s Al-Azhar

Buddhism: Southern Thailand

University, the most respected Islamic university in the world, is known to have produced a number of southern Malay Muslim leaders in the 1960s (Che Man 1990, 103). Other international links come from Malay Muslim separatist training camps in Libya, Syria, and possibly Saudi Arabia; however, while the notions of violent jihad and transnational Islamic movements have impacted the nature of violence in the three southernmost provinces, they are neither the cause nor the motivation for this violence. Due to the insurgents’ targeting of Buddhist monks, the Thai government provided soldiers to follow the monks on their morning alms. They also dispatched secret soldier monks (Thai: tahanphra) to protect the monasteries. Since southern Thailand is predominantly Muslim, the Thai government sent their soldiers to where the largest populations of Buddhists were—the Buddhist monasteries. There, the soldiers militarized the monasteries and made them their bases of operations. Even though the insurgents have killed more modern Muslims than Thai Buddhists in the Deep South, the government has not shown equal care for the imams and the mosques. This imbalance of care has caused scholars such as Michael Jerryson to argue that Thai Buddhist monks are “walking embodiments of Thai nationalism” (Jerryson 2011, 50). As the conflict continues into 2019, insurgents led by the BRN have attacked Buddhist monks and Buddhist sacred sites, inflaming the conflict even more (Quinley 2019). NGOs, journalists, and scholars have expressed outrage over the insurgents’ actions, as well as the Thai government’s, and remain concerned about the safety and human rights of the inhabitants there. In southern Thailand, some Thai Buddhists perceive the violence in their villages as a product of the conflict between radical Islam and Thai Buddhism. Conversely, many southern Malay Muslims perceive the conflict to be between Malay Islamic separatism and a hegemonic Buddhist government. As the conflict has a religious dimension, any steps toward quelling the violence in the southernmost provinces will require more than economic policies. It will require religious reconciliation, and religion, at its core, addresses the issue of identity on local, regional, and national levels. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Soldier Monks; Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–) FURTHER READING Che Man, Wan Kadir. 1990. Muslim Separatism: The Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand. New York: Oxford University Press. International Crisis Group. 2007. “Southern Thailand: The Problem with Paramilitaries.” Asia Report no. 140, October 23, 2007. ­https://​­www​.­crisisgroup​.­org​/­asia​/­south​-­east​ -­asia​/­thailand​/­southern​-­thailand​-­problem​-­paramilitaries.

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SULAK SIVARAKSA(1933–) Sulak Sivaraksa is a Thai intellectual and founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. He has written several books in English and Thai, promoting social change through Theravada Buddhist principles. Sulak was nominated in 1994 for the Nobel Peace Prize; has worked regularly with other notable Buddhists, such as the Fourteenth Dalai Lama; and received the Right Livelihood Award in 1995 for “his vision, activism and spiritual commitment in the quest for a development process that is rooted in democracy, justice and cultural integrity” (The Right Livelihood Award 1995.). The Right Livelihood Award draws upon the Buddhist principle within the Four Noble Truths, called the Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths are the moral backbone of Buddhism: (1) life is suffering; (2) the causes of suffering are ignorance, attachment, and hatred; (3) there is a cessation to suffering; and (4) there is way out of suffering called the Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path consists of eight processes: Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Right Livelihood reflects not an action, but a way of living that is habituated and sustained. The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 by the German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull and rewards individuals for their work in protecting the environment, human rights, sustainable development, health, education, and peace. In their seminal work on contemporary Buddhist activism, Christopher Queen and Sallie King identify Sulak Sivaraksa as one of their models of “engaged Buddhism,” a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh to express the application of Buddhist principles to benefit the social world. In concert with the award’s interests, Buddhist scholar Donald Swearer notes that Sulak sees Buddhist principles such as the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path as not as “theories, but as guidelines for personal and social transformation” (Swearer 1996, 212).

Buddhism: Sulak Sivaraksa

Western scholars, activists, and journalists have praised Sulak for his criticism of the Thai government, the Thai monarchy, and the Burmese junta. Swearer, considers Sulak “one of Thailand’s most articulate Buddhist apologists” and finds him a man “rooted not in utilitarian values, but in a personally and socially transformative religious commitment” (Swearer 1996, 198–99). This recognition and his devotion to Buddhism has made Sulak one of the more recognizable Buddhist figures worldwide, along with the Fourteenth Dalai and Thich Nhat Hanh. One distinction with Sulak is that he is not recognized in a similar manner by the Thai Buddhist Sangha (monastic community), nor by the Thai people. While Sulak Sivaraksa remains a vaulted and esteemed intellectual internationally, he is a controversial figure in Thailand for the very reasons that the West applauds him. In 1984, he was arrested and imprisoned for four months due to his defamatory comments about King Bhumipol in one of his publications, violating the lese majeste laws. Only seven years later, he was found guilty of the same charges and, this time, sought asylum in a Western embassy. The charges worked their way through the Thai judicial system and were eventually dropped in 1995. Sulak found himself in trouble again in 2009, when he was arrested after the country tightened their lese majeste rules. He was bailed out but arrested again in 2014 for defamation (Pistono 2017). Sulak was finally cleared in 2017. Throughout these turbulent years, Sulak worked as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He continues to advise NGOs, such as the World Economic Forum, providing Thai Buddhist perspectives on the structural violence of the global economy. In addition, he supports Buddhist organizations, such as his International Network of Engaged Buddhists, and publishes his views on the politics of Thailand, such as the violence in the three southernmost provinces (2004–). Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); International Network of Engaged Buddhists; Southern Thailand; Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–) FURTHER READING Pistono, Matteo. 2017. “Why Thai Buddhist Activist Sulak Sivaraksa Could Go to Jail Over a History Lesson.” Lion’s Roar, October 13, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­lionsroar​.­com​ /­why​-­thai​-­buddhist​-­activist​-­sulak​-­sivaraksa​-­could​-­go​-­to​-­jail​-­over​-­a​-­history​-­lesson​/. Pistono, Matteo. 2019. Roar: Sulak Sivaraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. The Right Livelihood Award. 1995. “Sulak Sivaraksa (1995, Thailand).” h­ttps://​­www​ .­rightlivelihoodaward​.­org​/­laureates​/­sulak​-­sivaraksa​/.

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THICH NHAT HANH(1926–) Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk. Next to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, he is the most recognizable and familiar Buddhist figure worldwide. His fame stems from his well-known work for peace, and he has become a Buddhist figurehead for peaceful coexistence and for his style of Buddhist meditation. A former student of comparative religion at Princeton and visiting professor at Columbia University, Thich Nhat Hanh has published over one hundred books on Buddhism. One of his earliest books is Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, published in 1967, in which he coined the term “Engaged Buddhism” (Vietnamese: Nhan Gian Phat Giao) for the engagement of Buddhism in the world. That same year, Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize due to his pervasive work for nonviolence and peacemaking. Thich Nhat Hanh is conversant in multiple languages and is the founder of the Plum Village Buddhist Tradition, and he has lived in Plum Village, France, for over fifty years. Thich Nhat Hanh was trained within Vietnamese Buddhism, which infuses both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist philosophy in their lineages and teachings. He became a monk at twenty-three years of age and took the name Nhat Hanh, which derives from Van Hanh—a famous Buddhist monk of the tenth or eleventh century. Van Hanh means “ten thousand actions,” whereas Nhat Hanh means “one action.” According to Sallie King, Thich Nhat Hanh explained that, unlike his predecessor, he needed to focus on one thing: mindfulness (King 1996, 322). In 1950, he cofounded what would become the An Quang Buddhist Institute in Saigon, the center for Buddhist Studies in South Vietnam and a site of Buddhist activism. During the U.S. war in Vietnam (1955—1975), he became a prominent advocate for Buddhist activism and peace. Due to his stance, his actions eventually led to his exile from Vietnam. His exile was formally revoked in 2005. During his exile, Thich Nhat Hanh moved his residence to Plum Village and established the Order of Interbeing. The Order of Interbeing is an international coalition of Buddhist monks, nuns, and Buddhist laity. It draws upon the Buddhist principle of interdependence (Sanskrit, pratityasamutpada), which Thich Nhat

Buddhism: Thich Nhat Hanh

Hanh calls “interbeing,” and promotes the ecological connectedness of all sentient life on the planet. What differentiated Thich Nhat Hanh’s approach from many other Buddhist monks and lamas was his focus on the material world, poverty, violence, and suffering (Sanskrit: lokiya). This differs from the typical focus Buddhist monastics place on other worldly affairs (Sanskrit: lokuttara) and a distancing from the politics of violence and poverty. Through his tutelage, writings, and actions, Thich Nhat Hanh quickly became an international symbol of nonviolent engagement with social problems. His collaborations and publications influenced many Western scholars and intellectuals. Some of his early admirers were Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King Jr. In 1967, King nominated Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize but publicized his strong recommendation, thereby violating the committee’s guidelines. The committee did not award anyone the prize for that year. Thich Nhat Hanh continued to his work undeterred. In 1991, he was awarded the Courage of Conscience for his wide network of support and peace activism. During the 1990s, Professors Christopher Queen and Sallie King enlarged Thich’s approach to create an academic genre called “Engaged Buddhism.” This led to two edited volumes that examine socially engaged Buddhists. The first book focuses on Buddhists in Asia. The second book looks at engaged Buddhists in the West. In 2014, Thich Nhat Hanh suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. He quietly moved back moved back to his home temple in Vietnam in October 2018. Since then, he has continued to receive highly coveted awards for his work for peace. In July 2019, he received the Luxembourg Peace Prize due to his global contributions to understanding, tolerance, and peace (Lesley 2019). In the same month, he also received the first-ever Gandhi Mandela Peace Prize in New Delhi, India (Whitaker 2019). These awards all point to how Thich Nhat Hanh has left a powerful legacy on the Buddhist communities around the world and peacemakers everywhere. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); International Network of Engaged Buddhists; Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement; Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–); Vegetarianism FURTHER READING King, Sallie B. 1996. “Thich Nhat Hanh and the Unified Buddhist Church: Nondualism in Action.” In Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, eds. Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 321–64.

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Religious Violence Today Lesley, Alison. 2019. “Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh Receives the Luxembourg Peace Prize.” World Religion News, July 3, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­worldreligionnews​.­com​ /­religion​-­news​/­zen​-­master​-­thich​-­nhat​-­hanh​-­receives​-­luxembourg​-­peace​-­prize. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1967. Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire—A Buddhist Proposal for Peace. New York: Hill & Wang. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1998. Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism. Berkeley: Parallax Press. Whitaker, Justin. 2019. “Thich Nhat Hanh Honored with 2019 Gandhi Mandela Peace Medal.” Buddhistdoor Global, July 19, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­buddhistdoor​.­net​/­news​ /­thich​-­nhat​-­hanh​-­honored​-­with​-­2019​-­gandhi​-­mandela​-­peace​-­medal.

THREE JEWELS(BUDDHA, DHARMA, SANGHA) Among the more revered concepts in Buddhist traditions are the Three Jewels (Sanskrit: triratna; Pali: tiratana): the Buddha, the Dharma (doctrine) and the Sangha (monastic institution). Buddhist traditions vary in their interpretations of these Three Jewels. For instance, some Buddhists believe that the Buddha in this context was the historical Buddha who is now unreachable. Other Buddhists believe it refers to the celestial Buddha, who is reachable. Regardless of the interpretations, Buddhists around the world honor and respect the Three Jewels. In most Buddhist traditions, the declaration of seeking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha affirms a person’s identification as a Buddhist. And for some Buddhists, to disrespect the Three Jewels is to disrespect the core of Buddhism. This poses some concerns, and its relevance to violence is prominently evident in the contemporary conflicts in southern Thailand, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Buddhists and Buddhist monks often chant three sentences, which indicate their intentions and their identity as Buddhists. The chant usually follows as such: Buddham saranam gacchami—I seek refuge in the Buddha. Dharman saranam gacchami—I seek refuge in the Dharma. Sangham saranam gacchami—I seek refuge in the Sangha.

There are varying interpretations on the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, but they are upheld in each Buddhist tradition. As such, Buddhists have expressed concern over anyone attacking the Three Jewels. For instance, in one of the important meditation scriptures for Tibetan Buddhism, Sakya Pandita writes about the role of disrespecting the Three Jewels in his fourteen moral defeats one should avoid. The sixth root downfall is “to disparage the Dharma, which is the spiritual objective of oneself and others.” Since Tibetans view the guru as the fourth refuge—the gateway to receiving the Three Jewels, it is important to recognize his status as well. Hence,

Buddhism: Three Jewels

the foremost of these defeats is when “one disrespects or disparages one’s Guru” (Willis 1972, 101–2). In a nineteenth-century Chinese Pure Land Buddhist text “Treatise Resolving Doubts about the Pure Land,” Yinguang (1861–1947) debates the importance of Pure Land Buddhism with an unnamed Chan monk. Yinguang explains, “The result of disparaging the Buddha is that one slanders the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. In the present life one accumulates a mountain of guilt, while all of one’s good fortune and wisdom melt away. At the end of life one falls into the Avici hell, the lowest of all the hell in Buddhist cosmology, to suffer for long kalpas of time” (Jones 2012, 40). For some Buddhist monastics, disrespect of the Three Jewels leads to the downfall of Buddhism. For Theravada Buddhism, Paul Fuller discusses the relevance of blasphemy within the Pali canon and notes the emphasis paid to disrespect the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha. Drawing on passages in the Digha Nikaya and Anguttara-nikaya, he concludes that, collectively, “They are also suggestive of the idea that if contempt and disrespect is shown to the sacred objects of Buddhism then this will hasten the decline of the Dhamma and sasana” (Fuller 2016, 166). Buddhists believe that based on one’s karma, people can be reborn in six different realms: the heavens and lower-heavens; the human realm; the animal realm; the realm of ghosts—which, like the animal realm is coterminous with the human realm—and the hell realm. The lowest and most feared level of hell is Avici. In this fashion, Yinguang professes that slandering the Three Jewels incurs upon a person one of the most severe penalties in the cycle of rebirths. His proclamation is not unique. The famous medieval Japanese Buddhist Nichiren considered the Lotus Sutra the most auspicious of the Buddhist scriptures. For him, all that a Buddhist needs for awakening is to know the Lotus Sutra; conversely, anyone who slanders the scripture is destined to go to Avici. Jacqueline Stone analyzes Nichiren’s thoughts on slandering the scripture and the karmic repercussions: “To the evil of ‘slandering the Dharma’ he attributed all the calamities facing Japan in his day: famine, epidemics, earthquakes, outbreaks of civil unrest, and the threat of invasion by the Mongols” (Stone 2012, 111). Nichiren’s notion of slandering the dharma did not emerge out of a vacuum. Nichiren’s principal scripture is the Lotus Sutra, which provides clear language on the repercussions for slandering its teachings. An example of such rhetoric is found in the contemporary Nichiren school, the Sōka Gakkai, which boasts over twelve million members worldwide. In their third chapter “Simile and Parable” of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha states: If a person fails to have faith but instead slanders this sutra, immediately he will destroy all the seeds for becoming a buddha in any world. Or perhaps he will

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Although scholars attribute the sharp language on slander as a polemic against those opposed to Nichiren—largely Pure Land Buddhist supporters—the relevance to blasphemy remains. The maligning of Buddhism’s reputation holds grave consequences. In his cogent analysis of Mahayana doctrine and blasphemy, Stephen Jenkins finds scriptures that advocate harsh countermeasures and preventative strategies to blaspheming the Three Jewels. It is often the duty of just rulers to enact such responses. Jenkins writes, “As shown below, it even appears that blasphemy is the worst sin possible, not only because it attacks the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha), but because it separates the actor from the only remedy for the worst kinds of karma, the Dharma itself” (Jenkins 2016, 130). Contemporary examples of the social and political power of the Three Jewels is in Buddhist hate speech laws, which protect the Buddha via his sacred representations. Examples of this protection range from the Burmese imprisonment of bar managers for using images of the Buddha to the deportation of a British tourist (Reuters in Rangoon 2015) to the Sri Lankan authorities deporting tourists because of blasphemous tattoos (Press Association 2014). In addition to protecting the Buddha, there have been many examples of protecting the Sangha (collection of Buddhist monks). During the twenty-six-year Sri Lankan civil war, the Saffron Army expressed outrage and violence when they heard Buddhist monks or Buddhism was under attack. In recent years, the BBS has echoed this concern in voicing Buddhist nationalism and rousing Buddhists to attack Muslims. In Myanmar, the 969 Movement and the Ma Ba Tha have promoted the need to protect monks. In June 2015, Myanmar, Htin Lin Oo, a former information officer for the NLD, was sentenced to two years of hard labor for his public criticism of prominent Buddhist organizations such as the Ma Ba Tha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion) (Reuters 2015). In the conflict in southern Thailand, when Buddhist monks are attacked or killed, Buddhist police officers respond by killing whomever they suspect of the crime (Jerryson

Buddhism: Three Jewels

2011, 51). The Thai government also commissioned secret soldier monks to Buddhist monasteries to protect Buddhist monks from harm. While the Three Jewels are beloved by Buddhists around the world, on a social level, there is evidence that the Three Jewels, like sacred concepts and items in other religious traditions, have the potential to become a catalyst for violence as well. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Buddhist End Times; Mahavamsa; 969 Movement; Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna); Soldier Monks; Upayakaushalya Sutra (Skill-in-Means Sutra); Islam: Blasphemy; Charlie Hebdo Attack (2015) FURTHER READING Fuller, Paul. 2016. “The Idea of ‘Blasphemy’ in the Pali Canon and Modern Myanmar.” Journal of Religion and Violence 4, no. 2: 159–81. Jenkins, Stephen. 2016. “Debate, Magic, and Massacre: The High Stakes and Ethical Dynamics of Battling Slanderers of the Dharma in Indian Narrative and Ethical Theory.” Journal of Religion and Violence 4, no. 2: 129–57. Jerryson, Michael. 2011. Buddhist Fury: Religion and Violence in Southern Thailand. New York: Oxford University Press. Jerryson, Michael. 2018. “Violence against Buddha: A History of Blasphemy.” In If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 152–74. Jones, Charles B., trans. 2012. “Treatise Resolving Doubts about the Pure Land by Master Yinguang (1861–1947).” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies 3, no. 14 (Fall): 27–61. Press Association. 2014. “Sri Lanka to Deport British Tourist over Buddha Tattoo.” The Guardian, April 22, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​/­2014​/­apr​/­22​/­sri​-­lanka​ -­deports​-­british​-­tourist​-­buddha​-­tattoo. Reuters. 2015. “Activists Outraged as Myanmar Jails Writer for Buddhists Insults.” June 2, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­reuters​.­com​/­article​/­us​-­myanmar​-­religion​/­activists​-­outraged​-­as​ -­myanmar​-­jails​-­writer​-­for​-­buddhist​-­insults​-­idUSKBN0OI24720150602. Reuters in Rangoon. 2015. “Burma Jails New Zealand Bar Manager Over ‘Insulting’ Buddha Images.” The Guardian, March 17, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­world​ /­2015​/­mar​/­17​/­burma​-­jails​-­new​-­zealand​-­bar​-­manager​-­over​-­insulting​-­buddha​-­images. Soka Gakkai. n.d. “Chapter 3: Simile and Parable.” The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Sutras. Nichiren Buddhism Library. ­http://​­www​.­nichirenlibrary​.­org​/­en​/­lsoc​ /­Content​/­3. Stone, Jacqueline I. 2012. “The Sin of ‘Slandering the True Dharma’ in Nichiren’s Thought.” In Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, eds. Sins and Sinners: Perspectives from Asian Religions. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishing, pp. 111–52. Willis, Janice Dean. 1972. The Diamond Light of the Eastern Dawn: A Collection of Tibetan Buddhist Meditations. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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UPAYAKAUSHALYA SUTRA(SKILL-IN-MEANS SUTRA) The Upayakaushalya Sutra is one of many jataka tales in Buddhist traditions. Jataka tales are stories of the Buddha’s former rebirths and often exhibit strong moral lessons for Buddhists, comparable to the parables of Jesus. The Upayakaushalya Sutra means the Skill-in-Means Sutra, underscoring an important concept in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. It also contains one of the most prominent justifications for violence in Buddhist scriptures. The jataka tales are numerous and differ in content and number across Buddhist traditions. At the end of the nineteenth century, Edward Cowell collected these stories from various locations. He edited 547 rebirth stories of the Buddha and published them in six volumes due to their mammoth size. Each story focuses on a birth of the Buddha and the ways in which he acted nobly and meritoriously. According to Buddhist doctrine, the Buddha went through a series of births, accumulating merit, and ascended from the hell realms to the human world. Eventually, the Buddha generated so much merit that he was able to be born as Siddhartha Gautama and, in this birth, became the Buddha. In Mahayana and Vajarayana doctrine, upaya (skill-in-means) is an important concept. It is thus no surprise to find that upaya is featured in some of the jataka tales. The concept of upaya is introduced and elucidated in chapter two of the Lotus Sutra (Kubo and Yuyama, 2007). The Lotus Sutra is one of the most venerated sources in East Asian Buddhist traditions and. for some traditions, the only source one needs to know. In chapter two, called “Skillful Means,” a father tricks his children to come out of a burning house. The children would not listen to reason or the dangers around them, so the father promised them wonderful toys once they left. Once they have left the burning house, they are rewarded with some gifts, but more importantly, their lives. The Buddha explains to his disciple Sariputra that, in this story, he is the father, and the children are the people who are ignorant to the dangers of this world and rebirth. An important tool in helping these people is upaya—a skillful means to help people reach awakening (enlightenment). This skillful means is instructive on many levels but becomes a means of justifying violence as well. In the Upayakaushalya Sutra there is one chapter called “Murder with Skill in Means: The Story of the Compassionate Ship’s Captain.” This story is one of the Buddha’s previous births. Here, he is the captain of a ship at sea. During his voyage, he is visited by water deities in a dream and told that a robber was onboard his ship. The water deities issue a warning to the Buddha, as the robber intends to kill the five hundred passengers and the Buddha himself. Within the dream, the deities implore the captain to use skillful means (upaya) to prevent this, since all five hundred men would become future bodhisattvas and their murder would lead

Buddhism: Upayakaushalya Sutra

the robber to immeasurable lifetimes in the darkest hells. The Buddha, who in this text is named Great Compassionate (Mahakarunika), wakes and contemplates the predicament for seven days. He eventually rationalizes: “There is no means to prevent this man from slaying the merchants and going to the great hells but to kill him.” And he thought, “If I were to report this to the merchants, they would kill and slay him with angry thoughts and all go to great hells themselves.” And he thought, “If I were to kill this person, I would likewise burn in the great hells for one hundred-thousand eons because of it. Yet I can bear to experience the pains of the great hells, that this person not slay these five hundred merchants and develop so much evil karma. I will kill this person myself.” (Tatz 1994, 74)

The captain subsequently murders the robber, and the Buddha explains, “For me, samsara was curtailed for one hundred-thousand eons because of that skill in means and great compassion. And the robber died to be reborn in world of paradise” (Tatz 1994, 74). Here, the skill in means is motivated by compassion, which greatly reduces the karmic results of murder. In the contemporary period, there are no direct references to this specific text. However, the concept of upaya as a justifier for violence is not absent in recent history. Japanese Buddhists used this during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and World War II (Victoria 2006). Whether or not this concept resurfaces in the near future is uncertain, but the Upayakaushalya Sutra’s illuminations will remain important for years to come. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha); Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm) FURTHER READING Jerryson, Michael. 2013. “Buddhist Traditions and Violence.” In Mark Juergensmeyer, Margo Kitts, and Michael Jerryson, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 41–66. Kawasaki, Ken, and Visakha, eds. 2018. Jataka Tales of the Buddha–Volume I. Onalaska: Pariyatti Publishing. Kawasaki, Ken, and Visakha, eds. 2018. Jataka Tales of the Buddha–Volume II. Onalaska: Pariyatti Publishing. Kawasaki, Ken, and Visakha, eds. 2018. Jataka Tales of the Buddha–Volume III. Onalaska: Pariyatti Publishing. Kubo, Tsugunari, and Akira Yuyama. 2007. The Lotus Sutra Taishō Volume 9, Number 262. ­http://​­www​.­bdk​.­or​.­jp​/­document​/­dgtl​-­dl​/­dBET​_T0262​_LotusSutra​_2007​.­pdf.

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VEGETARIANISM Buddhists value all sentient life, which includes animals and insects. In various Buddhist traditions, this moral stance has led to dietary restrictions. Some Buddhists abstain from eating some animals, while others avoid eating all animals or even animal byproducts (eggs, milk, etc.). Buddhists with restrictive dietary choices view their practice as a means of practicing ahimsa (nonharm) to sentient beings. This practice of ahimsa also correlates with the notion of Right Livelihood, a principle embedded in the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. While the majority of Buddhists eat meat, notable Buddhists such as Thich Nhat Hanh (YouTube 2014), as well as those following many Chinese Buddhist traditions maintain a vegan lifestyle. In addition, many Western Buddhists uphold vegetarian diets for the purposes of respecting animal life. In the Buddhist scriptures, there are numerous sources that support the respect for all sentient beings. It is widely believed that the historical Buddha ate meat and that he purportedly died after consuming bad pork. In the Theravada scriptures, there are legends of the Buddha’s cousin and nemesis Devadatta admonishing the Buddha for not disallowing his monks from eating meat. The Buddha responded with a Middle Path explanation. While he respected monks who wished to not eat meat, he also said this was a choice that all Buddhist should make on their own. In addition, he argued that monks should accept whatever food they are offered. To deny an offering would be tantamount to disallowing a person from making merit. However, the Buddha stressed that monks should not accept alms (food) from followers if the animal had been killed for them (i.e., the act of killing is directly tied to their consumption). If a monk did eat food from an animal that had been killed for his consumption, there would be a direct correlation between the monk’s diet and the killing of animals. This rationale has particular weight within the larger discourse on the Buddhist practice of consumerism. As Buddhism spread to other countries and cultures, the Buddhist diet changed. In Mongolian and Tibetan traditions, adherents are encouraged to eat larger animals instead of smaller ones. The death of one large animal such as a cow could feed many, whereas the death of one shrimp would not satisfy a person (Ekvall 1964, 75). In contrast, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Burmese, and Sri Lankan Buddhists avoid eating cow or other large animals. Instead, they habitually consume seafood, chicken, and pork. While these Buddhists do not identify their dietary preferences

Buddhism: Vegetarianism

based upon their religion, it dates back to the fifth century’s restrictions by the famous Indian monastic Buddhaghosa. Buddhaghosa analyzes the monastic laws on consuming meat in the Sumagalavilasini. In it, he argues: In the case of living creatures without [moral] virtues, such as animals, [the act of killing] is less blameworthy when the creature has a small body, and more blameworthy when the being has a large body. Why? Because the greater effort [required] in killing a being with a large body; and even when the effort is the same, [the act of killing a large-bodied creature is still more blameworthy] because of its greater physical substance. In the case of beings that possess [moral] virtues, such as human beings, the act of killing is less blameworthy when the being is of little virtue and more blameworthy when the being is of great virtue. But when the body and virtue [of creatures] are equal, [the act of killing] is less blameworthy when the defilements and force of the effort are mild, more blameworthy when they are powerful. (Gethin 2004, 171–72)

As such, large animals such as cows are not killed for meat, but small animals such as shrimp, seafood, or even chicken are acceptable. In Thailand, some Buddhists adopt vegetarian diets during Buddhist Lent (rainy season) in devotion to the moral precept of ahimsa. This fluctuation in dietary practices suggests that Buddhists understand that eating meat goes against the moral precept (or, at the very least, that the avoidance of eating meat is a worthy sacrifice). Yet this awareness does not curb their diets away from seafood, which is in almost every Thai dish (even in meatless dishes, Thais generally add fish sauce). However, Thai groups such as Santi Asoke maintain strict vegetarian lifestyles and promote the diet in their shops and stores across Thailand. The strictest forms of Buddhist diets are traditionally found in vegan lifestyles, which often are prescribed in Chinese and Taiwanese Buddhist traditions. For instance, the Fo Guang Shan—a Buddhist organization in over 173 countries with millions of followers—practice a vegan diet devoid of onions and garlic. When pressed, the Fo Guang Shan monastics admit that the genesis of this dietary practice is not specifically Buddhist but, rather, Chinese. When analyzing the dietary restrictions and geography, certain patterns emerge. In landlocked areas, such as Tibet and Mongolia, the consumption of large animals is permissible. However, in areas that are coastal and suffused with seafood, the consumption of smaller animals is permissible. This pattern is furthered in contemporary times. In Taiwan, the government has received criticism for its laws, which uphold the protection of some animals but not all. In 1998, Taiwan instituted its Animal Protection Act, which was amended multiple times (with the most recent

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iteration occurring in 2008). The Act legislates the respect for lives of animals, but only those that are vertebrates: “‘Animal’ means a dog, a cat and vertebrate that is fed or kept by people. It includes the economic animal, the laboratory animal, a pet and other kinds of animals” (Council of Agriculture 2014). Conveniently, the Act excludes seafood, an important financial business in Taiwan. Western Buddhists often promote Buddhism as a vegetarian religion, which also aligns with the progressive (and affluent) status white Buddhists retain in the West. Such promotion has led to the confusion about Buddhism in the West and for practitioners and scholars to address it (see, for instance, Liusuwan 2017). In the end, Buddhism is not only varied in its values and practices but also in its diets and treatment of animals. Michael Jerryson See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–); Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–); Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Vegetarianism FURTHER READING Barstow, Geoffrey. 2013. “Buddhism between Abstinence and Indulgence: Vegetarianism in the Life and Work of Jigmé Lingpa.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 20. ­http://​­blogs​ .­dickinson​.­edu​/­buddhistethics​/­files​/­2013​/­04​/­Barstow​-­Between​-­Abstinence​-­final1​.­pdf. Council of Agriculture. Executive Yuan R.O.C. 2014. “Upgrading Animal Welfare and Animal Protection.” ­https://​­eng​.­coa​.­gov​.­tw​/­ws​.­php​?­id​=​­2504059​&­print​=​­Y. Ekvall, Robert B. 1964. Religious Observances in Tibet: Patterns and Function. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Gethin, Rupert. 2004. “Can Killing a Living Being Ever Be an Act of Compassion? The Analysis of the Act of Killing in the Abhidhamma and Pali Commentaries.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 11: 167–202. Liusuwan, Nicholas. 2017. “Why Aren’t All Buddhists Vegetarians?” Huffpost, December 6, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​/­why​-­arent​-­all​-­buddhists​-­v​_b​_9812362. Stewart, James J. 2010. “The Question of Vegetarianism and Diet in Pāli Buddhism.” ­Journal of Buddhist Ethics 17. ­http://​­blogs​.­dickinson​.­edu​/­buddhistethics​/­files​/­2010​ /­07​/­Stewart​.­pdf. YouTube. 2014. “Why Vegan and Not Vegetarian? Thich Nhat Hanh Answers the Question.” August 29, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­0gwOzzGibsg​.

CHINESE RELIGION

INTRODUCTION Chinese Religion and Violence: History, Politics, and Violence China presents a rich and varied religious landscape; in almost any municipality you can see Buddhist monasteries and Daoist temples, and, quite often, the same town also hosts Islamic mosques and Protestant and Catholic churches. Many small shrines of other traditional deities, from the city god protector of the town/ village (Huangcheng) to the god of culture and literature (Wenchang), are also present in the urban area as well as in the countryside. Despite the strict government control on religion that has distinguished the People’s Republic of China (established in 1949) and had also characterized phases of the first Republic of China (founded in 1912) and several periods from the imperial time (which lasted from the second century BCE to the early twentieth century), personnel of these different religious groups perform liturgies and also engage in social welfare, cultural activities (to promote Chinese culture rather than a specific religious culture), and well-organized charities. Throughout the history of China, religious groups have also been protagonists— or even the main organizers—of serious and violent turmoil, even some of political nature; messianic and millenarian movements were linked to religious movements, like the (Daoist-based) rebellion of the Yellow Turbans (huangjin) at the end of the second century, the uprising led by the (Buddhist- and Manichean-based) White Lotus teachings in the thirteen century, and the (Christian-based) Taiping revolution in the late nineteenth century (ter Haar 1992). Religious personnel joined civil and international wars as well; for instance, during the second Sino-Japanese war (1937–1945), Buddhist monks enrolled in the general army, and they did not mind shooting Japanese soldiers, although they refused to eat if they had to break their vegetarian diets. Writing about his time in the army, the monk Zhenhua (Chen-hua, 1922–2012) explained that firing his rifle at the enemy was not a problem because “a soldier is duty-bound to kill the enemy 131

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in order in order to protect his country. Since I am a soldier, that is my duty too,” but also that “killing one man in order to save one hundred is, in Mahayana Buddhism, an act of expedient mercy. If we kill a small number of evil men to save a large number of good men, we are not acting contrary to compassion” (Chen-hua 1992, 210). Buddhist violence, then, is seen as linked to secular needs (such as the necessity to comply with the agenda of Chinese nationalism if Buddhism wanted to survive) but also justified as rooted in Mahayana doctrine. Finally, symbolic violence is another important aspect of Chinese religion; the burning of wooden figurines in Daoist rituals and partial self-immolation or self-mutilation in the Buddhist community are two examples of this. Before going into more detail, it is crucial to define what we mean by Chinese, how Chinese conceptualize religion, and how many religions can be found in China. Finally, the way that Chinese conceive and define violence is also multifaceted, and not just because each local philosophy or religion’s different conception and use.

Defining China and Chinese, Religion, and Philosophy China and Chinese often, and certainly in this chapter, refer not only to mainland China but to the so-called Greater China, which is inclusive of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and communities overseas. Each of these areas share religions from the Han culture but have distinctive ethnic minorities and, thus, unique ritual practices. Furthermore, their different histories impacted the evolution of their religious landscape; for instance, Falun Gong is banned in mainland China but not in Taiwan or among Chinese communities abroad, and religious organizations can open hospitals and schools in Taiwan but not in mainland China. The concept of religion per se is problematic in the case of China; first, the term for religion, zongjiao, came to use only in the early twentieth century, and at first only to indicate Western religions (i.e., Christianity) and a Western-style form of belief. Those same decades also witnessed the arrival of Western ideologies; the shift from an imperial ruling to a republican government; a reposition of core values in Chinese civilization; and the burst of intellectual debates on science, superstition, and whether religion was a positive or a negative factor for a new and modern Chinese society. The introduction of the new term pushed groups such as Daoists and Buddhists to rethink their identities, structures, and social roles and to discuss what kind of religion they could embody for the new China. For at least three thousand years, the Chinese have interacted with the otherworldly, performed various rituals, and engaged in a number of activities that we would define as religious; hence, it is not correct to say that China did not have religion before the term was coined in Japan and imported a century ago.

Chinese Religion: Introduction

The relation between religion and philosophy is peculiar in China as well. Religion and philosophy were traditionally combined, like two sides of a unity; doctrinal foundations are what we would call “philosophy” (defined in traditional China as jia), while ritual practices (defined in traditional China as jiao) are what we would call “religion.” Furthermore, traditional schools of thoughts, which we would call philosophies, may indeed be seen as religions, given their concrete applications. There have been various discussions among Chinese and also on the academic level about whether Confucianism could be seen as a religion or not; certainly, burning incense in front of Confucius’s statues is a ritual that could be labeled as religious and does not reflect the philosophical aspect of Confucianism. Several thought systems that may well be identified as philosophical literature, including the so-called Hundred Schools of Thoughts (zhuzi baijia), the label for philosophical ideas that animated political and intellectual debates in China from the sixth to third centuries BCE, have had a practical and ritual application in Chinese history and have easily merged with the “religious” domain in China. For instance, some doctrinal tenets of the Daoism and Confucianism that we know today are based on those Hundred Schools of Thoughts.

Mapping the Chinese Religious Landscape: Native and Foreign Beliefs, the Discourse of Ethnicity Today, the Chinese religious landscape includes native and foreign beliefs. Some organized beliefs, like Daoism, are rooted in theories and doctrines that are at the basis of Chinese civilization; others, like Mahayana Buddhism, entered Chinese territories circa two thousand years ago and went through a process of domestication that turned them into Chinese, rather than foreign, traditions. Then there are the religions that entered China later and, for various reasons, did not integrate into the territory as much; Islam and Christianity are two examples of these religions. The discourse of religion also intersects with the discourse of ethnicity. Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group that is native to China; all the other ethnic groups living in China are defined as “ethnic minorities” in relation to the Han. Han China is usually associated with Daoism, most of Mahayana Buddhism, some popular cults, and Confucianism; however, the more than fifty ethnic minorities who live in China follow their own belief systems, which include Islamic traditions and different forms of shamanism, as well as Vajrayana Buddhism (which has been transmitted mostly by the Zang minority) and the southern tradition of Buddhism (close to the Theravada tradition, and transmitted by Dai and other minorities from Southeast Asia). Therefore, Chinese does not refer only to the Han culture but is comprehensive of the ethnic minorities who are also present in China.

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Mapping the Chinese Religious Landscape: Borrowings and Boundaries China is, on most levels, an arena that witnesses borrowings and not just boundaries. One of the consequences is that there isn’t a strong sense of affiliation and membership to specific religious groups. The anthropologist Adam Yuet Chau explained that Chinese people identify religions not as fixed and impermeable systems of belief but as situation-based practices (Chau 2019): if a woman would like to marry or get pregnant, she may pray Buddhist Guanyin, but when she is concerned about passing a school exam, then she should ask Wenchang or Confucius for help. Therefore, burning incense sticks in sacred sites of different religions is not a contradiction for most Chinese people, given the idea of inclusion, rather than exclusion, that represents their approach to the local religious diversity. This also explains why there are few interreligious conflicts within China, and certainly recent attacks on Islam or Christianity are grounded in political strategy and do not reflect the way religious diversity is popularly perceived in the local community.

Mapping the Chinese Religious Landscape: Nature, Body, and State In traditional China, the concepts of nature, body, and state have been imagined as connected and interdependent. This interdependence between the secular and the sacred, and between this world and the otherworld, is the background behind many of the rituals performed daily by the Chinese and also explains the application of violence in various occasions. The human body is visualized as a natural landscape, populated by trees, mountains, and valleys, as well as different spirits (deities) and buildings. Healthy humans are those whose inner landscape is harmonious and well balanced; loss of health implies a lack of harmony in the inner landscape and is often depicted as the cause of a “conflict” that is necessary to restore the lost balance. Furthermore, this representation of the inner human body reflects the structure of the outer world/human society and also of the afterlife world. The famous Daoist saying, “The human body is the image of a country” pictures the precise connection between the human body and the political-social body. The afterlife is perceived as a structured world with ruling gods (who correspond to central and local official governors in this world), ancestors (who correspond to family/society in this world), and ghosts (who corresponds to the outsiders of the social structures and so are the bandits and homeless people in this world). Religious rituals help the afterlife world maintain its structure, and vice versa—the balance in the afterlife world secures a balance in this world. In other words, religious rituals are performed to maintain and sometime restore this interdependence. At the same

Chinese Religion: Introduction

time, the science of Chinese medicine is rooted in the same Daoist visualization of the human body as a natural landscape, and, thus, it participates in this imagined correspondence between microcosmos and macrocosmos. This interdependence between the secular and the sacred is still maintained in China today, perhaps not on the official and intellectual level, but certainly in the way the average Chinese person perceives religiosity. New concepts were added as Buddhism entered China and Daoism turned into an organized community, and the introduction of the term zongjiao and the Western understanding of religion (vis-à-vis science and philosophy) complicated this conceptualization even further. China today presents all these levels of old and new understandings and practices.

Violence in Chinese Religion: “Appropriate” Violence versus “Inappropriate” Violence Different Chinese characters and expressions are used to translate violence, and each of them embodies a specific nuance. Another important note is that violence is not always intended in negative terms. The character bao is a general term for violence, and, as Barend ter Haar has argued in several of his publications on violence and Chinese culture, it means “inappropriate violence” in traditional China as well as today. On the other hand, aggressive and violent actions done to restore a preexisting “order” and against those who had destroyed that “order” is not conceived as inappropriate. There are different levels of “order,” going from the micro context of the human body to the macro context of human society and cosmos/nature. The “lack of this order” (luan) is often visualized in the shape of demons; even a cold or other disease is represented as such, so committing violence to destroy those demons and “cure” a cold or “restore” the cosmic order (zhi) is not perceived as a negative form of violence. In his 2003 book Chinese Magical Medicine, Michael Strickmann wrote extensively on the visualization of diseases as demons and the violent fights against them. Violent exorcisms have been conducted by Daoists and Buddhists, but they were present in China even before the arrival of Buddhism and the formation of Daoism. The shamanic (wu) rituals of several ethnic minorities can be comparable to forms of exorcism. Yet these exorcisms are not perceived as “inappropriate” or “negative” violence. In traditional China and in traditional cultural events even today, violence is a modality often used to communicate with the deceased or forces in the other world. Communication between the structured society on Earth and the similarly structured divine society in the other world may also be violent. Depending on the kind of communication, we have either “appropriate” or “inappropriate” violence.

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Divine Soldiers, Demonic Soldiers, and the Battle against “Evil” This continuous fight between good and evil, harmony and chaos, health and disease was also visualized as a real battle between two armies: the “divine soldiers” (shen bing), who have the role of protecting individuals, entire communities, or even overall nature against the attack of the negative forces of “demonic soldiers” (gui bing). Exorcist ritual practices were also structured, narrated, and performed as this kind of battle. Some of these soldiers became important deities in people’s minds and, thus, produced an interesting pantheon of new local deities. Of course, the battle against evil forces also implied animal sacrifices and, in rare cases and only in premodern China, human sacrifices. Sometimes the self-immolation of Buddhist monks was done as a form of sacrifice to eradicate epidemic diseases or natural calamities. Violence is also part of the conceptualization of hells, and related punishments, which are found in China today. The idea of hells, though, is alien to traditional Chinese culture; it has been added by foreign (Indian) Buddhism to the overall Chinese imagination. This also means that we do not have only a Chinese domestication of Buddhism; Buddhism had its own agency in reshaping Chinese culture.

Conclusion: The Rhetoric of Violence We may then conclude that many religious groups in China are characterized by violent practices, which are mostly a sort of symbolic violence; however, most of that violence is not perceived as “bad” violence by the religious priests and the community. Religious groups have used this rhetoric of a “corrective” (hence, necessary and “healing”) violence to justify rebellions and attacks to the rulers. In traditional China, mostly through the effect of the Confucian ideals of ideal governance, when the ruler was not improving his own kingdom, and the latter was experiencing serious difficulties, then the ruler lost his right to maintain his position of power. To say it in “traditional” words, catastrophic events could have been a clear message that the ruler had lost his “mandate of heaven” (tianming), and were the civilians to destitute him with a riot, it would not be conceived as an “inappropriate” violence. The rhetoric of the mandate of heaven has been used by Chinese even in the late twentieth century; this happened especially in rural areas, mostly in reference to land reforms, but never took a violent shape. Stefania Travagnin FURTHER READING Benn, James. 2007. Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Chinese Religion: Analects Chau, Adam Yuet. 2019. Religion in China: Ties That Bound. London: Polity. Chen-hua (ed. with introduction by Chün-fang Yü; transl. by Denis C. Mair). 1992. In Search of the Dharma: Memoirs of a Modern Chinese Buddhist Pilgrim. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications. Meulenbeld, Mark R. E. 2015. Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Sewert, Hubert. 2003. Popular Religious Movements and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History. Leiden: Brill. Strickmann, Michael. 2003. Chinese Magical Medicine. Edited by Bernard Faure. Stanford: Stanford University ­Press​.­ ter Haar, Barend. 1992. The White Lotus Teachings in Chinese Religious History. Leiden: Brill. ter Haar, Barend. 2000. “Rethinking ‘Violence’ in Chinese Culture.” In Goran Aijmer and Jos Abbink, eds. Meanings of Violence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Oxford: Berg, pp. 123–40. ter Haar, Barend. 2019. Religious Culture and Violence in Traditional China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ANALECTS The dominant ideology in the politics of contemporary China is Confucianism. If Chinese Confucians presented their philosophy as a viable position in international political discourse, then hybrid theories of Eastern and Western thought would probably emerge. Given the European origins of socialism and the fact that China has synthesized European socialist theory with traditional Chinese thought, it is possible that other East-West hybrids will be constructed. Conversely, it is also possible that the influence of Confucian ideals remains limited to China’s national politics. The Confucian ideals on which China prides itself are found in the Analects, a collection of sayings by the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who lived from 551 to 479 BCE. Confucius travelled between several states in what is now known as China and offered his wisdom to the rulers of those states. Pupils of Confucius wrote down the advice he gave to these rulers and to his followers, thereby composing the Analects. Unfortunately, the Analects we now have is not the same as the original version (if there ever was an original version), and many of Confucius’s sayings cannot be found in the Analects as we know it. Additionally, a considerable number of extraneous sayings have been included as the purported teachings of Confucius (Hinton 2014, 8–9). Still, the Analects functions as a source of cultural capital for contemporary China. The Chinese have rediscovered Confucius’s legacy as a native means of returning to their roots and bolster a Chinese sense of self (Rainey 2010, 183), leaving behind what has become known as the century of humiliation (Scott 2008). In contemporary politics, this renewed emphasis on the

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Confucian character of China has put Confucianism in a delicate position, because exegesis of the Analects can both provide a discursive platform for peace-building processes but may also strain China’s international relations. In grounding its value system on a Confucian basis, China runs the risk of alienating itself from countries that do not conform to such values. In the West, morality is measured in terms of human rights, while in China, the moral quality of a society is judged according to the Confucian standard of harmony as described in the Analects. One particular phrase from the Analects is often used for this purpose: he er butong (Confucius 2014, 23). Confucius expressed the value of peaceful coexistence with those who are different. In emphasizing this principle of harmony without uniformity, Chinese officials have sought to both reassure the global community that China’s increasing influence does not pose a threat, while simultaneously shielding China’s moral autonomy. For example, in 2002, the Chinese President Jiang Zemin gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the George Bush Senior Library in Texas. Jiang referred to Confucius and the principle of harmony without conformity to emphasize the importance of accepting that different civilizations develop along different paths (Cao 2007, 437). Unfortunately, Chinese appeals to Confucian principles have proven to be rather ineffective in Western societies, where the media are more eager to report about China’s violation of human rights than its pacifist agenda (Cao 2007, 446). An additional problem is that Confucian values not only provide an uncommon rationale for universally shared aims, such as the furthering of peace, but might also conflict at a fundamental level with the Christian values that underlie the Western-dominated international system (Bell 2008, 239). The Western ideal of cosmopolitanism, for example, is at odds with the Confucian ideal of differentiated caring. From a Confucian perspective, it is not the case that all people have equal rights, and China is justified in placing the interests of the Chinese above the interests of people from other nations (Bell 2010, 28–29). Rather than straining international relations, however, a Confucian-based value system might also give rise to productive international cooperation. Even though the Analects is not a source of inspiration for the legislation of most nations, these nations could still appreciate the beneficial influence Confucian thought has had on Chinese politics, which would mitigate the fear of China abusing its newfound position of power. The Confucian reluctance against aggressive military action, together with the fact that contemporary China does, arguably, not take advantage of many of its weaker neighboring countries, reveals that Confucian discourse has—to some extent—a pacifist influence (Wang and Zhao 2006, 121; Berthrong 2014, 654). What is more, commitment to the ideal of a harmonious, nonaggressive society creates the responsibility to justify any course of action that seems to counteract harmony. In its dealings with Tibet and Taiwan, for example, China has

Chinese Religion: Analects

committed to act in conformity with Confucian values. Future policy with respect to Tibet and Taiwan will reveal whether or not this commitment is genuine. It is hard to say what the impact of Chinese intellectual thought will be on a global scale, but the principle of harmony without uniformity might prove to be more than just a reassurance. It creates a parity between different perspectives and allows for a variety of opinions, hence establishing a discursive platform (Berthrong 2014, 653). In national policy, China has replaced the Hegelian-Marxists’ dialectics of struggle with the ideal of social harmony (Solé-Farràs 2008, 17)— “socialism but with Chinese characteristics” (Xinhua 2017)—and perhaps the ideal of harmony will influence the human rights discourse beyond the Chinese borders. The importance of education is also frequently stressed in the Analects, and a Confucian-based society will, therefore, engage in educative projects with other societies. Since war and conflict stand in the way of intellectual progression, a Confucian China has every reason to avoid aggressive policies that threaten peace. For example, this ideal of a harmonious and educated society is found in President Xi Jinping’s speech given at the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Xi implicitly referred to the Analects several times by stressing the importance of harmony and education (Xinhua 2017). In other words, a China that treasures the Analects and genuinely commits itself to Confucian ideology will engage in constructive dialogue with other nations, educate its people, and avoid conflict. Harmen Grootenhuis See also: Chinese Religion: Art of War (Sunzi); Daodejing; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE) FURTHER READING Bell, Daniel A. 2008. Confucian Political Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bell, Daniel A. 2010. China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Berthrong, John H. 2014. “Confucian Formulas for Peace: Harmony.” Society 51: 645–55. Cao, Qing. 2007. “Confucian Vision of a New World Order? Culturalist Discourse, Foreign Policy, and the Press in Contemporary China.” The International Communication Gazette 69: 431–50. Hinton (transl.). 2014. Analects. Berkeley: Counterpoint. Rainey, Lee Dian. 2010. Confucius and Confucianism: The Essentials. Oxford: WileyBlackwell. Scott, David. 2008. China and the International System, 1840–1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation. Albany: State University of New York Press. Solé-Farràs, Jesús. 2008. “Harmony in Contemporary New Confucianism and in Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” China Media Research 4: 1–22.

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Religious Violence Today Wang Shouren, and Wenshu Zhao. 2006. “China’s Peaceful Rise: A Cultural Alternative.” Boundary 2, no. 33: 117–27. Xinhua. 2017. “19th CPC National Congress.” November 3, 2017. h­ ttp://​­www​.­xinhuanet​ .­com​/­english​/­special​/­2017​-­11​/­03​/­c​_136725942​.­htm.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN ATTACKS A quick search for Christianity in China on the web brings sad news, such as the destruction of crosses, the detention of priests and lay followers, the burning of churches, and even a supposed involvement of Buddhist monks in the carrying out of these destructions. In December 2018, the news of the detention of Pastor Wang Yi, leader of a prominent unregistered church in Chengdu (Sichuan province) who used to write about the role of Christianity in Chinese nationalism and patriotism, was also broadcasted by major international news platforms, from the BBC to CNN and the New York Times. Certainly, these news items do not circulate on the Chinese web and cannot be found on Chinese search engines, such as Baidu. These stories tell the official narrative of restrictions and persecution in the recent history of Christianity in China; at the same time, Protestant Christianity (known in Chinese as jidujiao) and Catholicism (known in Chinese as tianzhujiao) are two of the five officially recognized religions in China. Numerous churches are open and functioning, and some Catholic churches even hold mass in both Chinese and English, as well as some Latin liturgies. Christianity is then alive in China, although it is seriously threatened by power games and international politics, and only part of it is officially accepted and supported by the state. The first presence of Christianity in China is dated to the seventh century; however, it was not until the sixteenth century and the Jesuit missions that we see a considerable impact of Christians in China, with the translation of catechisms and scriptures and the first serious attempt of assimilation within local culture. In return, in the seventeenth century, Jesuits translated Confucius’s Analects into Latin and brought knowledge of Confucian values to Europe. The eighteenth century witnessed the famous “Rites controversy” in China. At the end of the nineteenth century Protestant and Catholic Christianity were popular among intellectuals and the masses. The seminaries that they opened in China for the training of Western missionaries and Chinese local priests became a blueprint for new Chinese schools; furthermore, their social engagement, via the construction of hospitals and the education of the poor, attracted Chinese attention. This social engagement also inspired Chinese Buddhists to be more involved in the community; in fact, the so-called Humanistic Buddhism (rensheng fojiao or renjian fojiao) is reminiscent of Christian features. In the early twentieth century, the Western “church system”

Chinese Religion: Anti-Christian Attacks

inspired the establishment of similar general nationwide associations for local Chinese religions. Christianity served as a model in various sectors, both in the secular and public domain and in the private and local religious spheres. On the other hand, the beginning of the twentieth century also witnessed antireligious movements, and especially anti-Christian sentiments, and the beginning of serious Christian persecutions. These were mostly intellectual movements, inspired by socialist and Marxist ideas, but they were also based on the faith in reason and science and did not have much effect on the sense of religiosity among the masses. Faith in supernatural entities, not based on scientific facts, were called superstitions (mixin) and attacked. Those were the years and the atmosphere in which figures such as Mao Zedong developed their systems of thought. The situation worsened with the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and the communist attacks on religion. Christianity (Protestant and Catholic) was especially criticized because it was conceived as a manifestation of Western imperialism and was not a religion with “Chinese characteristics.” This view was expressed strongly even later in the 1990s by President Jiang Zemin and is maintained, although not that explicitly, today as well. Nonetheless, this new situation also caused the formation of the so-called underground churches and secret networks of Christians that still operate today. In other words, the official anti-Christian attacks did not defy the spread of Christianity but just changed the shape of their communities. The development of the internet produced various networks and online discussions among Christians and in the defense of Christianity and made gathering, although online rather than offline, possible. In the past twenty years, Chinese students abroad converted to Christianity while they were abroad and thus facilitated the spread of Christianity in China upon their return; according to sociologist Fenggang Yang (1999), the Christian population in China is destined to grow even more. The result of this double movement of official attacks on Christian groups on the one hand and increasing conversion to the foreign religion on the other, manifested in two parallel systems of churches: the official Christian congregations accepted by the government, such as the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement (Vala 2017), and those that are not accepted by the government, the so-called unregistered churches (also known as house churches or underground churches). The Catholic Association of China ordains its own priests, and does not recognize those ordained by the Holy See; this situation split the churches into those established and accepted by the government and those whose priests recognize the authority of the Holy See instead—circumstances similar to those experienced by Protestantism. The fate of Catholicism in China is linked to the official relations between the Chinese government and the Holy See and also connected with the cross-strain relations. The Vatican, by recognizing Taiwan as a country, did not improve the conditions of Catholics in China. Yet some opening has been seen

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in September 2018, when the Vatican was allowed to have a say in the priests ordained by the Chinese government, and the Pope was defined as the authority for the Chinese priests. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Chinese Atheism; Mao Zedong (1893–1976) FURTHER READING Carpenter, J., and Kevin R. den Dulk. 2014. Christianity in Chinese Public Life: Religion, Society, and the Rule of Law. Amsterdam: Springer. Chu, Cindy Yik-yi. 2012. The Catholic Church in China 1978 to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, Ian. 2018. “Pastor Charged with ‘Inciting Subversion’ as China Cracks Down on Churches.” New York Times, December 13, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2018​/­12​ /­13​/­world​/­asia​/­china​-­religion​-­crackdown​.­html. Uhalley, Stephen, and Wu Xiaoxin, eds. 2001. China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future. London and New York: M. E. Sharpe. Vala, Carsten. 2017. The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-State in China, God Above Party? New York: Routledge. Yang, Fenggang. 1999. Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities. University Park: Penn State University Press.

ANTI-MUSLIM ATTACKS Islam has been in China for more than a millennium. There are over twenty-three million Muslims in China today, with the Hui and the Uyghur being, by far, the largest groups. Other ethnic minority groups that are traditionally Muslim are the Kazakh, Dongxiang, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Salar, Tajik, Baoan, and Tatars. Unlike the Hui, who are scattered throughout China, the Turkic-speaking Muslims, the Uyghurs, mainly inhabit in the northwestern part of China, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The area is often referred to as East Turkestan (or Eastern Turkistan) in Western media, especially by Uyghur separatist groups in exile. In generally, the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party state and the Muslims in China has been contested since the Communist Party takeover in 1949. In the late twentieth century, the most severe attacks and persecutions toward Muslims occurred during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and one of the notable incidents was the Shadian incident between the local Hui Muslims in Yunnan Province and the People’s Liberation Army in 1975. However, the twenty-first century has seen the internationalization of China’s Muslim problem as represented,

Chinese Religion: Anti-Muslim Attacks

in particular, by the Uyghur independence movement. Since December 2003, the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China, along with other websites of the Chinese government, such as People’s Daily Online, has designated twenty-five individuals and four organizations as terrorists and terrorist groups. All of these individuals are Uyghur. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and especially since the July 5, 2009, riots in Urumqi, capital of the XUAR, the Chinese government has published and implemented increasingly oppressive public policies and official legal rules that put Muslims in China in a situation where they are faced with discrimination, persecution, and violent attacks. On the one hand, these policies and legal rules intensify the tensions between Muslims and the government, which have caused massive riots and civil disorders that pose fundamental challenges to the social stability and the legitimacy of the China Communist Party (CCP) (Yu 2009a, 2009b, 118–124, 2010). On the other hand, they also contribute to the generation of a social sphere that promotes (or at least tolerates) the exclusive Han-ethnic nationalism against Muslim minorities in China. This is evident in cyber-attacks toward Muslims in China that are increasingly visible. In the Chinese social media, including microblog (Weibo), WeChat (Weixin), or the Tianya BBS (Tianya luntan), figures such as Zuo Zongtang (1882–1885) of the Qing Dynasty, who conquered XUAR, or the Communist leader Wang Zhen (1908–1993), who founded the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, are deemed as heroes for their harsh policies against local Muslims. Also, contemporary scholars, such as Xi Wuyi, one of the most prominent Chinese Islamophobes, have actively supported the campaign of the Sinicization of Islam. These scholars often equate calls for tolerating Islam and its way of life as supporting the radicalization of Islam that will destroy national security. These kinds of cyber-attacks often lead to distrust and physical conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims (Ma and Ma 2017, 74–79). One of the most prominent consequences led by the CCP’s policies is the harsh restrictions and even complete bans on religious practices. Religious discrimination, together with various restrictions on religious freedom, is among the major causes of conflicts between Muslims and the Chinese government or other non-Muslim ethnic groups, such as the Han Chinese. For instance, in XUAR, all the basic religious practices of Islam, like learning to recite the Qur’an, performing daily prayers, fasting during Ramadan, going to Mecca for Hajj, and so forth, are restricted or completely banned for those who, for example, study at a public school or university or work for the government as civil servants, and for anyone below the age of eighteen. Several conflicts between the Uyghur Muslims and the CCP are directly related to restrictions on religious freedom, especially since the 2010s; such attacks include the Hotan attack in 2011, the Kargilik attack in 2012; and the Shanshan, Kashgar, and Maralbexi riots in 2013 (Brophy 2016, 233–64;

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Chaudhuri 2017, 108–36; Holdstock 2015, 81–118). According to the Constitution of China (Article 36), all Chinese citizens enjoy the freedom of religion; however, only the so-called “normal” religious practices/activities are protected by the government. This enables the Chinese government to define which religious activities are normal, and thus allowed, and which are not. The CCP’s attempts to “create a Chinese Islam that is guided by atheism” (Yang 2019) include, for example, the publication of essays for the Friday sermons, which are the only permitted sources for the imams in the mosque; the demolition of Arab-style mosques; or the replacement of towering Arab minarets with Chinese-style pagodas (see Association for the Defense of Human Rights and Religious Freedom n.d.; Bitter Winter n.d.; Free Radio Asia n.d.). These actions have provoked resistance from the Muslim communities, and those Muslims who would defend their religion and religious identity against the enforced assimilation, if not elimination, by the Chinese government run the risk of being labeled as “religious extremists” or even “terrorists” (McDougall 2018). The situation is only getting worse, as China has taken more radical actions since 2016, when a new provincial party leader, Chen Quanguo, former party leader in Tibet, took power in XUAR. It has been reported (Chinese Human Rights Defenders 2018; Human Rights Watch 2018) that up to one million Muslims in Xinjiang are detained in the “political reeducation camps” in XUAR, where the detainees are brainwashed and indoctrinated with party ideology so that their “extreme Islamic religious dogmas and non-Han Chinese sense of identity can be ‘corrected’ or ‘eradicated’” (Human Rights Watch 2018). Although it seems quite suspicious that the detentions of Muslims in XUAR are legal (Daum 2018), there are indeed some legal rules that the Chinese government are likely to manipulate in order to control Muslims in China. Worth noting are recent legislations and legal amendments of the National Security Law in 2015, the Counterterrorism Law in 2016, and the De-extremism Regulation of the XUAR in 2017, which use vague terms such as “normal” or “abnormal,” and are likely to be manipulated by the CCP as a way to control Muslims and persecute those who appear to be disloyal to the regime. With the overall revival of religion in China since the late 1970s, Islam, as one of the five religions officially recognized by Chinese government, plays a vital part in China today. However, as Dru C. Gladney (2002, 267) argued, “If China does not explore other options besides repression, restriction and investment, millions of Uyghur Muslims might become disenfranchised, encouraging some to look to the intifada, the Taliban or al-Qaeda for inspiration.” It is worrying for the future of Chinese Muslims if the principles of human rights, justice, and the rule of law are not respected and followed by China. Gang Li

Chinese Religion: Anti-Muslim Attacks

See also: Chinese Religion: Anti-Christian Attacks; Chinese Atheism; Mao Zedong (1893–1976) FURTHER READING Amnesty International. 2018. “China: Where Are They? Time for Answers about Mass Detentions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.” Amnesty International, September 24, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­amnesty​.­org​/­download​/­Documents​/­ASA1791132018ENGLISH​ .­PDF. Association for the Defense of Human Rights and Religious Freedom. n.d. ­https://​­en​.­adhrrf​ .­org​/. Bitter Winter. n.d. ­https://​­zh​.­bitterwinter​.­org​/­xinjiang​-­the​-­disappeared​-­mosque​/. Brophy, David. 2016. Uyghur Nation: Reform and Revolution on the Russia-China Frontier. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chaudhuri, Debasish. 2017. Xinjiang and the Chinese State: Violence in the Reform Era. London: Taylor & Francis Group. Chinese Human Rights Defenders. 2018. “China: Massive Numbers of Uyghurs & Other Ethnic Minorities Forced into Re-education Programs.” January 22, 2018. ­https://​ ­www​.­nchrd​.­org​/­2018​/­08​/­china​-­massive​-­numbers​-­of​-­uyghurs​-­other​-­ethnic​-­minorities​ -­forced​-­into​-­re​-­education​-­programs. Daum, Jeremy. 2018. “XJ Education Centers Exist, but Does Their Legal Basis?” China Law Translate, August 14, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­chinalawtranslate​.­com​/­xj​-­education​ -­centers​-­exist​-­but​-­does​-­their​-­legal​-­basis. Free Radio Asia. n.d. ­https://​­www​.­rfa​.­org​/­cantonese​/­news​/­muslim​-­02112018114810​.­html. Gladney, Dru C. 2002. “Xinjiang: China’s Future West Bank?” Current History 101, no. 656: 267. Holdstock, Nick. 2015. China’s Forgotten People: Xinjiang, Terror and the Chinese State. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. Human Rights Watch. 2018. “Eradicating Ideological Viruses: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims.” September 9, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­report​/­2018​/­09​ /­09​/­eradicating​-­ideological​-­viruses​/­chinas​-­campaign​-­repression​-­against​-­xinjiangs. Kamalov, Ablet. 2007. “The Uyghurs as a Part of Central Asian Commonality: Soviet Historiography on the Uyghurs.” In Ildiko Beller-Hann, M. Cristina Cesàro, and Joanne Smith Finley, eds. Situating the Uyghurs between China and Central Asia. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., pp. 31–45. Ma, Ping, and Jingyi Ma. 2017. “The Phenomena and Countermeasures of the Current Network Public Opinion Influencing National Relations: A Case Study of Cyber Attacks against Hui Muslims.” Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development no. 2: 74–79. McDougall, Gay. 2018. “Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations’ Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.” August, 13, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­ohchr​.­org​/­EN​/­NewsEvents​/­Pages​/­DisplayNews​.­aspx​?­NewsID​ =​­23452​&­LangID​=​­E Uyghur Human Rights Project. 2018. “The Persecution of the Intellectuals in the Uyghur Region: Disappeared Forever?” October, 2018. ­https://​­docs​.­uhrp​.­org​/­pdf​/­UHRP​ _Disappeared​_Forever​_.­pdf.

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Religious Violence Today Yang, William. 2019. “What Does China Want to Achieve by Modifying Islam?” Deutsche Welle. January 8, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­dw​.­com​/­en​/­what​-­does​-­china​-­want​-­to​-­achieve​-­by​ -­modifying​-­islam​/­a​-­46995813. Yu, Jianrong. 2009a. “From Hard Stability to Soft Stability: An Analytical Framework of the Chinese Society.” Study & Exploration, no. 5: 113–18. Yu, Jianrong. 2009b. “Major Types and Basic Characteristics of Group Event in Today’s China.” Journal of China University of Political Science and Law no. 6: 118–24. Yu, Jianrong. 2010. “The Crucial Reason for Group Event Lies in the Contradiction between Official and People.” China Report no. 1: 50–51.

ART OF WAR (SUNZI) Since 1078 CE, seven military treatises have dominated Chinese discourse on war. The oldest and most well-known of these is Art of War, written by Sunzi—that is, Master Sun—in the spring and autumn periods (Lo 2012a, 406). In his work, Sunzi discussed “a variety of military subject matters such as military organization, education and training, leadership and its required virtues, strategy and stratagem, tactics, geography, intelligence, psychology, economics, and logistics” (Lo 2012a, 407). Sunzi’s Art of War and the other four-oldest military classics were so influential that the absolutist rulers of early imperial China prevented the founding of a school for education in military and strategic thought based on these classics. They feared that such a school would endanger their position. “Nonetheless, these five treatises were intensely studied and commented upon throughout the ages by generals, scholars, as well as by the imperial courts” (Lo 2012a, 407–8). The Art of War was written by Sunzi as a guide for rulers and commanders. It discusses a variety of aspects relating to waging war, provides advice on how to develop a good war strategy, and “examines how to get the greatest competitive advantage with the least harm done” (Sunzi et al. 2018, xii). To achieve this goal, a battle must be unbalanced. The enemy must be attacked when it is most vulnerable (when crossing a river, for example) by disciplined forces. Training must be strict and harsh in order to exploit the basic emotions of hope and fear (Sunzi et al. 2018, xv). Sunzi’s praise for the use of deception in warfare and his pragmatic attitude have earned him criticism from neo-Confucian thinkers, who stress the value of virtue and the importance of commitment to it. Ye Shi, one of the leading neo-Confucian scholars of the Song Dynasty, argued that deception is not absolutely wrong. Situations might occur in which deceiving the enemy is morally legitimate, but these situations would be exceptions to the rule that deception is, in itself, wrong. In advising its use as a military tactic, Sunzi undermined the significance of the moral principles that ought to guide our actions—both in

Chinese Religion: Art of War

peace and in war. However, other interpreters from the Song Dynasty disagreed with this assessment of the Art of War and argued that a distinction must be made between evil deceit and deception. Use of the latter is permissible in combat situations and compatible with (Confucian) virtues, while one should refrain from using the former in any situation (Lo 2012b, 116–17). They argue that Sunzi was not an amoralist but a pragmatic supporter of Confucian ethics. Ideally, one should conform to moral rules but, as Sunzi describes in his work, war is not an ideal situation and might call for actions that would normally be impermissible. In recent writing, Ping-Cheung Lo rejected the view that Sunzi was an amoralist, by contrasting the latter’s view to that of Von Clausewitz, another influential figure in the field of war theory. Lo argues that, contrary to Von Clausewitz, Sunzi was deeply concerned with morality and claims that “moral sentiments are alive and well in Sunzi’s Art of War; amoral reading of the text does violence to it” (Lo 2012b, 123). He based this conclusion on the fact that, according to Sunzi, peace is preferable to war and, should war turn out to be unavoidable, then one ought to strive for ending the war with as little bloodshed as possible. Compared to the philosophical classics of ancient China—that is, the Analects, the Mencius, the Xunzi and the Daodejing (or the Laozi)—Sunzi’s Art of War is more practical and less philosophical. It has influenced the discourse on warfare in the spring and autumn periods and continues to have relevance in contemporary debates, both in China and in the West. To list some examples: the Daily FT published an article stating that modern China’s political aspirations take recourse to Sunzi’s Art of War (Sun 2018), and the Huffington Post published a blog post about the contribution the Art of War can make to military discourse in Beijing and Washington (Rudd 2017). David Lai, professor at the U.S. Army War College, advises the study of the Art of War to better understand “the Chinese way of war and diplomacy” (Lai 2004, v). The Atlantic published a political analysis of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, comparing it to “the teachings in the Art of War” (Graham 2015). In addition, Sunzi’s work also inspires contemporary business models (for example, the website of Sun Tzu Strategies). In sum, Sunzi’s Art of War is a versatile work of literature that was already debated in the Song Dynasty. Almost a millennium later, it is still being discussed by scholars, political analysts, and military strategists alike. Even outside the realm of military thought, it has influenced strategic management and, if you enter a bookstore in search of business strategy literature, you might find The Art of War for Small Business (Sheetz-Runkle 2014) or similar works on the shelves. Harmen Grootenhuis See also: Chinese Religion: Analects; Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Graham, David A. “Would Sun Tzu Endorse Donald Trump’s Total-War Political Strategy?” September  24,  2015. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­politics​/­archive​/­2015​/­09​/­donald​ -­trump​-­sun​-­tzu​-­art​-­of​-­war​/­407209​/. Lai, David. 2004. “Learning from the Stones: A Go Approach to Mastering China’s Strategic Concept, Shi.” Monograph download from the Strategic Studies Institute homepage. ­www​.­jstor​.­org​/­stable​/­resrep11499. Lo, Ping-cheung. 2012a. “The Art of War Corpus and Chinese Just War Ethics Past and Present.” Journal of Religious Ethics 40: 404–46. Lo, Ping-cheung. 2012b. “Warfare Ethics in Sunzi’s Art of War? Historical Controversies and Contemporary Perspectives.” Journal of Military Ethics 11: 114–35. Rudd, Kevin. 2017. “How Ancient Chinese Thought Applies Today.” December 6, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­huffingtonpost​.c­ om​/k­ evin​-r­ udd​/c­ hinese​-s­ trategic​-t­ houghts​_b​_6417754​ .­html. Sheetz-Runkle, Becky. 2014. The Art of War for Small Business. New York: Amacom. Sun, Lai Yung. 2018. “Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ Is China’s Strategy to ‘One Belt One Road.” January 26, 2018. ­http://​­www​.­ft​.­lk​/­columns​/­Sun​-­Tzu​-­s​--­Art​-­of​-­War​--­is​-­China​-­s​-­strategy​ -­to​--­One​-­Belt​-­One​-­Road​-/­4​-­648092. Sunzi, C. C. Tsai, and Brian Bruya. 2018. The Art of War: An Illustrated Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CHINESE ATHEISM People usually think of China as a country with little or no religious freedom; there have even been articles that discuss the “irreligion” of the country. Images from the period of the Cultural Revolution and the severe attacks on religion, with the closure and destruction of temples and the secularization of religious personnel, certainly contributed to this general view. The new opening to religion and religious space from the late 1970s improved the situation but also framed religious practice within certain boundaries, as the official government is, by definition, atheist. The most recent news of destruction of Christian churches and detention camps for Muslims did not improve the conception of China as a country with few religious rights. The government’s concern about religion pushed the masses to rethink their traditional values and religious practices; yet, Chinese do live in line with Confucian virtues and customs, visit temples of various denomination, and perform rituals at their home shrines, as well as shrines outside their household. If asked, many of these Chinese citizens performing what we may call “religious rituals” would say that they don’t have any religious beliefs. How can we then explain this claimed atheism? As explained in the overview at the beginning of this chapter, there is a clear distance between the official understanding and framing of “religion,” the academic official (i.e., officially approved by the national censorship) writing about

Chinese Religion: Chinese Atheism

religion, and the way Chinese citizens feel and practice “religion.” Scholars like Adam Yuet Chau and Fenggang Yang wrote extensively on these issues, with the aim of showing the specific framework in which the Chinese operate. Most important, we need to understand that what we see as religion may not be perceived as such by Chinese practitioners; hence, what they define as atheism may not appear as such to us. Within Chinese culture, secular elements, such as the governance of a small or large society, is seen as intersecting with the otherworldly pantheon; as a result, the “secular” is embedded within a “sacred” frame. On the other hand, the intersection between the “secular” and the “sacred” also implies the secularization of the sacred. This world is represented as a mirror of the sacred pantheon, but that sacred pantheon also depends on rituals and activities performed in this secular world. The intersection between the secular and the sacred affects the definition of “secularism” in China, as well as the definition of the “sacred.” This is why, when human beings perform rituals to various deities that are aimed to secular achievement in this secular world, they aren’t seen as religious actions belonging to the sphere of the sacred. The Chinese are atheist, in their minds, because those rituals are just done as “functional” to this same world; it is their secular “functionality” (zuoyong) that counts. Therefore, for instance, if they pray the god of literature (Wenchang) before a school exam, in their minds, they are not showing any religious belief in this god. The Chinese government claims to respect the religious freedom and religious rights of their population, and, indeed, the Chinese are not banned from going to the temples that have been officially reopened after the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, those temples need to act not just as sacred sites but also, and in some cases especially, as tourist spots. Moreover, religious communities need to benefit the surrounding society, rather than the other way around, and so they are requested to initiate or assist in various charity works. This conceptualization of the sacred sites certainly affected their religious meaning and the cultivation of the resident religious personnel. The traditional intersection between secular and sacred is now embedded by a new form of secularization, which is not, strictly speaking, atheism. In the last few years, the Chinese government issued a new demand: religions in China are accepted, but they need to be reshaped and need to explain themselves as part of the new Chinese nation. This process, defined by the expression zhongguo hua, served to make religion even more in line with the political ideology in power. Again, the government does not oppose religion or religious belonging, but it makes sure to shape these in a way that undermines any private sense of sacredness. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Mao Zedong (1893–1976)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Johnson, Ian. 2017. The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. London: Penguin. Yang, Fenggang. 2011. Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DAODEJING The Daodejing has proven to be a source of inspiration for many people across the globe, and its emphasis on peace could prove to be most useful for international political discourse. In addition to the Daodejing’s popularity, the inability of any particular institution or government to dominate its exegesis only adds to its influence. The Daodejing is free of the suspicion that haunts, for example, the Analects, namely the suspicion that China only appreciates those classical works that serve contemporary political purposes (Sudworth 2014). If there is need for a pacifist Chinese perspective in international political discourse, then the Daodejing can deliver. Together with the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, the Daodejing belongs to the top three-most widely translated books, and its influence reaches far beyond the borders of China. It is the most important text for both philosophical and religious Daoism and is supposedly composed by Laozi, a contemporary of Confucius, whose name translates as “Old Master.” According to the traditional origin story, Laozi tried to leave the Chinese state Zhou, and a guard at the border requested that he write down his teachings. The historical validity of this account has been seriously questioned, and, due to the myths that surround the figure of Laozi, there is considerable debate among scholars about both the person of Laozi and the period during which the Daodejing was written. Mysticism not only permeates the commentaries; it has influenced translations as well. As a result, a wide variety of “translations” exist, which have made the Daodejing prone to dubitable interpretations (Van Norden 2011, 122–23). For example, The Tao of Physics, The Tao of Pooh, and A Taoist Cookbook—all of them inspired by the Daodejing—have been bestsellers in the United States (Chan 2018). The urge of contemporary scholars to rectify misinterpretations has led to interesting results in various domains, including in politics. It has been argued that the Daodejing is a potential means for peacemaking that deserves more attention in discussions about the prevention and resolution of conflicts (Wang 2009; Zhang 2012). In the Daodejing, violence is predominantly considered a condition of nature, in which harmony is disrupted, and the main goal behind Daoist peace-building efforts is restoring the harmonious order of nature. “Naturalness” is, hence, an important concept in the philosophy of the Daodejing, together with “nonaction,”

Chinese Religion: Daodejing

which refers to a type of action that embodies naturalness. Nonaction is the sort of action that flows from routine and is done without conscious performance, similar to swimming or riding a bicycle. We can, as it were, unconsciously perform these activities. Nonaction is not just any routinized action, however, because the Daodejing describes it as the opposite of action that originates in self-serving desire. The Daodejing was written in the third century BCE, which was a period in which many rulers competed for power and personal gain (Van Norden 2011, 126–30). Laozi, the purported writer of the Daodejing, argued that the desires fueling this competition disrupted the harmony that is characteristic of the natural state of affairs, and he praised the sages of old for not acting on such desires. In other words, nonaction is routinized practice, such as meditation, that counteracts the destabilizing behavior human beings are prone to. Peace, for the Daoist, is the natural state of being, without human incursions. This Daoist perspective on peace and violence has influenced modern debates, both directly and indirectly. Ellen Zhang and Keping Wang, for example, directly appeal to the teaching of the Daodejing to form a contemporary Daoist stance on, respectively, the use of violence in general and of nuclear weapons in specific (Wang 2009; Zhang 2012). Approaching environmental issues from a Daoist perspective has also become fashionable. Monks in China emphasize their concern for naturalness by constructing ecological temples and vowing to become champions of a “green revolution” (Hruby 2017). In addition, the Daodejing is indirectly influencing modern debates via comparative philosophy. Tongdon Bai and Mario Wenning, for example, have drawn the comparison between Daoist theory and, respectively, Rousseau’s political thought and Kantian moral theory (Bai 2009; Wenning 2011). In sum, there are multiple routes that connect the ancient Daodejing with modern discourses. Given the foothold that Daoist thought has gained worldwide, one might wonder why the Chinese government does not establish, say, Laozi institutes rather than Confucius institutes in order to establish soft power. The problem with using Daoism as the vehicle for soft power is twofold. First, China has classified it as a religion and, in doing so, alienated it from the dominant socialist ideology, which tends to be hostile toward religion. Together with Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam, Daoism belongs to the five officially recognized religions of China, under the watchful eye of the government (Albert 2018). Due to this classification, it is seen as a religious entity that needs to be managed by the state and not as a native expression of Chinese culture. It is important to note, however, that Daoism is increasingly seen through the lens of culture. The number of Chinese that turn to Daoism to reconnect with their national past is growing, and President Xi is recognizing the cultural importance of this religion cum tradition (Carney 2017; Huang 2017).

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Second, although the Daodejing is a classic of Chinese philosophy and culture, the Daoist discourse is hard to control and, for that reason an improper channel, for soft power. This is best explained via a Ricoeurian analysis. The Daodejing, being the main source of Daoist tradition and thought, already has a long history outside China’s borders (it was introduced to the West almost three hundred years ago) and has reached many foreign countries through its myriad translations (Pynn 2014, 357). This spread has led to a great diversity in interpretations and created both a geographical and semantic distance between the Daodejing’s origins and its current positions in popular and academic discourses. On the one hand, the Daodejing’s overall range of impact thrives on this plurality of interpretations, but, on the other hand, every individual reading it faces a multitude of competitors. Herein lies the crucial difference between Confucianism and Daoism: the Chinese government is—through the worldwide establishment of Confucius institutes—able to exercise a certain degree of control over the proliferation of Confucian semantics, while it lacks such power with respect to Daoist semantics. Harmen Grootenhuis See also: Chinese Religion: Analects FURTHER READING Albert, Eleanor. 2018. “Religion in China.” Council on Foreign Relations, October 11, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­cfr​.­org​/­backgrounder​/­religion​-­china. Bai, Tongdong. 2009. “How to Rule without Taking Unnatural Actions: A Comparative Study of the Political Philosophy of the ‘Laozi.’” Philosophy East and West 4: 481–502. Carney, Matthew. 2017. “China Reconnects with the Religion of Daoism, under the Watchful Eye of the Communist Party.” December 28, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­abc​.­net​.­au​/­news​ /­2017​-­12​-­28​/­we​-­have​-­restored​-­it​-­chinas​-­daoism​-­revival​/­9287484. Chan, Alan. 2018. “Laozi.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition). ­https://​­plato​.­stanford​.­edu​/­archives​/­win2018​/­entries​/­laozi​/. Hruby, Denise. 2017. “Taoist Monks Find New Role as Environmentalists.” March 30, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­chinadialogue​.­net​/­culture​/­9669​-­Taoist​-­monks​-­find​-­new​-­role​-­as​ -­environmentalists​/­en. Huang, Echo. 2017. “Officially, China’s Communist Party Believes in Atheism, but It Makes an Exception for Two Religions.” March 1, 2017. ­https://​­qz​.­com​/­920779​ /­officially​-­chinas​-­communist​-­party​-­believes​-­in​-­atheism​-­but​-­it​-­makes​-­an​-­exception​ -­for​-­two​-­religions​/. Pynn, Tom. 2014. “The Dao De Jing on Cultivating Peace.” Peace Review 26 (2014): 357–64. Sudworth, John. 2014. “The Hard Side of China’s Soft Power.” December 22, 2014. h­ ttp://​ ­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­asia​-­china​-­30567743. Van Norden, Bryan W. 2011. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Wang, Keping. 2009. “No More Hiroshimas and Sharp Weapons.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 68:181–204.

Chinese Religion: Falun Gong Wenning, Mario. 2011. “Kant and Daoism on Nothingness.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38: 556–68. Zhang, Ellen Y. 2012. “Weapons Are Nothing but Ominous Instruments.” Journal of Religious Ethics 40: 473–502.

FALUN GONG Falun Gong was founded in 1992, and, by the end of the twentieth century, the movement counted more than a hundred million members, around forty general offices and almost two thousand ordinary offices, and almost thirty thousand sites for instruction and practice. Falun Gong is also quite popular in the West, thanks to the numerous manifestations organized in defense of the movement; as a result, Falun Gong is known mostly as a religious movement that was banned in China in 1999 and whose practitioners are persecuted, detained, and tortured by the Chinese government. This is, of course, just one part of the story. Falun Gong, literally “Dharma Wheel Practice,” is a new religious movement founded by Li Hongzhi in the early 1990s. It merges elements of Daoism and Buddhism and emphasizes moral virtues that are also shared by Confucianism. It has been defined as a form of qigong, and so related to the “qi gong fever” that developed in China since the 1990s (Palmer 2007). The main practice consists of sitting or standing meditations that aim to keep the “wheel of energy” turning in both the human body and within the cosmos. As for the human body, Falun Gong borrowed the concept of energy (qi) from Daoism and Chinese medicine; there are also explicit references to the period of the “decline of the Dharma” (mofa) and the need of rectification and return to the period of “correct Dharma” (zheng fa). Teachings are based on Li Hongzhi’s book Zhuan falun (English: Turning the Dharma Wheel), published in 1995. The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi (1951–), traveled in China in the early 1990s to preach Falun Gong teachings, and, since the mid-1990s, he preached abroad as well. Partly due to some disagreements with other high members of Falun Gong in China and partly due to the Chinese persecutions, Li Hongzhi moved to New York City, where he still resides, in 1996. It is not uncommon to find copies of Zhuan falun and other books on the teachings of Falun Gong in Chinese tea houses in New York City and in other big cities in the United States. Li also became famous for being portrayed in the same posture as Mao Zedong and for building a cult around his personality (Penny 2012). He is quite famous, outside China, as a physical and a spiritual healer. The first persecutions against Falun Gong dated to the mid-1990s, just a few years after the foundation of the movement. As explained in the first section of this chapter, throughout Chinese history, several religious movements

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gathered the masses and provoked public turmoil and uprising against the ruling power. Chinese government, seeing how fast and steady Falun Gong was growing in terms of fame and membership, feared that the movement could also have brought serious uprising. The online networking, lecturing schedule, and net of offices built throughout China made Falun Gong a visible and remarkable new religious movement in China, the first strong new religious movement founded after the Cultural Revolution. How did the Chinese government react? According to the officials, Falun Gong was not in line with Marxist ideologies; moreover, it was not a religion with “Chinese characteristics,” hence it could not be accepted in China. Furthermore, it was usually said that Li Hongzhi’s writings and lectures were, partly implicitly but also partly explicitly, arguing against the political status quo of China and aiming at a renewal. That became another basis for official accusations and persecutions. According to the Falun Gong headquarters, however, that was just a misunderstanding of the teachings. In April 1999, almost fifteen thousand Falun Gong practitioners organized a peaceful protest in front of the central government buildings in Beijing; this is how Falun Gong and those Chinese initial persecutions became well-known outside China and why the Chinese government classified the movement as an “evil cult” a few weeks later, in the summer of 1999. After 1999, members of Falun Gong were exiled in more than forty countries. Since then, it is estimated that more than one million of Falun Gong practitioners have died in China, and more have been tortured in prison for years. Members of the organization living abroad have circulated several images that prove Chinese officials have harvested organs from the detained practitioners as well. Another point of contention was the anti-Falun Gong campaign produced by the Chinese official media since the early 2000s, which include various fabricated videos of Falun Gong practitioners self-immolating themselves in Beijing in protest and slanderous articles that were published regularly. As a response, some members of the Falun Gong residing in the United States filed a law suit against those Chinese media. This was the beginning of a complex legal campaign, grounded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where the Chinese government was accused of violating international laws and also committing genocide against a global civil society intended as a transnational space (Huang 2019). At the moment, Falun Gong practitioners continue their practice and peaceful manifestations against the alleged abuses from the Chinese government in numerous countries. Li Hongzhi’s publications, in Chinese and their translations in foreign languages, can be purchased in normal bookstores in Taiwan and overseas. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Chinese Atheism; Mao Zedong (1893–1976)

Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation FURTHER READING Huang, Weishan. 2019. “Globalization as Tactic–Legal Campaigns of the Falun Gong Diaspora.” In Paul R. Katz and Stefania Travagnin, eds. Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III: Key Concepts in Practice. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 233–56. Lewis, James R. 2018. Falun Gong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ownby, David. 2008. Falun Gong and the Future of China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Palmer, David A. 2003. “Modernity and Millenialism in China: Qigong and the Birth of Falun Gong.” Asian Anthropology 2: 79–110. Palmer, David A. 2007. Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China. New York: Columbia University Press. Penny, Benjamin. 2012. The Religion of Falun Gong. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(CHINESE RELIGION) China is often associated with the idea of patriarchy, a society where women, traditionally, hold a very low position. This is not completely true—at least if we look at the conceptualization that religious and cultural traditions native to China have of females and women. The same can be said about “foreign” traditions; if we look at the case of Islam, for instance, China is the only country where women can be imams, and they can also be in charge of mosques. According to Confucius and Confucianism, women need to obey their fathers, their husbands, and their sons. Education was prescribed for boys, although there were also textbooks for girls belonging to aristocratic families, as well as to low social classes. Examples of those textbooks include the volumes Nü xiaoxue (Elementary Learning for Women), and Nüer sanzi jing (Three Character Classic for Girls). There are also records of educated women, who were from higher social classes or were wives of officials, who authored books about correct Confucian etiquette for wives (fudao). A few titles include Ban Zhao’s Nüjie (Admonitions for Women), from the Han Dynasty; Nü xiaojing (Classic of Filiality for Women), from the Tang Dynasty; Song Rozhao’s Nü lunyu (Analects for Women), also from the Tang; Empress Xu’s Neixun (Instructions for the Inner Quarters), from the Ming period; Wang Xiang’s Nüfan jielu (A Handy Record of Rules for Women), from the Qing (Pang-White 2018). In several passages from these books, women seem to be more than the mere accessories of their husbands, for instance, they are required to correct their husbands if they act in ways that do not conform to Confucian morality; an example of this instruction can be found in the Classic of Filiality for Women, where a passage reads, “If a husband transgresses against the Way, you must correct him. How could it be that to obey your husband in everything would

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make you a virtuous person?” In Analects for Women, in describing the “perfect wife,” Song Ruozhao wrote, “To be a woman, you must first learn how to establish yourself as a person.” Nonetheless, the most popular and traditional view of women still sees them merely as wives within the household who don’t hold responsibility outside the household (Li 2000). This was the popular view that Mao fought against in his attack to backward tradition: the woman warrior that Mao proposed indeed changed the way women operated in society in the second half of the twentieth century, and partly as result of that, today we have several women in careers and holding high positions in business; yet, the popular view still seems to be preferred and encouraged by various (state-controlled) media products (Koetse 2016). In Daoism, the female (identified by the element yin) is as important as the male (identified by the element yang)—or better, a combination of female and male gives perfection. This could explain past engagements and achievements of women, whom important scriptures could be revealed to, and who could communicate with deities, and even authored texts about a specific “female alchemy” (nü dan), which defined practices only for women (Despeux and Kohn 2003). If Buddhist laywomen have the same roles and follow the same rules as the male laity, within the monastic order the situation seems to be, indeed, patriarchal. It is usually understood that Buddha himself established a female monastic order after the male one, and there are strong opinions that he did that with a heavy heart and hesitation. The ordination procedure includes more steps and restrictions for women, and indeed in some traditions women cannot be fully ordained. Most importantly, the “Eight Chief Rules” give ground to nuns having a permanently lower position, regardless of their level of cultivation or seniority. The situation in China seems to be a bit better than in other countries; for instance, nuns have sat in high positions in the Buddhist Association of China since the second half of the twentieth century. Yet, the “Eight Chief Rules” are highly respected in China; the same can’t be said for Taiwan, where the nun Zhaohui (1957–) started a feminist movement to advance women’s and nuns’ rights and became well-known for renouncing the “Eight Chief Rules” and proposing gender equality within the Sangha. This drastic position was mostly accepted in Taiwan; however, nuns in China refused to follow Zhaohui’s call (Chen 2018). Although Confucianism, Daoism, and (Chinese) Buddhism do not say anything about or against homosexuality or other sexual orientations, it is easily understood implicitly that at least Daoism and Confucianism might not be in favor of it. Chinese Buddhist monastics do not profess any special opinion on this matter; however, in Taiwan, the Buddhist nun Zhaohui became famous internationally for officiating the very first Buddhist lesbian marriage in 2012 (Yi 2015). Stefania Travagnin

Chinese Religion: Mao Zedong

See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Analects; Daodejing; Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Chen, Chiung H. 2018. “Feminist Debate in Taiwan’s Buddhism: The Issue of the Eight Garudhammas.” Journal of Feminist Scholarship 15: 16–32. Despeux, Catherine, and Livia Kohn. 2003. Women in Daoism. St. Petersburg: Three Pines Press. Jia, Jinhua, Xiaofei Kang, and Ping Yao. 2015. Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity, and Body. Albany: SUNY Press. Koetse, Manya. 2016. “From Woman Warrior to Good Wife: Confucian Influences on the Portrayal of Women in China’s Television Drama.” In Stefania Travagnin, ed. Religion and Media in China: Insights and Case Studies from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. New York and London: Routledge. Li, Chenyang, ed. 2000. The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender. Chicago: Open Court. Pang-White, Ann A., trans. 2018. The Confucian Four Books for Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Valussi, Elena. 2019. “Gender as a Useful Category of Analysis in Chinese Religions: With Two Case Studies from the Republican Period.” In Paul R. Katz and Stefania Travagnin, eds. Concepts and Methods for the Study of Chinese Religions III: Key Concepts in Practice. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 133–78. Yi, Riqiu. 2015. “Taiwan Held Its First Lesbian Marriage in 2012.” Translated by Adrian Chan-Wyles. June 2015. ­https://​­thesanghakommune​.­org​/­2015​/­06​/­25​/­taiwan​-­held​-­its​ -­first​-­lesbian​-­marriage​-­in​-­2012​/.

MAO ZEDONG(1893–1976) Mao Zedong, commonly known as Chairman Mao, was a founding member and leader of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 after the defeat of the Nationalist Party and the Republic of China (1912–1949). His school of thought is still at the core of the Chinese constitution. Two main events, besides the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, are linked to his name: the Great Leap Forward (1957), which aimed to quickly turn China from an agrarian to a modern and industrial country, and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), ten dark years in the modern history of China,

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when intellectuals and religious groups suffered tremendously. On the other hand, Mao was also a modernizer who contributed to the revaluation of women’s position in society, land reform, the fight against corruption, and the improvement of health and life in general in the country. Mao, with the help of his close followers, built a cult around his personality that still stands today. Mao Zedong was born in 1893 in rural Hunan. He believed in Buddhism in his childhood, probably under the influence of his mother, who was a devoted Buddhist. Mao studied in various schools and enjoyed reading about Western history and ideologies, from democracy to socialism and anarchism. Initially in favor of the establishment of the first Republic of China (1912), Mao later became influenced by the atmosphere of the May Fourth Movement (1919), the anti-religion movement, Marxist theories, a conviction in the supremacy of science and technology, and a rise in the feeling of nationalism and the need to build a new China. Mao, in his early twenties, came to absorb all these elements. He joined the Chinese Communist Party, founded by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao in 1921 and, in 1927, was elected commander in chief of the newly formed Red Army, mostly made up of peasants and low-class workers. However, Mao’s views were not always in line with the leadership of the Chinese Community Party. He had a troubled relationship with them, and even a temporary alliance with the Nationalist Party. Yet in the late 1940s, Mao was not just leading the Liberation Army but also became the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, established the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, and set up a new government model. Mao’s political program included severe regulations for religious groups, which became especially visible during the Cultural Revolution. Religious personnel were obliged to disrobe and serve society as average lay Chinese, and, in certain cases, former priests and monks were forced to marry and have their own families. Sacred sites were desacralized and transformed in factories or units that were socially helpful. Yet former monks and nuns, whether Daoist or Buddhist, kept practicing their faith in their private spheres. A decade after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and especially as a result of the new opening to religion that Deng Xiaoping initiated with his Document Number Nineteen, former temples asked to be reopened as sacred sites, an operation that is still ongoing. Religious groups need to apply for this and must specify how these renewed sacred sites could contribute to society, whether through the foundation of a charity or other forms of welfare activities, besides being simply loci for religious cultivation and liturgies. Furthermore, sacred sites have become listed as tourist destinations, which also means that they need to be open to the public every day in a sort of “museumification” of religion that contributed to the secularization of the sacredness of those places.

Chinese Religion: Mao Zedong

The conquest of Tibet in 1951 was also part of Mao’s modernization program. It was a way, according to Mao, to save Tibetans from the Dalai Lama’s leadership, the local theocracy, and the backwardness of their life and customs. From a different perspective, the annexation of Tibet gave China a direct channel to India. The occupation of Tibet certainly brought the killing and tortures of monks and nuns; the destruction of temples and artifacts; and, with the escape of the Dalai Lama, the creation of an “exiled Tibet” that still survives in India and other countries. Ironically, the cult of Mao embeds several religious motifs. More than forty years after his passing, Mao is still an icon in China; even his childhood home in Shaoshan is a popular tourist destination among Chinese, as well as foreigners. In several cities, taxi drivers (from the Han ethnic group) told me that he was an extraordinary man (Chinese: ta zhen hen liaobuqi). No one in Chinese history, or in even world history, surpassed him (personal communications in May–June 2019). Moreover, during my recent visits to Mount Wutai, a sacred Buddhist site in Shanxi province, I saw several vendors (all Han) selling Mao’s portraits and his Red Book, near or even inside the Buddhist temples (May–June 2019). The same stands exhibited Buddhist statues, images of Guanyin, copies of Buddhist Sutras, and various Buddhist rosaries, next to Mao’s framed photos and his writings. So much for the political figure who persecuted religion, including Buddhism. The current president of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, is probably stronger in terms of the number of administrative positions that he owns and the changes that he made to the legal system and the constitution; however, his power and line of thought is based on Mao’s political career. Although Xi has been defined as a “second Mao,” Mao’s portrait is still at Tiananmen Square and on Chinese currency. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Chinese Atheism FURTHER READING Dikotter, Frank. 2013. The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945–1957. London: Bloomsbury. Grice, Francis. 2018. The Myth of Mao Zedong and Modern Insurgency. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mao Tse-Tung (Mao Zedong). 2013. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. Redditch: Read Books Ltd. Reardon, Lawrence C. 2019. “Religious Regulation in China.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.868. Szatkowski, Maciej. 2018. “Deification of Mao Zedong’s Image and an Iconoclastic Attempt at Its Deconstruction.” Athenaeum 59: 47–67. Welch, Holmes. 1972. Buddhism under Mao. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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MARTIAL ARTS Several terms define martial arts in Chinese. The most commonly used are wushu and gongfu. In China, martial arts are known as techniques of self-defense, as well as fighting methods. The legend is that the Yellow Emperor (third millennium BCE) invented martial arts and left written instructions of it. Yet martial arts have been also performed as a religious practice and, in that sense, are associated with various traditions, especially Daoism and Buddhism; they are understood as exercises with effects on both the practitioner’s physical health and spiritual (and mental) well-being. Of course, techniques differ from one religion to the other and from one historical period to another. Similar to religious traditions, martial arts are classified into different schools (the idea of school, in Chinese culture and religion, is identified with the characters jia and pai). During the Boxer Rebellion, toward the end of the Imperial time (1900–1901), martial arts were used against Christians and other foreigners in China; this was the first time that martial arts were used as a religious Chinese fighting technique against the non-Chinese and somehow predated the institutionalization of martial arts as a symbol of China as “nation.” Ancient literature addresses martial arts, more or less extensively and explicitly. Daoism-related texts, such as Zhuangsi and Daodejing, do include sections on these fighting techniques, as well as their philosophical and theoretical background. Some references are also present in the first historical records, Confucian texts, and even in the famous Sunzi. In Buddhism, martial arts are often associated with the Shaolin monastery and eminent monks of the early Chan school. Since the eighth century, Shaolin monks practiced martial arts, and important Chan figures such as Bodhidharma and some of the first patriarchs of the Chan school are remembered for their skills in the martial arts. This tradition continued at the Shaolin monastery in the later Imperial era, and it remains a key feature—most of the time also a tourist attraction—of the Shaolin community today. While Shaolin monks have been performing martial arts shows around the world, monks in numerous monasteries in China and Taiwan have continued practicing martial arts as a daily exercise. In both cases, emphasis is given to concentration techniques and training of the power of the mind. In line with the foundation of Chinese culture, mind and body intersect perfectly: the training of the mind has effects on the health of the physical body, and, vice versa, more physical elements can affect the mind. This situation changed in early twentieth century, when the Republican government (1912–1949) took a step further, labeling martial arts as guoshu (“national arts”), and institutionalizing martial arts as a key feature of the new “nation.” As a

Chinese Religion: Martial Arts

result, academies for the study of martial arts were encouraged and supported by the central government, more experts were called to write literature on the subject, and activities were practiced more widely and openly. This process could also be seen as a development of what had already started at the end of the Qing period, with the Boxer Rebellion, and, indeed, the religious significance and implications of martial arts became of minor (or even no) importance. Martial arts took on and maintained a secular meaning and role, and the aspect of self-defense and fighting prevailed on the root cultural values. With the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (in 1949), martial arts were discouraged, as they were perceived as part of the backward and traditional past that needed to be left out and replaced by a more modern lifestyle. Consequently, on the one hand, several masters of martial arts moved to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or even abroad to continue their lineage and practice; on the other hand, the traditional schools or academies of martial arts were replaced with similar activities that new government founded and approved. We can conclude that since the middle of the twentieth century, we have two different streams of martial arts: the traditional type, which spread outside mainland China, and a government-approved practice, which developed within mainland China. Now, Daoist priests and Buddhist monks and nuns still practice martial arts in a similar way as how they were conceived in their origins: a practice to train the mind and heal the body and as a physical exercise that does not imply violence, unless taken in the sense of “symbolic violence.” Chinese media, especially films and opera but also advertising, have made martial arts extremely popular and, indeed, linked to religious symbols, a form of empowering practice that could lead to supernatural powers. These films included both male and female performers, indicating a lack of gender discrimination and a sense that both genders have access to this cultivation. Many of these films became available even outside China, including in Western countries. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and others have been icons of Chinese cinema and Chinese culture worldwide. At the same time, the Western film industry has started producing similar movies set in the West and featuring Western actors. Outside of show business, martial arts are practiced in various centers, although the religious meaning and cultural values are not always been explained or made explicit. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Martial Deities FURTHER READING Chen, Pingyuan. 2016. A History of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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MARTIAL DEITIES Martial deities deal with warfare and combat and often look terrifying to match these functions. Their function in Chinese religions is to either preside over specific groups, which they protect against other groups, or to protect the whole world (“All-under-Heaven”) against demonic forces. Martial deities are ruled by the principle wu, which stands for sanctioned violence for proper purposes. This is juxtaposed against both bao (violence for wrong purposes) and the Confucian principle wen (cultivation and literacy). Confucianism was the religious strand of the elite in China’s past, and therefore the role of martial deities was downplayed. This did not matter, however, since popular religion utilized the image and personas of martial deities quite often. Now, they are still found in shrines, processions, spirit mediums, and popular media, which is also the main mode in which knowledge of them spreads. There are many different martial deities, some of which can be linked to a certain religious tradition, while others resist such a determination. Within popular religion, we find Guan Gong (or Guangon), Xuantian Shangdi (or Zhenwu, “Great Warrior”), Jiang Ziya, Sun Wukong (“Monkey King”), Huaguang, Erlang Shen (or Yang Jian), Jiutian Xuannü, and the goddess Linshui. Within Daoism, we find Marshall Wen (Wen Yuanshuai or Wen Qiong), Marshall Zhao (Zhao Yuanshuai or Zhao Gongming) and his subordinates the Five Furies (Wuchang), Marshal Zhu (Zhu Yuanshuai or Zhu Jiangjun), and Marshal Ma (Ma Yuanshuai or Ma Sheng). Buddhism has Vajrapāņi (Jingang) and Kimnara (Jinnaluo). We can also include the so-called guardian deities, such as the Buddhist Vidyarājas, the twelve Buddhist warriors who accompany Medicine Buddha (Yaoshi Fo), the Buddhist guardians of the cardinal points (Hushizhe), and the Dao deity Nezha (Nazha or Nazha Santaizi). The most important martial deity, however, is the Yellow Emperor (Huang-Di, Guan Di, Guan Yu, or Xuanyuan), one of the founding emperors in Chinese

Chinese Religion: Martial Deities

mythohistory. As a moral guardian for the elite and the embodiment of wu, he is mainly known for his military conquests and loyalty. In some myths, he appears together with the martial deity Chiyou. The Yellow Emperor and Chiyou are either allies, or, when they are enemies, the Yellow Emperor defeats Chiyou. The Yellow Emperor was seen as the protector of many communities, especially in northern mainland China, but this role has rapidly subsided in the late twentieth century. The guise in which a martial deity appears differs in each context. There are deities who gain martial qualities or whose martial qualities are highlighted, such as Laozi. Other deities are pacified, because their violent nature was often interpreted as ambiguity: is it proper (wu) or improper (bao) violence? A common pacification strategy is to turn martial deities into deities of wealth. This not only pacified the martial deities but also the ambiguous role of merchants, which is apparent from the pacification of the Five Furies (Wuchang) (Guo 2003, 164–78). Because of their marginal position, most martial deities did not spread throughout China through acceptance in the state pantheon but through popular means such as novels, in which they were popular protagonists. Many Confucian and Daoist martial gods have distinct juridical features and functions, which are, however, absent in Chinese Buddhist martial deities. This extends to rituals. In exorcisms, martial deities often take the role of prosecutors of criminals. In military rituals, martial deities are often used to either legitimize a certain political organ or brand another as an illegitimate band of gangsters. Daoist ritual experts, in the same guise as martial deities, often function both as exorcists and military commanders, and modern Jiajiang (exorcistic dancers) troupes reflect both roles in their processions. Martial deities function as guardians for cities, temples, and even households. The boundaries of their protection are delineated by the routes their processions take, outside of which demons and spirits roam. One of the controversial aspects of martial deities is their association with gangs. Gang leaders are known to imitate martial deities, especially in their roles of army general. Taiwanese gangsters often worship Guang Gong, who is also often worshipped by police officers. Chinese governments still call up associations with martial deities regularly. A recent example is the naming of the ROCS Yueh Fei (FFG-1106) in 1992, a Cheng Kung-class guided-missile frigate of the Republic of China Navy, after Yueh Fei (1103–1142), a Han military general and emblem of loyalty. The martial deity Han-tan Ia (or Handan Ye) is worshipped by gangsters in the Taiwanese town Taidon. Due to its association with criminal activity, the cult’s processions were forbidden from 1984 until 1989. With the rise of ritual tourism, the cult of Han-tan Ia has been appropriated by the local government to reflect the image of the “band of righteous bandits,” a popular theme in Chinese mythology. During those processions, one of the local gangsters portrayed Han-tan Ia

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(without being possessed by the deity). Other gangsters carried this man around on a wooden chair, while onlookers threw firecrackers at them, which is not without its dangers. Undergoing this ordeal with an air of nonchalance is considered a sign of bravery and righteousness. We also find Jiajiang troupes in Taiwan. They are face-painted, dramatic exorcistic dancers, who serve protective martial deity and are an extension of their power. In this guise, these martial deities might possess the mostly teenaged dancers during a performance, but the dancers are not seen as the deities themselves; they are merely mediators. Their troupes are loose gatherings of different martial deities, who are pacified from their martial qualities by the use of hand fans. There are three types of troupes. The traditional troupes focus on escorting their deities. The commercial troupes stress performance and might ignore their deities altogether. The self-mortification troupes stress self-harm and exorcism, and they bring in the most money because of their spectacular displays. The number of Jiajiang troupes has dramatically increased since the 1950s, although they started losing their religious connotation in favor of a cultural and patriotic one starting in the twenty-first century. The deities represented by the Jiajiang troupes are considered to be outlaws who side with rebels and bandits. Still, the Jiajiang troupes are considered to represent both harmful forces and those who eradicate that harm. Now, as in the past, martial deities are portrayed in popular media, such as novels, operas and stage plays, comics, television series, movies, and video games. For example, Erlang Shen and Sun Wukong fight each other in an elaborate scene in the many movies and serializations of Journey to the West. Also, Erlang Shen, the Yellow Emperor, and Nezha are playable characters in the online battle multiplayer game Smite. Popular characters from novels, for example, have been elevated to the status of deity, such as Guangong and Song Jiang. Studies about modern popular media, like ancient novels and plays, are unfortunately lacking. Arjan W. Sterken See also: Chinese Religion: Martial Arts FURTHER READING Boretz, Avron. 1995. “Martial Gods and Magic Swords: Identity, Myth, and Violence in Chinese Popular Religion.” The Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 1: 93–109. Boretz, Avron. 2010. Gods, Ghosts, and Gangsters: Ritual Violence, Martial Arts, and Masculinity on the Margins of Chinese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Feuchtwang, Stephan. 1992. The Imperial Metaphor: Popular Religion in China. New York: Routledge. Guo, Qitao. 2003. Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies.

Chinese Religion: Mengzi Katz, Paul. 2008. “Trial by Power: Some Preliminary Observations on the Judicial Roles of Taoist Martial Deities.” Journal of Chinese Religions 36, no. 1: 54–83. Roberts, Jeremy. 2004. Chinese Mythology: A to Z. New York: Facts on File, Inc. Shahar, Meir. 1996. “Vernacular Fiction and the Transmission of Gods’ Cults in Late Imperial China.” In Meir Shahar and Robert Weller, eds. Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 184–211. Sutton, Donald. 1996. “Transmission in Popular Religion: The Jiajiang Festival Troupe of Southern Taiwan.” In Meir Shahar and Robert Weller, eds. Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 212–49. Sutton, Donald. 2003. Steps of Perfection: Exorcistic Performers and Chinese Religion in Twentieth-Century Taiwan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ter Haar, Barend. 2017. Guan Yu: The Religious Afterlife of a Failed Hero. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MENGZI(MENCIUS) (372–289 BCE) In committing itself to the Confucian tradition of Mencius—a tradition that insists on peaceful conduct and a strictly regulated use of force—the contemporary Chinese government has established a promising basis for peaceful cooperation and productive political contacts with the West. However, ideal and practice do not necessarily coincide. Violence against women, religious groups, and disabled people is inexcusable from a Confucian standpoint, but such violence is being reported in China nonetheless. If these reports from the Human Rights Watch (HRW) are accurate, Chinese officials are prepared to set their ideals aside when they perceive the stability of Chinese society to be at risk. Whether China will actualize the potential of Mencian Confucianism remains to be seen. There is ongoing tension between China and the Western world. In its latest report, the HRW wrote, “China’s growing global power makes it an exporter of human rights violations, including at the United Nations, where in 2018 it sought to block participation of its critics” (HRW 2018). A similar pessimism is present in surveys about democracy in China—or the perceived lack thereof (The Economist 2018; Van Onselen 2018; and Stone Fish 2017). China, however, denies neither the importance of human rights nor that of democracy, and there are scholars who claim that this professed support of human rights and democracy is honest (e.g., Daniel Bell and Sungmoon Kim). In order to substantiate their claim, they refer to the potential of China’s Confucian background in general and to Mencian Confucianism in particular. Mencius is one of the most important philosophers of classical China, and he is often considered the “second sage,” whose importance is second only to that of Confucius. Compared to Confucius, Mencius’s teachings are more practical, but both philosophers have elaborated on the same Confucian

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themes: everyday happiness, traditionalism, differentiated caring, ritualism, and education (Van Norden 2011, 86). In the West, Mencius is best known for his thoughts on virtue ethics, and parallels have been drawn between him, Hume, and Aristotle (Van Norden 2017). Contemporary studies of the political philosophy of Mencius are, unfortunately, scarce (Kim 2010, 33), and, given the prominence of Mencian Confucianism in modern China, the political aspects of his philosophy merit further analysis. Mencian influence is visible in debates about international politics; for example, in the Chinese perception of U.S. intervention in the Middle East. In China, the United States has been accused of being “hegemonic,” a term Mencius reserves for violent rulers who abuse their power (Bell 2010, 28). Furthermore, the differences between Western and the Chinese interpretations of themes such as human rights and democracy are better explained and understood if we take into account the Mencian elements of current Chinese thought. In the West, human rights are interpreted in a cultural framework that has been shaped by the Christian tradition, but they are not the exclusive property of that tradition. Scholars such as Bell and Kim have argued that a Mencian ethical theory is equally capable of producing human rights and that the resulting normative system of the Mencian tradition would be similar to a system based on a Christian tradition (Bell 2010, 33)—similar, but not the same. It is debatable, for example, whether freedom of thought is included in the Mencian package of human rights (Kim 2015, 179). With regard to democracy, we face the difficulty that the democratic ideal in China differs from that in the West. While Western societies value democratic procedures, such as regular elections, China considers it more important that the government serves the interests of its people and, in doing so, proves its democratic character. “In China, populist conceptions of democracy, for which the litmus test of a ‘democratic’ government is whether it benefits the people and reflects the will of the people, seem consistently to trump electoral conceptions” (Perry 2015, 908). From a Mencian perspective, a democratic society is not necessarily a society ruled by the people, but a society that protects the essential rights of the people, the most important of which is the right to subsistence or dignity (Bell 2008, 233). That the Chinese constitution allows Xi to stay in power is in itself unproblematic, provided that he rules conforming to Mencian principles and ensures the rights of the people. Given Xi’s declaration that he will work toward a “moderately prosperous society” (Xinhua 2017) and the fact that China’s economy is still characterized by an admirable growth, it seems that he will deliver on that promise. It would be premature, however, to conclude from a Mencian point of view that China is an adequate democracy that honors the rights of its citizens. What does it mean to have a right to subsistence or dignity? The vagueness of these

Chinese Religion: Mengzi

concepts helps to justify government policy, because vague terms can be defined in conformity with that policy. Moreover, if subsistence and dignity are interpreted with the Confucian ideal of peaceful rule in mind, several accusations of the HRW retain their force, even if they originated in a non-Confucian context. There have been reports of the use of torture in silencing human right activists and adherents of certain religious groups. Discrimination of persons with disabilities and cases of domestic violence against women have also been reported. The gravity of these and other reports of violence cannot simply be dismissed as mere accusations from countries with non-Chinese values, because these incidents involve a use of force that conflicts with Mencius’s and Confucius’s emphasis on peaceful rule. Of course, Mencius recognized that the world we inhabit is not ideal and that its rulers may have to use force in order to establish peace, but he restricted this use of force in two ways: the use of force is only allowed as self-defense or as a means to establish peace across the border if this intervention is explicitly asked for (Bell 2008, 235–36). It is unlikely that Chinese officials had to use torture as a means of self-defense and even more doubtful that the victims requested it. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that the reported discrimination against disabled people or domestic violence against women served as self-defense or was asked for. Harmen Grootenhuis See also: Chinese Religion: Analects; Daodejing; Xunzi (310–220 BCE) FURTHER READING Bell, Daniel A. 2008. Confucian Political Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bell, Daniel A. 2010. China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The Economist. 2018. “How the West Got China Wrong.” March 1, ­2018​. ­https://­www​ .­economist​.­com​/­news​/­leaders​/­21737517​-­it​-­bet​-­china​-­would​-­head​-­towards​-­democracy​ -­and​-­market​-­economy​-­gamble​-­has​-­failed​-­how. Human Rights Watch. 2018. “China: Events of 2018.” ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­world​-­report​ /­2019​/­country​-­chapters​/­china​-­and​-­tibet. Kim, Sungmoon. 2010. “Mencius on International Relations and the Morality of War: From the Perspective of Confucian Moralpolitik.” History of Political Thought 31: 33–56. Kim, Sungmoon. 2015. “Confucianism, Moral Equality, and Human Rights: A Mencian Perspective.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 74: 149–85. Perry, Elizabeth J. 2015. “The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy.” The Journal of Asian Studies 74: 903–15. Stone Fish, Isaac. 2017. “Why Does China Pretend to Be a Democracy?” April 11, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­news​/­democracy​-­post​/­wp​/­2017​/­04​/­11​/­why​-­does​ -­china​-­pretend​-­to​-­be​-­a​-­democracy​. Van Norden. Bryan W. 2011. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.

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Religious Violence Today Van Norden. Bryan W. 2017. “Mencius.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2017 Edition). ­https://​­plato​.­stanford​.­edu​/­archives​/­spr2017​/­entries​/­mencius​/. Van Onselen, Peter. 2018. “China Edges Further Away from Democracy.” March 31, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­theaustralian​.­com​.­au​/­news​/­inquirer​/­china​-­edges​-­further​-­away​-­from​ -­democracy​/­news​-­story​/­25209b987a9b21487f64409455b7bd08. [Site discontinued.] Xinhua. 2017. “19th CPC National Congress.” November 3, 2017. h­ ttp://​­www​.­xinhuanet​ .­com​/­english​/­special​/­2017​-­11​/­03​/­c​_136725942​.­htm.

SELF-INFLICTED VIOLENCE Cases of self-mutilation and self-immolation have been seen in Chinese Buddhism since the early stages of its development in China. It is a practice based on the authority of Buddhist texts and the notion of compassionate giving, but it is also a Chinese practice, framed within cultural values of Chinese civilization and, indeed, present within communities following other native religious beliefs. Of a different nature seems to be the mass suicide that spread in Tibet since 2009 and was hardly recognized by leaders such as the Dalai Lama. These is a chapter in the Lotus Sutra, an influential Mahayana text that is highly venerated within East Asian Buddhism and so by the Chinese Buddhist community, where a Bodhisattva burns his arm as a sacrifice for the Buddha; this is often quoted as justification of the cases of self-mutilation and self-immolation in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Overall, doctrinally speaking, the idea of self-mutilation and (complete or partial) self-immolation is based on the idea of “no-self” (wuwo), and the practice of the perfection of “giving.” This form of sacrifice could be a one-time event or a regular and repeated action; moreover, it could be done as part of an individual practice or in the context of a larger community. For instance, in the case of natural calamities, extensive epidemic disease, or other problems that affected a community, Buddhist monks could practice self-immolation as a form of offering to the Buddha, a sacrifice for the welfare of the community that could have been restored, hopefully, afterward. In that case, the event was performed in public, mostly in a square, and the entire community attended; even the rulers of the specific village were present, showing gratitude to the monk who was practicing this “self-sacrifice.” Needless to say, this practice was also seen as a way for the monk to achieve (or get closet to) Enlightenment and was then celebrated as a community achievement as well. Self-immolation was also practiced as a form of protest, mostly political in nature. Monks sacrificed themselves to show opposition to a specific ruler and ruling ideologies; again, this was done on behalf of the entire community. In this case, the event was celebrated differently, and certainly representatives of the ruling power were not present.

Chinese Religion: Spirit Medium

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we have records of Buddhist monks performing self-mutilation and partial self-burning, which shows that the practice has been ongoing until the modern time. At the moment, these practices are banned by the official government, although they may still be practiced in remote areas. In his recent book, Jimmy Yu (2012) looked at other forms of self-inflicted violence in early modern China and was able to show that this was not a practice limited to the Buddhist community. Even Daoist practitioners were performing it; in their case, the aim was to restore the (cosmic) “order” and “harmony” that had been lost. The cases of self-immolation in Tibet that started in 2009 and evolved to count almost one hundred cases in 2012, have been analyzed by scholars and journalists from different perspectives. The debate seems to agree on labeling this violence as a political and ethnic protest rather than a form of cultivation based on scriptures or doctrine. Not only monks and nuns performed self-immolation in public, but also old laypeople, intellectuals, writers, and students killed themselves to denounce the conditions of Tibetans under the Chinese government. This case of self-immolation, as well as the case of self-immolation as political protest performed by Buddhist monks in premodern China, somehow resemble the famous case of the Vietnamese monk burning himself in public during the Vietnam War. Chinese cases of self-immolation and self-mutilation can be read as part of a Mahayana practice, or framed within a wider Chinese cultural environment, but they can also be linked to other phenomena outside China. Stefania Travagnin See also: Chinese Religion: Mao Zedong (1893–1976); Spirit Medium (Tang Ki) FURTHER READING Benn, James A. 2007. Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Dudbridge, Glen. 1978. The Legend of Miao-shan. London: Ithaca Press. Ropp, Paul S., Paola Zamperini, and Harriet T. Zurndorfer. 2001. Passionate Women: Female Suicide in Late Imperial China. Leiden: Brill. Yu, Jimmy. 2012. Sanctity and Self-Inflicted Violence in Chinese Religions 1500–1700. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SPIRIT MEDIUM(TANG KI) Spirit mediums in Chinese religions are people who are chosen by one or more supernatural beings as their possessive vessels of expression on Earth. These

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supernatural beings can be deities, as well as spirits in human, animal, or supernatural form. They are often considered part of popular religion or even cults that are not approved by the government, in which they function as healers, charm writers, advisors, and diviners and relieve tensions within a community. In this, they mainly compete with Daoist priests, traditional herbal doctors, and modern physicians. Spirit mediums mainly stem from the Hokkien cultural sphere: Taiwan, Fuijan (Southeastern China), Singapore, and Malaysia. The phenomenon seems to be absent on mainland China. While the phenomenon of mediumship is quite consistent within the Hokkien cultural area, the name given to spirit mediums differs widely. In Mandarin, the term jitong is used. In southeastern China, spirit mediums are often called shenpo or lingmei. In Taiwan (and the Hokkien dialect in general), the variant spelling dang-gi and tang-ki can appear. Spirit mediums are sometimes called “incense heads” (xiangtou) due to the prominence of incense in rituals for invoking the spirit or deity. In Cantonese, the name bai san po (“grandmother who worships the gods”) is often used. Both young and old women and men can become spirit mediums, although the prevalence of each group differs per region. Women are more often associated with house altars and the domestic sphere, while men more often perform self-mortification rituals. To become a spirit medium, one must undergo initiations. Those who start the relationship with mediums are often deities themselves, although some mediums claim to have attained the gift themselves. People who are predicted to die young might have their lifespan extended by becoming a spirit medium. Moral accomplishments might also invoke mediumship. It often begins with fits of possession, often during personal crises. This can turn into regular mediumship if the host agrees to it, and pursuing mediumship also requires permission from the head of the family. Even if this is granted, the possessing spirit must still be proved to be of a benevolent nature. This is established by rites of exorcism, which would be unbearable to maleficent spirits. Spirit mediums perform as two types of deities. Martial deities, who come to battle evil, perform martial arts and are often accompanied by weapons, with which they perform rites of self-mortification. When these rites are performed without pain or lasting wounds, then the possession is seen as genuine and beneficial. Literary deities are more constrained in their behavior and demonstrate scholarly knowledge and difficult speech. In this case, a changing speech pattern of the medium is the sign of a genuine possession. Spirit mediums often represent a deity at festivals and processions. The deities who possess the spirit mediums come from a wide range of sources. Not only can they be traditional deities, but they can also stem from popular literature, opera, film, and comic books.

Chinese Religion: Spirit Medium

The social status of spirit mediums is ambivalent. The status of the spirit medium can be based on the seniority of the medium or on the status of the deity or spirit possessing the medium. People with a low social status due to bodily defects, effects from previous lives, or taboos, are more likely to become spirit mediums. Being a spirit medium might give disenfranchised people new authority, although often only when they are in trance. Outside of the trance, spirit mediums are often not given any special attention. People prefer spirit mediums with little to no education, since they are argued to be less able to fool their clientele. The sincerity of spirit mediums is contested, although common people seem reluctant to do so. Within the religious system itself, debates can arise about whether a spirit medium is possessed by a deity or a spirit. Possession by a deity is considered proper and beneficial, while possession by a spirit brings more dangers with it, the only exception being when deceased family members are contacted. There are also critics who doubt the validity of mediumship itself. Some psychiatrists and anthropologists are concerned about spirit possession as signs of psychosis or other mental illnesses, while others reject such medical terms. Another critique characterizes spirit mediums as part of superstition (mixin). Literati critique the dramatic possession performance in which standard social customs are abandoned, preferring the subdued form of spirit writing. A Daoist priest told anthropologist Erin Cline that spirit mediums are not really possessed by gods and cause great harm by frightening people, by advising them to not go to the hospital when ill, and by taking their money (Cline 2010, 538). Marxist critique likewise focuses on the exploitative potential of mediumship but also creates a dichotomy between the traditional domains of spirit mediums, which are individuals and family, while the focus of people should be on the well-being of the community. Both U.S. atheists and the Chinese government have hoped that, with the rise of modernization, the phenomenon of spirit possession would become perceived as less plausible. The relation between the state and spirit mediums is often of an antagonistic nature. This does not mean that people from the elite avoid spirit mediums; rather, spirit mediums are employed by both common people and the elite. Still, Chinese and Taiwanese governments forbade groups centered around spirit mediums. In Singapore, spirit mediums are often connected to illegal house temples, and their suppression is caused by the Singaporean government’s functionalist and one-dimensional usage of space, which foregoes the possibility of a residential place becoming a house temple. Active resistance against this policy is not often successful, but secretive house temples are not actively sought out. In Mainland China, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) were times of active persecution of all things related to

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popular religion. During these times, spirit mediums, among others, were often tortured, killed, or reeducated, while temples were destroyed. The restraint on religious practices was only diminished once Deng Xiaoping rose to power in 1978. Still, these practices have led to the near extinction of spirit mediumship on mainland China. Arjan W. Sterken See also: Chinese Religion: Mao Zedong (1893–1976); Martial Deities; SelfInflicted Violence FURTHER READING Chan, Margaret. 2006. Ritual Is Theatre, Theatre Is Ritual: Tang-ki: Chinese Spirit Medium Worship. Singapore: SNP International Publishing. Clart, Philip. 2003. “Moral Mediums: Spirit-Writing and the Cultural Construction of Chinese Spirit-Mediumship.” Ethnologies 25, no. 1: 153–89. Clart, Philip. 2008. “Tâng-ki (or jitong): Spirit Medium.” In Fabrizio Pregadio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism: Volume II. London: Routledge, pp. 964–66. Cline, Erin. 2010. “Female Spirit Mediums and Religious Authority in Contemporary Southeastern China.” Modern China 36, no. 5: 520–55. DeBernardi, Jean. 2002. “Teachings of a Spirit Medium.” In Donald Lopez, ed. Religions of Asia in Practice: An Anthology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 366–75. Hong, Keelung, and Stephen Murray. 2005. Looking Through Taiwan: American Anthropologists’ Collusion with Ethnic Domination. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Jordan, David. 1972. Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk Religion in a Taiwanese Village. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kang, Xiaofei. 2006. The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China. New York: Columbia University Press. Myers, John, and Davy Leung. 1974. A Chinese Spirit-Medium Temple in Kwun Tong: A Preliminary Report. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. Paper, Jordan. 1996. “Mediums and Modernity: The Institutionalization of Ecstatic Religious Functionaries in Taiwan.” Journal of Chinese Religions 24, no. 1: 105–29. Sutton, Donald. 1989. “Ritual Trance and the Social Order: The Persistence of Taiwanese Shamanism.” In Andrew Barnes and Peter Stearns, eds. Social History and Issues in Human Consciousness: Some Interdisciplinary Connections. New York: New York University Press, pp. 108–27. Sutton, Donald. 1990. “Rituals of Self-Mortification: Taiwanese Spirit-Mediums in Comparative Perspective.” Journal of Ritual Studies 4, no. 1: 99–125. Wee, Vivienne. 2004. “Spirit Mediumship (Singapore).” In Mariko Namba Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, eds. Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, pp. 732–36. Zhang, Hong, and Constantine Hriskos. 2004. “Chinese Shamanism, Contemporary.” In Mariko Namba Walter and Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, eds. Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, pp. 713–21.

Chinese Religion: Xunzi

XUNZI(310–220 BCE) Confucius (551–479 BCE), Mencius (372–289 BCE), and Xunzi are the three major figures in Confucianism. The latter two have followed in the footsteps of Confucius, but both in their own ways. With respect to human nature, they reason from opposite sides toward the same conclusion, namely that sagacious rule is the right form of government. Mencius was more adamant about the importance of noncoercive leadership than Xunzi, who was willing to settle for a situation in which the government use of a limited amount of force to maintain order. A Xunzian analysis is apt when one considers the contemporary political situation in China, and the conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that contemporary China, arguably, constitutes a hegemony. Between Mencius and Xunzi, Mencius played the most influential role in Confucianism. He was the “Paul to Confucius’s Jesus”—that is, his interpretation of Confucius has shaped the subsequent Confucian tradition (Richey 2019). Xunzi understood Confucius’ thought along different lines, especially with respect to human nature, and this exegetical difference would eventually place Xunzi in the shadow of Mencius (Elstein 2019). However, recent years have seen a growing appreciation for the thought of Xunzi, and, in contemporary debates about political philosophy, the similarities rather than the dissimilarities between Mencius and Xunzi are being stressed (e.g., Stalnaker 2012; Kim 2013). For Mencius, human nature is good, and bringing out the best in people merely requires nurturing the seeds of virtue that are present in each and every one of us. Less abstractly formulated, Mencius argued that when we see a child who is about to fall into a well, we will feel compassion and try to prevent this from happening. Our inclination to intervene is not borne from rational calculation of the social benefits we might obtain from helping the child but from a genuine response to the perceived distress. This, according to Mencius, illustrates that people are essentially good-natured (Van Norden 2011, 88–89). Xunzi, conversely, argued that people are essentially bad-natured and adduced the state of affairs in the world as an illustration: if people were good-natured, where does all the moral vice come from? If it were truly the case that people are good-natured, there would be no need for moral education. According to him, it is not only the case that people lack virtue, but they even lack the inclination toward virtue, and social structure is necessary to keep our vices in check (Van Norden 2011, 171–78). This difference between Mencian optimism and Xunzian pessimism in relation to human nature translates to their political philosophies and becomes most noticeable in their descriptions of the political ruler who dominates through force: the hegemon. For Mencius, this type of ruler is undesirable because proper leadership is exercised through soft power. A hegemon is not capable of convincing his or her

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subjects to be loyal without the use of force, which makes his or her rule flawed. Xunzi, on the other hand, was less dismissive of hegemonic leadership. Recently, scholars argued that Xunzi is best understood as having more or less the same aspirations as Mencius—that is, establishing peaceful rule in the country—but he was realistic enough to consider that this kind of leadership is difficult to come by. Hegemony, then, is the second-best kind of rule that ensures social order and restrains the bad-natured people in a suboptimal way. For Mencius, hegemony is the worst type of leadership, but, for Xunzi, it holds the middle between the peaceful rule of a sage king and the violent tyrant (Twiss and Chan 2012, 453). The main difference between these three ruler types concerns the longevity of their rule. A tyrant is in perpetual conflict with other countries and, additionally, alienates himself from the citizens of his own realm. These two factors combined will bring about the demise of the tyrant (Xuetong 2013, 89–91; Kim 2013, 86–87). The hegemon is more capable then the tyrant in consolidating his rule because he establishes a social order, but compared to the social hierarchy in the kingdom of a sage king, this order is imperfect and cannot last indefinitely (Stalnaker 2012, 108; Jin 2013, 173). In sum, Xunzi, like Mencius, advocated sagacious rule, but Xunzi considered hegemony as a less proper, yet still acceptable, alternative. In scholarship, Xunzi is a respected philosopher, and parallels have been drawn between his teachings and those of Western intellectuals such as Plato (Hutton 2008), Kant (Stroud 2011), and Hobbes (Kim 2011). The scholarly appreciation of Xunzi’s philosophy, however, does not seem to reflect a popular interest; references to his work and thought are hard to find. That is remarkable, given the fact that contemporary Confucian politics in China are Xunzian rather than Mencian. China’s stance in a variety of political issues supports this assessment. The territory China claims in the South China Sea, for example, is vastly larger than the territory allocated to it by the UN. China, however, contests the UN ruling and regularly organizes a show of naval force in the disputed area (BBC 2016). China also resists the independence of Taiwan and will not shy away from using force in this matter, according to President Xi (CNBC 2018). Under sagacious rule, China would not turn to the use of force in making other nations comply with its wishes. The worldwide establishment of Confucius Institutes (Xinhua 2017) demonstrates that China is looking for nonviolent means to increase its soft power, and there is hope that it will develop into a country under sagacious rule (Xuetong 2013, 99–106), but the fact that China is also prepared to use hard power reveals that it will agree to the role of hegemon when it cannot be a sage king. Harmen Grootenhuis See also: Chinese Religion: Analects; Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE)

Chinese Religion: Xunzi FURTHER READING BBC. 2016. “Why Is the South China Sea Contentious?” July 12, 2016. h­ ttp://​­www​.­bbc​ .­com​/­news​/­world​-­asia​-­pacific​-­13748349. CNBC. 2018. “Xi Warns Taiwan Will Face ‘Punishment of History’ for Separatism.” March 19, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­cnbc​.­com​/­2018​/­03​/­19​/­taiwan​-­will​-­face​-­punishment​-­of​ -­history​-­for​-­separatism​-­china​-­warns​.­html. Elstein, David. 2019. “Xunzi (Hsün Tzu, c. 310-c. 220 BCE).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ­https://​­www​.­iep​.­utm​.­edu​/­xunzi​/. Hutton, Eric L. 2008. “Un-Democratic Values in Plato and Xunzi.” In Marthe Chandler, and Ronnie Littlejohn, eds. Polishing the Chinese Mirror. New York: Global Scholarly Publications, pp. 314–32. Jin, Xu. 2013. “The Two Poles of Confucianism: A Comparison of the Interstate Political Philosophies of Mencius and Xunzi.” In Daniel A. Bell, and Sun Zhe, eds. Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 161–80. Kim, Sungmoon. 2011. “From Desire to Civility: Is Xunzi a Hobbesian?” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10: 291–309. Kim, Sungmoon. 2013. “Between Good and Evil: Xunzi’s Reinterpretation of the Hegemonic Rule as Decent Governance.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12: 73–92. Richey, Jeffrey. “Mencius (c. 372–289 B.C.E.).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ­https://​­www​.­iep​.­utm​.­edu​/­mencius​/. Stalnaker, Aaron. 2012. “Xunzi’s Moral Analysis of War and Some of Its Contemporary Implications.” Journal of Military Ethics 11: 97–113. Stroud, R. Scott. 2011. “Moral Cultivation in Kant and Xunzi.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38: 538–55. Twiss, Sumner B., and Jonathan Chan. 2012. “The Classical Confucian Position on the Legitimate Use of Military Force.” Journal of Religious Ethics 40: 447–72. Van Norden. Bryan W. 2011. Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Xinhua. 2017. ­http://​­www​.­chinadaily​.­com​.­cn​/­china​/­2017​-­10​/­07​/­content​_32950016​.­htm. Xuetong, Yan. 2013. “Xunzi’s Interstate Political Philosophy and Its Message for Today.” In Daniel A. Bell, and Sun Zhe, eds. Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 70–106.

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INTRODUCTION Christian Violence This chapter looks at violence done by and against those who identify as Christian. While there are innumerable ways to define that identity, it generally relies on a recognition of Jesus of Nazareth as the divine Messiah (Christ, from Greek Christos, meaning “anointed”), through whom eternal salvation is possible and whose ministry is related in the Christian Bible. For nearly two millennia, Christianity has been one of the most politically powerful and culturally influential religions in the world, and, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it is the largest of the world’s religions. Although it began on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, its dominance has been most pronounced in Europe, where, over time, it infused the culture and linked with ideas of national belonging. That area is currently seeing a decrease in devotion, while areas of the global South—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—house the fastest-growing Christian congregations. Christianity was imported to those regions through colonization by Europeans, so the story of Christianity’s spread is one steeped in violence. Christianity is a monotheistic faith, as followers believe in a single creator God who acts in the world. While only recognizing one God, Christian doctrine sees that God as a Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Explanations for this sacred mystery vary, but everywhere in Christendom, they are considered three aspects of a single God. Jesus is understood as God incarnated on Earth, fully human and fully divine, unique in history. His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate provided the atoning sacrifice for all who accept his divinity, erasing the stain of original sin for the baptized and granting eternal life to believers. In a very real sense, Christianity begins in violence; salvation would be impossible without the execution of Jesus. The symbolic death and rebirth ritualized in baptism likewise points believers to the violence inherent in Christian life, as did Jesus’s warning that “if any want to become my followers, let them deny 176

Christianity: Introduction

themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24, cf. Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). The very symbol of the religion, be it crucifix or unadorned cross, is a stylized image of capital punishment, reserved for political criminals who challenged the Roman state. Many would undoubtedly rely on the explicitly antiviolent statements of Jesus—who was sometimes called the Prince of Peace—to deny that any violence could be properly characterized as Christian. Did he not warn that he who lives by the sword dies by it, command his followers to turn the other cheek, and declare, “Blessed are the peacemakers”? The source of such convictions stems from the sacred scripture of the Christian religion, the Holy Bible. Divided into two sections—the Old Testament, which preserved the texts of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and the New Testament, which shares the good news of Christ’s teachings and activities—the Bible is often pointed to as the final word on what is or is not Christian. The New Testament was worked out during the early centuries of the Common Era, when scores of texts were considered for inclusion in the canon, the accepted and authoritative collection of writings. While the New Testament is considered in more detail below, it is worth noting that statements encouraging pacifism and love are juxtaposed with those that seem to support violent activity under certain conditions. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, pairs encouragements by Jesus to “love your neighbor, and pray for those who persecute you” (5:44) with warnings to “not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword” (10:34). Paul’s epistles are littered with peaceful counsel, but the Book of Revelation describes a fiery and blood-soaked battle when Jesus returns to Earth. In the first century of the Common Era, only decades after Jesus was crucified, the Roman emperor Nero scapegoated Christians for the great fire of Rome, clearing the path for later, more concentrated and centralized persecutions under emperors Decius and Diocletian. At times during the first three centuries of the Common Era, proclaiming a Christian identity was against the laws of the Empire. Texts written by Christians recall near constant programs of imperial persecution that demanded all adherents of the faith be willing to suffer the same fate as their savior. While historical evidence has shown it to be unlikely that the persecutions were as widespread or consistent as represented within the tradition, there is no doubt that many Christians became martyrs in the centuries prior to Constantine assuming the emperor’s mantle. Constantine’s conversion (at least in word) to Christianity in the fourth century put the religion into a place of power, and mere decades, later Theodosius I made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire. The violence did not abate for long, however. Soon after being proclaimed the religion of the empire, Christianity’s focus turned inward. The ideal of one faith, one church, meant violent condemnations of those who held beliefs different from

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the “official” interpretation of Christian doctrine, and charges of heresy—holding and promoting views at odds with “orthodox” teachings—carried a sentence of torture and death. The dictates of Christianity were worked out over time by councils of bishops and government coercion, and Christian violence found a new target in those deemed to pose a threat to “true believers.” This practice continued sporadically throughout the first millennium and appeared again, in force, with the infamous Inquisitions. The conquests of the Holy Roman Empire, which dominated the lands of central Europe for centuries, also qualify as a form of Christian violence. Blending political and religious authority in complex and unstable ways, Frankish and German kings conquered territories under the symbol of the Cross. Their efforts blended struggles for political power with religious sentiment, with leaders such as Charlemagne (742–814 CE) seeing it as their duty to spread the Christian message by military means. This purpose served more worldly goals regarding available resources and external threats but yielded a vast dominion that defined political life on the continent for years. Holy Roman emperors were not popes, and the relationship between those two offices yielded fierce conflicts and ultimately set the stage for the secular nation-state system still with us today. Perhaps the most well-known instance of Christian-directed violence were the Holy Crusades that took place between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries CE by 1095, areas of Palestine and Asia Minor that were once at the center of Christendom had been conquered by Muslim states. That year, Pope Urban II lamented the abuse suffered by pilgrims and the desecration of the Holy Land under Muslim rule and appealed to the populace to mount a mission to bring the area back under Christian control. Apocalyptic expectations fed inflamed passions, and many responded crying Deus le volt—“God wills it”—a rallying cry that was echoed by twenty-first century groups who saw themselves as continuing the pursuit. The First Crusade regained important cities such as Nicaea and Antioch, and the crusaders ultimately captured their ultimate goal of Jerusalem in 1099, brutally slaughtering the city’s inhabitants upon their entry. Three decades later, after many crusaders had returned to Europe, the Seljuk Empire recaptured Jerusalem, which provoked the Second Crusade in 1147. That attempt, along with those that followed, failed to reoccupy Jerusalem but incurred a great deal of bloodshed. Infighting among Christian communities and a power struggle between Catholic Rome and Orthodox Byzantium soon broadened the horizons of the Crusades to combat any forces that opposed the papacy in Rome. By the thirteenth century, the crusaders fought within Europe itself, such as the Albigensian Crusade that set its sights on heretics in France. The last of the crusader states in West Asia fell by the end of that century, ending one of the bloodiest epochs in Christian history. The crusaders’ brutality has not been forgotten by

Christianity: Introduction

Muslim communities in the Middle East, and it continues to inspire interreligious animosity in the region. Excesses of Christian violence were visible again in the Spanish Inquisition, which dates to the thirteenth century but peaked in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. During this period, the Spanish government aimed to forcibly convert the Jewish communities of the region. The first grand inquisitor, Dominican priest Tomas de Torquemada, held trials known as auto-da-fe (Portuguese: “act of faith”), which used torture to compel confession and atonement. Christianity provided a cloak for brutal political efforts seeking to centralize power, and Inquisitions spread from Spain to other areas, such as Peru and Mexico, as well as the region around Belgium and the Netherlands. Protestants were the main targets in these latter Inquisitions, and, over time, the Iberian Peninsula’s Muslim population was also exposed to the auto-da-fe. The total numbers killed during the Inquisition have been exaggerated in some circles but were likely in the thousands. The Reformation, inaugurated by Martin Luther in 1517 CE, shifted landscapes of power in Europe. A century later, over eight million people became casualties of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), fought between Catholic and Protestant states. Beginning with Emperor Ferdinand II’s demand in 1619 CE that all citizens of the Empire profess faith in Roman Catholicism—directly contradicting the assurances of religious freedom established in the 1555 Peace of Augsburg—the Thirty Years’ War fractured the tapestry of semiautonomous states under the Empire based on religion. Lutheran and Calvinist states confronted the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, demanding respect of the guiding doctrine cuius regio, eius religio: “whose realm, his religion.” Both sides were compelled to fight rather than abandon their faith, and three decades of bloody and intractable war followed. In 1648, the series of treaties today known as the Peace of Westphalia finally halted hostilities and established fixed boundaries of autonomous states. It also established the sovereignty of those states, where citizens were accountable to the laws of that state alone. This new political imagination produced the international system that is still in effect today. As tragic as the losses of the Thirty Years’ War were, more lamentable were those brought about by colonialist projects encouraged and supported by interpretations of Christian doctrine. As Europeans traveled around the world seeking to exploit new resources—natural, economic, and human—in their insatiable desire for power and influence, their violence was sanctioned and made palatable by using the name of Christ. Examples from the West Indies to Latin America are ready at hand, though none can match the savagery of the Atlantic slave trade that decimated African communities. Advanced military technologies were directed in support of a project of “civilizing,” which accompanied the exploitation and featured conversion to Christianity as a central component. Some Christians at the

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time interpreted Africans as the descendants of Ham, the cursed son of Noah, and associated the darkness of their skin with inherent evil. Such ideas justified violence against Africans as the just consequences of sin. Slavery itself was held by some to be a benevolent institution, allowing “primitives” to encounter the saving force of Christianity. Proponents pointed to the demand, attributed (likely incorrectly) to Paul, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ” (Eph. 6:5) as an illustration that slavery was in line with Christian principles. Worse yet, one epistle, attributed to the disciple Peter (again, likely incorrectly), further sanctioned brutality by commending slaves to “Accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh” (1 Pet. 2:18). These perspectives laid the foundation for the kind of racist enmity that inspired later groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, who are treated below. The language of providence and salvation that undergirded the Atlantic slave trade was mobilized in other shameful episodes of America’s history. Since the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock in the seventeenth century, America had been envisioned by some as the promised “city upon the hill” foretold by Jesus (Matt. 5:14). U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Barack Obama all employed the metaphor in describing their visions of the country. It also propelled violence, laying waste to indigenous communities throughout the North American continent under the banner of “manifest destiny.” As the United States sought to expand into Native American lands, they used the same civilizing rhetoric that supported the slave trade, replete with the drive to convert the “savages.” Christianity was seen to be part of the reason white Europeans could own land and govern themselves, and the colonizers’ benevolence once again sponsored excesses of violence. As part of this mission, tribes were forcibly marched to reservations, and children were torn from families and placed into off-reservation boarding schools. There, they were given Christian names and made to pray daily. Those who use Christianity as a basis for violence often pursue their goal of saving souls with harmful means disguised as compassion. Christian encouragements to violence were not absent from modern large-scale conflicts, and they were nowhere more evident than in World War I. Historian Philip Jenkins showed the pervasive influence Christian language and imagery had on all sides of a conflict, fought mostly between members of the same religious faith. Christian rhetoric was used to depict fallen comrades as noble martyrs, enemy soldiers as agents of the devil, and the efforts of each warrior as a divinely approved pursuit. God was on all sides of the Great War. Such symbolism was used by church officials, military authorities, and the soldiers themselves to affirm the righteousness of the war. Soldiers responded keenly to crusader imagery of knights and angels that frequented propaganda, and they repeatedly reported visions of

Christianity: Introduction

Christ on the battlefield, along with the Virgin Mary and St. George the warrior patron saint of crusaders. Not only did Christian language help participants come to terms with the staggering number of casualties that mirrored the promise of Armageddon, but it also promised divine rewards to those who fell in the conflict. As Jenkins argued, understanding Christianity’s place in World War I is necessary to understand why people flocked to war, what they hoped to achieve, and the shape of the war itself. The Great War was ultimately a Christian war, one that reshaped the religious landscape of the modern world. Other historical examples of Christian-inspired violence are easy to discover, not the least of which could be the “crusader” rhetoric used during the twenty-first century war on terrorism. Such language framed the “war” as a cosmic conflict between the forces of Christianity and Islam. However, this brief survey immediately raises the question of what we mean by “Christian” violence. Is it any violence done by someone who identifies as Christian, no matter how unorthodox or deviant their beliefs? Is it the violence that accompanies efforts towards conversion or is inspired by biblical passages? Is it only violence done on behalf of official, recognized Christian authorities? And, if so, which authorities? For the purposes of this analysis, I will take Christian violence to be harm done by (or to) those who self-identify as Christians, that is seen by its perpetrators as promoting Christian influence or dominance. That will mean coming to terms with those who hold to troubling interpretations of doctrine, such as the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC); those who blend Christian ideals with racist tenets, such as the Christian Identity movement; and other groups and individuals whose Christian-ness radically diverges from, and may be opposed by, more “mainstream” congregations. This alone will allow a better understanding of the ways in which the Christian religion has been party to violent actions in recent years. Christians throughout history had to contend with the very real situations that tested their pacifist leanings. For two thousand years, theologians struggled to align their theology with a reality that can be brutal and oppressive. To what limits does compassion and peace extend? To those who would seek to destroy Christians? To destroy their families? To wipe out the religion itself? Moreover, are all statements attributed to Jesus meant to be taken literally, as plain commands to all believers? Are his statements encouraging nonviolence to be taken at face value, while those using violent sentiments merely metaphorical? How can a coherent and consistent strategy of interpretation account for such apparently contradictory statements? However clear the answers may appear to us, those in other places and other times and with other experiences interpreted Christian doctrines in response to their immediate environments. Scripture does not offer up its meaning on its own; individuals must make the texts meaningful by determining how compositions of the past speak to their present situations.

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Time and again, individuals have found it appropriate to interpret Christian scripture and doctrine in support of violent activities. The violence discussed in this chapter can be grouped into three general (though often overlapping) categories: apocalyptic violence, defensive violence, and religious nationalist violence. These labels can help highlight concerns that repeatedly appear at the heart of Christian fury. Apocalyptic violence heralds the end of the world. It is either a response to the perceived end times or attempts to usher them in. Christian Zionists who support settlement programs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories around Israel in hopes of initiating the end times would fall under this category, as would those violent actors who reference the book of Revelations or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as their inspiration. Christian Identity groups, such as the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord believed that the end of the world was upon them, and during the 1970s and early 1980s, gave its members paramilitary training in preparation for the final battle. With the end nigh, they even felt empowered to fight against U.S. agencies, which were seen as agents of evil. Groups such as the WBC perceive a world that is debauched, dangerous, and laden with sin and feel compelled to take up arms to protect the righteous or destroy the wicked. They believe the world to be nearing a just end, one rife with conflict, where a final cosmic battle will take place between the forces of good and evil, light and dark, God and the devil. In such a time, it is obligatory that everyone pick a side and pick up a sword. Defensive violence is wielded against the threat of destruction, either of a sanctified group or the Christian religion itself. These two are often blended together; a group that perceives its interpretation of Christianity as ultimately “right” will see the threat of its own annihilation as the potential annihilation of the path to salvation itself. The abiding experience of Christian persecution—anchored in stories of virtuous martyrs from the early centuries CE—helps to further this justification. However dominant Christian institutions become, minority groups rely on the lens of persecution to make sense of their suffering. Historically, this mobilized the Crusades of the Middle Ages as well as the Spanish Inquisition, and early Christian martyrs understood themselves as engaged in efforts to defend Christendom with their bodies. In the modern age, Christian reconstructionist violence seeks similar goals, and the Christian fundamentalist movement stemmed from fears that scientific advancement would destroy Christianity itself. The murders committed by Anders Breivik and Dylann Roof were likewise motivated by the perception that their Christian-based culture was in danger of being lost. This form of violence also connects with the last form of violence, that of religious nationalist violence. Self-protection is one of the most effective means of legitimating force, and collectives that blend a national identity with Christian faith can respond ruthlessly when they feel under attack. Heirs of European culture

Christianity: Introduction

routinely harbor this vision, at times leading to racism and xenophobia. Others may employ violence as the means to determine life on their terms or justify the expulsion of those espousing a different creed from national borders. When nationalist sentiments fuse with religion, force can appear as the appropriate response to threats from without and within. From the states battling the Thirty Years’ War to the expansionist policies of America, violence in service to national goals have punctuated Christian history. These could also include states that created national churches, exemplified by Henry VIII’s creation of the Church of England, which infused the monarchy with divine right and might. Modern groups, such as the Ilaga and the Nationalism Social Council of Nagaland, likewise understand national identity to be bound up with religious identity, imbuing violence with a sacred aura. One additional category under consideration in this chapter is that of violence suffered by Christians, often at the hands of other Christians. Going back to the battles against heresy that led to the establishment of orthodoxy, Christians have targeted other Christians in their quest for dominance. In most cases, the victims were not understood to be “Christian” by their attackers, since it was that very designation that was at issue. Heretics, however, considered themselves true Christians. The drive for unity evident in the foundational concept of one God, one Church enlisted violence in pursuit of harmony. It translated into programs such as the Spanish Inquisition and Ferdinand II’s attempts at forced conversion and resonates with the aims of early Christian Fundamentalists in the modern age. We might also consider the Catholic sex-abuse scandal as a form of this violence, since although it was not in pursuit of religious ends, it was nominally Christian actors harming other Christians. Ironically, the greatest proportion of violence committed against Christians has been perpetrated by other Christians. Such examples and considerations may disturb the easy picture many hold of an always peaceful Christianity. An easy response may be to marginalize the voices of those groups considered here, marking them as not “truly” Christian. If nothing else, such a move would connect with the drive for a singular identity that spans Christian history, and many of those discussed here certainly reside in the exceptions. But while resigning them to the periphery is a natural inclination, only by analyzing the ways violence has been colored as Christian can we hope to defuse the dangerous rhetoric they employ. Coming to terms with how harm is engendered by certain interpretations of scripture, ritual, and doctrine means not only dealing with those who are easily dismissed as “crazy,” but also those cases where a fervent piety leads individuals to act violently. That is ultimately what the reader is about to encounter: various visions of the world that have been shaped by readings of Christian doctrine. Whether it be the outrageous protests of the WBC or the hateful actions of the Christian Identity

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Movement, Christianity has provided justifications for people to hurt other people. The more we can understand their theological moves and motives, the more equipped we will be to support the voices that promote understanding and peace in the name of the Christian God. John Soboslai FURTHER READING Buc, Philippe. 2015. Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror: Christianity, Violence, and the West, ca. 70 C.E. to the Iraq War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Chilton, Bruce. 2008. Abraham’s Curse: The Roots of Violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Doubleday Press. Jenkins, Philip. 2014. The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade. New York: HarperCollins. Robinson, Rowena. 2013. Boundaries of Religion: Essays on Christianity, Ethnic Conflict, and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press. Steffen, Lloyd. 2007. Holy War, Just War: Exploring the Moral Meaning of Religious Violence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

ANTI-ABORTION MOVEMENT Abortion is perhaps the issue that generates the most violent discourse in Christian circles. Anti-abortion violence is rampant across the world, though it is centralized in the United States, where it takes the form of vandalism, kidnapping, assault, bombings, arson, and murder. The debate over when life begins has led to violent action legitimated by some by the perceived obligation to protect the lives of children in the womb by whatever means necessary. Public awareness of anti-abortion violence burst onto the scene in the 1980s with Reverend Michel Bray’s attacks on women’s health clinics and was renewed with Paul Hill’s murder of abortion provider Dr. John Britton in 1994. The extent of the violence led the Department of Justice in 2015 to consider anti-abortion violence a current domestic terrorist threat. The near constant assault on clinics—particularly Planned Parenthood clinics—warrant such a designation. One of the most infamous cases in recent years took place at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in November 2015, where Robert Lewis Dear held staff and patients hostage. During a five-hour standoff, Dear killed Officer Garrett Swasey, as well as Ke’Arre Stewart and Jennifer Markovsky, and wounded several others. Markovsky had accompanied a friend to the clinic and was caught in Dear’s rampage, while Stewart was killed reentering the clinic to warn others. Dear readily confessed to the crime and presented himself as a

Christianity: Anti-Abortion Movement

protector of babies in court but was found incompetent to stand trial in 2016. He considered himself a devoted evangelical Christian and had a history of posting violent messages online. He also celebrated the militant anti-abortion group Army of God (AOG) as heroes for killing and bombing other clinics. The AOG is a decentralized anti-abortion Christian group founded in the 1980s that bases their opposition to abortion in Proverbs 24:10–12: “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength being small; if you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the slaughter; if you say ‘Look, we did not know this’—does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay all according to their deeds?” By interpreting this passage as referring to the killing of unborn children, they frame opposition to abortion as a divine duty required of God’s true servants. The AOG’s website further points to New Testament and Old Testament passages, especially Luke 22:36: “The one that has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” Their martial rendering of Jesus’s words validates the violence their members commit. Close to the AOG in infamy is the Christian anti-abortion group Operation Rescue. Though their website states that their “non-violent history is a matter of public record,” in 2009, member Scott Roeder killed Dr. George Tiller while the doctor attended church in Wichita, Kansas. Tiller had already suffered at the hands of anti-abortion crusaders, as his clinic was destroyed by a bomb in 1986 and he was shot five times in 1993. In court, Roeder explained his actions as following “God’s law,” and said he did it so Tiller “could not dismember another baby.” He confessed to the murder, but, during the sentencing phase, his lawyer asked that jurors consider manslaughter in light of Roeder’s sincere belief that his actions were justified by the need to protect unborn children. The sheer volume of attacks on abortion providers in the name of Christianity during the last decade makes a comprehensive examination impossible. Matthew Derosia drove an SUV into a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2009, saying that Jesus had told him to stop the murders. In 2012, the American Family Planning Clinic in Pensacola was firebombed, which was the same site where Dr. John Britton and James Barrett were murdered by Paul Hill in 1994. The year prior, Ralph Lang was sentenced to ten years in prison after confessing to planning a mass shooting at the Planned Parenthood in Madison, Wisconsin. As part of his testimony, he admitted to the attack against those he saw as killing babies and shrugged off the consequences as meaningless, since he followed God’s will. Though most violent anti-abortion actors identify as evangelical Protestant, Lang was a Catholic. He pointed investigators to the Rosary for the Unborn website, which includes anti-abortion statements attributed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus himself, delivered directly to the site’s purveyors Questions around

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women’s choice have been increasingly contentious in Catholic circles, but the official doctrine was laid out in Pope Paul’s 1968 Humanae Vitae, which prohibits any contraceptive measures and equates abortion to the murder of a human child. There is by no means a consensus in Catholic, Protestant, or evangelical circles as to the legitimation of violence in opposition to abortion. The Religious Institute, for example, is a multifaith organization committed to defending women’s choice, and some theologians have employed the language of “forced birth” as a way to reframe the pro-life position. But the issue itself is often a driving political issue in Christian circles, which is consistently evident in local and federal elections. The Christian Right has played decisive roles in presidential elections in that last few decades, largely driven by the issue of abortion. On the state level, one of the most brazen statements came from Mike Hogan, candidate for mayor in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2011. A member of Jacksonville’s First Baptist Church, he swore to do anything he could to stop abortions, and while he stopped short of promoting violence, he admitted bombing abortion clinics had “crossed his mind.” The fact that a candidate for political office came so close to supporting anti-abortion violence speaks to the resonance of the issue in Christian communities in the United States today. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Christian Reconstructionism, Eugenics; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity) FURTHER READING Baird-Windle, Patricia, and Eleanor J. Bader. 2001. Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism. New York: Palgrave. Blanchard, Dallas A., and Terry J. Prewitt. 1993. Religious Violence and Abortion: The Gideon Project. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida. Ingersoll, Julie. 2015. Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press. Reiter, Jerry. 2000. Live from the Gates of Hell: An Insider’s Look at the Antiabortion Underground. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Rosary of the Unborn. ­http://​­www​.­rosaryoftheunborn​.­com. Williams, Daniel K. 2016. Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade. New York: Oxford University Press.

ANTI-MUSLIM ATTACKS Since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, violence and intimidation against Muslims has been on the rise in countries of the global North. The discourse

Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks

of Islamic terrorism has served as justification of violence against Muslim communities across the world. The Pew Research Center shows that the number of anti-Muslim attacks reached new heights in 2016, and incidents of Muslim intimidation are also on an upward trend. This tendency has been exacerbated by news of attacks perpetrated by extremist groups like the so-called Islamic State (IS, ISIL, ISIS) and individuals who claim affiliation to such groups. As a result, efforts at both the state and individual levels have taken aim at Muslims and Islam in general, conflating the faith of over one billion people worldwide with that of a minute percentage of violent persons and organizations claiming to follow the path of Allah. An analysis of all violence done by Christians against Muslims would have to include large-scale conflicts, such as that between the largely Christian state of Nigeria against the country’s Muslim population. However, since the Nigeria case revolves around the terrorist group Boko Haram, treating it alongside criminal activity against Muslims would reinforce the troubling trend of coloring all followers of Islam with a violent brush. The same would go for a discussion of the brutal anti-balaka groups of the Central African Republic, who claim a Christian identity and attack Muslims throughout the region. Questions concerning the authenticity of the Anti-balaka “Christianity” resemble those of the “Islamic” nature of groups such as Islamic State; therefore, this essay will look at violence committed by individual Christians against other Muslims and Muslim institutions. Such violence broadly revolves around mosques; Islamic community centers; and individuals bearing outward markers of Muslims identity, such as women wearing the hijab or men sporting beards or taqiyah caps (also known as kufi). These signs have served as lightning rods of hate and have led to numerous cases of mistaken religious identity. One tragic example is the Oak Creek gurdwara shooting in August of 2012, where a Christian man shot up a Sikh site because he interpreted the turbans sported by Sikh men as a marker of Muslim identity. An even more ironic case was the March 2017 stabbing of Reverend Tomy Kalathoor just before he celebrated Mass in Melbourne, Australia, when attackers saw his Indian heritage as evidence of a Muslim identity. Such misidentifications aside, much, if not most, anti-Muslim violence in the United States and Europe link to religious nationalist outlooks, which see Christianity as the religion of “true” citizens. Since many attacks are perpetrated by white supremacists, it can be difficult to separate out the role of religion from racial hatred in prompting acts of violence. We might contend that religion can play a focusing role, highlighting the means of “othering” members of the population and making them vulnerable to aggression. Such would help explain the 2016 spray painting of a mosque in Cumbernauld, Scotland, to read “Deus Vult”—“God Wills”—and “Saracen go home.” Outbursts such as these appear to be based in

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concerns around what properly marks someone as a member of a political body and fears about religious affiliation splintering loyalties. Following the acts of what are often called “radical jihadist” groups, that aggression is increasingly normalized. The election of President Donald Trump, who employed explicitly anti-Muslim rhetoric during his campaign (which coincided with a peaking of anti-Muslim attacks in 2015 and 2016 in the United States), along with the ascension of extreme right-wing political forces throughout Europe, continues this tragic pattern. The disastrous civil war that has torn apart Syria since the Arab Spring in 2011 adds to these fears, as refugees from the conflict seek asylum wherever they can find it. Fears of an imposition of Islamic culture fueled aggression in France, where a series of attacks perpetrated by ostensibly Muslim agents was met with the banning of the niqab (a form of Islamic veil that covers the face of women). This led to the January 2015 murder of Mohamed El Makouli by Thomas Gambet, who shouted “I am your God, I am your Islam” while he killed. Infamous Florida pastor Terry Jones staged a public burning of the Qur’an in 2010 and 2011. Police later prevented him from burning thousands of Qur’ans on the anniversary of 9/11. A militia group calling themselves “the Crusaders,” in an explicit reference to the Christian military group of the Middle Ages, plotted a mass shooting at a residential housing complex of Somali-Muslim immigrants in Garden City, Kansas, in 2017. Boasting their plot was meant to protect “God’s country,” the men were arrested before carrying it out, and, in 2018, they were convicted of domestic terrorism. Many have raised questions around the appropriate way to prosecute criminals who conduct anti-Muslim attacks. Like the members of the so-called Crusaders, a man who drove a van into a crowd outside a North London mosque in June 2017, killing one and injuring twelve, was tried as a terrorist and found guilty in 2018. However, the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017, which resulted in the deaths of six and injuring of nearly twenty, was prosecuted as a hate crime rather than terrorism. The different charges not only carry a difference in sentencing guidelines but also relate to concerns about the language of terrorism; many commentators have noted a willingness of state agents to connect any violence committed by Muslims as terrorism, while acts committed by Christians that fall under terrorism statutes are tried under different laws. Others, like the three men arrested in connection to the 2017 Dar Al-Farooq mosque bombing in Bloomington, Minnesota, have been charged with arson or illegal possession of firearms. The ways in which anti-Muslim violence is prosecuted carries significant weight in the public eye, and determining the character of the crimes is a commentary not only on the understanding of terrorism itself, but on the relative status of Muslims within national bodies. John Soboslai

Christianity: Armageddon

See also: Christianity: Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–); Christian Identity Movement; Ilaga; Martyrdom; Islam: Boko Haram; Sikhism: Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012); State Violence: Nigeria: Christian-Muslim Conflict FURTHER READING Esposito, John L., and Ibrahim Kalin, eds. 2011. Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press. Kidd, Thomas S. 2009. American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smith, Jane. 2015. “Muslim-Christian Relations: Historical and Contemporary Realities.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ­https://​­oxfordre​.­com​/­religion​/.

ARMAGEDDON While Armageddon specifically refers to a place—most often associated with Tel Meggido in the Jezreel Valley in northern modern Israel—it has become synonymous with end of the world. Armageddon connects with an idea of an ultimate, cosmic battle, good versus evil that will ultimately and inevitably result in the inauguration of the kingdom of God. As such, Armageddon serves as the label for an idealized place, as well as a period of time, a military campaign of light versus dark, a threat of judgment, and a symbol of finality. Its origin in Christian scripture comes from Revelations 16:12–16: And I saw three-fold spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the false prophet. These are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the almighty. (“See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame.”) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon.

While the term is used popularly to refer to end-time expectations, biblically it is merely the name for the area where the final battle will take place. It is associated with several other prophecies about the end times in the books of Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah where the battles fought during the end times are described (though Armageddon itself is not named). In the Book of Revelations, the end times center around the second coming of Jesus, and the beginning of his thousand-year rule (Rev. 20:8–15). However, this

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promise has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, believe that the battle of Armageddon will lead to the rule of Jesus and the one hundred and forty-four thousand elect. They mark it as a happy beginning, where Jesus leads the human and angelic AOG. Witnesses hold this violence to be necessary in regaining justice in the world, promoted by the abiding love God has for his creation. Many in the organization believe that the end times are already underway, beginning with the Great Tribulation that began in 1914 with World War I. Twenty-first century Seventh-day Adventists, meanwhile, have a different but equally detailed conception of the end. During the Day of the Lord (another name for the Battle of Armageddon, also known as the Second Coming or Advent of Christ), faithful Christians will be resurrected, while those loyal to “Babylon” (the forces of evil, characterized by a blend of spiritualism, U.S. Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism) will be killed. The devil will be imprisoned for a century, and the elect will ascend to heaven. A millennium of desolation on Earth will follow, until the New Jerusalem comes into being. Pointing to the gospel of Mark, Seventh-day Adventists believe that the end will be heralded by natural disasters: “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven . . . then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory” (Mark 13:24–26). That scripture is paired with the warning laid out in the gospel of Matthew, where it is promised that “nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be food shortages and earthquakes in one place after another” (Matt. 24:7–8). No natural disaster occurs without some Christian groups proclaiming the end times. Such passages have led some to believe that violence and debauchery will herald the end, in large part thanks to John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in the nineteenth century. Arguing that history was divided into “dispensations”—discrete periods defined by God’s rule—Darby perceived the extensive sinfulness of his time as proof that humans could not create God’s kingdom themselves. That view was held by premillennial Christian groups, who believed Christ would return when the entire world obeyed his laws. Post-millennialism, which Darby’s dispensationalist theory helped form, held that God would return in anger at humanity’s disobedience, bringing about the rapture; the battle of Armageddon; and, finally, the rule of God. Christian conceptions of the last days have also had significant political ramifications. A diverse set of evangelical congregations hold that the Messiah will return when the traditional lands of Israel are once again inhabited by the people of God’s covenant, leading to support of some Zionist policies of the state of Israel. According to LifeWay Research, over 70 percent of U.S. evangelicals feel that events in Israel are connected to end-time prophecies (Smietana 2015). Evangelical Christian support of the controversial 2017 decision by President Donald

Christianity: Armageddon

Trump to move the United States embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv—which had housed international embassies since Israel’s inception—to the contested area of Jerusalem was widely based on these concerns. The violence in Jerusalem and the occupied territories of Palestine that resulted from the decision are directly related to this apocalyptic idea. The ongoing conflict around the illegal creation of settlements on Palestinian lands is a product of the same beliefs in Zionist Orthodox Jewish circles, and some evangelical U.S. government officials support such programs on the same account. The blend has spawned the International Christian Embassy at Jerusalem (ICEJ), a Christian Zionist movement which backs anti-Muslim causes and has some factions that tie the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the battles at the end of the world. The ICEJ boasts supporters from Pentecostal, charismatic, and evangelical Christian sects, holding that the “repatriation” of Israel by the Jewish people is occurring according to biblical prophecy. Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel once declared that God had orchestrated the Holocaust (or Shoah) so that the Jewish people would return to Israel and inaugurate the end times. Those Christians who perceive modern morality to be fallen and sinful routinely refer to Armageddon. Groups such as the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord used end-time predictions to propel them into violence, and numerous Christian Identity collectives interpret their violence as sanctioned as part of the cosmic final war against evil. Whether seen as a necessary solution or a healing balm, the promise of Christ’s return provides a means to challenge contemporary morals and behaviors. Many groups already see themselves engaged in the battle of Armageddon, where they aid the righteous forces of God against the forces of evil and sin. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Christian Fundamentalism; New Testament; Sodom and Gomorrah; Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Court, John M. 2008. Approaching the Apocalypse: A Short History of Christian Millenarianism. London: I. B. Tauris. Hunt, Stephen, ed. 2001. Christian Millenarianism: From the Early Church to Waco. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1995. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days. Colorado Springs: Tyndale Publishing. Smietana, Bob. 2015. “American Evangelicals Stand Behind Israel.” LifeWay Research, July 14, 2015. ­https://​­lifewayresearch​.­com​/­2015​/­07​/­14​/­american​-­evangelicals​-­stand​ -­behind​-­israel​/. Weber, Timothy P. 2004. On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

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BREIVIK, ANDERS BEHRING (1979–) On July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik killed nearly eighty people in the area around Oslo, Norway’s capital. Most of the victims were teenagers from Norway’s progressive Worker’s Youth League camp, who were targeted because of their liberal political activism. Breivik (who has since changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen) detonated a bomb in downtown Oslo that killed eight people prior to donning a police uniform and traveling to the camp, where he shot sixty-nine people. Two more victims drowned trying to escape the onslaught. During the investigation that followed, a manifesto was discovered titled “2083: A European Declaration of Independence,” which laid out the hate that inspired Breivik to murder. In “2083,” Breivik—writing under the anglicized name Anders Berwick— decries the evil influences of feminism, communism, and Muslim culture. He sees these as threats to white Christian European heritage. While he condemned political correctness as “cultural Marxism,” a phrase he borrowed from the anti-Semitic theories of William S. Lind, Islamophobia is the guiding matrix. The title “2083” itself is a reference to the Battle of Vienna in 1683, where the Ottoman Empire was defeated by an alliance that included the Holy Roman Empire, and which is remembered as an important moment in Christian Europe. Moreover, the date of his attack, July 22, was the same day that the First Crusades established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. Breivik’s intended defense against what he called “Muslim ideology” stemmed from his belief that he was a champion of European Christendom, although his writing referenced Muslim and Arabic martial institutions like the Distinguished Wielder of the Furious Scimitar Commendation. Though his manifesto was intended as a call to arms for northern European Christians, and he wanted to resurrect a form of the Knights Templar called the Justicar Knights, some have argued that Breivik’s ideas were more ethnonationalist than religious. He described himself as an Odinist (which echoes neo-Nazi and Christian Identity culture) and spoke of his proud Viking heritage. However, he routinely included Christianity as a central facet of the culture he was defending. A cosmic war was being fought, according to Breivik, against the emasculating forces of feminism, communism, and Islam. His acts, he believed, would inaugurate an almost apocalyptic seventy-year war that would conclude with the complete expulsions of Muslims from Norway. While he did not consistently frame his action through a Christian lens, Christianity was undoubtedly a key part of his ideology. Blurring the lines of culture and religion, he contended, “It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy [Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter])” (Breivik 2011). Culture, religion, race, and nationalism are inextricably linked, and Breivik’s

Christianity: Catholicism and Sexual Abuse

language promotes Christian symbolism in a variety of ways. In August 2012, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes, but he remains a symbol of the dangers that can come from a religiously infused ultranationalism. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Christian Identity Movement; Christian Reconstructionism; Roof, Dylann (1994–) FURTHER READING Bangstad, Sindre. 2014. Anders Breivik and the Rise of Islamophobia. London: Zed Books. Borchgrevink, Aage. 2013. A Norwegian Tragedy: Anders Brevik and the Massacre on UtØya. Malden: Polity. Breivik, Anders (as Andrew Berwick). 2011. “2083: A European Declaration of Independence.” ­https://​­info​.­publicintelligence​.­net​/­AndersBehringBreivikManifesto​.­pdf.

CATHOLICISM AND SEXUAL ABUSE No scandal in recent years has shaken the Catholic Church as much as the discovery of rampant sexual abuse of children perpetrated by priests around the world. In the United States, it was first popularly reported by Kristen Lombardi in a series of articles written for the Boston Phoenix in 2001 and furthered by the Pulitzer prize-winning reporting of the Boston Post. The first decades of the twenty-first century have been rife with stories of child abuse by Catholic clergy. While the twenty-first century has seen most of reporting on the issue, the abuse extends back at least to the 1950s and appears to have peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. Explanations for the behavior has run the gamut from the consequences of imposed celibacy to the excesses of power, and compounding the horror at the behavior was the complicity of the Church itself. Routinely moving accused priests from one parish to another without investigation or reporting to police, the involvement of Church officials stops not far below the pontiff himself. For years, the papacy refuted the charges or stayed silent, but, in 2017, Pope Francis I pleaded for forgiveness of the irreparable damage done to children by the Church. As of August 2018, accusations of pedophilia have been leveled against over six thousand priests, bishops, deacons, and other church professionals in the United States alone, according to B ­ ishopAccountability​.­org. The reports are concentrated in the northeastern area of the United States, due to the large Catholic communities in those regions. However, the Midwest (particularly Iowa) has also seen significant reports of abuse, and over three-quarters of Los Angeles dioceses have been embroiled in accusations. Since it was first discovered (or at least first brought to

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public attention in the United States), cases have been found across the world, with hotspots wherever Catholicism has a significant presence. Those areas that have not yet seen large numbers of accusations may not lack abuse or may not mean that the abuse was limited to a few “hot spots” but may rather be a consequence of less public support or a lack of institutional focus. In the United States, the numbers of those who have reported abuse are staggering. According to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in collaboration with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), over eighteen thousand victims have alleged abuse by a member of the clergy. Revelations about the extent of the abuse continue, including the Pennsylvanian grand jury findings in 2018 that found that over three hundred priests had molested over one thousand parishioners in that state alone. Approximately two-thirds of sitting bishops are accused of colluding to keep accused priests in ministry, and many of those accused retired before facing justice. Compounding that is the fact that, in many cases, the statute of limitations expired, making prosecution impossible. An estimated three thousand lawsuits were filed against Catholic clergy between 1984 and 2009, not including those settled out of court or with confidentiality agreements, resulting in an estimated $3 billion in punitive awards. Another center of abuse allegations has been in Chile, where an estimated eighty priests have been convicted or credibly accused. It was no accident that Pope Francis I issued his apology there; the country has witnessed a sharp decline in Church membership, with many citing the abuse as the issue. Most infamous among Chile’s clergy is Fernando Karadima, whose victims went public in 2010 after years of beseeching the Church for redress. In 2011, Karadima was sanctioned by the Vatican to a lifetime of prayer and penance and removed from presiding over a congregation, in a move widely criticized as inadequate. This public acknowledgement was controverted by Francis’s appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to the bishopric of Osorno. Barros was a protégé of Karadima, and he denied any knowledge of the abuse. However, survivors accused him of not only being aware of the abuse but being present on some occasions. The rupture the appointment caused with the Vatican culminated in mass protests during Pope Francis’s 2017 visit. While the pope later dismissed Barros and others, the damage was done. Perhaps greater animosity was fomented by the revelation that the Catholic hierarchy was aware of troubling behavior for decades, without taking significant action. Undoubtedly fearing the reprisals and reputational damage that would come with public prosecutions, bishops in the Church instead chose to handle the situation internally. The Vatican estimates that over six hundred priests were laicized—stripped of their ecclesiastical authority—between 2001 and 2010 due to allegations, and fewer have been brought to secular authorities. Forced to respond, the Vatican has taken several steps to accept responsibility and prevent future abuse. In 2002, the USCCB released new standards and norms

Christianity: Christian Fundamentalism

regarding sexual abuse allegations. The Conference expressed its “great sorrow and profound regret” in their Promise to Protect, Pledge to Heal: Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (2002, rev. 2005). In the tract, a new charter is constructed, including determinations to reach out to victims/survivors to demonstrate a true commitment to their spiritual and emotional well-being (Art. 1), a normalization of responses to allegations (Art. 2), the promise to not hide behind confidentiality clauses unless expressly requested by victims/survivors (Art. 3), and routine background investigations into all serving and future clergy (Art. 13). They also required allegations be forwarded to public authorities, and the USCCB’s 2002 Essential Norms of Diocesan/Eparchial Policies established review boards in each diocese, while prohibiting any transfers of accused priests. These noteworthy steps come late in the day and merely promise to do what many believe the Church should already have been doing. As Mass attendance numbers drop across the United States, the disgrace brought upon the Church by those in its ranks who abused children and those who colluded to keep the abuse quiet has unalterably shifted the perception of the Catholic Church. In August 2018, Pope Francis I responded to the Pennsylvania report by again acknowledging his and the Church’s shame in failing to protect the weakest among their flock. Only time will tell whether parishioners and the greater public will accept the apology. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Eugenics; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity) FURTHER READING ­ ishopAccountability​.­org. “Documenting the Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.” B Bruni, Frank, and Elinor Burkett. 2002. A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church. New York: HarperCollins. Chinnici, Joseph. 2010. When Values Collide: The Catholic Church, Sexual Abuse and the Challenges of Leadership. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. D’Antonio, Michael. 2014. Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. Keenan, Marie. 2011. Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM Christian fundamentalism is a label attached to a set of beliefs and precepts that includes a dualistic worldview, a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, and the essential need for the salvation promised by Jesus Christ. The term first appeared in the early twentieth century in the United States, where a series of pamphlets titled

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The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth circulated through Protestant congregations. In the years since, numerous influential congregations have claimed the label, including those lead by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Bob Jones III, and James Dobson. In the twenty-first century, fundamentalism has merged with political strains of evangelicalism and become increasingly militant, particularly around the issue of abortion. What started as a parochial movement among U.S. Christians has gone global and developed the power to broadly shape state policies. Christian fundamentalism began in opposition to the theory of evolution and the challenge it posed to traditional Christian ideas about the origin of humanity. The movement also opposed the new field of biblical criticism, which approached scripture as culturally situated writing rather than divinely inspired. Perceiving both as an attack on Christianity itself, there was a push to reassert the cosmic vision of Christianity based on the so-called fundamentals. The Fundamentals, which saw nearly three million copies printed between 1910 and 1915, articulated five aspects believed to lay at the core of “true” Christian faith: the inerrancy of the Bible (where every word in the Bile was absolutely true), the literal truth of biblical stories (particularly the stories of miracles and the creation story of Genesis), the virgin birth of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the efficacy of Christ’s atonement on the cross. This last concerned the way Jesus’s death served to free believers from the penalties of original sin and the need for those who would gain salvation to accept this mystery. Much fundamentalist imagery is militant in its nature, engaging believers in an ongoing war against nonbelievers and heretics who threaten Christian truth. Belief in divine sovereignty—where the Christian God is the ultimate authority on spiritual and temporal matters—is also at issue, providing a means for fundamentalists to oppose laws and take matters into their own hands when they perceive injustice. The Bible is understood to be the final authority in all matters, and its infallibility allows for certainty in a shifting moral landscape. By holding such beliefs absolute, fundamentalists often attempt to set themselves as the faithful ambassadors of the divine, offering an aura of authority that has resonated with many and caused their ranks to expand. While the term fundamentalism was initially used with pride, public opinion turned against fundamentalists. This was mostly a consequence of the debate around teaching evolution in public schools argued through the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial. In the 1970s, the term reemerged in Protestant circles, largely as a means of combatting the perceived cultural threat stemming from the influx of non-Christian and Catholic immigrants. In the following decades, radio and television provided new avenues for the spread of fundamentalist ideas, shored up under the label the “New Christian Right.” After a history of largely avoiding politics as corrupt and debased, fundamentalists became increasingly politically active,

Christianity: Christian Fundamentalism

and strains of evangelical conservatism blended with fundamentalism in the years leading up to the twenty-first century. George W. Bush was perhaps the pinnacle of evangelical fundamentalist influence, and during his presidency, the attacks of 9/11 promoted the “us versus them” mentality that proliferated in fundamentalist circles. Not only did President Bush use the language of a “crusade” against global forces of Islam, but fundamentalists doubled down on extending the influence of their form of Christianity in the global stage as a result. Vice-President Mike Pence continued such policies during the Trump administration. The growing strands of militant neoconservativism—focusing on free-market economics, along with an interventionist foreign policy—combined with fundamentalist beliefs that Christianity itself was under threat, and, together, they helped direct U.S. foreign policy in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The United States began to increasingly be seen as a nation of God’s chosen people (a concept with deep roots in the country), whose purpose was to bring about the kingdom of God by whatever means necessary. Animosity against those who are seen to threaten Christianity became a mark of commitment and chosenness. Supporters felt that the nation-state itself was a means of redemptive violence against the enemies of God. This, in turn, led to the preference for a strong military and increasing links between the sacrifice of soldiers and divine purpose. The result of these new connections has been temporal conflicts—in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other venue where non-Christians are combatants—being read as part of a larger cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. Employing scriptural references to the “whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11), and “the Lord is a warrior” (Exod. 15:3), a martial bent is given to Christian doctrine. Such discourse demands that people take sides and holds that the world is moving toward the apocalyptic battle that will inaugurate the end of the world. Whether such an event will occur, the ability of Christian fundamentalists to direct the mightiest military forces on Earth can certainly create spectacles that seem taken out of scripture. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Christian Reconstructionism; New Testament FURTHER READING Clarke, Sathianathan. 2017. Competing Fundamentalisms: Violent Extremism in Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Harris, Harriet A. 2008. Fundamentalism and Evangelicals. New York: Oxford University Press. Herriot, Peter. 2009. Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, Personal. London: Routledge.

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CHRISTIAN IDENTITY MOVEMENT Blending Christian doctrine and ideas of white racial supremacy, the Christian Identity Movement has inspired scores of violent activities, legitimized by a worldview that sees whites of Anglo-Saxon heritage as having been granted superiority by God. Decentralized and diverse, the Christian Identity label has been applied to several movements, mostly in the United States. Originating in England, Christian Identity theology that enlists biblical support for racial superiority has been especially popular with the militia movements throughout the United States. The Anti-Defamation League estimates that it boasts between twenty-five to fifty-thousand participants on their internet forums. Though initially a fringe group when it arrived on U.S. shores, its ideology has become frighteningly mainstream. The diversity of movements under the Christian Identity banner makes generalizations difficult, though groups do share some common characteristics. Its origins trace to the British Israelism of the nineteenth century that held that Jesus was an Aryan rather than a Semite, and the tribes of Israel were blue-eyed Aryans who migrated to the British Isles. No archaeological evidence supports this assertion, but that did not stop British Israelites from believing they were the true inheritors of the covenant and that the Jewish people were imposters who were attempting to control the world. Herbert Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God (WCG) espoused a similar doctrine. An offshoot of Seventh-day Adventists, Armstrong believed he had recaptured the true gospel in his teachings about race and religion. One teaching held that the blessing given by Jacob to his sons in Genesis 49 spoke directly to the future Great Britain and United States, who were the true children of God’s covenant. His teachings—known as Armstrongism—inspired the WCG for decades. In 2009, the congregation changed its name to Grace Communion International to reflect their parting of ways with the “unorthodox” teachings of its past. Few Christian Identity groups rose to the level of virulence espoused by the World Church of the Creator (WCC). Founded by Matthew Hale in 1996, tenets of the WCC include “our race is our religion,” and “what is good for the White Race is the highest virtue, and what is bad for the White Race is the ultimate sin” (Creativity Alliance). The Creativity Movement continues the lineage of the now defunct WCC and preaches the need for RAHOWA, an acronym for the RAcial

Christianity: Christian Identity Movement

HOly WAr that is incumbent on all white people and will lead to the “redemption of the White Race.” Placing race at the core of religious belief, their website espouses the belief “that for the White Race to survive, expand, and advance we need first of all a revolution of values through religion; therefore we completely and categorically reject the Judeo-Christian-Democratic-Marxist-Liberal-Feminist values of today, and supplant them with new and basic values of which race is the foundation” (Creativity Alliance). Direct membership in the Creativity Movement has fallen off in recent years, but their website still actively serves members of Christian Identity inspired groups. At present, the highest concentration of Christian Identity is likely in the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho, though decades prior saw that accolade go to the sprawling Endtime Overcomer Survival Training School in the Midwest. The “school” is run by the Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord, which became infamous in the 1980s, when a crime spree ended in a standoff with federal authorities. The name of both the group and its compound denote the extent to which religious symbolism pervaded their characters. They saw themselves preparing for a global conflict between the divine white race and the tyrannical state, in league with Jewish and Freemason conspirators aiming to impose a pluralist ideology. Christian Identity movements have increasingly connected with militia movements throughout the United States on the basis of defending white U.S. Christendom. This is largely thanks to groups such as Posse Comitatus, which combined racism with conspiratorial beliefs about the government in the 1980s. Randy Weaver, who engaged in a standoff with federal forces at Ruby Ridge in the early 1990s, is one example of the collision of such ideological forces. Identity followers living in Elohim City—a community in Oklahoma led by John Millar—likewise had stockpiled weapons and ammunition in preparation for a raid like the one that took place in Waco, Texas, in 1993. While the siege against Elohim City never materialized, the group’s preparedness built on apocalyptic expectations like those that motivated David Koresh in Waco, Texas. Elohim City also had connections with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, as well as the group responsible for the 1984 murder of Jewish lawyer Alan Berg in Denver, Colorado. Fueled by economic dislocation, the internet’s growing popularity as a space for conspiracy theories, and the prospect of another four years of Barack Obama’s presidency, Christian Identity group membership surged in 2011 and 2012. While hundreds still live in the physical spaces owned by these groups, the internet’s virtual space is increasingly the breeding ground for Identity ideologies. It has allowed disparate groups to unite under common goals and support each other’s activities, creating a sense of widespread acceptance into a broad community. The Charlottesville “Unite the Right” protests of 2017 that saw white supremacists opposing the removal of Confederate statues and resulted in the tragic death of

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counter-protester Heather Heyer was organized by the anti-religion Richard Spencer. However Christian Identity participation was evident in the slogans and the motivations of protestors. Indeed, the murderer of Meyer was a known member of Vanguard American, which believes that the United States rightfully belongs to white Christians. As diverse a legacy as Christian Identity has, its ideas flow throughout dozens of violent hate groups in the twenty-first century. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Christian Reconstructionism; Ku Klux Klan; Roof, Dylann (1994–) FURTHER READING Barkun, Michael. 1997. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Berry, Damon T. 2017. Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Creativity Alliance. “What We Believe In.” ­https://​­creativityalliance​.­com​/­home​/­what​-­we​ -­believe​-­in​/. Fletcher, Jeannine Hill. 2017. The Sin of White Supremacy: Christianity, Racism, and Religious Diversity in America. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Michael, George. 2009. Theology of Hate: A History of the World Church of the Creator. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONISM Christian reconstructionism is a twentieth-century ideology that seeks to “reconstruct” the world based on a biblical worldview, focusing especially on the character and structures of families, revamping public education (away from teaching about evolution), and man’s perceived dominion over the Earth. Initially a branch of Calvinist fundamentalists, Reconstructionists have influenced a wide variety of modern Christian institutions with their ideas of presuppositionalism, postmillennialism, and the absolute authority of God’s law. Reconstructionism mobilized the Moral Majority and the Christian Voice in the 1980s, as well as influencing the popular Left Behind series of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Reconstructionism centered around the person and thought of R. J. ­Rushdoony (1916–2001), a Calvinist theologian who pressed for U.S. society based around the concept of theonomy, where the God of the Bible is the ultimate source of authority. Reconstructionists hold to the unity of scripture, an idea perhaps most fully articulated by Greg Bahnsen, where the doctrines of the Old Testament are believed to be in complete alignment with the principles of the New Testament.

Christianity: Christian Reconstructionism

In practice, some Old Testament laws are kept and others ignored, depending on the interpretation of those who claim God’s authority. Theonomy holds that the Enlightenment erred in placing rationality over biblical law and points to the Puritans as the model of those unwilling to stray from any part of God’s rule. As America’s “first settlers,” they are not only a model of Christian life but of U.S. life. Gary North, a leading Reconstructionist figure, has referred to Christian reconstruction as “social neo-puritanism” in order to symbolically connect with those past ideals. One axiom of Reconstructionism is the argument of presuppositionalism, which holds that all ideas derive from ultimately unproveable presuppositions. The grounds from which arguments are constructed cannot be proven one way or the other, opening all ideas to the measure of religion. God’s existence is a fundamental example; one cannot fully prove whether or not God exists, which means basing a system of thought on either conclusion is founded on an unproveable presupposition. Beginning from the idea that there is no God leads to the celebration of autonomous human reason, but Reconstructionists begin from the leap of faith that God does exist and the Bible is true. Under this view, anything that does not originate from God is an attempt by man to supplant God and determine good and evil on his own, anathema to the ideology. Combined with this analytical move is the perception in reconstructionism that we are currently living in the millennial reign of God’s kingdom. Known as postmillennialist eschatology (see “Christian Fundamentalism”), this idea sees Jesus as having defeated the devil and death itself in his sacrifice on the cross, thereby initiating the promised kingdom of God. It is incumbent on Christians today to bring the world in line with biblical law and exercise dominion over the Earth. God’s kingdom will be increasingly apparent, as Christians are successful in making law and life reflect Christian doctrine, and the kingdom will be perfected at Christ’s second coming. From their perspective, the demand that true Christians—that is, Reconstructionists—exercise dominion over the world is based on the mandate given by God to the first couple, Adam and Eve. Just as the first couple were given authority to name and rule creation, in this postmillennial age, it is the job of all followers of Christ to use their authority in the world. By exercising dominion, Reconstructionists see themselves engaging in an act of care that will benefit all those they rule over. The ultimate ethical act is one done to bring the world under God’s authority. The extent of that care is visible in the racial aspects of reconstructionist beliefs that sees a racial hierarchy, with whites at the pinnacle. Rushdoony argued that the history of slavery in the United States was benevolent and humanitarian at heart, seeking to guide degenerate and inferior races through biblical law, and that slavers sought to help those who were fallen from God’s grace.

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Some believe that social change will precede more overt political intervention, and once the culture in the United States has changed, the political shift will follow. Violence is not seen to be out of keeping with these broad religious nationalist goals. Not only has the reconstructionist movement been a fierce proponent of Second Amendment rights, but it also admits that force in service to biblical law is acceptable—and even necessary—for lawmakers who wield the violence of the state. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law even includes a chapter on law as warfare. The movement has been successful in engaging in electoral politics and electing adherents to government office on state, municipal, and federal levels. Old Testament images of violence are remembered as literal depictions of events, and those who ignore them in Christian doctrine are guilty of ignoring the reality of God’s justice. Such a conception has extended for some (though not all) Christian Reconstructionists to epidemics like AIDS and natural disasters, which are seen as recompense for the sinful nature of the victims. Rather than encouraging individuals to violent action, Christian reconstructionism seeks large-scale shifts in society on numerous, autonomous levels, all in line with its interpretation of biblical law. While resulting in less spectacular incidents, the insidious influence of reconstructionism may have consequences that reach much further than acts of violence that grab media headlines. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Christian Fundamentalism; New Testament FURTHER READING Ingersoll, Julie. 2015. Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press. McVicar, Michael J. 2015. Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Rushdoony, R. J. 2012 (1972). The Institutes of Biblical Law. Vol. 1. Vallecito: Chalcedon Foundation Publishing.

EUGENICS Eugenics is the theory and application of selective breeding techniques to alter the genetic and social composition of a population. Francis Galton, a scientist and cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term in the late nineteenth century, believing that scientifically directed procreation was the path to a better humanity. Joining the Greek terms eu (good) and genic (in birth), eugenics was perceived as a promising means of human advancement in U.S. and European societies in the early

Christianity: Eugenics

twentieth century, finding support among the clergy of the period. Under Hitler’s regime, Nazis linked the U.S. work on eugenics to concepts of “racial hygiene.” This ultimately served as one ideological girder of the “Final Solution,” which sought to remove Jewish people, homosexuals, and other “deviants” from the gene pool through genocide. While Galton coined the term, the “father of eugenics” is generally considered to be Thomas Robert Malthas. Malthas was a British cleric and theologian of the early nineteenth century, who saw divine intervention behind the growing population, at a time when food production could not keep pace. Not only were religious professionals purveyors of sociocultural capital, whose authority went a long way in advancing the eugenic mission, but they were also considered to be in contact with those whose genes were considered superior and worthy of offspring. Toward this end, national sermon contests were held for preachers who could eloquently connect Christian ideals to eugenic, with a $500 prize, a significant sum in the 1920s. Moreover, the premiere journal Eugenics: A Journal of Race Betterment added a regular religion page, written by the chair of the journal’s clergy subcommittee. The results were stunning; one entry held that the sacredness of life carried the responsibility to direct life responsibly, resulting in the Fellowship of Creation, the highest Christian calling. Another interpreted the myth of the great flood as God’s way of eliminating a sinful gene pool. In general, many of the sermons followed eugenics themes used elsewhere: the dangerous high birth rates of poor communities; the linkage of cultural traits to genetics; and the connection of race, class, and biology. Eugenics and Christianity enjoyed an amicable relationship throughout the 1910s and 1920s, mostly with urban, affluent members of the U.S. clergy offering support and, at times, linking with the social gospel, which saw economic privilege as a boon from God. But it was another early supporter of eugenics that attracts modern Christian ire. Margaret Sanger, birth-control pioneer and founder of Planned Parenthood, was a supporter of eugenics. Many historians today see her use of eugenics discourse as a small part of her overall goals, but some twenty-first century Christian conservatives have targeted it. In 2015, for instance, presidential candidate Ben Carson accusing Planned Parenthood of perpetrating a covert war against the black population through eugenics, an accusation the organization vigorously condemned. Christian opposition to eugenics certainly predates even the Nazi atrocities. In the twenty-first century, genetic screenings leading to “selective abortions” were constructed as the modern form of eugenics. Acts generally conceived as compassionate—ending a pregnancy if the fetus showed signs of malformation or genetic defect—have been articulated as a private form of selective breeding. Using the language of choice, opponents contend that “selective abortion” amounts

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to nothing more than a scientifically directed breeding program, deaf to the divine plan that guides procreation. The popular periodical Christianity Today routinely published articles to this extent, condemning the practices of genetic screening in Christian terms. Christian support of eugenic practices does still exist on the margins. Some, like the Faith and Heritage Foundation, which bills itself as a consortium of Christian writers from a traditionalist perspective, has published apologies for eugenics in recent years. Relying on endogamy arguments, along with encouragements to not impede God’s purpose in directing life, the group even goes as far as defending the sterilization of sexual criminals. They base that stance in Psalms 37:28: “the children of the wicked shall be cut off” (in the King James Version, the verse reads “the seed of the wicked will be cut off,” based on a translation of the Hebrew word zera). While such selective interpretations have led some modern Christians to support policies of eugenics, most condemn any attempts to control procreation based on genetic information as an extension of a pro-life stance. The early support eugenicists drew on from Christian communities has come full circle to a broad opposition to any such programs. Symbolically framing modern genetics as eugenics has stirred the scientific community. Some hold that it stems from ignorance regarding the methods and goals of scientific progress, while others point to the lacking racial concerns that drove past eugenic programs to contest against the label. However, the accusations of intentional efforts to use genetics in pursuit of an “improved” humanity still resonate. Our growing ability to screen embryos for genetic diseases, such as Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis, and base decisions to abort fetuses or not on that information smacks of eugenic conceptions. Whether shorn of its past atrocities or not, eugenics has made a reappearance on the scientific scene of the twenty-first century. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Abortion Movement; Christian Reconstructionism; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Judaism: Holocaust and World War II FURTHER READING Baker, Graham J. 2014. “Christianity and Eugenics: The Place of Religion in the British Eugenics Education Society and the American Eugenics Society, c. 1907–1940.” Social History of Medicine 27, no. 2 (May): 281–302. Leon, Sharon M. 2013. An Image of God: The Catholic Struggle with Eugenics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kaelber, Lutz. “Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States.” h­ ttp://​­www​ .­uvm​.­edu​/~­lkaelber​/­eugenics​/.

Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation Rosen, Christine. 2004. Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(CHRISTIANITY) Many trace the Christian stance on gender and sexual orientation to the story of Adam and Eve, humanity’s first family. Most relate a blend of passages from Genesis, where Adam was made first in the image of God, and then Eve was made in the image of man from Adam’s rib. This mythological commentary is used to argue that God himself made the sexes unequal. Other interpretations focus instead on Genesis 1:26, where God decrees, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” This is read against any gender duality in God. Moreover, it states in 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This has led a push in recent years to reimagine Adam and Eve as created collectively in the form of God, and scholarly translations of the Bible use “humankind” rather than “man” in modern versions. Within marriage, some sayings of Saint Paul link a woman’s submission to her husband to a human’s obedience to God. Ephesians 5:22 reads, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ as the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior.” This has not only lead to numerous stories of clerics encouraging abused women to remain with their abusers but also to the marginal Christian Domestic Discipline subculture, which encourages the use of spanking to improve marital relationships. Debates throughout the Christian world—including Baptist, Anglican, and evangelical congregations—struggle to come to terms with scriptural passages that demand the subservience of women being a significant factor in cases of domestic violence. When the United Nations Human Rights Council resolved in 2012 that the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons against discrimination and violence was a universal human right, the Catholic Church issued a strong condemnation. Along with holding it at odds with natural law, the Church felt that such a move would victimize opponents of same-sex marriage through stigmatization and possible prosecution. However, in 2016, Pope Francis I altered that stance, issuing an apology to homosexual persons and women who were mistreated on the basis of scripture. This apparent shift notwithstanding, no official change regarding the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality and same-sex marriage has yet to come about. Following the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015, a Jesuit priest gained fame (or infamy) for condemning online the hatred that the issue of homosexuality aroused in the Catholic community. After the

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post received nearly thirty million views and one hundred forty thousand shares, its thousands of negative comments were paired with over four hundred thousand likes, demonstrating a rift in the Church around the issue that followed Father James Martin for years. He has continued to defend his stance by articulating it as a mission to the marginalized. On the other side of the divide is Michael Voris, a U.S. Catholic apologist and founder of St. Michael’s Media, which produces video programs for ­ChurchMilitant​ .­com. Fiercely opposed to LGBT causes, he has revealed that he was confused about his own sexuality in his early adulthood but has since renounced his actions as sin and became an avowed celibate. He believes homosexuality is a choice, and, therefore, all people have the responsibility to choose to live in accordance with divine law. That position is the foundation for the infamous practices of conversion, or reparative, therapy. This label encomapsses a variety of scientifically discredited practices aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In some cases, prayer is used to seek God’s intervention, while others seek to encourage behavioral change by interpreting scripture and biblical law. As of 2017, a number of states and municipalities have put laws and regulations in place to protect minors from such programs, but there are still numerous conversion therapy centers operative throughout the world. Several Protestant religious institutions have openly approved of same-sex marriage, including the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States. Many more still oppose marriage equality, such as the National Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church, along with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Assemblies of God. After marriage equality was effectively legalized in 2013, a spate of anti-gay violence flooded Brazil, partially fueled by forms of evangelical Christianity that fused with a culture of machismo. Along with applying religious discourse to LGBT bigotry, evangelical support—especially Pentecostal congregations—doubled the number of evangelical Christians in Brazil’s lower house of Congress in hopes of opposing future pro-LGBT legislation. In Mexico, religious leaders are the strongest opponents of marriage equality legislation (though states are increasingly passing such laws), and many evangelical congregations in the United States follow suit. However, surveys done in 2017 show an increasing approval of same-sex marriage among evangelicals, largely driven by the younger generations, whose zeal for Christ seems to exclude concerns about sexual orientation. Such acceptance is far from the norm in places such as Russia, whose religious and cultural forms still largely condemn homosexuality. One horrific instance in this vein was the appalling number of Christian pastors who voiced praise for the mass shooter of the Pulse nightclub, a popular gay

Christianity: Guatemalan Predatory Pastoralism

hangout in Orlando, Florida, where nearly fifty people were killed in a shooting on June 16, 2016. That year recorded the highest number of violent acts committed against LGBTQ persons, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which found a 217 percent increase from the year before. “The Nashville Statement,” released in 2017 by a coalition of evangelical leaders in the United States, reaffirmed evangelical opposition to same-sex marriage, denying that “sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation,” and that “otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree” on the issue. The election of Donald Trump is widely seen to have normalized a broad array of bigotry, bracing onlookers for a continued upward trend. John Soboslai See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Anti-Abortion Movement; Catholicism and Sexual Abuse; Christian Reconstructionism; Sodom and Gomorrah; Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Blyth, Caroline, Emily Colgan, and Katie Edwards, eds. 2018. Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Christian Perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Brownson, James V. 2013. Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing. Hartke, Austen. 2018. Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Knust, Jennifer Wright. 2011. Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire. New York: HarperOne. Martin, James. 2018. Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity. New York: HarperOne Publishers. Winkelmann, Carol L. 2004. The Language of Battered Women: A Rhetorical Analysis of Personal Theologies. Albany: State University of New York Press.

GUATEMALAN PREDATORY PASTORALISM Guatemalan predatory pastoralism refers to the practice of abducting drug users off the streets of Guatemala’s cities and holding them in treatment centers against

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their will. In the wake of increased drug traffic through the region, dozens of addiction treatment centers have arisen throughout the urban centers of Guatemala. These centers are mostly run by Pentecostal and charismatic Christian pastors, who use Christian preaching blended with self-help techniques to address addiction. Approximately two hundred of these centers have been created in past decades, housing around six thousand men and providing badly needed income for religious institutions. These centers enjoy local support in light of the negligible other options for those suffering from addiction but have been condemned by international institutions for their practices of incarcerating drug users for indeterminate periods. Since the period of Spanish colonialism, Guatemala had long been a Catholic majority nation. In recent years, adherence to Roman Catholicism has decreased, while strains of charismatic evangelicalism—especially Pentecostalism—has been on the rise. Although there is no official census, demographic estimates from 2013 projected that just under half the country identified as Catholic, while upward of 40 percent belonged to Pentecostal and charismatic Christian congregations—a significant swing. The diversity of indigenous spiritual traditions encountered in the region has given Guatemalan Christianity a unique character, and many hold to the prosperity gospel, which sees material gain as a sign of God’s approval of the faithful. Competition between churches has brought about a shifting religious landscape, and as Pentecostalism expands its reach, significant points of outreach are the poor and marginalized city dwellers, nearly 80 percent of whom live below the poverty line. Added to economic desperation has been a huge increase in cocaine transport throughout the country. Nearly 80 percent of all the cocaine manufactured in the Andes now moves through Guatemala, precipitating a correlated upshot of drug usage and addiction in the area. At the same time, social services have been declining, due to the privatization of the health sector. Hospital resources are stretched thin, resulting in little support for mental health concerns and the exclusion of addiction from their services altogether. The Roman Catholic Church does little to help, running small-scale treatment centers at heavy costs. The result has been the proliferation of Pentecostal rehabilitation centers. Unregulated and profit-driven, these centers function as prisons, operating in run-down districts, replete with steel doors, barbed wires, and other security accoutrements. Religious hopes combined with a lack of options leads many families to support these camps, and it is the decision of the pastor alone when participants are free to leave. A Pentecostal practice known as discernment—the perceived ability to determine a repentant soul by sight alone—engenders this process. St. Paul noted that “discernment of spirit” was one of the boons bestowed upon the faithful by God (1 Cor. 12:10), and this forms the scriptural support for

Christianity: Guatemalan Predatory Pastoralism

the practice in Guatemala, where pastors are thought to be able to identify repentant souls on sight. Drug users are sometimes brought to these centers by family members or police, but the more common method is through capture by hunting squads (grupos de cazadores). These Christian vigilante bands scoop up individuals in the throes of drug use, drag them to the centers against their will, and deposit them in small reinforced rooms (known as la morgue) to suffer the pains of withdrawal. The hunters themselves are under the pastor’s care in the centers, having earned the right to participate in the center’s program in a new form. Christian symbols of the shepherd and the apostles as fishermen provide a symbolic structure for the widespread practice, and hunting becomes a metaphor for the addict’s conflict: one needs to hunt out his or her own sin in order to get better. Once inside, drug users are exposed to teoterapia—theological therapy. This therapy blends apocalyptic preaching with self-help literature and meetings where users give testimony to their acts and their sinfulness. Daily sermons and testimony rely on unsurprising tropes—the lost sheep being found, the innate sinfulness of humans—and often, and without irony, use allusions of imprisonment. Men are either imprisoned by sin or held captive by Christ. Escape metaphors feature prominently too, especially from the hellfire that awaits sinners and is eminently real and eternal. Multiple lengthy sessions are held daily, providing a disciplinary technique and a means of controlling a large and often unruly group. Few measurable benchmarks guide a person’s stay; instead of a process, some have compared it to waiting for a miracle—a switch to be flipped for sobriety and salvation. As popular as these institutions appear to be, they have been widely decried as unlawful detention without any demonstrated ability to effect real change in drug behavior. In 2006, a ministerial accord established that addicts under the influence of drugs could be forcibly detained but must be released once they recover significantly. Practically, however, that is rarely the case. A lack of income opportunities linked to the ability to save souls has resulted in a situation where faith fuels incarceration, and missionization meets surveillance. Most centers consistently operate at capacity, likely due to a combination of the high ratio of drug addiction and the predation of the pastors who profit from the centers. The UN called for all compulsory rehab centers to be closed in 2012, noting that no evidence exists for the efficacy of these programs. However, in a region that offers few other options for addicts and their families, the practice of predatory pastoralism is unlikely to vanish any time soon. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Christian Fundamentalism; Liberation Theology; Narcoreligious Movements; New Testament

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Csete, Joanne, and Richard Pearshouse. 2016. Detention and Punishment in the Name of Drug Treatment. New York: Open Society. O’Neill, Kevin Lewis. 2010. City of God: Christian Citizenship in Postwar Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press.

ILAGA A Christian paramilitary organization in the southern Philippines, the Ilaga are a syncretic group that blends folk religious practices with Catholic beliefs. The name itself references the Ilonggo people, from which the Ilaga draw its members. The name also means “rat” in the Visayan dialect. Coming to notoriety in the 1970s during the Moro insurgency in the Philippines, the group disbanded for decades before being reformed in 2008 as the “New Ilaga” (Bag-ong Ilaga), or Reformed Ilaga Movement. Feared for their practices of mutilating the bodies of those they kill and wearing body parts as amulets, the Ilaga aims to combat Moro Islamic forces seen as threatening their livelihoods and their existence in the country. To understand the driving motives of the Ilaga, it is necessary to begin with the colonial actions of the United States in collaboration with the Filipino government in the mid-twentieth century. Spanish Catholic missionaries arrived in the area of Mindanao in the sixteenth century to convert the indigenous people. In the 1960s, the United States and Filipino governments worked to resettle Christian Filipinos onto the lands of the indigenous Moro people, who were largely Muslim. Moro groups fought back against this injustice, leading to an all-out war during the 1970s, as the Moro people looked to secede from a country where they felt unwelcome. The Ilaga came into being as a force working with the government due to their aligned interests, though they were quickly condemned for their violent excesses. It is estimated that they killed over five hundred people in the first years of the decade, including between seventy and eighty people in a Manila mosque in 1971. These acts brought the Ilaga infamy, but also made them a powerful symbol of violent Christendom in the region. Perhaps the most notorious agent of the Ilaga was Norberto Manero Jr., a.k.a. Kumander Bucay, who was said to cannibalize his victims and terrorize Muslim communities. His most infamous act was the murder of Italian priest Father Tullio Favali in 1985, with rumors that he scattered and consumed the priest’s brains. His efficacy on behalf of government interests earned him support in high places, and he was able to avoid being brought to justice in the heavily militarized region, which was largely outside direct government control. Ultimately, he was arrested,

Christianity: Ilaga

but he was released in 2008, when the New Ilaga was once again making noise in the area of Mindanao. The perception of Bucay as a vigilante with popular local support mirrors how other Ilaga forces were treated. Especially within the Visayan ethnic group, the fighters were and are seen as protectors of the Christian minority. Mistrust is still a problem between Moro Muslims and Visayan Christians, with some framing the conflict through a terrorist lens rather than a postcolonial one. In recent years, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters have once again taken actions toward gaining an independent state for the Moro people within a region where Christians now account for approximately 80 percent of the population. In 2008, the Supreme Court of the Philippines overruled the proposal for a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, spoiling the hopes of many Muslims in the region. Because of this decision, violence erupted again in the Mindanao region between the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front and government forces, out of which came the reforming of the New Ilaga. Amnesty International estimates that the violence has terrorized and displaced upward of one hundred and fifty thousand residents, and, in August 2008, a village of Christian Filipinos was attacked, resulting in over a dozen killed and the torching of twice as many structures. Appearing to be led by Mike Santiago, the New Ilaga vowed to murder ten members of the Liberation Front for every Christian killed, though it is not clear whether the New Ilaga has regained its former strength or if is being used as a symbol to cause fear in the hearts of those seeking their own country. The New Ilaga were suspected of the murder of five Muslims civilians in November 2008, but the attribution is questionable. In 2017 the New Ilaga offered to assist the forces of Duterte in combatting militants, but he declined out of fear of a civilian-fought civil war in the area. Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao to avoid future violent outbreaks, but, in June 2018, he signed the Bangsamoro Organic Law, which established further autonomy for the Moro people. However, the specter of the reformed Ilaga force has residents and spectators on edge and concerned about another spate of horrific violence of the kind seen in the 1970s and 1980s. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Liberation Theology; Martyrdom; State Violence: Philippines: Moros Conflict FURTHER READING Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. 2013. The Philippines: Religious Conflict Resolution on Mindanao. Washington, DC: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

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Religious Violence Today Gowing, P. G. 1969. “Christians and Moros: The Confrontation of Christianity and Islam in the Philippines.” South East Asia Journal of Theology 10, no. 2–3: 80–98. Kaufman, Stuart J. 2011. “Symbols, Frames, and Violence: Studying Ethnic War in the Philippines.” International Studies Quarterly 55, no. 4 (December): 937–58.

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES, PERSECUTION OF In the twenty-first century, members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect have faced persecution in several countries around the world. Known for their persistent proselytizing, Jehovah’s Witnesses experienced growing infamy in the twenty-first century, partly a consequence of their preaching in public spaces such as parks and train stations. Concentrated largely in Eastern Europe, condemnations of Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist and intent on destroying families have picked up since 2010, though the seeds of agitation extend further into the past. According to their own estimates, Jehovah’s Witnesses have a presence of around eight million adherents globally, with large pockets in North America and Central and Eastern Europe. Founded in the nineteenth century in upstate New York by Charles Taze Russell, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they alone in the Christian world practice the religion as it was in biblical times. As part of their form of faith, they forego blood transfusions, based on their interpretation of Acts 15:20; believe military service is prohibited by scripture and at odds with the model of Jesus; and hold that only a select one hundred and forty-four thousand souls will merit heaven. Their doctrines also see humanity in its last days, with an apocalyptic battle between good and evil imminent and obligatory. Jehovah’s Witnesses consider themselves bound to obey the laws of the land, but ultimately see themselves subject to God’s law alone. Their language and literature promise a new divine kingdom that will one day replace worldly governments, which has raised concerns from some states about actions Witnesses might take to bring about such a state of affairs. Their constant presence in the public square has made some governments nervous, and, while they had long been champions of religious freedom in the United States, several Eastern European states saw them as transgressing the bounds of acceptable religion. This animosity was centered largely in Russia. Russian officials condemned Jehovah’s Witnesses for propagating hatred in their literature, endangering lives in their service, and aiming at destroying the traditional family structure. Witnesses contended that the government was spreading misleading information and bolstering intolerance. However, the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the renewed twentieth-century Russian nationalism made for a tense relationship. Witnesses claimed that anyone studying the Bible was liable to be arrested,

Christianity: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Persecution of

and one pamphlet by the group quoted Leo Tolstoy in decrying the Russian Orthodox Church as superstition and sorcery. Though the group was officially banned as extremist in Russia only in 2017, Jehovah’s Witnesses had existed in some numbers in the region prior to World War II. When Russia annexed portions of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and the Baltics, they incorporated significant communities of Witnesses, who were then persecuted under Stalin’s reign as agents of the West. They were also subject to incarceration in concentration camps of the World War II, and treated as U.S. spies during the Cold War. They were validated as a legal religious organization in 1991, but, by 2010, Russian agencies had included numerous Jehovah’s Witnesses’ texts and pamphlets on the Federal List of Extremist Materials. The label of extremism, a powerful discourse in the twenty-first century, hounded the group and served as legitimations for violence against them throughout Europe. Their refusal to accept certain medical treatments further marked them as deviant, and the stridency with which they preached their doctrine made accusations of fanaticism palatable to many. In 2015, the Jehovah’s Witness Local Religious Organization in Russia was liquidated on state orders. The church appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, claiming that the materials used to designate the group as extremist were phony and planted by police. A year later—ironically on their twenty-fifth anniversary of their attainment of legal status—the prosecutor general’s office of the Russian Federation issued a formal missive stating that the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses “shall be subject to liquidation” if the church failed to rectify the actions seen as extremist. Consequently, imports of Witnesses’ literature were blocked, and their official website, ­JW​.­org, was banned. Moreover, local acts of physical violence and intimidation increased against Jehovah’s Witnesses, including acts of vandalism, assault, and attempted arson. Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered affronts in other countries as well. In 2016, Turkey closed kingdom halls—the name given to Jehovah Witness sites of worship—on the basis of zoning laws that favored larger congregations. The same year saw agents in Azerbaijan breaking up a meeting of Witnesses observing the memorial of Christ’s death in a private home. This disturbance of one of the most important holidays for Jehovah’s Witnesses continued a program of hostility in the country that included the arrest of members in 2010 for distributing unauthorized religious literature. The same charge led to arrests of Witnesses in Belarus in 2017, and Turkey has seen similar cases before the courts. Their refusal to serve in military capacities has also prompted prosecution, though the European Court of Human Rights recently reaffirmed their right to conscientious objection status. That same judicial body found the country of Georgia guilty of inhumane and degrading treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2015.

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Concerns around the upholding of religious freedom of Jehovah’s Witnesses has led to a complicated matrix of legal cases and statutes. Outside of political and state matters, Jehovah’s Witnesses are consistently seen as interlopers and aliens in the countries in which they reside, leading to repeated cases of violence perpetrated against the group and its institutions. Their unconventional religious beliefs have marked them as “other” in Christian communities, where the truth of Christ’s revelation is a substantial concern. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Martyrdom; New Testament FURTHER READING Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Legal Developments and Human Rights.” ­https://​­www​.­jw​.­org​/­en​ /­news​/­legal​/. Knox, Zoe. 2018. Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Ochs, Michael. 2000. “Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Georgia Today.” Religion, State and Society 30, no. 3 (September): 239–76. Peters, Shawn F. 2000. Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses: Religious Persecution and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution. Wichita: University of Kansas Press.

JUST WAR IDEOLOGY Since the early centuries of the Common Era, the ideology of just war has sought to align violent activity with Christian doctrine by outlining the circumstances under which war could be carried out by Christians. Various theorists have articulated the doctrine in various ways, but most base their support of violence in settings where Christianity itself is perceived to be under threat or when prevalent forms of life are detrimental to a life based in the precepts of God. A consideration of every attempt to outline a theory of just war has been attempted in recent manuscripts (see “Further Reading” for examples), but this entry recounts some of the most influential attempts in Christian history before offering a brief survey of how just war ideology has wrestled with the specific contours of twenty-first century life. Augustine of Hippo is credited with the first comprehensive doctrine of just war. In popular City of God, Augustine analyzed Christian conduct in war. Surprisingly, he holds that war is inherently part of a fallen world; since its expulsion from paradise, humanity has had to cope in an imperfect world by waging wars. Augustine held that only a competent and recognized authority could declare war and only for a limited number of reasons, including rebuffing external invasion, defending the safety of the populace, avenging injuries committed against

Christianity: Just War Ideology

the people, and in obedience of divine command. He also insisted that war only be a last resort when all peaceable options have failed and only when it seeks the restoration of peace without provoking further hostilities. While at war, Christian militants should be certain to discriminate between innocent noncombatants, who are never acceptable targets of violence, and those involved in the fight. Moreover, Augustine thought that any violent acts should be consistent with and proportional to the wrong being addressed, and all interactions with the opposing force should be held in good faith by observing treaties and conducting forthright warfare. The theory of just war laid out by Augustine in the fourth century CE is reiterated and expanded upon by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. In his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas blended theology and philosophy in considering whether war could ever be lawful according to Christian doctrine, and, if so, under what circumstances. Following the format of the Summa, he first considered objections that would seem to prohibit any war in the name of Christendom. He pointed to scriptural passages, such as Matthew 26:52, where Jesus declared “all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” and Romans 12:19, when Paul urged his congregations to “never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Furthermore, he argued that since peace is a virtue and war is contrary to peace, war must be a sin. Relying on Augustine’s interpretation of Luke 3:14—where Jesus encouraged soldiers to be satisfied with their wages—as an implicit acceptance of soldiery as a vocation (since they were not told to abandon war altogether), Aquinas proceeded to outline three conditions under which war could be just and acceptable to God. Echoing Augustine, he argued that a just sovereign must declare war and that war must be undertaken on behalf of a just cause, such as self-defense. Finally, Aquinas insisted upon a good intention undergirding violence, since it must be a last resort and hostilities must be carried out virtuously and ended as soon as possible. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the Catholic Church formalized its own doctrine of just war, drawing on these two theologians. In 1992, the Catechism of the Catholic Church laid out the circumstances under which the Vatican would support war (paragraph 2309). The teaching outlined four considerations, all of which take for granted that any religious war must respond to an aggressor rather than being undertaken as an act of aggression. First, whatever wrongs are seeking to be redressed in war must be lasting, grave, certain, and real. Second, other means of correcting those wrongs must be shown to be impractical or ineffective, marking violence as an act of last resort. Third, engaging in war must be done with the legitimate hope that it could prove successful in achieving its ends, and, finally, the manner of waging war must not result in negative consequences that outweigh the potential benefits of victory. Twenty-first century commentators have concentrated on analyzing how new technologies of war have provoked a necessary amending of these doctrines.

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Michael Walzer and Jeff McMahan are perhaps the best-known authors tackling the issue, reorienting the discussion in light of the character of twenty-first century conflicts. Recognizing that much of contemporary warfare is outside the traditional forms—no longer being fought solely between regular state armies—more questions about the validity of just war theory have been raised. How can those who blur the boundaries between combatants and noncombatants, such as groups labeled “terrorists,” be accounted for? McMahan (2011), for instance, condemns traditional just war theory for leaving open spaces, where combatants in an unjust war would be morally right if their actions aligned with just conduct while fighting. Moreover, in a period where national sovereignty is being challenged by processes of globalization, relying on state authorities as the final voice on war may be out of step. In recent years, many international conflicts have engaged and challenged Christian ideas of just war. While a few conflicts (like the Crusades) have been officially labeled just wars by the Church, and all Catholics were called on to support World War II, most wars have been denied the designation. The war in Iraq was condemned as not meeting the criteria for just war. Operation Enduring Freedom, which led to the war in Afghanistan, had some support from the clergy, though it raised questions as to the extent self-defense should justify war, as well as how to determine who has the authority to declare a just war. Preventing the use of chemical weapons in Syria raised the question of what goals could drive just wars, and the relationship of national defense, sovereignty, and using the military in service of divine pursuits. As new modes of warfare continue to be shaped by technology, political affiliation, and global contours, just war ideology will have to shift to accommodate the new considerations or be resigned as a relic of bygone eras. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Martyrdom; New Testament; Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971) FURTHER READING Aquinas, Thomas. 1947.  Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1911–1925. New York: Benziger Brothers. Augustine, and F. R. Montgomery Hitchcock. 1922. St. Augustine’s Treatise on the City of God. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Biggar, Nigel. 2014. In Defence of War. New York: Oxford University Press. McMahan, Jeff. 2011. Killing in War. New York: Oxford University Press. Shaw, Russell. 2017. “Just War in the Modern Age.” Our Sunday Visitor, July 30, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­osv​.­com​/­OSVNewsweekly​/­Story​/­TabId​/­2672​/­ArtMID​/­13567​/­ArticleID​ /­22780​/­Just​-­war​-­in​-­the​-­modern​-­age​.­aspx. Walzer, Michael. 2015. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Examples. New York: Basic Books.

Christianity: Ku Klux Klan

KU KLUX KLAN Synonymous with hate and racism, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is one of the most infamous hate groups in the United States. Started in Indiana during the Reconstruction efforts following the Civil War, the KKK was founded to attack and intimidate southern blacks and those who assisted them. Throughout the twentieth century, their infamy grew, fueled by lynching and vigilantism. It notoriously perpetrated the terrorist attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, which claimed the lives of four young girls, along with the 1964 Freedom Summer murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. The person responsible for those latter murders, Klan member and Baptist preacher Edgar Ray Killen, died in prison in 2018, and, in 2015, fellow member Frazier Glenn Miller  Jr. was found guilty of capital murder in the 2014 killing of thirty-three people outside a Jewish facility in Kansas. The KKK considers itself a Christian group, blending racist theories with appeals to Christian theology. Not only do members hold that only whites alone have truly and consistently followed the teachings of Jesus, but they interpret the Twelve Tribes of Israel as a reference to the origins of the white race. Some Klan leaders are ordained ministers with organized—and tax-exempt—churches, such as the Church of the National Knights of the KKK and the Soldiers of the Cross Training Institute. The Kloran—the KKK’s handbook, whose name ironically resembles the Muslim Koran—begins with the Klan “Kreed”: “In the beginning God; eternal, infinite creator and His son, Jesus Christ, our savior. In this we place all our faith.” The book is littered with biblical references and invocations of God, and Klan meetings and initiations begin and end with prayer. Their use of Christian symbolism is visible in the white cross with a red teardrop, which serves as their main symbol and is said to represent the atoning sacrifice of Jesus along with others who have “shed their blood for the white race.” Christian symbolism also shapes their most identifiable practices: the burning cross, which was used to mark their presence and intimidate others using the “Light of Christ,” and the conical hat and white gowns that are associated with membership. Their white clothing is meant to represent their purity of race, while the conical cap is an appropriation of the capirote, a cap worn by Spanish Catholics as an act of penance. Though the group dominated the ranks of hate groups throughout much of the twentieth century, at the turn of the twenty-first century, it experienced a deterioration in membership and reputation. This was largely due to the correlated growth of Christian Identity and neo-Nazi groups. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the KKK peaked in 2010, with over two hundred and twenty registered chapters in the United States, but only seven years later saw their lowest numbers

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in decades, with a mere seventy-two known chapters, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. However, the push against public commemoration of Confederate leaders and the Confederate battle flag flying above government buildings offered another public stage for the Klan, and members have been reinvigorated by the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Following Dylann Roof’s act of terrorism in the Charleston Church in 2015, an outpouring of animosity against racist symbols roiled many southern U.S. states. Then governor Nikki Haley made the decision to remove the Confederate flag from flying over the South Carolina capitol building, and several lawsuits sought to relocate statues of Confederacy heroes. One of the earliest battles took place in August 2015, where a case was brought before the court to move a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Opponents of the statue failed in that case, but the issue flooded national press around the attempts to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park in 2017. A series of white nationalist protests and counter-protests sprang up around the issue. Most well-known were the “Unite the Right” rally, organized by white supremacist Richard Spencer, and the August protests that led to the death of Heather Heyer. In July of that year, the KKK held its own gathering in opposition to the removal of Lee’s statue, where an estimated fifty Klan members were surrounded by nearly one thousand counterprotestors. This disproportion should not obscure the fact that the KKK has seen growth online, building on increasing xenophobia and a perceived loss of white cultural influence. Those fears were capitalized on during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. While campaigning, then candidate Trump notoriously refused to disavow the support of the KKK, which had been loudly promoting his candidacy and its anti-immigrant focus. In one interview, Donald Trump responded to the Anti-Defamation League’s condemnation for not disavowing the support of the KKK and former Grand Wizard David Duke, saying it would be unfair to condemn a group he knew nothing about and that some such groups are fine. He later blamed his comments on a faulty earpiece, and some Republican politicians were led to rebuke the KKK and like groups in response. However, when Trump won the election, the Klan’s newspaper The Crusader published a front-page article praising the election results. Riffing on the “Make America great Again” slogan, the article read, in part, “America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great.” Duke and the KKK continued to support the policies of President Trump and praised his response to events in Charlottesville, when he claimed that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the protests. Though the KKK lost some of its presence on a national stage, the ongoing conflicts around the cultural

Christianity: Liberation Theology

heart of the United States provides continued opportunities for their heritage of hate to resurface. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Christian Identity Movement; Eugenics; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Roof, Dylann (1994–); Sodom and Gomorrah FURTHER READING Baker, Kelly J. 2017. Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930. Wichita: University of Kansas Press. Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. 2010. They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Gordon, Linda. 2017. The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp. Johnson, Daryl. 2017. “Hate in God’s Name.” Southern Poverty Law Center. September 25, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­20170925​/­hate​-­god​%­E2​%­80​%­99s​-­name. Southern Poverty Law Center. “Ku Klux Klan.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­fighting​-­hate​ /­extremist​-­files​/­ideology​/­ku​-­klux​-­klan.

LIBERATION THEOLOGY In the mid-twentieth century, amid the rampant poverty throughout Latin America, liberation theology emerged. It was a reorientation of Catholic doctrine that focused on the plight of the poor. In the face of interpretations that saw wealth as a symbol of God’s favor, several Catholic priests, led by Peru’s Gustavo Gutierrez, demanded that the Church oppose the capitalist structures responsible for systematic poverty that rankled Latin American parishes. Coming to popularity during the Cold War, combined with its Marxist and Socialist leanings, initially gave liberation theology a negative connotation, but it has since gained near hegemonic status in impoverished areas around the world, emboldening poor Christians to pursue justice at all costs. In the 1950s and 1960s, Latin America was dominated by small groups of elites who held both wealth and political power. The increased concentration of wealth led to the marginalization of large, predominantly Catholic communities throughout South and Central America. One response was the creation of Base Ecclesial Communities, where small segments of the population lived a socially engaged communitarian existence. The fears of communism during the Cold War initially defamed such groups, but the 1962 council of Vatican II helped to heighten

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a focus on poor communities. Though Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI issued statements opposed to liberation theology, the Vatican’s official stance softened over time, paving the way for Pope Francis I’s support of such programs. As a bishop in Argentina, Pope Francis I (then Jorge Mario Bergoglio) followed the doctrine known as Teologia de Pueblo, which shared many features with liberation theology. Bergoglio was known to support unions and to be peripherally involved in local political matters. When his country of Argentina’s economy defaulted in 2001, he lashed out against capitalist globalization, declaring the precepts of neoliberalism to be at odds with the Christian faith. At a historical moment, where income was trending downward and evangelical Christianity was making strides in Latin America, Bergoglio made the concerns of the poor his core issue. Even his decision to use the name Francis as pope references this concern, since St. Francis is famously said to have publicly shed all his worldly goods—including his clothes—before going to preach and live the gospel. His anger at the exploitation of the poor became a theme of his papacy, most notably in his encyclical Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel). In the 2013 letter, Pope Francis criticized globalization, trickle-down economics, and the marginalization of many. Lamenting that a “globalization of indifference has developed,” he asked, “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” (Francis I 2013, 54) Condemnations of what liberation theologians call “structures of sin” would permeate papal teachings going forward. The ascendency of Pope Francis itself showed a perspective shift in the Vatican, moving away from its traditional home in Europe toward the global South, where poverty languished and religiosity was on the increase. Not long after taking office in 2013, Pope Francis invited Gustavo Gutierrez to a private meeting in Vatican City. This signal of the Church’s shifting stance was reaffirmed by praise for Gutierrez’s writings in a Vatican newspaper. Perhaps the biggest symbolic acceptance of liberation theology came with the 2015 beatification of Oscar Romero, the beloved Salvadoran priest who had been assassinated while giving Mass in 1980. Romero was not a direct proponent of liberation theology, but animosity toward the doctrine was credited with holding up his official recognition and possible sainthood. Latin America was the home and crucible for liberation theology, but by the early decades of the twenty-first century, the ideology had spread globally. Not only did it heavily influence the Black Theology developed by U.S. theologian James H. Cone, but it inspired theologians from Aloysuis Pieris in Sri Lanka to Englebert Mveng in Cameroon. Its influence can even be felt across religions, where Islamic theology and engaged Buddhism employ similar ideals. Christian communities in the Philippines used the language of liberation theology to violently oppose

Christianity: Martyrdom

repressive government programs in the region of Mindanao, while Palestinians resisting the occupation of Israel have likewise employed the rhetoric. The Baha’i faith has also found a use for liberation theology, recognizing its potential in supporting both violent and nonviolent opposition to systemic violence. In less than a century, liberation theology moved from a nearly heretical doctrine promulgated on the margins of the Catholic Church to a global phenomenon that sanctions a variety of efforts against the mechanisms of capitalist society. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Christian Reconstructionism; Ilaga; Narcoreligious Movements; New Testament FURTHER READING Aguilar, Mario. 2008. The History and Politics of Latin American Theology. 2 volumes. Norwich: Hymns Ancient and Modern, Ltd. Boff, Leonardo, and Clodovis Boff. 2015. Introducing Liberation Theology. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. Francis I. 2013. Evangelii Guadium. Vatican City, The Holy See. ­http://​­www​.­vatican​.­va​ /­evangelii​-­gaudium​/­en​/. Gutierrez, Gustavo. 1988. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation. 15th ed. Translated by Caridad Inda, and John Eagleson. Maryknoll: Orbis Books.

MARTYRDOM Christians see martyrdom as the supreme form of courageous death. From the Greek martus meaning “witness,” Christian martyrs are witnesses to the faith, giving testimony to the gospel in their deaths. Routinely linked to persecution, a martyr’s death is one that appears perpetrated due to their Christianity; they are killed because they are Christian. The Book of Acts relates the death of the apostle Stephen, who is killed for expounding Christian doctrines and generally considered the first Christian martyr (though some reserve that title for Jesus himself). Historical examples from the early centuries CE often include moments where martyrs refuse demands to save their lives by renouncing their Christian identities. The avowal of Christian identity continues as a current through the various martyr ideologies in Christian circles today. Whether a death is declared a martyrdom can depend on institutional authority—as in the Catholic or Orthodox churches—or on popular sentiment. This latter form has served to memorialize deaths such as that of Cassie Bernall, a victim of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, who affirmed her belief in God

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before being killed. Son Jon-Nam, a North Korean Christian, who is thought to have been killed for spreading the gospel in 2008, is an example in an area that has seen an explosion of Christianity. In 2017, Pope Francis named over thirty new martyr saints of past centuries, venerating Mexican, Brazilian, and Spanish Christians who were killed in pogroms across the world. One of the most prominent cases of martyrdom in recent memory comes out of Egypt. In 2015, twenty-one men were killed by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). Captured in Libya, the men were Coptic Christians and were beheaded in a video released by ISIS, who used Orthodox Christian references to explain the need for their deaths. The killings drew global condemnation, and the Roman Catholic pope Francis I offered his condolences to the Coptic pope Tawadros II following the attack. This was a rare moment of contact between the institutional leaders. Pope Francis affirmed that the martyrs asked for Jesus’s help before being killed, connecting them to a long tradition of Christian martyrs offering testimony to their Christian commitment before being executed. The collection of stories about early Christian martyrs known as the Acta Martyrum is littered with such reports. In another similarity with the martyrdom genre, one member of the murdered group was apparently a Ghanian who converted to Christianity when confronted with the overwhelming faith of his fellow prisoners. While there was initially consternation about his veneration as a martyr, public pressure led to his inclusion in the ranks of martyrdom. The twenty-one murdered Copts were canonized as martyr saints in the Orthodox Church on February 15, 2015. The violence of ISIS directed at Coptic Christians has led to Egypt being a primary crucible for martyrs in the twenty-first century. In 2017, the country declared it a national duty to protect Copts from terrorism. This led to calls for Muslims who die protecting Christians—like the Muslim Egyptian policeman who died along with eight Copts in December of 2017—to be named martyrs by the church. While the Coptic Church has not officially canonized the officer, he has been publicly treated as a martyr along with the Christian dead. For some, the valorization of death by terrorism has met opposition. Martyrdoms have long been understood as deaths that imitate Jesus’s own, in a doctrine known as imitatio Christi. However, in recent years, questions as to the benefit gained by victims of ISIS terrorism has moved some to reject the comparison. Where martyrdom was traditionally seen as an accepting death, the prevailing feeling for many is a struggle for their lives, which is out of keeping with traditional martyrs. South Asia has seen a number of Christian martyrdoms in recent years as well. Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, a Pakistani Roman Catholic, spoke out against Pakistan’s blasphemy laws while he was federal minister for Minority Affairs. His efforts resulted in his murder by the infamous Tehrik-i-Taliban in 2011, and he was beatified by the Catholic Church in March 2016. In neighboring Afghanistan, the

Christianity: Narcoreligious Movements

Badakshan massacre in 2010 resulted in the martyrdom of members of the International Assistance Mission, who were thought to be proselytizing in the region. The group denied that it was spreading the Christian message, saying it was merely providing humanitarian aid before being slaughtered. These cases compounded the concerns about ISIS and led to interreligious strife between Muslims and Christians in some corners of the world. Those concerns were further exacerbated by the martyrdoms of Jacques Hamel in 2016 and Frans van der Lugt two years prior. The former was a French Catholic priest, who was killed while he served Mass in Normandy by two men claiming ISIS affiliation. Pope Francis has declared him a martyr and began canonization proceedings in 2017, waiving the normal five-year waiting period. Van der Lugt was killed while working in Homs, Syria, providing aid during the bloody civil war that has decimated that country. It is thought that the Al-Nusra Front is responsible for his death, though it is less clear if he was specifically targeted because he was a Jesuit priest or if it was unrelated to his religion. Considering his work was largely around bringing Muslims and Christians together, it is particularly tragic that his death has been used in some circles to foment anti-Muslim sentiment. Christian martyrdom continues to be a powerful trope to venerate the deaths of courageous Christians who are seen to be targeted and killed due to their faith. Whether institutionally or popularly affirmed, these deaths provide a model of Christian behavior in the face of death and a memorial for those who die into the Christian faith. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Armageddon; Just War Ideology; New Testament; Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); State Violence: Egypt: Coptic Church Conflict FURTHER READING Castelli, Elizabeth A. 2004. Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture Making. New York: Columbia University Press. Middleton, Paul. 2011. Martyrdom: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T&T Clark. Moss, Candida. 2010. The Other Christs: Imitating Jesus in Ancient Christian Ideologies of Martyrdom. New York: Oxford University Press.

NARCORELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS Throughout Central America, several groups have arisen that blend a Catholic spirituality with indigenous practices and moral neutrality. The blend produces religious

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justifications for drug trafficking, gang activity, and murder. Narcoreligious movements operate on the fringes of political and religious society, creating a novel form of worship for themselves that celebrates life on the margins. Santa Muerte, the so-called “Skinny One” (la Flaca, a.k.a. la Niña Bianca, the White Girl, and White Sister), forms the center of most such sects, which are especially popular on the borderlands, where the physical space reflects social indistinction. Operating in a death-laden field, narco-traffickers have long sought solace in religious practices. Catholic reverence for saints (stemming from Spanish colonization) has syncretized with indigenous divinities to spawn a pantheon that is specific to the region. Traditional saints have been given new correlations to fit a place where poverty, government corruption, and violence shape life. St. Jude, generally known as the patron saint of lost causes, has become a benefactor of traffickers, gangsters, and drug users, as well as the urban poor. The Robin-Hood-like character of San Jesus Malverde—recognizable by his prominent mustache and handkerchief—is perhaps second in popularity to the ubiquitous Santa Muerte. Though not officially canonized by the Catholic Church, few clerics in Latin America speak out against their worship out of fear of reprisal. Statues and images of the Santa Muerte are widely visible throughout urban and rural centers. Usually depicted as a skeleton clad in a white cloak or wedding dress, she holds a scythe or the scales of justice in her right hand, while her left hand bears the world. Prayers to Santa Muerte usually involve the burning of candles (with different intentions connected to different colors). They also involve other votive offerings, along with rosary-like prayers imploring her impartiality and understanding for the difficult decisions faced by those living in a world of poverty and crime. Santa Muerte is thought to be open to requests by the righteous and iniquitous, blurring traditional moral boundaries and taking for herself the mantle of moral arbitration. Over time, the worship of la Flaca has been institutionalized, and, today, David Romo Guillen is considered the de facto leader of the Santa Muerte cult. Taking the title of archbishop, Guillen petitioned for recognition by the Vatican as the Mexican-U.S. Catholic Apostolic Traditional Church, though he was denied due to the connections to narco-culture. In 2009, around thirty shrines to Santa Muerte were destroyed as part of the government’s battle against the cartels, prompting protests in Mexico City’s cathedral. Two years later, Guillen was arrested for running a kidnapping ring, which was widely perceived as a feeble attack on the cult itself. Religion has infused narco-trafficking in ways outside of these syncretic devotions, perhaps nowhere more notable than the cartel known as La Familia and their offshoot, the Knights Templar. Operating mostly in war-torn Michoacan, La Familia was founded by the charismatic Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, who broke

Christianity: Narcoreligious Movements

from Los Zetas, the predominant cartel of the area. Boasting that the group’s fervent Christian devotion was unblemished by their drug trafficking, La Familia gained infamy in 2006 when members threw five bloody heads into a nightclub. The heads were accompanied with a message: “La Familia does not kill for money, does not kill women, does not kill innocent people. Only those who should die are killed. May everybody know this: this is divine justice.” The religious sanction of La Familia begins with Moreno himself, who was dubbed San Naza Moreno. Also known as El Mas Loco (“The Craziest One”), Moreno blended a cult of personality with Catholic devotional forms and an interpretation of divine judgment transmitted through evangelical rhetoric. Moreno constructed a form of “masculine Christianity” that merged machismo with a focus on religiously driven adventurers who bravely protected women. He also penned a one-hundred-page work known as Pensamientos (“Thoughts”). Pensamientos contained philosophies, motivational quotes, and aphorisms that served to characterize La Familia’s violence as divine retribution. Moreno was thought to have been killed in 2010, and, soon after, images of him garbed like a Knight Templar began appearing in devotional contexts. The new Saint Nazario was sought for protection, and he was colored as a defender of the poorest. Jubilation among those seeking his protection welled up when he was discovered alive, and, in 2014, the Mexican Army admitted that he had indeed been alive but was now certainly dead. Unsurprisingly, many believe he lives still. After Moreno’s supposed death in 2010, La Familia member Servando Gomez began the Knights Templar, an offshoot based on the twelfth-century Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ. Continuing Moreno’s assertion of divine guidance for their trafficking activities, the group pressed for identity with the Crusaders of old. Members carry code books with images of the original Knights Templar, along with fifty-three commandments that direct conduct. In 2013, those dictates led to a sweeping campaign of kidnapping, murder, arson and extortion, and the group is thought to be responsible for hundreds of killings in the Michoacan region. Religion features prominently in what is known as narco-culture. From the pseudocanonization of traffickers to the alignment of devotions with the vicissitudes of life in the borderlands, religion has provided justification for activities outside secular law and solace for those compelled either by force or necessity into taking part. The figures of Santa Muerte, San Naza Moreno, and San Jesus Malverde do not shrink from or give blanket condemnations of violence but sanction it when necessary and reassure follower that moral judgment is the purview of the divine alone. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Guatemalan Predatory Pastoralism; Just War Ideology; Liberation Theology; Martyrdom

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Chestnut, R. Andrew. 2017. Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte: The Skeleton Saint. New York: Oxford University Press. Kail, Tony M. 2015. Narco-Cults: Understanding the Use of Afro-Caribbean and Mexican Religious Cultures in the Drug Wars. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Muehlmann, Shaylih. 2014. When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the Borderlands. Berkeley: University of California Press. Roush, Laura. 2014. “Santa Muerte, Protection and Desamparo: A View from a Mexico City Altar.” Latin American Research Review 49: 129–48.

NATIONAL SOCIALIST COUNCIL OF NAGALAND The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) is a representative body seeking a sovereign state for the Naga people, an ethnic group in the Himalayan region of northeastern India. With the slogan “Nagaland for Christ,” NSCN blends socialist ideals with evangelical Christianity in attempts to carve out a Naga country from northeast India and Myanmar. Infamous for conducting terrorist activities in pursuit of its goal, the NCSN has been designated a terrorist organization by India since 1967, and split into several distinct entities in the twenty-first century. Nearly 90 percent of Nagaland’s population identifies as Christian, with 80 percent of those identifying as Baptist. The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) boasts over half a million members and claims fifteen hundred churches throughout the region. U.S. Baptist missionaries are largely responsible for such proliferation. Operating in the area since the end of the nineteenth century, they offered educational opportunities and other services to an area at the margins of the British Raj. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the religious group Heraka articulated a Naga identity, based in Christianity, and launched a failed independence struggle against the British alongside Sikhs and Hindus. Undeterred, segments of the Naga people continued to seek independence, growing increasingly violent throughout the mid-twentieth century. The Shillong Accord of 1975 ceased hostilities and brought Nagaland back into the jurisdiction of India. Those opposing to the so-called Accord of Treason formed the NSCN, which, a decade later, split into the NSCN-K, led by Shangwang Shangyung Khaplang, and the NSCN-IM, led by Isak Chishi Swo and Thuingaleng Muivah. Indian media frames the NSCN as Christian terrorists who are committed to forcibly converting the Indian populace, a commonly mobilized trope since the country’s colonial period. NSCN refers to the area of Nagalim as “Christland,” and the Arunchal Times reported that Chairman Isak Chishi Swu of the NSCN-IM

Christianity: National Socialist Council of Nagaland

claimed that they would send out ten thousand missionaries when they achieved independence. While the quote is of questionable provenance, the manifesto of the NSCN promotes similar sentiments, stating “we stand for the faith in God and the salvation of mankind in Jesus, the Christ, alone, that is ‘Nagaland for Christ.’” The blend of political, economic, and religious spheres is also evident in the manifesto, which asserts “to us the sovereign existence of our country, the salvation of our people in socialism with their spiritual salvation in Christ are eternal and unquestionable.” Moreover, the document contends that violence may be the means by which such ends are achieved: “We have chosen Nagaland and here freedom forever; we will never part with them. Indeed, it is the war we have to fight; it is the war we have to win. We shall access no summons to bow down; our Nagaland shall never put her hands up. We shall live only in freedom. This alone is the way to our salvation. Praise the Lord! We hold the promises of history.” Such statements sit uncomfortably with a culture that increasingly orients itself through a Hindu lens. In June 2015, the specter of NSCN violence was made substantial. In the Moltuk Valley of Chandel District in India’s Manipur state, militants from the United National Liberation Front of Western South East Asia (UNFLW)—a group related to the NSCN and neighboring liberation movements—employed improvised explosive devices, firearms, and rocket-propelled grenades against an Indian military convoy. The attack resulted in the deaths of eighteen soldiers and one militant and injured eleven other soldiers. In response, the Indian Army attacked outposts of the UNFLW inside Myanmar, resulting in the deaths of over one hundred members, including those who executed the attack in Manipur. The involvement of the NSCN with the UNFLW came about as the result of stalled negotiations with India and a further fracturing of the organization. Their socialist nature and relationship with China’s Cultural Revolution has led some to suggest that both groups enjoy China’s support, though little substantiates such claims. Questions of religion appear positioned to play a significant role in India’s 2018 election season, bringing the NSCN and questions around Nagaland back into the spotlight. Accusations of mistreatment of Christians by India’s dominant Bharatiya Janata Party bolster demands for Nagas to protect their Christian faith at all costs. The NBCC has told its followers that they must choose between the Trishul—the trident that popularly signifies Hinduism—and the Cross. Formulations like those of the NBCC further legitimate the NSCN’s religious political framing, inviting further exclusion and consolidation, an incendiary mix. While the NSCN’s role since 2015 has largely eschewed violence, election-year politics in such a combustible political environment may spell further expressions of dismay and anger in the future. John Soboslai

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See also: Christianity: Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–); Ilaga; Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks FURTHER READING Hazarika, Sanjoy. 2018. Strangers No More: New Narratives from India’s Northeast. New Delhi: Aleph Book Company. Joshi, Vibha. 2012. A Matter of Belief: Christian Conversion and Healing in North-East India. New York: Bergahn Books. National Socialist Council of Nagaland. 2001. “Manifesto.” ­http://​­www​.­satp​.­org. Thong, Tezenlo. 2010. “‘Thy Kingdom Come’: The Impact of Colonization and Proselytization on Religion among the Nagas.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 45, no. 6: 595–609.

NEW TESTAMENT The New Testament, the core scripture of the Christian religion, is a collection of narratives, letters, and vision tales that comprise the second part of the Christian Bible. The “testament” refers to the revelation of Jesus Christ, whose ministry is thought to continue and complete the “Old Testament,” the texts that comprise the Jewish Bible. The texts contained in the New Testament were composed during the first and second centuries of the Common Era, and today it exists in various translations, from the popular King James Version to the scholarly New Revised Standard Version, which is used here. The decision on what texts would constitute the Christian canon—the official compendium of Christian writings—was finalized by the fifth century CE, after centuries of debate within the ecumenical Christian world of the time. The books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke comprise the synoptic Gospels, presenting a “common view” of the life of Jesus. Dating to around 70 CE, Mark is the earliest and shortest of the Gospels and focuses on the healing by and parables of Jesus, while Matthew and Luke (likely written in the early second century CE) both elaborate on Mark’s text, using a lost document known as Q (for Quelle, Latin for “source”) that contained sayings attributed to Jesus. Unique among the gospels, John tells a different story of Jesus’s life and is largely responsible for Jesus’s divine status. Responsible for a “high Christology” that depicts Jesus as God incarnate (a contested concept in early Christianity), the book of John contains the verse often used as a shorthand for the entire lesson of the gospels: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (3:16). Following the gospels is the story of the Christian ministry after Jesus’s death, featuring the central figures of Peter and Paul. Generally believed to be written

Christianity: New Testament

by the same author as Luke’s gospel, the Book of Acts contains some of the most fundamental Christian tales, such as the Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus’s followers and causes them to speak in foreign tongues, the basis for the Pentecostal practice of glossolalia. It also tells the story of Stephen, who becomes the first martyr after being stoned to death by the Jewish Sanhedrin for unacceptable interpretations of Jewish law. The letters attributed to Paul are thought to be the earliest of the New Testament documents. Penned around 40 CE, Paul’s epistles are teachings about Christian faith that were sent to Christian congregations in their eponymous cities. The Letter to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon are all considered to be authentic and written by the same author, while the others are of questionable authorship and thought to have used the apostle’s name as a means of gaining authority. The Book of Revelation closes out the New Testament, relating a vision of a man calling himself John of Patmos, who saw a violent end of history and the inauguration of the kingdom of God. Many texts that support violent actions of purported Christians are drawn from this text, such as the well-known passage. “I looked and there was a pale [green] horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hell followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence” (6:8). John’s Revelation also relates the story of the battle for heaven, where archangels throw down “the great Dragon” from heaven. (The figures of Satan, the dragon, the antichrist, and the devil are used in distinct ways in the New Testament.) As the New Testament is the core of the Christian faith, many Christian groups interpret passages removed from their textual and ethical context as a means of legitimating violence. These references run a wide gamut. Some are straightforward, like anti-abortion extremists claiming that Matthew 19:14, “Let the little children come to me . . . for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs,” as their inspiration. Others are more oblique, such as the Hutaree Christian militia’s use of the ten bridesmaids’ tale of Matthew 25:1–12 as the basis of their doctrine. In this, bridesmaids who wisely stored oil were able to be present at the bridegroom’s (Jesus) arrival, while those who did not prepare missed their opportunity to know him. The militia interprets their mission as preparation for that final battle, of which no one knows “neither the day nor the hour” (Matt. 25:13), and the mentality inspired their attempted murder of police officers in 2010. One stunning bit of biblical interpretation came from Chris Barker, leader of the KKK branch, the Loyal White Knights. In a 2017 interview with Univision’s Ilia Calderon, Barker linked Jesus’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” found in the New Testament (Mark 28:31, Matt. 22:39, Luke 10:27) to the Old

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Testament passage in Leviticus 19:18, which warns against “bear[ing] a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Barker used this connection to articulate a separation of peoples, saying to the Latina interviewer, “My people are white. Your people are black” (Calderón, 2017). Even passages with apparently clear meaning can be used to support violence with the right interpretation. A more institutionalized interpretation of a New Testament text in support of harmful activity came from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session when he defended the separation of migrant children from their families when they were found to be illegally crossing the U.S.–Mexico border. In a June 2018 speech, Sessions referenced Romans 13:1, where Paul contended, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.” Deploying this text was aimed at suggesting divine approval for the policies of the U.S. government, however damaging and opposed to Christian doctrine they may prove. Moreover, there is a long history of interpretations of that passage in support of tyrants and dictators. While much scriptural support for hate speech regarding homosexuality, for example, stems from the Old Testament (most notably Leviticus 18:22), many nonviolent passages from the New Testament are overlooked by the groups considered in this chapter. Passages such as, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44) are juxtaposed against those such as Matthew 10:34: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” The stories, teachings, and doctrines of the New Testament are open to ongoing interpretation, which generates new Christian congregations and diverse stances on the extent to which Christian scripture does or can validate violent action. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Christian Identity Movement; Ku Klux Klan; Martyrdom; Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971); Sodom and Gomorrah; Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas) FURTHER READING Calderón, Ilia. 2017, August 22. “Aquí y Ahora.” Univision. ­https://​­www​.­univision​.­com​ /­shows​/ aqui-y-ahora/ilia-calderon-comes-face-to-face-with-hate-in-interview-with -kkk-leader-video. Desjardins, Michel. 1997. Peace, Violence and the New Testament. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Matthews, Shelly, and E. Leigh Gibson, eds. 2005. Violence in the New Testament. New York: T & T Clark.

Christianity: Niebuhr, Reinhold Neufeld, Thomas R. Yoder. 2011. Killing Enmity: Violence and the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Tite, Philip L. 2004. Conceiving Peace and Violence: A New Testament Legacy. Lanham: University Press of America.

NIEBUHR, REINHOLD(1892–1971) Reinhold Niebuhr was a U.S. theologian best known for his theology of Christian Realism. Born during the Great Depression and witness to both World Wars, along with the civil rights movement and the war with Vietnam, he crafted a perspective that sought active, politically engaged activity, based on a new ideal of Christian love. His pragmatism led him to be a favorite source for politicians across the spectrum, and his pacifism made him a champion for social warriors of diverse stripes. Niebuhr was dissatisfied by the smug idealism that characterized the privileged and encouraged people to take what steps they could toward a better world, while being cognizant of their own selfishness, sin, and limitations. Born to minister parents in the Midwest at the end of the nineteenth century, Niebuhr’s ideology was most significantly influenced by his own first assignment with the Evangelical Synod at a parish in Detroit, Michigan. There, he was exposed to the harsh reality of factory workers for the Ford Motor Company, whose lives did not align with the sentimental homilies to which he was accustomed. His concerns about the financial insecurity of factory workers, combined with the brutal working conditions fostered a social activism and critique of capitalism that would determine his life’s work. After beginning a teaching career at Union Theological Seminary in New York, he worked on a range of social issues, supporting the unionization of labor and aiding sharecroppers in the southern United States to improve their conditions. Niebuhr was an outspoken pacifist during World War I, but as the horrors of World War II mounted, he became a supporter of military intervention against Hitler. His renown made him influential in the U.S. State Department, and the turmoil led him to challenge a blasé pacifism that saw universal nonviolence as the solution to all political problems. That stance is evident in his most well-known work, known as the Serenity Prayer: “God, give us serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” His theology of Christian Realism paired an awareness of humankind’s limitations with a determination to take steps to improve the world. A naïve idealism pervaded much of liberal Christian thought during his time, and Niebuhr opposed the concept that people were inherently good and would therefore ultimately do good. Having seen greed and ambition in numerous forms, he believed that we

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need to acknowledge the innate sinfulness of people that leads them to be selfish and seek their own advantage whenever possible. Niebuhr did not dismiss divine, self-sacrificing love—indeed, he thought it was essential for goodness to advance—but it would be a hard slog, and the greatest impact of divine love would only come in a life ending tragically. To see the ultimate victory of the Cross required an eschatological vantage point, but in the moment, it requires hard work and an awareness that actions come from mixed motives. This idea led to Niebuhr’s belief that political realism needed to be placed above social and religious idealism. A deep danger existed in expecting that love alone would conquer evil; action is needed to confront the tyrannical and power hungry. The self-sacrificing love an individual could demonstrate at times was all but absent in larger, national institutions. The recognition that collectives will always act in the interest of their own and seek to dominate others was essential for Niebuhr. Likewise, the recognition that evil exists and is active in the world and to combat it might require things that transgress religious principles was also important. Irony featured prominently in the theology of Niebuhr. Only irony could characterize the need to threaten nuclear destruction to assure peace, as he witnessed in the Cold War. Though he outright rejected the virtue of preemptive war, he did think war would, at times, be inevitable. Niebuhr supported containment policies during the Cold War, and though he had run for office on the Socialist ticket in the 1930s, he was a critic of the utopian claims of Communism, along with those of U.S. exceptionalism. Both, he felt, obscured the circumstances of history in favor of a misguided belief in the certainty of virtue’s victory. Countries, like people, were virtuous and vicious, compassionate and hurtful, and it was the obligation of all individuals to act with Christian faith to confront the dangers of the time. Niebuhr’s action-oriented arguments are open to a diversity of interpretations, as evidenced by his invocation on both sides of the political spectrum. Neoconservatives enlisted his ideas for support of the war on terror during George W. Bush’s presidency, while liberals routinely celebrate his engagement on social justice issues. In the twenty-first century Niebuhr is enjoying something of a renaissance. Not only did it come to light in 2017 that ex-FBI Director James Comey employed Niebuhr as a pseudonym on Twitter, but President Barack Obama also cited him as his favorite philosopher. President Obama’s attraction to the thought and theology of Niebuhr is evident in his foreign policy, where he both recognized the limited ability of any one person or country to eliminate evil but also determinedly took steps toward combatting it. Ultimately Niebuhr offered a view where humanity’s innate sinfulness makes an easy and assured victory against the evils of its own nature impossible. That does not, however, relieve each individual of engaging in self-sacrificing love to move the ball forward in any way possible. Only action

Christianity: Roof, Dylann

in full awareness of the vicissitudes of human existence have a hope to benefit humanity as a whole. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Just War Ideology; Liberation Theology; New Testament FURTHER READING Crouter, Richard. 2010. Reinhold Niebuhr: On Politics, Religion, and Christian Faith. New York: Oxford University Press. Fox, Richard Wightman. 1997. Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books. Gilkey, Langdon. 2001. On Niebuhr: A Theological Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1987. The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses. Edited by Robert Mcaffee Brown. New Haven: Yale University Press.

ROOF, DYLANN(1994–) On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed nine African American congregants, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C. Pickney. Before opening fire, Roof sat through a Bible study with his victims, and then confessed that he was there to “shoot black people” in hopes of provoking a race war. It was the largest mass shooting at a place of worship until the 2017 massacre at Sutherland Springs, Texas. Race was the driving factor behind Roof’s act. His personal website was titled “The Last Rhodesian,” referencing the British colony of Rhodesia in Africa and the subjection of Africans by white British forces. On the site, Roof had published a manifesto of sorts, along with images of himself holding the Confederate battle flag along with the flag of apartheid South Africa. His manifesto did not refer to religion as a driving factor in his crimes but did note that he owed his awareness of racial problems to the website of the Council of Conservative Christians (CofCC). The CofCC is a white supremacist organization that bases its racism in Christian morality and has a long history of opposition to desegregation and civil rights. At one point, the CofCC wrote on their website, “God is the author of racism. God is the One who divided mankind into different types . . . Mixing the races is rebelliousness against God” (Southern Poverty Law Center). Roof echoed such sentiments and used them to fuel the hatred that led to his murderous spree. Moreover, several commentators have seen Roof’s action as a religiously motivated attack against Christian forces for social change. Emanuel A. M. E. Church is

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one of South Carolina’s oldest black churches and boasts a proud history of social involvement, from abolition through civil rights to the Black Lives Matter movement. It was founded in protest to racial discrimination and organized by people of African descent, many of whom were directly descended from enslaved Africans. Roof’s attack took place during a period of conflict over the Confederate flag, which still flew over government buildings and was seen by some as synonymous with Southern heritage. Civil War monuments featuring Confederacy leaders and generals were being opposed, and a battle for the soul of the South was raging. As a response to the hatred shown by Roof in his attack on the A. M. E. church, Governor Nikki Haley decided to remove the Confederate flag from above the state capitol, to both cheers and derision. Many also took issue with the way Roof’s case was tried in the courts. He was convicted on thirty-three charges of hate crimes and murder, for which he ultimately received nine consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, there was a question as to why his case was not approached as an act of terrorism. Title 22, chapter 38 of the U.S. Code defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” Roof’s acts appear to fall well within the boundaries of this definition, yet no counts of terrorism were filed. Some felt that this demonstrated a racial bias; were Roof Muslim, many contended, his case would be brought under terrorism statutes, but he received different treatment because of his race. Though race was at the forefront of his concerns, Roof appears to have included religion in his considerations of target. While he was not found guilty as a terrorist, his ideologically driven violence is certainly worthy of such a label. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–); Christian Identity Movement; Christian Reconstructionism FURTHER READING Ball, Edward. 2017. “United States v. Dylann Roof.” The New York Review, March 9, 2017. ­http://​­www​.­nybooks​.­com​/­articles​/­2017​/­03​/­09​/­united​-­states​-­versus​-­dylann​-­roof​/. Gillespie, J. David. 2017. The Trial of White Nationalist Dylann Roof: Killer of Nine Black Christians in Their Charleston Church. Sheffield: White Rose University Press. Roof, Dylann. “The Last Rhodesian.” ­http://​­media​.­thestate​.­com​/­static​/­roofmanifesto​.­pdf. Southern Poverty Law Center. “Council of Conservative Citizens.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​ .­org​/­fighting​-­hate​/­extremist​-­files​/­group​/­council​-­conservative​-­citizens

SEXUAL ABUSE. See CATHOLICISM AND SEXUAL ABUSE

Christianity: Sodom and Gomorrah

SODOM AND GOMORRAH The biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are repeatedly used in the Christian Bible as examples of depravity and sin. Over time, the city names became a kind of shorthand for the dangers posed by a society out of step with (certain interpretations of) Christian morality. Of the two, Sodom enjoys more recognition and became used to label laws against homosexual and sexually “deviant” behavior. Some believe the sin of Sodom was homosexual sex, while others hold that a lack of hospitality brought about the city’s destruction. The cities are often referenced in passages connected with the establishment of the covenant between God and his chosen people, in order to contrast the virtue of the Israelites with the wickedness of their neighbors. Sodom is first mentioned in the Genesis 13:13: “Now the people of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.” Immediately following the establishment of the covenant with Abraham, God leads his new people to witness the retribution for sin in the destruction of Sodom. In response to Abraham’s fear that righteous people in the city would be destroyed along with the wicked, God agreed (after some negotiation) to spare the city if merely ten just people could be found within its limits (Gen. 17–18). In Genesis 19, two angels do some reconnaissance, encountering Lot— Abraham’s nephew who had been taken prisoner from the city—at the gates of Sodom. Lot recognized the angels and attempted to hide them from the mob that was seeking the foreigners, going as far as to offer the mob his virgin daughters in exchange for not troubling the angels (Gen. 19:8). For his efforts, the angels warned Lot to leave the city with his family before it was destroyed. After forcibly removing the truculent Lot, “The Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and what grew on the ground” (Gen 19:24–25). When Lot’s wife turned to witness the divine destruction (after being warned not to), she was turned into a pillar of salt. This story forms the basis for most of the later references. In the other books of the Old Testament, the destruction of Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah, is spoken of as the just desserts of disobedience. Moses warned his followers that turning from the covenant would result in destruction such as what rained upon the cities, and the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all included similar references in their eponymous books. In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul likewise looked to Sodom as the example of sin’s consequence. Not only were they used as reference points for the broad dangers of sin (Matt. 10:1–15; Luke 10:1–12), but the promised second coming of Jesus was compared to the judgment of those cities in Luke’s gospel: “On the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them—it will be like that on the day that the Son of

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Man is revealed” (Luke 17:29–30). Sodom is also briefly referenced in the Book of Revelations as the death-laden place where the two witnesses of God will descend at the end of the world (Rev. 11:8). While it is not directly stated in any of these texts, after the seventeenth century, Christian theology developed an understanding that the sin of Sodom was related to homosexuality. While earlier Christian theologians followed Jewish interpretations, identifying a lack of hospitality as the sin that destroyed Sodom, the more contemporary and popular reading holds that Lot’s offer of his young daughters to the mob was an attempt to prevent homosexual rape from being carried out upon the angels. Little in the text supports such an interpretation, but the development of doctrine solidified to the point that the phrase peccatum Sodomiticum—the sin of Sodom—became used to condemn homosexual practices. This led to so-called “sodomy laws,” which marred the law codes of numerous U.S. states into the twenty-first century. Sodomy laws originally aimed to prevent any sexual activity that was not directly aimed at procreation or that took place outside marriage. Though they technically prohibited oral or anal sex for any person, they were disproportionately wielded against LGBTQ persons. In the 1970s, several states rewrote their laws to explicitly condemn homosexual practices, but in the 2003 case of Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all sodomy laws were invalid. Holding that such laws were a transgression of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equal protection of all citizens under the law, the Court’s ruling stopped de jure discrimination against homosexuals, but the use of Sodom and Gomorrah as rhetorical symbols against homosexuality continues still. LGBTQ Christians have begun reappropriating the symbol of Sodom in recent years. It has been used not only to self-characterize queer faith communities but also to reinforce the interpretation that Sodom’s sin was inhospitality—the same charge leveled against congregations who shun LGBTQ members. Christian groups in the global North still make widespread usage of the symbols of Sodom and Gomorrah, though the cities have been used in potent ways in some areas of the global South. In Africa, for example, the twin cities routinely appear in Pentecostal sermons and are also employed as labels for certain destitute areas (for example, the slums of Accra, Kenya). Whatever the questionable biblical provenance, Sodom and Gomorrah continue to serve as warnings about the divinely directed penalties for sexual activity outside the confines of Christian morality and the punishment awaiting societies that condone such practices. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Anti-Abortion Movement; Armageddon; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); New Testament

Christianity: Westboro Baptist Church FURTHER READING Fields, Weston W. 1997. Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Knust, Jennifer Wright. 2011. Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire. New York: HarperOne. Lipton, Diana. 2012. Universalism and Particularism at Sodom and Gomorrah: Essays in Memory of Ron Pirson. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Pellegrino, Charles R. 1995. Return to Sodom and Gomorrah. New York: Avon Books Inc.

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH(TOPEKA, KANSAS) An unaffiliated Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, the WBC is infamous for its obscene protests and hateful rhetoric. Named “the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the WBC is perhaps best known for its de facto motto: “God hates ****.” The world needs to hear this “profound theological statement,” according to the group’s website, “more than it needs oxygen, water and bread” (Westboro Baptist Church). Ferociously anti-Semitic along with its anti-LGBTQ sentiments, the WBC sees it as its purpose to use media attention to raise awareness and warn Americans of the imminent damnation posed by the immorality of U.S. pluralist culture. Founded by Fred Phelps in 1955, the small congregation is largely composed of the Phelps family. Nine of his thirteen children are active in the church, including Shirley Phelps-Roper, who took over leadership of the group upon Fred Phelps’s death in 2014. Largely regarded as a family-based cult of personality, the WBC ostentatiously positions itself in public forums spewing its vitriol. Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians all join Jewish communities as targets of their attacks, as does the United States as a whole, though the main target appears to be LGBTQ persons. The WBC website contends “the modern militant homosexual movement . . . pose[s] a clear and present danger to the survival of America.” This distorted patriotism runs counter to the myriad rhetorical attacks the WBC has leveled against the United States, claiming the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were divine retribution for U.S. acceptance of homosexuality. The group also held that the legalization of same-sex marriage was the cause of the tragic 2004 deaths of two sets of twin girls in Massachusetts. This contention mirrors Phelps-Roper’s claim that the deaths of five schoolgirls in the 2006 West Nickel Mines Amish School shooting was due to Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell’s criticism of the WBC. Selective interpretations of Old and New Testament scriptural passages buttress the group’s views. The injunction against homosexual activity in Leviticus

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18:22 stands out, as does the anti-national statement of Leviticus 20:23, while more ambiguous statements, such as that of Romans 1:32: “They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them” are also made to serve its purposes. Theologically, the WBC refers to itself as “primitive Baptist,” a label that situates their practices in the New Testament itself. That includes the family integrated worship for which the Phelps family was known. It recognizes no other church as legitimate and, following Calvin’s Doctrine of Grace, holds to the total depravity of people since the Fall, where human nature is opposed to God. Only the elect are thought to be saved by Christ’s atonement, and humans have no agency in their salvation that comes from God’s irresistible grace alone. For the WBC, its small community is the saved, while those who participate in modern immorality are doomed to hellfire. In June 2005, the group made news by beginning a campaign protesting at the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in combat. Bearing signs with mottos such as, “Thank God for dead soldiers,” WBC members claimed that the deaths were just comeuppance for the United States’ immorality. The following March, the group picketed the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in action in Iraq. Snyder’s father, Albert sued the WBC for defamation, initially winning an $11 million settlement, which was later appealed to the Supreme Court. In their 2011 Snyder v. Phelps decision, the court upheld the right of the WBC to protest funerals under the auspices of free speech. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the First Amendment protects “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” In light of the decision and in an indirect attack on the WBC practices, some states, such as Nebraska, passed laws making it illegal to protest outside any funeral. Few groups incite such animosity and disgust as the WBC. They often enlist children into their protests, and intentionally drag U.S. flags on the ground as part of their demonstrations. An increasing number of ex-WBC members are coming out to tell their stories in media outlets, and they consistently relate extreme isolation, othering, and characteristics usually associated with so-called cults. Megan Phelps-Roper deserves special mention, as her work since abandoning the WBC has helped shed light onto bigotry, bullying, and how religion encourages violence (Phelps-Roper, 2017). Their infamy has only fueled the group, however, and the WBC website claims to have carried out nearly sixty-two thousand demonstrations as of early 2018. John Soboslai See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); New Testament; Sodom and Gomorrah

Christianity: Westboro Baptist Church FURTHER READING Barrett-Fox, Rebecca. 2016. God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Drain, Lauren, and Lisa Pulitzer. 2013. Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Phelps, Libby, and Sara Stewart. 2017. Girl on a Wire: Walking the Line between Faith and Freedom in the Westboro Baptist Church. New York: Skyhorse. Phelps-Roper, Megan. 2017. “I Grew Up in the Westboro Baptist Church. Here’s Why I  Left.”  TED. ­https://​­www​.­ted​.­com​/­talks​/­megan​_phelps​_roper​_i​_grew​_up​_in​_the​ _westboro​_baptist​_church​_here​_s​_why​_i​_left. Westboro Baptist Church. ­https://​­www​.­godhatesfags​.­com​/.

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INTRODUCTION When the topic of religion and violence is raised, Hinduism is not usually the first religion that comes to mind. Hinduism enjoys a particular stereotype of being a colorful, nonviolent, ritualized tradition whose traditions include yoga, vegetarianism, and Mahatma Gandhi. Like other world religious traditions, however, Hinduism contains philosophies and practices with diverging interpretations, social and political realities, and cultural differences. The discussion of Hinduism and violence is as rich and varied as Hindu culture itself and is an important contribution to the larger considerations of how religion and violence intersect. Hinduism is the third-largest religion in the world, with over one billion practitioners worldwide. Approximately 80 percent of the world’s Hindus reside in India, and they make up 83 percent of the population in that country. Islam is the second-largest religion in India (at approximately 14 percent), with Christianity and Sikhism being around 2 percent each and Buddhism and Jainism being less than 1 percent. The plurality of the religious landscape in India is one of its hallmarks, but it is also the source of communal tensions that frequently lead to violence. “Hinduism” has been thoroughly problematized in scholarship because, as a category that is placed into the “world religions” paradigm, it is better described as a wide range of practices and beliefs that loosely fall under the umbrella term “Hindu.” Differences in praxis and beliefs can vary according to social class, region, and ethnic group. As it is popularly used, Hinduism broadly refers to a wide range of Indic traditions that share ideas of karma (moral cause and effect), samsara (the cycle of rebirth), and moksha (liberation from rebirth). These philosophical points are among the few consistencies, however, across the tradition. Within Hinduism, there are polytheistic, monotheistic, and henotheistic traditions of devotion, theistic and atheistic schools of philosophy, upper-caste and lower-caste traditions, and literally thousands of sacred texts that inform the religion. The oldest of these texts

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are the Vedas (1700–1100 BCE), which are considered to be divinely revealed and without authorship. Frequently (and mistakenly) viewed as the “Hindu Bible,” the Vedas are often held up as central to Hinduism and the most “orthodox” texts, with accounts of creation, directions for ritual practices, and various mantras or prayers. The pantheon of Hindu deities is vast (although again, there are monotheistic forms of Hinduism), with two gods being the most popular: Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu is the “maintainer and preserver” of the universe and has ten avatars—Rama and Krishna being the most popular. Vishnu is represented as a king in regal attire, with a golden crown on his head and a beautiful queen at his side. His earthly manifestations—Rama, the ultimate husband/king/warrior, and Krishna, the playful trickster and sublime deity—also have consorts, which reify their masculinity and status as male role models (although arguably, Rama is truly the archetypal masculine ideal). Shiva, on the other hand, is the “destroyer” of the universe, unmaking the world so that it can be remade again in the eternal cycle of the cosmos. He is sometimes portrayed as dancing wildly, wreathed in flame. Unlike Vishnu, Shiva straddles the line between householder (i.e., husband) and ascetic. He is married to Parvati, with whom he shares a domestic life, but he is paired with the volatile Kali in the tantric tradition, paradoxically emphasizing both his sexuality and his celibacy. As the major Hindu gods tend to highlight masculine qualities, especially their martial prowess with a particular weapon, they are warriors and, thus, virile men. Colonial occupation is, in many ways, an emasculating process, with the motherland being “penetrated” and taken over by an outside force, and citizens of the land becoming “subjects.” The Indian male was described in Orientalist literature as effeminate, and Hindu culture as a whole was seen as too disparate to cultivate a forceful, unified cultural dogma that produced a martial race, such as the Sikhs or the Muslims. These biases contributed to an urgent move toward masculinizing Hindu men (e.g., Vivekananda’s famous line that what Hindus needed was “beef, biceps, and the Bhagavad Gita”), and, thus, the valorization of heroes such as Rama and Arjuna became central to political Hinduism and to the overall attitude toward violence and nonviolence. The British Empire (1757–1947) evolved from the East India Trade Company, which had economic interests in India, to the British Raj, which was more invested in the administrative aspect of colonial rule. A number of projects, typical to imperialism, ensued: mapmaking, census taking, labelling of communities and classes, and other tasks that underscore the ability of a European power to enact on its subjects. The British also undertook a project of translation during the period of colonial rule in India—a project that relied on the literate elite and upper-caste Indians who could read and translate Sanskrit. Texts were put forward by the Brahmins and by pundits, which favored what they saw as most important to Hindu tradition.

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For this reason, Orientalist scholarship highlights certain texts as most “authentic” to Hinduism, and, thus, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, and Manusmriti (Laws of Manu) are typically put forward as sources for authentic Hinduism. In truth, for many Hindus, these texts do not feature significantly in their day-to-day traditions. The preferencing of such texts, however, contributes to an idea that such a thing as “orthodox” Hinduism exists, reified by academic scholarship in the twentieth century. This becomes influential not only to colonial lawmaking but to reforms in Hinduism, as well as how political Hinduism develops in the twentieth century. The concept of violence (himsa) in Hinduism is nuanced: it not only refers to the imposition of physical harm, injury, or abuse of another being but also to the psychological or spiritual disturbances on the self (and others) that is caused through such actions. In other words, himsa encompasses both action and mental states. Karma, understood as the “cause and effect” that informs Hindu ethical and moral frameworks, is also the word for “action”—all actions have reactions, and only through physical and mental discipline can one cultivate the good karma required for liberation or moksha. Selfless action, or doing things without thinking of the karmic fruits (i.e., true altruism), is a path that is encouraged in the Bhagavad Gita. This indicates that intention, as well as harmful speech, hatred, and other negative thoughts, are part of how Hinduism understands action and, therefore, violence. Despite the bad karma one gains through violence—particularly the act of killing—there are exceptions, such as in the instance of self-defense and what is delineated as “just war” in texts such as the Gita. In thinking about Hinduism and violence, we can consider three topical areas: violence (or nonviolence) as scripturally or doctrinally supported, violence as a result of social or political influences, and violence against Hindus themselves. The first approach—how Hinduism directly addresses or even legitimates violence—is certainly the most complex, involving larger discussions about “orthodoxy vs. orthopraxy,” Orientalism and insider/outsider perspectives, and hermeneutics or interpretation. For example, the controversy around sati (widow burning) highlights two opposing views: the first, found in some Hindu texts, seems to enjoin the practice for karmic merit (e.g., Rigveda chapter 10); the second view—strongly argued by Ram Mohan Roy—is that such readings are incorrect, and it is far more karmically meritorious for the widow to “continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing austere duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practicing the incomparable rules of virtue which have been followed by such women as were devoted to one only husband” (Manusmriti 5.158). In this instance, questions of interpretation (and which texts to favor) are central to the debate. One of the tenets of Hinduism is ahimsa, or “nonharm,” an ideology of nonviolence that has roots in the Vedic texts as well as in the Upanishads. It is more popularly associated with Hinduism through Mahatma Gandhi, who used the principle

Hinduism: Introduction

of nonviolence as a foundation for nationalism and resistance against the British in the early twentieth century. Even in war, all other avenues of diplomacy must be pursued before resorting to violence (a strategy employed by heroes in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana). The Bhagavad Gita, or “Song of the Lord,” is one of the most famous philosophical texts in Hindu tradition and is, arguably, a just war treatise. Krishna’s teachings (to the warrior Arjuna, facing his family as opponents on a battlefield) underscore the nature of reality as ever-changing and cyclical, and the soul as permanent. “He who thinks this self a killer and he who thinks it killed, both fail to understand; it does not kill, nor is it killed” (BG 2.19). The arguments for ultimately following one’s dharma (duty) and following the path of bhakti (devotion) invalidate Arjuna’s fear of war and legitimates it as a necessary occurrence. Gandhi, however, did not interpret the Gita with this more literal, popular understanding but rather saw it as an allegory for the spiritual struggle within—thus seeing the Gita as a nonviolent text. Despite understanding ahimsa as an ideal goal, the celebrated epics of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana culminate in fantastic battles, with blow-by-blow details and descriptions of horrific celestial weapons being used to devastate the enemy. Even in war, however, the Epics delineate karmically sound violence from karmically bad. Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, becomes horrified when he sees a wound on his fallen enemy’s back, fearing that he may have inadvertently struck his foe as he was running away (i.e., backstabbing, a dishonorable attack in battle). Rama is relieved when he is told that it is an old wound and was not inflicted by Rama. In the Mahabharata, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, brahmasthra (likened to a modern atomic bomb) is only used when all else has failed and with the goal to end the war. Despite the illumination of such noble values in the context of war, the Epics are ultimately about the battles and the victory of good over evil. The valorization of violence and martial masculinity in these stories, however, is one of the criticisms of Hindu tradition that Mahavira, the great Jain teacher, had with Hinduism. While Hinduism may aspire to nonviolent practices, conflicts that instigate violence arise through a number of issues that are ultimately political. Between Hinduism and other religions—in particular Islam and Christianity, which are seen as foreign religions—violence often occurs at the community level or in the larger political arenas. Islam, in particular, is associated with a period of imperialism, during which time some (but not all) of the Mughal rulers destroyed Hindu temples or forced conversions. This historical narrative of aggression, along with more modern stereotypes of Islam as inherently violent, contribute to communal tensions between the communities and even legitimate Hindu violence against Muslims or Christians in the name of self-defense or historical retribution. This connects to the second thematic area noted, that of social or political influences. Caste is at the heart of this scholarship, a system of social hierarchy

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that reflects both occupation and ritual purity. Casteism is argued to be supported by verses in the Rig Veda and in Manusmriti. Violence against low castes (Dalits or “untouchables”) is often used to suppress agitation or rebellion (as in the 1968 Kilvenmani, 1985 Karamchedu, and the 1997 Ramabai massacres), or as a result of cultural clashes between particular upper-caste and lower-caste traditions. Low caste women are particularly vulnerable to violence and sexual assault. Although low castes are also frequent targets of actual physical violence, the denial of caste oppression, as well as the social marginalization can be understood as a violence in itself. The suicide of university student Rohith Vemula in 2016 was a well publicized and tragic incident that was merely one of many such suicides. Dalit students who have felt systematically targeted and have spoken up about the issue have lost funding or are denied privileges given to higher caste students, giving them a sense of hopelessness. Another student, Muthu Krishnan, hung himself in 2017. He had been part of a “Justice for Rohith” group on his campus, in hopes of exposing the discrimination rampant on university campuses. He repeatedly addressed issues of inequality and the lasting effects they have on the Dalit community, but the university did everything they could to ban him from protesting. Muthu became yet another victim of caste violence and oppression. Challenging the caste status quo, as many Dalits attempt to do, can be argued to be anti-Hindu. Because Hinduism is the primary religion of India, such criticisms to Hindu “orthodoxy” are framed as antinational. For this reason, Hindu nationalism occupies a central position in the discussion of Hinduism and violence. Hindu nationalist organizations often pose as the gatekeepers of “authentic” Hindu tradition, quick to denounce heterodoxical or anti-authority movements and ideas. Some of the most notable incidents of violence in the past few decades (e.g., the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, anti-Christian violence in Orissa in 1999, and terrorist bombings in 2006–2008) have all been fomented by rhetoric of right-wing Hindu nationalism. Many of these organizations call for outright violence against Muslims and Christians, largely positioning Hinduism as a historical “victim” and thus legitimizing violence as karmic retribution; some of the Hindu nationalist rhetoric defined Hindu tradition in terms that are exclusionary, narrowly dogmatic, or highly gendered, which also have violent consequences. Another example of religious and caste tensions that Hindu nationalist rhetoric has encouraged is the issue of cow protection. Female cows in particular are considered sacred and banned from slaughter across India, but male cows or bulls are a diet staple for those who consume beef—Dalits, Muslims, and Christians. In the last few years, violence against beef-eaters has increased, the attacks legitimized as “protecting Hindu tradition” and serving the nation. Dalits and Muslims in particular have been assaulted or lynched by mobs associated with mainstream Hindu nationalist groups.

Hinduism: Introduction

The subsequent ripple effect of promoting a claimed brand of orthodox, “authentic” Hinduism affects the treatment of women. Because Hindu nationalism ascribes to militarized, and ultimately masculine, ideologies, Hindu women of all castes become victims of violence as well. “Proper” Hindu women are expected to stay inside at night and not socialize or go out without a family escort. The rhetoric of “women’s purity” is tied closely to this “orthodox” understanding of Hinduism, as well as to the idea of nationhood. National Crime Records estimate that ninety-three women are raped in India every day. Rape is also used as a weapon against Dalits and Muslims. Perhaps the most controversial area of discussion in relation to Hinduism and violence is the discussion of religiously motivated terrorism. Hinduism is popularly viewed as a nonviolent tradition, largely thanks to Mahatma Gandhi, who was instrumental in liberating India from British rule through nonviolent resistance. For this reason, Hindu terrorism seems to be a contradiction in terms. A particular understanding of Hinduism, however, as something authentic, historically consistent, and Vedic is tied closely to Hindu nationalism. Such nationalist movements and organizations see India and Hindu tradition as something that needs to be protected from outsiders (especially Muslims and Christians) and often promote fundamentalist or conservative, upper-caste interpretations of Hindu texts. As a result, the growing visibility and political strength of right-wing Hindu nationalism has exacerbated communal tensions between Muslims and Hindus especially, contributing to a variety of violent acts—including bombing mosques or Muslimoccupied spaces. Conversely, Hindus have been targets of violence as well—which brings us to the third and last area for discussion, anti-Hindu violence. The assassination of Swami Lakshmanananda in 2008 was believed initially to be perpetrated by local Christians, and then by Maoist guerillas. The 2013 Bangladesh riots were a series of attacks on Hindu homes, temples, and people by Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) activists. Similar violence occurred in 2014, when Bengali Hindus were targeted and assaulted by the JeI after elections. In Pakistan, Hindu minorities face threats of kidnapping and forced conversion—daughters, especially, have been reported by international human rights groups as being vulnerable to abduction. Other groups within Pakistan, such as the Taliban, contributed to persecution of religious minorities like the Hindus. Many Hindus continue to migrate to Pakistan in efforts to escape discrimination. Ethnic Hindu minorities, such as Tamils in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, also struggle with discrimination and violence. Diaspora communities in the United States and in Europe may face violence less frequently than in South Asia, but they are still victims to discrimination and assault. In the wake of 9/11, intolerant and xenophobic discourse in the United States has contributed to this, with many people

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ignorant of the differences between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims—therefore targeting any “brown other” with hostility. Juli L. Gittinger FURTHER READING Brass, Paul R. 2011. The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Ludden, David, ed. 1996. Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community, and the Politics of Democracy in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2009. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sen, Amartya. 2007. Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. London: Penguin Books India. Shani, Ornit. 2007. Communalism, Caste and Hindu Nationalism: The Violence in Gujarat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AHIMSA (NONHARM) Perhaps most well-known in the West through the teachings and actions of Mahatma Gandhi, ahimsa is the principle of nonviolence or “do no harm.” It is a principle found across the Indic religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and even Sikhism. Ahimsa encompasses not only the idea of abstaining from physical violence, but violence of thought and word as well. Early examples of scriptures advocating for ahimsa as an ethical philosophy can be found in the Vedas: “Ahimsa is not causing pain to any living being at any time through the actions of one’s mind, speech or body” (Atharveda) or “Do not injure the beings living on the earth, in the air and in the water” (Yajurveda). It is further cultivated into a doctrine of nonviolence in texts such as Chandogya Upanishad (e.g., CU 3.17.4, 8.15.1), Kautilya Arthashastra (KA 1.3.13), and Manusmriti (10.63). The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the great epics of the ithihas (histories), both recount great battles but make it clear that war is a last resort, and that ahimsa is the ultimate example of self-discipline and virtue. This is most famously discussed in the Bhagavad Gita, arguably a Hindu just war doctrine, which takes place on the battlefield, just moments before the Kurukshetra war, described in the Mahabharata. Arjuna, a great warrior of the Pandava clan, was conflicted about going to war against his cousins and other family members and lamented this ethical quandary to his charioteer. His chariot driver, revealed to be Lord Krishna, expounded on the nature of reality and the importance of dharma or duty: “He who thinks this self a killer/and he who thinks it killed/both

Hinduism: Ahimsa

fail to understand/it does not kill, nor is it killed” (BG 2.19). Krishna’s argument was about the eternal quality of the atman or soul/self, the inevitability of death for all creatures, and the preordained role Arjuna played in this battle as a mere instrument of the cosmos. It is interesting that the text has been interpreted both as a just war treatise and allegorically, with the view that the “battle” is not a physical one, but a spiritual one. The latter interpretation was certainly favored by Gandhi, who frequently referenced the Gita in connection with ahimsa. Gandhi especially distinguished between action, and selfless action—that is, renouncing attachment and not thinking about the fruits of one’s action. Krishna also stated that ahimsa is the highest and most noble aspiration (BG 10.5, 13.7, 16.2), and, since his counsel to Arjuna was to see reality as he did (i.e., to destroy illusion), then one can entertain the argument for the battle as symbolic rather than literal. Oddly enough, Gandhi’s assassin also used the Gita to legitimate his actions, citing the text as a call to dharma and justice. Gandhi, growing up in Gujarat, was highly influenced by the Jains, which may account for his particular worldview. For Jainists, ahimsa is an absolute requirement of practice, and they do not make exceptions to things such as ritual sacrifices or wars—although, like Hindus and Sikhs, they make an exception for self-defense. Ahimsa or “do no harm” is the first of the Five Mahavratas (great vows) as it is the first of the Pancasila (five precepts) of Buddhism. Jains take the principle the furthest, understanding it to mean that no living creature should be harmed. For this reason, Jains are vegetarian, and they do not consume eggs or root vegetables whose harvesting would disrupt things living in the ground. Many Jains even filter their water and wear thin masks over their noses and mouths to prevent accidental consumption of tiny insects or organisms. Buddhists also extend ahimsa to all living creatures, although not all Buddhists are vegetarian. Hindus may be meat eating or vegetarian, depending on caste or even personal preference, and, while the principle of nonviolence may be inculcated in early Indic texts, postcolonial modern Hinduism has adopted a more martial and self-defensive posture. Principles of nonviolence can be found in Sikhism too, particularly in the early lineage of the Gurus. After the martyrdom of the fifth Guru, Arjan, Sikh philosophy conceded that violence was necessary in self-defense. His successor, Guru Hargobind, introduced the concept of “Miri-Piri,” the two crossed swords now part of the symbol used to represent Sikhism. Miri represents political or temporal power, and Piri represents the spiritual. Both worldly and religious aspects are needed to promote justice. Despite the reputation of the Sikhs as a martial race, Sikhism promotes nonviolence in its texts and traditions, only conceding that it is occasionally necessary for justice. Ahimsa has been an influential concept on the global political stage, largely due to Mahatma Gandhi, who began to cultivate nonviolent political resistance

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when he lived in South Africa. His refusal to enjoin in violent resistance galvanized the Quit India Movement and became a powerful strategy of Indian nationalism. Other civil rights and political leaders who have been directly influenced by his example of nonviolent resistance include Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Thich Nhat Hanh. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm) FURTHER READING Chapple, Christopher. 1993. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. Albany: SUNY Press. Gandhi, Mahatma. 1965. Gandhi on Non-Violence: Selected Texts from Mohandas K. Gandhi’s Non-Violence in Peace and War. No. 197. New York: New Directions Publishing. Harak, G. Simon, ed. 2000. Nonviolence for the Third Millennium: Its Legacy and Future. Macon: Mercer University Press.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN ATTACKS Communal tensions in India are frequently posed as Hindu-Muslim, but there are many conflicts between Hindu-Christian communities that have been characterized as violent and reminiscent of pogroms. Orissa and Gujarat have been particular hotbeds of conflict, often revolving around issues of conversion and nationalist identities. Among India’s 1.3 billion population, approximately 2.3 percent (27.8 million) are Christian. Christianity allegedly came to India through the apostle Thomas, who is understood to have visited Kerala in 52 CE. Small communities have existed since the sixth century, although Catholicism was introduced in the sixteenth century by Portuguese colonists, who established a capital in Goa. With the arrival of British and other European colonial missionaries in the eighteenth century, Protestant Christianity in India was established across numerous states and provinces as well. Today, India hosts a wide range of sects and traditions including (but not limited to) Pentecostal, Lutheran, Anglican, Syriac, Baptist, Evangelical, Jesuit, and Dominican. Although tensions between native traditions and “foreign” religions are part of any colonial project, the British policy was strictly one of non-interference in all religious matters, and Christianity was encouraged through education and conversion—but not forced. Christian converts draw from all castes, but Dalit conversions are the highest in number—hoping that they can escape the harsh treatment

Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks

of being low caste in Hindu society. Although Christianity does not entertain a caste system, the residual status remains for many converts in India. Tribals are another group who are seen as viable targets for conversion. Despite colonial tensions, violence against Christians was rare. Since the 1990s, however, violence against Christians in India has increased exponentially. Some of the regions most affected have been Orissa, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Gujarat, and Jammu-Kashmir. According to the United Nations organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), attacks on Christians increased significantly with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the late 1990s, directly linked to the rhetoric of creating a “Hindu nation” (which implies marginalization or even expulsion of non-Hindus). According to the report, 116 incidents of violence against Christians were reported between January 1998 and February 1999. The rhetoric of fear from the Hindu nationalist groups is that through conversion, Christianity could become the dominant religion in India, eliminating the 82-percent Hindu majority within a century. This has motivated some groups to physically attack Christians and Christian communities. One of the more well-known incidents was the attack on Australian missionary Graham Staines, a man who had been working with India’s poor since 1965. On this occasion in 1999, Staines was visiting a small village in Orissa with his two sons, aged seven and ten. They were sleeping in their station wagon when a mob set upon them and burned all three alive. In the year leading up to the violence, there had already been dozens of Hindu-Christian conflicts across the state of Orissa, with accusations that Christian missionaries were forcibly converting Hindus. Orissa has continued to have flare-ups of anti-Christian violence, most recently in 2008, when Swami Lakshmanananda, a Brahmin priest who was known for virulent rhetoric against Christians, was brutally killed by Maoist guerillas. The wrath and retaliation (sometimes referred to as the Kandhamal riots) was taken out on Christians across six hundred villages, resulting in at least forty-five people killed and eighteen thousand injured. It is estimated that at least 250 churches and three thousand homes were destroyed in the aftermath. Gujarat is another case study, marking 1998 as the year that the BJP came into power in the state. Several incidents were reported that year, including the destruction of St. Anthony’s Church by a crowd of four hundred armed with tractors and iron bars (HRW Report, section IV). Other churches and prayer halls were vandalized or burned down, parishioners attacked, and anti-Christian rallies organized, while police stood by and observed. HRW reported that between December 25, 1998 and January 3, 1999, churches and prayer halls were attacked or burned down in at least twenty-five different villages across Gujarat.

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As with the BJP coming to power in Gujarat in 1999, in 2014, the BJP’s influence increased when Narendra Modi became prime minister and the party took over the parliament Lok Sabha. India is presently ranked the tenth most dangerous country in the world for Christians, according to the NGO Open Doors (2019, 21). The watchdog organization reported that Indian Christians have experienced a steady increase of violence since the 2014 election. The brand of political Hinduism that gained salience in the 1990s is buttressed by an ideology of ethnocentrism and intolerance of “foreign” religions. This othering is the crux of the more popularly known Hindu-Muslim violence, but it is central to the Hindu-Christian violence as well. The Hindu nationalist mission of creating a Hindu nation, one that is purged of foreign influences, may run contrary to Nehru’s post-Partition idea of a secular, pluralistic India, but it is couched in a postcolonial resentment that extends back several centuries in India. Since both the Mughal and British Empires made indelible marks on India’s civilization narrative, it makes little sense to render Hinduism as something untouched by these influences. The 2017 USCIRF Annual Report discusses concerns over India’s religious freedom, highlighting the anticonversion laws passed in six Indian states (including Orissa and Gujarat). These laws require government officials to assess whether a conversion out of Hinduism is fraudulent or forced (this does not apply to conversions to Hinduism), designed to protect religious minority communities. Such practices, however, engender hostility rather than protection and contribute to communal flare-ups because it is difficult to prove the legality of conversion. There are reports of forced conversion by Hindu nationalists as part of a campaign of “reconversion” or Ghar Wapsi (returning home). According to the USCIRF 2017 report, signs were reportedly placed in train stations around the country stating that Christians were to leave India or convert to Hinduism by 2021—or else be killed. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Hinduism: Anti-Muslim Attacks FURTHER READING Badami, Sumant. 2010. “Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India’s Present; Narratives from Orissa by Angana P. Chatterjee.” American Ethnologist 37, no. 4: 857–58. Human Rights Watch Report. 1999. India Politics by Other Means: Attacks against Christians in India, October 1999. Volume 11, no. 6c. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­legacy​/­reports​ /­1999​/­indiachr​/. Open Doors. 2019. World Watch Report on Christian Persecution. ­https://​­www​.­opendoorsusa​ .­org​/­2019​-­world​-­watch​-­list​-­report​/

Hinduism: Anti-Muslim Attacks Sengupta, Somini. 2008. “Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert of Flee.” New York Times, October 12, 2008. ­http://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2008​/­10​/­13​/­world​/­asia​/­13india​.­html. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. 2017. 2017 Annual Report. ­http://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­2017​.­USCIRFAnnualReport​.­pdf.

ANTI-MUSLIM ATTACKS India is home to a multitude of world religions, including small populations of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, Zoroastrian, and Baha’i. Islam is the second– largest religion in India, accounting for approximately 14 percent of the population (roughly 172 million people). Although India’s religious landscape is diverse, Muslims seem to be especially targeted in India and are frequently part of communal conflicts. Islam came to India through early trade routes as early as the seventh century CE. Invasions in the tenth century onward resulted in various sultanates, which were independently ruled. The Mughal Empire, the height of Muslim influence in India, was founded in 1526 by Emperor Babur. The empire continued to expand southward down the continent until its conclusion in the early 1700s. Mughal rulers varied in temper and practice; for example, Akbar (r. 1556–1605) was noted for his interfaith dialogue and tolerant rule, while Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) was known for his austerity and iconoclasm. Despite the fact that rulers such as Akbar allowed free expression of religion and exemplified a golden age of the Mughals, the empire is often remembered for its more brutal, intolerant eras. This narrative of Mughal oppression, along with postcolonial resentments and the feeling that Islam was a “foreign” import, contribute to the resentment many Hindus feel toward Indian Muslims. The resentment has manifested in a number of ways during India’s modern history, with Partition as a key conflict. Rather than join the Hindus in a more pan-Indian campaign to gain independence from the British, the Muslim League campaigned for the “two-nation” solution, firm in the belief that Muslims would never be treated well as the eternal minority in a Hindu India. Muslims who left India for Pakistan were seen as abandoning the Motherland; those who stayed were regarded with a wary eye and as having questionable loyalty. During the human migration across the newly drawn India-Pakistan borders, Partition-era violence included murder, rape, disembowelment, infanticide, and mutilation (with Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs as both victims and perpetrators). The post-Partition narrative in India, however, is dominated by tales of Muslims as instigators. These narratives of Muslims—as invaders, as ruthless rulers, and as secretly loyal to Pakistan—are perpetuated by Hindu nationalist organizations like the Shiv Sena, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

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The result is a defensive posture that legitimizes any violence against the Muslim population as a well-earned response to a long history of oppression and violence. Furthermore, the rise of modern Hindu nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s placed an emphasis on the ideal of a Hindu rashtra (nation), eschewing secular policies and pluralism. While incidents of violence against Muslims have frequently occurred (for example, Kolkata 1964 and Bhiwandi 1970), a few incidents in particular are worth noting. The first is the destruction of Babur’s mosque (Babri Masjid) in Ayodhya in 1992, demolished in a matter of hours by militant Hindu nationalists. The mosque was rumored to have been built on the site of an ancient Ram temple (a claim that could not be proven, even through archaeological records) and whose existence on the site was rhetorically positioned as a constant insult to Hindus. The riots in the aftermath spread to a number of cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, resulting in over two thousand deaths—mostly Muslim. Other incidents of anti-Muslim violence are the 2002 pogroms against Muslims in Gujarat. This followed a conflict between Hindu train passengers and Muslim vendors at the Godhra station and a tragic fire in the train car that killed fifty-eight pilgrims. Blamed for the fire, Muslims became the target for a retaliation that was unchecked by local police and regional governments. There were three Muslim deaths for each Hindu casualty, with over a thousand killed in total, and dozens of homes and businesses burned. The Gujarat riots are especially controversial because the government were seen as being complicit in the violence, allowing it to happen as retribution for what was rumored to be Muslims burning innocent Hindu pilgrims on the train (an event that was later ruled an accident). More recently, Muslims are victims of violence from Hindu revivalists who have taken on the role of cow protectors. While the slaughter of a female cow is generally prohibited across India and Hindus tend to abstain from beef, the consumption of beef is widely practiced in Muslim communities. Butchers and vendors have been targeted by Hindu cow protectors who act as vigilantes and assault suspected offenders. In 2016, there were a number of instances where Muslims were beaten or even lynched for eating beef, even though it is perfectly legal to do so. In this instance, cow protection is couched in a sort of “Hindu orthodoxy” and considered to be an authentic ideal of the religion—thus, in their argument, to eat a cow is to offend the religion of the nation. Hindu nationalist rhetoric relies on a particular kind of ethnonationalism that sees Muslims as foreign invaders whose loyalty to India is constantly questioned. Rather than embrace Nehru’s more secular vision of India as a patchwork quilt of religious traditions and ethnicities, Hindutva ideology demands a Hindu nation that is homogenous in race, beliefs, and culture. This fantasy of a Hindu rashtra is predicated on a historical narrative in which Hindus are the innocent victims,

Hinduism: Ayodhya

time and again invaded or conquered, and steadfastly maintaining their traditions and sense of self. The narrative itself is a case of selective memory and, in the tradition of nation-building, relies on an “other” for its definition: Muslims are barbaric, violent, terrorists, and intolerant. Such generalizations then allow for violent responses, with the understanding that “they had it coming” or “they started it first.” Juli L. Gittinger See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Hinduism: Ayodhya; Gujarat Riots (2002); Hindutva FURTHER READING Brass, Paul R. 2011. The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Ghassem-Fachandi, Parvis. 2012. Pogrom in Gujarat: Hindu Nationalism and Anti-Muslim Violence in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, Martha. 2009. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

AYODHYA Ayodhya is a city in modern UP that also has the distinction of being the location for two crucial events in India’s historical narrative: it is the mythological birthplace of Rama, and it is the site of the most-divisive political event in India since Partition. It has also been a site of great controversy and violence, notably the 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque and subsequent riots. Ayodhya is discussed in a variety of Indic literary traditions. The Jains believe that the five tirthankaras (“ford makers”) were born in Ayodhya. It is a mythical city, described in the Puranas and referenced in the Mahabharata, and is the home of Rama, avatar of Vishnu. Valmiki’s Ramayana is the most famous account of Rama and his wife, Sita, in which Ayodhya is both his birthplace and the capital of the kingdom Kosala. It has also been claimed that Ayodhya is the same city as Saketa, an ancient capital, but this theory is disputed by historians. Most notably, it is the site upon which the first Mughal emperor, Babur, built a mosque in 1528. As Ayodhya grew and developed with the modern age, it became home to not only a mosque but several Hindu and Jain temples as well. The city has been viewed as diverse and sacred to a number of communities that have, overall, lived together without incident. The city came into controversy several times in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, starting with a group of ascetics who, in 1853, declared the

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site of the mosque to be the exact location of Ram’s birth. The group, Nirmohi Akhara (devotees to Hanuman), occupied the site in to demand a temple be built to commemorate Ram’s birthplace or Janmabhumi. To diffuse impending clashes between Hindu and Muslim communities, the local magistrate partitioned inner and outer courtyards for the communities to use. The controversy was largely dormant until 1949, when thousands of pilgrims showed up to the site to chant the Ramacharitamanas, Tulsidas’s poetic version of the Ramayana. The devotional act was to be performed continuously for nine days, but, at the conclusion, two statues of Rama and Sita reportedly appeared inside the mosque. Although this was claimed and propagated widely as a miracle, it was, in fact, a group of people who snuck in and placed the statues inside. As Islam is iconoclastic, the positioning of idols inside the sacred arena was considered highly insulting and provocative, resulting in higher tensions between the two communities and forcing the government to lock the gates of the mosque entirely. In the 1980s, various campaigns to build a Ram Janmabhumi temple on the site appealed to the new wave of Hindu nationalism, but nothing fueled this “Ram fever” like Sagar’s television serial Ramayan. Lavishly costumed and produced, Ramayan was broadcast weekly for a year and a half from 1987 to 1988 and became a national sensation. Cleverly building on the fervor, BJP leader L. K. Advani turned that cultural momentum into political capital and launched a Ram Rath Yatra (religious procession) across India, gathering support to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya. He gathered shilanyas, or foundation bricks, that would supposedly build the base of the temple, as well as political support and increased party visibility. In his wake, however, were waves of communal discord and an increasingly divisive and militant nationalism. This culminated in the destruction of the Babri Masjid (mosque) on December 6, 1992, when an estimated 150,000 karsevaks (volunteers or foot soldiers) stormed the complex and pole-vaulted onto the dome of the structure. Using rebar, stones, and crude tools, the mosque was reduced to rubble in a matter of hours. This event is widely described as the most divisive and tragic event for Hindu-Muslim relations since Partition, and it resulted in a wave of riots and political backpedaling. Although the BJP never overtly called for the mosque’s destruction—only the building of a Ram temple on the site—it was clear that such rhetoric was culpable, and nationalist parties had to reorient themselves in the wake of the event. For some groups, this was hopefully the first of many mosques to be destroyed, considered a positive and much overdue event. For others, it was regrettable and pointed to the work that was needed to ameliorate communal tensions. It is reported that over nine hundred people were killed in the riots that followed the event. Since then, Ayodhya has remained a contested site. Campaigns to build a Ram Janmabhumi temple continue to be part of the BJP’s election manifestos and are

Hinduism: Bhagavad Gita

listed as a goal for other Hindu nationalist organizations. Immediately following the destruction, the government set up the Liberhan Commission to investigate the roles played in the violence, putting scrutiny on dozens of senior BJP and other nationalist party members, including L. K. Advani. Through a series of delays, the report was not concluded and released until 2009, when official blame was placed on the chief minister of UP, Kalyan Singh, and his office. Several BJP members were also charged with instigating the destruction. In 2003, an archeological survey was undertaken with the intention of proving that a Ram temple preceded Babur’s mosque, suggesting that Babur had destroyed a sacred Hindu structure (thus legitimizing the mosque’s inevitable destruction). The findings claimed that the remains of a tenth-century temple were found under the mosque and also that there was evidence of earlier civilizations, dating back to thirteenth century BCE (around the time Rama is believed to have ruled, approximately 9000 years before the Harappa period). These findings were challenged by Muslim groups as absurd and inconclusive, and the case went to the Allahabad High Court. In 2010, the Allahabad High Court ruled that the disputed site in Ayodhya was to be divided equally among three parties: the Nirmohi Akhara (the ascetic group who first made the claim that the site was Ram’s birthplace), the Hindu Mahasabha (a conservative Hindu nationalist organization), and the Sunni Waqf Board (a Muslim organization that manages religious assets). Juli L. Gittinger FURTHER READING Bacchetta, Paola. 2000. “Sacred Space in Conflict in India: The Babri Masjid Affair.” Growth and Change 31, no. 2: 255–84. Bakker, Hans. 1986. Ayodhya: The History of Ayodhya from the 7th Century BC to the Middle of the 18th Century. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Gopal, Sarvepalli, and Romila Thapar, et al. 1990. “The Political Abuse of History: Babri Masjid-Rama Janmabhumi Dispute.” Social Scientist 18, no. 1/2: 76–81.

BHAGAVAD GITA The Bhagavad Gita or “Song of the Lord” is a Sanskrit scripture written sometime between fifth BCE and second CE, generally attributed to Vyasa, the sage character in the Mahabharata. The entire Bhagavad Gita unfolds within a split second, a moment frozen in time on the battlefield, as the hero and middle child of the Pandava clan, Arjuna, stand between his brothers’ armies and that of their cousins, the Kauravas. It is the battle, the pinnacle of the Mahabharata, to which

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all events in the epic have led to. The Gita, however, as a private conversation between Arjuna and Krishna in the moment before battle, is a stand-alone piece of philosophy that expounds on some of the most central tenets of Hindu religion and worldviews—particularly on the topics of karma, dharma, and God. As the story of the Mahabharata narrates, the increased tensions between the five Pandava brothers—Yudhisthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva—and their Kaurava cousins, led by the eldest Duryhodhana, has led to an inevitable battle. Although many moments lead to this point in the Mahabharata (Duryodhana’s attempt on the Pandavas’ lives; the insult to their wife, Draupadi; and the Kauravas’ enduring resentment at the Pandavas’ good fortune), the Pandavas try at multiple points to avoid the war and reconcile with their cousins, to no avail. Thus, the battle day has come, and the parties are arranged grandly on the field. The opening chapter of the Gita is a roll call, listing many important names one would already know from the Mahabharata. The scene is also described as the ground shaking with the sounding of tabors and the blowing of magical conch shells, as the troops arrange themselves. Elephants and horses are present, and armor is gleaming. Arjuna has been established in the Mahabharata as the ultimate Kshatriya (warrior caste), being honorable, noble, and a deadly marksman with a bow. He is driven onto the field by his charioteer, Krishna, who is clearly divine but has not yet revealed his true form to Arjuna. As Arjuna rides into the space between the two armies, it hits him that he is about to go to war with his family and that many elders and cousins for whom he has great respect are about to die. Overcome with emotion, he lets his bow drop, falls to the ground, and begins to weep. What follows is both consolation and chastisement from Krishna, in the form of poetic stanzas of philosophy, which are meant to steel Arjuna’s resolve by changing his understanding of the battle. The battle on the field is not what he perceives: “He who thinks himself a killer/and he who thinks it killed/both fail to understand/ it does not kill, nor is it killed” (BG 2.19). Thus begins Krishna’s exposition. There are persistent themes to Krishna’s lesson. First, that death is part of life, and there is no cause to grieve, even if death comes at one’s own hand. Arjuna is about to kill his cousins, but this is justified both in terms of karma (the Kauravas planted many ill seeds that are now bearing fruit) and in terms of dharma or duty (Arjuna was born for this role; he must fulfill it). Dharma is an especially important theme in the Bhagavad Gita, for, without it, chaos ensues. Other themes include the nature of reality and various yogas or paths one can take in the pursuit of liberation. Krishna directly addresses karma-yoga (the path of action), jñana-yoga (path of knowledge), raja-yoga (the path of discipline), and bhakti-yoga (the path of devotion). While each are given their own exposition, it is bhakti that Krishna ultimate favors: “Relinquishing all sacred duties to me/make me your only refuge/do not grieve/for I shall free you from all evils” (BG 18.66).

Hinduism: Bhagavad Gita

Galvanized by Krishna’s teachings, Arjuna realizes the nature of reality and his role in destiny and engages his enemy. The battle is picked up in the Mahabharata and relayed in great detail, during which all karmic debts are collected and the Pandavas emerge victorious. The Bhagavad Gita has been read as both a “just war” treatise and as a treatise denouncing violence. The more allegorical reading, in which the war is an internal struggle, is supported by the unlikely juxtaposition of such a transcendent teaching with the immanence of a physical war. Eknath Easwaran, Swami Vivekananda, and Mahatma Gandhi all took this position. Gandhi wrote, “The object of the Gita appears to me to be that of showing the most excellent way to attain self-realization. That which is to be found, more or less clearly, spread out here and there in Hindu religious books, has been brought out in the clearest possible language in the Gita even at the risk of repetition” (Gandhi 2010, xviii). Ironically, Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, also cited the Gita as motivation for his actions. In a letter he wrote before his execution, Godse argued, “Lord Krishna, in war and otherwise, killed many a self-opinionated and influential persons for the betterment of the world, and even in the Gita. He has time and again counseled Arjun to kill his near and dear ones and ultimately persuaded him to do so” (Davis 2014, 145). This martial reading of the text remains the more popular interpretation, especially among Hindu nationalist organizations. Interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita as a just war treatise rely largely on the concept of dharma, or duty, and ethical conduct in combat. This is especially relevant for Arjuna, who is a warrior by caste, and thus must fulfill the role of Kshatriya—a noble role and necessary reality for protection of kingdom and family. Arjuna is presented as physically and intellectually ideal: he is not bloodthirsty, although he is clearly made for the task of war, and he has ethical questions regarding the deed he is about to perform. Thus, his actions are valorized as the epitome of bravery and humility. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Christianity: New Testament; Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Islam: Qur’an FURTHER READING Davis, Richard H. 2014. The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gandhi, M. K. 2010. The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Stoler-Miller, Barbara, trans. 1986. The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. New York: Bantam Books.

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BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY(BJP) Unlike the more bifurcated party system of the United States or United Kingdom, India has dozens of political parties, many which are active at the state or provincial levels, and others that compete on the national stage and have representation in the Parliament. Among the “right-wing” oriented parties—those typically associated with Hindu nationalism—the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, “Indian People’s Party) emerged as the dominant party in the Hindu nationalist spectrum and, in 2014, became the overwhelming majority in the Lok Sabha (Parliament of India) as well as having their candidate, Narendra Modi, win the prime minister’s seat. The BJP emerged from the Janata Party, an organization that formed in response to the state of emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977. In the wake of Gandhi’s unpopularity, the Janata Party defeated the Indian National Congress party, which had ruled India since Partition. Although the Janata Party overturned many emergency-era regulations, they were ultimately not able to effect real economic and political changes, and the party soon began to break down. Many party members left and formed a new party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, in 1980. The year 1980 not only marked the birth of the BJP but is also considered the starting point for modern Hindu nationalism. The BJP’s first President, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was tasked with orienting the party as favoring Hindutva ideology while taking a moderate stance in light of increased violence between Hindu and Muslim communities. Lal Krishna Advani, who took over the BJP in 1984, was not as hesitant as Vajpayee and is considered responsible for making the party what it is today. Advani took a more assertive Hindu nationalist stance, prioritizing the goal of a Hindu rashtra (nation), as well as a campaign to build a temple to the god-king Ram on the contested site in Ayodhya, where the Babri mosque had stood for hundreds of years. The Ram Janmabhumi Mandir (“Rama birthplace temple”) became the centerpiece for an effective publicity campaign that simultaneously put the BJP and Hindutva ideology back in the center of the public eye. In 1990, Advani did a cross-country rath yatra (“chariot tour”), riding a ­Toyota truck that was decorated like Ram’s chariot, with Advani himself wielding a bow like that of the god-king. As the tour made its way toward Ayodhya—the intended goal—the campaign raised money for the temple while further agitating communal tensions. In the wake of the tour, Muslims and Hindus clashed, and both the yatra and the incendiary speeches that were promoted during the tour are considered to have instigated the fervor that resulted in the destruction of the Babri mosque in 1992. Although the BJP reeled back some of their more virulent rhetoric after Ayodhya, they kept the Ram Janmabhumi temple project central to their platform, along

Hinduism: Bharatiya Janata Party

with the goal of a Hindu nation. In 1996, they went from 120 to 161 seats in the Lok Sabha and, in 1998, peaked at 182. In the first decade of the 2000s, their popularity took a dive. After 2001, possibly exacerbated by the 9/11 tragedy in the United States and the rising Islamophobia worldwide, the BJP found that incendiary rhetoric was not as effective. Additionally, the BJP-led government in Gujarat was criticized for their role in the 2002 riots, which also painted the party as divisive and radical. As their seats in the Lok Sabha waned to an all-time low in 2009, they were forced to redirect their campaign efforts away from the ideological and toward the practical. With Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a model for successfully implementing economic growth programs (despite the 2002 riots), the BJP concentrated on development, infrastructure, and modernization of technology. Although Hindutva ideology was still present, it was framed more toward “cultural nationalism” than a “Hindu nation.” This strategy paid off: in 2014, Narendra Modi not only became prime minister of India, but the BJP took 282 seats in the Lok Sabha. Modi’s charisma and deft use of social media are especially credited for the win. Under Modi’s India, the BJP seem to have returned to a more “saffron agenda.” At one level, Modi is aggressively promoting continued change and development, relying on his economic record in Gujarat as a model. He has taken a more aggressive position on immigrants and terrorism, in many ways mirroring U.S. policies, and has made Jammu-Kashmir a centerpiece of the BJP platform rather than Ayodhya. At another level, however, there are shades of the more radical Hindutva ideology in his policies: he has declared that all his public speeches will be in Hindi rather than English (dismissing Westernization but also favoring North Indian and upper caste constituencies), favors a Uniform Civil Code (doing away with Muslim personal law), and has supported several state governments and leaders who more explicitly align with hard-line Hindu nationalism. As of 2017, the BJP had chief ministers in thirteen states, accounting for almost all of the “saffron belt” in the north. Many of these positions are controversial, notably Yogi Adityanath, who was appointed after the BJP won elections in UP. Adityanath is regarded as openly hostile to Muslims and a firebrand Hindutva proponent, whose speeches are highly provocative. Other members of the BJP have also been criticized for more radical politics in recent years. Babu Lal, Suresh Rana, and Kundanika Sharma all had an FIR (First Information Report, a legal citation) filed against them for hate speeches that were intended to stir up communal hatred. The real dangers, however, come not from the party leaders as much as the party followers. Modi, in particular, has a huge following of Hindutva-wallas who are engaged in cyber-activism and continue to promote conservative agendas in social media. Although Modi himself does not participate in anti-Muslim hate campaigns, he follows and supports many Twitter

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accounts of those who do—suggesting that the BJP fan base may be promoting the propaganda that the party itself won’t dare promote, although it seems entirely complicit in its ideologies. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Gujarat Riots (2002); Hindutva FURTHER READING Bharatiya Janata Party. ­www​.­bjp​.­org. Chowdhry, Geeta. 2000. “Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindu Right in India.” In Mary Ann Tétreault, ed. Women, States, and Nationalism: At Home in the Nation. London: Routledge, pp. 98–118. Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. 2009. Hindu Nationalism: A Reader. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2015. “The Modi-Centric BJP 2014 Election Campaign: New Techniques and Old Tactics.” Contemporary South Asia 23, no. 2: 151–66.

BHUTANESE HINDUS, PERSECUTION OF Bhutan is a country in South Asia, neighboring Tibet and India. Bhutan is understood to be a Buddhist theocracy and has a reputation of being hostile to its Hindu population. Hindu citizens have little representation in government or ability to practice their religion freely, as the constitution would suggest, and ultimately endured a forced expulsion that has thousands of Bhutanese Hindus homeless and stateless to this day. Bhutan’s first Constitution was drafted in 2005, declaring the country to be a “democratic constitutional monarchy”—a contradiction in terms, since the country has been a consistent monarchy since 1907. Nevertheless, general elections for a National Assembly began in 2008, with two main political parties: the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT, “Peace and Prosperity Party”) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The DPT won forty-five of forty-seven seats in 2008, and the PDP overtook the elections in 2013, including PDP leader Tshering Tobgay winning the role of prime minister. The “Dragon King” or fifth Druk Gyalpo is the official head of state, presently Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (2017). Although Buddhism is the official religion in Bhutan, according to the Constitution, “A Bhutanese citizen shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. No person shall be compelled to belong to another faith by means of coercion or inducement” (Article 7.4). Demographically, 75 percent of Bhutan is Buddhist, with 22 percent Hindu, and the remaining percentages are small

Hinduism: Bhutanese Hindus, Persecution of

populations of Christian, Muslim, and animism. All religious groups must register with the government, but, according to the Hindu Human Rights Report 2017, there are ninety-five registered Buddhist organizations and only one Hindu organization. Formal registration allows groups to publicly organize, own property, fund-raise, and promote through outreach activities—restricting the number of Hindu organizations, therefore, impinges on the ability to freely practice religion. There are also no political parties to represent Hindus’ interests. Ethnic tensions have long been a part of Bhutan’s political landscape. The Lhotshampas, a Hindu Nepalese ethnic minority, reportedly have been discriminated against through policies that attempt to annihilate cultural, religious, and linguistic differences under the slogan, “One Nation, One People.” This institutionalized discrimination is part of a project to create a unified national identity that dictates dress codes, speech, and social manners (such as bowing before authorities). It is also forbidden to teach the Nepali language in schools. This erasure of cultural differences can be understood as a violence in itself, countermanding the multiethnic and pluralist society that is claimed in the Constitution. It is also reminiscent of the systematic marginalization of the Tibetans under Chinese rule—a tragic parallel one would hope would be obvious to a Buddhist ruler. Accounting for one fifth of Bhutan’s population at the time, the Lhotshampas were exiled from the country in the 1990s, forcing 108,000 refugees into camps or into migrating to the West, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. This deportation has been called an “ethnic cleansing” by numerous HRW groups, and accounts from victims tell of intimidation and violence in removing families from the regions. Foreign governments have spent millions of dollars in assistance and protection programs for refugees, but prolonged exile has made the Lhotshampas stateless and falling behind in education and advancement. The governments of Bhutan, Nepal, and India have since negotiated how to address these challenges, with the idea of repatriation among the solutions. Resettlement programs began in November 2007. The Hindu American Foundation reports that as of August 2011, almost fifty thousand refugees had been resettled, with the majority of those coming to the United States. Approximately 76,000 refugees remain in camps in Nepal, relying on the United Nations and global non-governmental organizations for care and food. Refugees in India have not been granted formal refugee status and work as manual laborers to survive. Those who remain or were repatriated face discrimination in employment and a lack of education, health care, and property rights. Bhutanese Hindu refugees who have settled in the United States report that they receive pressure to convert from local Christian organizations. Human Rights Watch (2003) reports that Nepalese women and girls frequently suffer sexual violence at the hands of Bhutanese police and army. Accounts of rape

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and forced labor were reported in the 1990s, leading up to the deportation of the Nepalese Hindus. Such violence was often used as a means of coercion to get the victim to sign a “voluntary migration certificate.” Once in the camps, accounts of domestic violence and child marriage against Nepalese refugees were common occurrences in Bhutan. Early disputes around the treatment of Hindus in Bhutan also involved temple construction, which require government licenses to build. The government widely subsidized Buddhist monasteries and shrines but have allegedly been circumspect in supporting Hindu temple construction. After the deportation of Lhotshampas in the 1990s, the government reportedly closed Hindu temples in a number of cities and turned Sanskrit schools in Lamidara, Surey, and Dagapela into army barracks. As cities and villages were emptied, Bhutanese were “resettled” into the areas, often changing the Nepali names to Drukpa Buddhist names. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks; Anti-Muslim Attacks FURTHER READING Hindu American Foundation. 2017. Hindus in South Asia and Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights, ­2017​. ­https://­www​.­hafsite​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­HAF​-­HinduHuman RightsReport2017​.­pdf. Human Rights Watch. 2003. Trapped by Inequality: Bhutanese Refugee Women in Nepal. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­reports​/­2003​/­nepal0903​/­nepal0903​.­pdf. U.S. Department of State. 2005. Bhutan: International Religious Freedom Report 2005. ­https://​­2009​-­2017​.­state​.­gov​/­j​/­drl​/­rls​/­irf​/­2005​/­51617​.­htm.

DALITS, VIOLENCE AGAINST One of the most recognizable features of Hindu culture is the caste system, a social hierarchy that has been present for centuries as an idealized division of occupational roles but that arguably crystalized into the more rigid system of class division during colonial periods (Dirks 2011). Outside the four varna (literally “color” in Sanskrit) or castes, as laid out in the Vedic texts, are a group called the Dalits. These members of society have been called “untouchables” or “outcastes,” and they occupy the lowest rungs of Indian society, as they do the most menial and dirtiest work. Discrimination against Dalits is illegal, yet it persists in many parts of India. It is important to note that Dalits often identify as non-Hindu. This minority identity allows for collective political rights and can be viewed as potentially antagonistic to Hindu identity or as potential targets for conversion into the Hindu

Hinduism: Dalits, Violence Against

fold. Anupama Rao says that a Dalit public coalesced in the 1920s, organizing politically in nonviolent protests for access to public water sources. Led by B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), ten thousand Dalits and Dalit sympathizers participated in a satyagraha (nonviolent demonstration) in Mahad in 1927—considered to be a landmark event in Dalit politics. Portions of the Manusmriti were burned to protest the ostracization of low castes and the social exclusion of women (Rao 2009, 79–80). The protesters marched to the main water tank in town and drank from it and maintained their nonviolent posture despite threats of physical violence. As the Mahad Satyagraha demonstrated, the right to access water—as well as the right to enter a temple—are issues of a Dalit’s right to exist and to partake in public spaces. As protests carried into the 1930s, Gandhian techniques of nonviolent resistance were central to the Dalit satyagraha movements, although temple entry remained of paramount importance. Various bills were passed to allow case-by-case changes in local customs, but it was not until the Bombay Hindu Places of Public Worship (Entry Authorization) Act of 1956 that temples were opened to all classes of Hindus. Despite these small victories, Dalit oppression remained visible and as an intrinsic part of modern Hinduism. While Gandhi argued for Dalit personhood, giving them the name harijan or “children of God,” his view of castes was still couched in Hindu orthodoxy. His political rival, Ambedkar, still saw the incorporation of Dalits into the Hindu framework as problematic and identified caste itself as a system of violence. Violence, he argued, was in the form of civic exclusion and dehumanization that legitimized injustice in the name of religion. For this reason, Ambedkar, a Dalit himself, ultimately rejected Hinduism and converted to Buddhism, taking an estimated four hundred thousand Dalits with him and creating a legacy of Dalit Buddhism in India. Caste violence against Dalits has remained an issue in modern India. The 1985 Karamchedu massacre, 1996 Bathani Tola massacre in Bihar, and 2000 Karnataka violence are only a few of the more recent flare-ups in which Dalits have been targeted and murdered. Motivations for violence against Dalits is varied: retaliation for protests, land disputes, or what could be categorized as hate crimes. Rajasthan in particular has become the state with the highest reported incidents against Dalits, with over thirty-four thousand cases recorded under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act in 2010. In 2015 and 2016, there was an increase in violence against Dalits, targeted for eating beef. Hindu nationalists who have taken on the vigilante role of gau rakshaks, or cow protectors, target Dalits communities, including Chamars (leather workers), who are sometimes responsible for collecting cow carcasses. Beef is also an affordable meat and consumed by many Dalit (and Muslim) communities, and it is not illegal to slaughter a bull in most states. Mob lynchings and public beatings have increased in recent years, notably the four Dalit men in Gujarat who were

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publicly beaten in July 2016. The video of this beating was uploaded onto YouTube and provoked outrage among the Dalit community, resulting in seven Dalit men attempting suicide to publicly protest the beatings. Suicide as a response to repeated caste violence and ostracization is not unusual among Dalit communities. The 2016 suicide of University of Hyderabad student, Rohith Vemula, is only one of many student suicides that have occurred on Indian campuses in the last decade. Vemula was repeatedly harassed on campus and lost his financial fellowship after he joined the Ambedkar Students Association—considered to be an agitating organization. In a heartbreaking suicide note, published in several Indian newspapers, he wrote, “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of stardust. In very field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.” Vemula was the ninth student in ten years to commit suicide at the university. Caste violence is also an aspect of gender violence, with Dalit women being particularly vulnerable to rape and other assault. According the India’s National Crime Records Bureau, at least four Dalit women are raped every day in India. The dehumanization is twofold: as Dalits, they are casteless and low, and as women, they are second-class citizens. Thus, their bodies are forfeited to upper-caste men—ideas of untouchability and impurity do not seem to apply when it comes to sex. Dalit women are frequently raped as a form of retaliation and to suppress movements that demand better wages or to reclaim lost land (Narula 1999, 31). Unprotected by state machinery such as police, Dalit women are easy targets. Violence against Dalits remains today, both in physical forms such as rape, beatings, arson, or murder, and in the psychological violence of caste division and oppression. In rural areas, Dalits are segregated from caste Hindus, lack access to basic resources, and have high illiteracy rates (especially among women). The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 was amended in 2014 to include more specific language about what offenses were punishable, including those that are derogatory in nature (sexual gestures, touching, verbal abuse, etc.). Consistent enforcement of these transgressions, however, remains lax. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks; Anti-Muslim Attacks; Bhutanese Hindus, Persecution of FURTHER READING Dirks, Nicholas B. 2011. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas Narula, Smita. 1999. Broken People: Caste Violence against India’s “Untouchables.” New York: Human Rights Watch. Nichenametla, Prasad. 2012. “Rajasthan Tops List of Atrocities against Dalits.” Hindustan Times,  May  3,  2012. ­http://​­www​.­hindustantimes​.­com​/­india​/­rajasthan​-­tops​-­list​-­of​ -­atrocities​-­against​-­dalits​/­story​-­cnwj7dN5w0iauR2pDxNG1J​.­html. Rao, Anupama. 2009. The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

DELHI GANG RAPE. See SINGH, JYOTI (1989–2012), GANG RAPE OF GANDHI, MOHANDAS(1869–1948) (MAHATMA, GANDHIANISM) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi remains an icon of nonviolent resistance, a spiritual ideal he cultivated into a political force in both South Africa and in India. His legacy has influenced other civil rights activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Drawing from the Indic concept of ahimsa or “do no harm,” Gandhi stands apart as a peaceful figure during the period of chaos and violence leading up to India’s Partition. He is more frequently referenced as “Mahatma,” an honorific title meaning “great soul.” Gandhi was born into a Vaishya (merchant) caste family in Gujarat. His upbringing was fairly typical, and his school grades were average. He was described as a mischievous child and a reckless youth. His religious upbringing was largely influenced by his mother, a Krishna bhakti or devotee who taught her son that the Bhagavad Gita held universal truths found not only in Hindu tradition, but in Christianity and Islam as well. His father was a political figure in Porbandar, where they lived. Gandhi was married to wife, Kasturbai, at the age of thirteen—not unusual for the time period—but this young alliance motivated him in later years to campaign against child marriage. In his autobiography, Gandhi recounts being very sexually eager. Kasturbai living with her parents still at this time. His sexual appetite is recounted with some remorse due to a particular event: when Gandhi was sixteen, and Kasturbai was seventeen, she was pregnant with their first child. Even though she was in the late stages of her pregnancy, Gandhi could not resist her and had sex with her. That evening, his father passed away, and their child died shortly after it was born. These events are said to have traumatized young Gandhi and greatly influence his ideas of celibacy in years to come.

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After the birth of their first surviving child, Gandhi left to pursue a law degree in London at the age of eighteen. Before departing, his mother brought him before a Jain priest and had him take vows of vegetarianism, abstention from alcohol, and celibacy—things she feared would be tempting in London. He held to his vows, although he tried to adopt British customs in every other way. He joined a vegetarian society and read the Bhagavad Gita with the organization. When he was twenty-two, he returned home to India to learn that his mother had passed away while he was abroad and that his family had kept this news secret. Gandhi settled into a law practice in Bombay but reportedly was not very good at cross-examination—a task that required a sort of ferocity that he did not possess. He was offered a position by a friend in Johannesburg, South Africa, which he accepted, and he left India once again at the age of twenty-three. In South Africa, Gandhi’s social ideologies were cultivated; for the first time, he was discriminated against because of his skin color and was called “coolie” and other pejorative terms. He was shocked to discover that he could not sit in the first-class train car, even though he was dressed and spoke like a proper English gentleman. Other incidents followed, making him feel humiliated and questioning his own role as a subject of the British Empire. At the conclusion of his contracted job in Johannesburg, Gandhi devoted his energy to challenging discriminatory laws against Indians in South Africa, including campaigning for their right to vote. He organized the Indian community, often acting as a legal advisor for those who needed it, and remained politically active. Gandhi is said to have read Thoreau’s On the Duty of Civil Disobedience while in South Africa, citing it as an influential text. During this time, his concept of satyagraha (“truth is god” or “truth force”) became fully formed, and, by 1910, he established a retreat called “Tolstoy Farm” outside of Johannesburg. This became a commune of sorts for those interested in the concept of satyagraha and in living in a community where ethnicity and religion did not matter. As his followers continued to organize in protests, he encouraged nonviolence, even in the face of harsh treatment. In 1913, he led a group of Indians across state lines—a blatant violation of the law—crossing from Natal to Transvaal. After several men and women were arrested, local Indian miners were persuaded to go on strike in protest of the arrests. The march and the strike made headlines in Britain and India and galvanized the budding movement. The eventual reward of continued protests and strikes in South Africa resulted in the Indian Relief Bill in 1914, which validated Hindu, Muslim, and Parsee marriages; annulled the tax on indentured laborers; and planned a complete cessation of indenturing Indians for labor by 1920. This was viewed as a great victory of the satyagraha movement, but Gandhi continued to refine his ideas of nonviolent resistance, even as he returned to India in 1915. He joined the Indian National

Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas

Congress and became familiar with the tensions between the ruling British and the ever-growing resentment of the Indians, although he did not participate in political activism in those early years of his return. The year 1919 is often marked as a turning point for Gandhi, who entered the political arena at this time as the historical figure for which he would be remembered. First, the passing of the Rowlatt Act (which could punish any crimes considered “revolutionary” or instigating against the British) provoked civil disobedience under the auspices of satyagraha, resulting in Gandhi’s arrest. People rioted and mobilized further, including the famous gathering in Amritsar outside the Sikh’s holy Golden Temple, during which hundreds of protestors were shot down by the British Army. Called the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, this is noted as a watershed moment for Gandhi, who called for a cease in rioting and underwent a death-fast. This act of nonviolent civil disobedience in the face of horrible violence was viewed as inspiring. Adding to satyagraha, Gandhi also added principles of swaraj and swadeshi to his policies of civil disobedience—“self-rule” and the boycotting of foreign made goods, respectively. He called for men and women to protest peacefully and rediscover the tradition of making homespun cloth or khadi to demonstrate independence from foreign goods. This movement of “non-cooperation” grew, drawing from all castes and genders. Gandhi is credited with getting women out of the house and into public spaces—although only for the purpose of activism—which provides women with an important social role that was previously unavailable to them. One of his most famous protests was the Salt Satyagraha, or Salt March, in 1930. Eight percent of the British revenue came from taxes on salt, a substance that people were prohibited from gathering or selling on their own. Gandhi led thousands of Indians across a distance of over 240 miles from Sabermati to Dandi, a small town on the Arabian Sea, where his followers proceeded to gather salt deposits from the tide line. The British arrested more than sixty thousand people, including Gandhi. During World War II, Gandhi started the Quit India Movement, calling for the end of British rule in India. In 1942, he gave his famous Quit India Speech, during which he reiterated his ideas of ahimsa, nonviolent resistance, the struggle for truth, and a call for Hindu-Muslim unity. Despite the call for unity, the Muslim League were not in favor of Gandhi’s ideal of a unified and independent India, certain that, as minorities, Muslims would be oppressed. For this reason, the leader of the Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, campaigned for a “two nation” solution that would result in an independent Pakistan. Gandhi greatly opposed this, arguing that dividing the country along religious lines would be disastrous, not to mention that dividing loyalties took away from the momentum to get the British

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out once and for all. As Gandhi foretold, Partition was one of the bloodiest and most traumatic events of India’s history, displacing thousands of people, as they moved across the newly drawn borders and resulting in horrific acts of violence from Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. He protested the violent aftermath with fasting, hoping to put an end to the hostilities and resentments. Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948, a few months after Partition. Godse, a devout Hindu and former member of the RSS, saw Gandhi as a betrayer to his country (in accepting the formation of Pakistan) and legitimized taking Gandhi’s life through the “just war” theology of the Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi was shot in the chest three times at point-blank range and died instantly. Prime Minister Nehru addressed the nation, giving them the sad news, stating, “The light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere” (Nehru 1948). For many Indians, Gandhi’s martyrdom and memory continue to inspire ideals of nonviolent resistance and satyagraha. Although Gandhi’s name is synonymous with nonviolence, he did not promote pacifism as an absolute. “Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence” (Finkelstein 2012, 36), he wrote on the subject of World War I. Gandhi did extend the idea of nonviolence to animals, something already ingrained by his Hindu mother as well as the Jain community in Gujarat. His dietary restraints were connected to the idea of brahmacharya (celibacy), believing that the best servants to the nation were ones with discipline over their minds and bodies. He was a supporter of cow protection, a movement that gained currency with budding Hindu nationalists, who were eager to highlight traditions that were contrary to Muslim and Christian practices. His legacy has inspired nonviolent civil disobedience movements around the world. Martin Luther King Jr. called him “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change” (Weber 2004, 171), while Nelson Mandela saw the efficacy of such resistance, stating in his autobiography, “For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy.” Buddhist monk and Vietnam activist Thich Nhat Hanh points to Gandhi’s discipline and perseverance: “He knew how to preserve energy because the struggle is long, so spiritual practice is very much needed in an attempt to help change society” (Confino 2013). Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Bhagavad Gita; Dalits, Violence against; Partition (1947) FURTHER READING Confino, Jo. 2013. “Zen Master Thich Nhat Han: Only Love Can Save Us from Climate Change.” The Guardian. January 21, 2013. ­https://​­www​.­theguardian​.­com​/­sustainable​ -­business​/­zen​-­master​-­thich​-­nhat​-­hanh​-­love​-­climate​-­change.

Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation Finkelstein, Norman G. 2012. What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolence, Resistance, and Courage. New York and London, UK: O/R Books. Gandhi, Mahatma. 1948. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Courier Corporation. Gandhi, Mahatma. 1997. Gandhi: “Hind Swaraj” and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Iyer, Raghavan Narasimhan. 2000. The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nehru, Jawaharlal. 1948. Broadcast address on All India Radio, January 30, 1948. Transcript on The Hindu, January 30, 2013. ­https://​­www​.­thehindu​.­com​/­opinion​/­op​ -­ed​/­we​-­must​-­hold​-­together​/­article4358063​.­ece. Sharma, Arvind. 2013. Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press. Weber, Thomas. 2004. Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(HINDUISM) The subject of gender and sexuality is highly contested in relation to Hinduism, with differing philosophical positions on social hierarchy, karmic status, sexuality, and personal agency. As Hinduism ascribes to a karmic merit system, through which one is reborn according to good or bad karma accrued in previous lives, this not only informs caste status but also gender. For example, to be born a woman is viewed as having a lower birth, thus a result of poor karma in a previous life. While there are traditions that venerate and celebrate women’s status as wives, mothers, and even goddesses, this fundamental karmic truth informs much of Hindu cultural practice on the ground with regard to gender. There are also tensions between sexuality and celibacy, both framed in religious contexts. Last, the presence of the third gender makes this topic even more complex. The earliest Hindu text, the Rigveda, emphasizes women’s reproductive roles and expectation to have many children—preferably sons. Once a woman has produced a son, then she is fully integrated into her husband’s family, and her status improves. Until she has produced an heir, her status is liminal; afterward, she gains considerable social status. For women, the householder phase, or grihastha, is the most important of the four ashramas, or stages of life. Traditional roles for men and women are quite obvious in Hindu literature. In the Mahabharata and Ramayana, husbands are to bravely protect their wife (or wives), honor vows made to them, and demand loyalty. Wives are to be pure, obedient, and morally sound. For men, god-king figures such as Rama epitomize such idealizations, though Arjuna’s martial skills, Yudhisthira’s wisdom, and Bhishma’s honor are also highlighted as admirable qualities. For women, Sita’s devotion to her husband and purity are highlighted, while Draupadi is sometimes viewed as a bit too strong-willed.

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While the social mores of gender roles can be contextually gleaned from the Epics, there are several Hindu texts that are more specific. Manusmriti, or the Laws of Manu, is a text belonging to the dharmashastra (legal verses) tradition and became understood as an exemplary Hindu scriptural text during the British colonial period. Although there are numerous texts that speak to legal and social prescriptions, Manu became popularized by Orientalists and has come to occupy—rightly or wrongly—a central position in Hindu tradition. Manu has many famous expositions on the topic of women, perhaps most famously: “Her father protects (her) in childhood, her husband protects (her) in youth, and her sons protect (her) in old age; a woman is never fit for independence” (Manu 9.3). Women are described as prurient, impure, and inherently corrupt. Despite apparent sexism and misogyny, Hinduism also has a robust sexuality among its texts, particularly among Tantric traditions, in which the female power or shakti is a dynamic, creative force that balances out the nonpersonified cosmic energy of Brahman or, personified, as the destructive essence of Shiva. In Tantric rituals, things that are typically considered inauspicious or unclean (meat, alcohol, sex, death) are inverted and highly valued. Kama or pleasure is one of the four goals that all Hindus pursue, with the understanding that this is a natural pursuit during the second phase of life, as a householder (i.e., as a husband or wife). The Kama Sutra is a notoriously famous, if not misunderstood, text that details various techniques and positions of sexual intercourse (although most of the book is a guide to gracious living). The temple at Khajuraho is another monument to sexuality that is highlighted in Western eyes, although only a small portion of it is covered with explicit carvings of erotic art. This fascination with Hindu sexuality represents an Orientalism that is arguably resented by Indian natives, who posit contrary narratives of piety and celibacy. Hindu sexuality does not only represent men and women. In April 2014, the Supreme Court of India officially recognized a third gender, granting rights to those who identify as hijra. This ruling would theoretically make accommodations for hijra in quotas for jobs and education, the same as those other minorities in India receive, putting them into the “other backward castes” (OBC) schedules. However, this ruling followed only months after the Supreme Court overturned the law that had decriminalized gay sex, now making same-sex relationships punishable by imprisonment. This paradox not only reflects prejudices and issues around alternate sexual identities and practices, but the juxtaposition of ambivalence and acceptance of third-gender persons in India. While India’s category of “third gender” appears to offer a fluidity that is absent in Western discourse, it is also limiting in that is has been used to exclude parts of the transgender community. Third gender is a category for those who identify as neither man nor woman—something that would apply to eunuchs and hijra

Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

communities but that would not be a correct categorization for those who identify as transmen or transwomen and/or have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. The hijra also have a connection to classic Indian literature, appearing in the Ramayana. When Rama was exiled into the forest, his entire kingdom followed, quite upset by his departure. He turned and asks the men and women to go home, and then went into the forest. Upon his return fourteen years later, he found that the hijras (falling into neither “men” nor “women” categories) have been keeping vigil at the forest’s edge since his departure. Rama blesses them for their devotion. There is no accurate count of hijra in India today, though estimates put the figure at fifty thousand—a small fraction of what scholars estimate to be half a million to two million transgender persons in India. The term is often used to refer to eunuchs (those without female or male anatomy), although traditionally, hijra were understood to be either men—or on rare occasion, a biological androgyne—who identify as women and undergo a ritual castration in dedication to the goddess Bahuchara Mata. Most hijras who undergo this process have male organs removed but do not have female genitalia constructed. They are eunuchs and have not undergone what we would typically define as a “sex change.” Partly for this reason, hijras have a liminal existence, not only with regard to gender but socially. They have their own class hierarchies, and categorical variance is not exclusively sexually delineated but also along religious, familial, and economic axes. They are characterized by exaggerated mannerisms that would not be appropriate for a typical Indian woman, often dismissed as vulgar or overtly sexual—what Americans would categorize as “drag performance.” As a result, they are frequently stigmatized. Conversely, hijra are also brought in to bless a new baby or marriage, as their presence is meritorious and confers fertility in these contexts. Ethnographic studies inside hijra communities (Jaffrey, Nanda, Reddy) indicate that removal of male organs is required for “authentic” hijra, but more anecdotal reports show that this is not absolutely consistent. Ideally hijra live asexual lives; however, some do work as prostitutes or have male “patrons” who keep them as mistresses. The term “hijra” does not clearly identify the sexual practices of the person. Other terms are sometimes used (kothi “receiving” role, panthi “dominant” role), and there are regional terms such as kinnars in Delhi and aravani in Tamil Nadu. While hijra is widely used for third-gender persons, many transgendered persons dislike the term. For example, a regional group within the transgender community, jogappa, consider themselves very distinct from hijra. Jogappa are dedicated to temples, connecting with the devadasi traditions in southern India but remain physically intact (castration is forbidden), although they live their lives as women. Non-hijra transgenders struggle for acceptance, in part due to the media’s failure to make distinctions between local, transgender communities, such as the jogappa; or

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female-to-male transgenders, such as the Thiranambi in Tamil Nadu; or the more general Hindi word sadhin, for female-to-male. The idea of a “third gender” suggests that India has come to recognize a degree of gender pliancy—that gender is separate from biological sex, and, thus, an intermediary category is necessitated by the inadequacy of the previous binary. This move does not seek to compartmentalize and label as U.S. categories often do but, rather, understands that a loosely collective term is useful for a more disparate transgender community that may identify itself through a variety of terms. There is a long list of gender- and sexuality-related violence in India. One practice is “dowry deaths,” the murder of a married woman (frequently alleged to be by the in-laws) over dissatisfaction with the daughter or dispute over dowry (the wealth a bride brings to the groom’s family in form of money, goods, appliances, gold, etc.). In 2012, it was estimated that a bride was burned every ninety minutes, with over eighteen thousand reported dowry death cases reported to the National Crime Records Bureau. Another act of gender-related violence is the practice of sati. A historical fascination, the tradition of sati was practiced as recently as 1987. Sati is an act in which the widow climbs upon the funeral pyre of her husband and burns alive. This act was thought to be karmically beneficial to both husband and wife and solved practical issues of getting a widow out of the in-laws’ houses, in addition to preventing the horrible social stigmatization that comes with widowhood in India. Although sati was not widely practiced, its horrific performance was written about by both Mughal and British colonizers, thus popularizing the notion that this was “tradition Hindu religious practice.” The practice was banned in 1829 by provincial governments, and a further criminalization of aiding or abetting sati was passed in 1988, following Roop Kanwar’s sati in 1987. There is a lot of debate about this modern incident and whether or not she was drugged when she went to the funeral pyre. Questions of agency have been central to the debate on sati in academia (see Mani 1998). In India, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people also face discrimination and violence. Homosexuality has long been regarded as taboo in Indian culture and was criminalized in the Indian Penal Code (Section 377). The illegality of same-sex practices has been overturned and turned again in the past decade. As of 2017, Section 377 criminalizes “all penile non-vaginal sexual acts,” which leaves some technical loopholes for, say, lesbian communities. However, only heterosexual marriages are legally recognized, and the LGBT community is consistently harassed or excluded, thereby making such legal distinctions moot until there is true acceptance of LGBT rights and alternate sexual lifestyles. Juli L. Gittinger

Hinduism: Gujarat Riots

See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Mani, Lata. 1998. Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India. Berkeley: University of California Press. Manian, Sunita. 2017. HIV/AIDS in India: Voices from the Margins. London: Routledge. Misra, Geetanjali. 2009. “Decriminalising Homosexuality in India.” Reproductive Health Matters 17, no. 34: 20–28. Nanda, Serena. 1986. “The Hijras of India: Cultural and Individual Dimensions of an Institutionalized Third Gender Role.” Journal of Homosexuality 11, no. 3–4: 35–54. Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. 2002. Dowry Murder: The Imperial Origins of a Cultural Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand. Reddy, Gayatri. 2003. “‘Men’ Who Would Be Kings: Celibacy, Emasculation, and the Re-Production of Hijras in Contemporary Indian Politics.” Social Research: An International Quarterly 70, no. 1: 163–200.

GUJARAT RIOTS(2002) The Gujarat Riots of 2002, also frequently referenced as the Gujarat Pogroms, were the result of a tragic incident that was followed by confusing reports and rumor ending in one of the worst spates of violence India has seen in recent years. The event has become especially controversial for two reasons: the misinformation about the events that actually transpired furthered the violence between Hindu and Muslim communities, and the provincial government did little to stop the violence—which has remained a stain on the former chief minister of Gujarat and the dominant political party of the region, the BJP. The incident started with the Sabarmati Express train, which had stopped in Godhra station on February 27, 2002. The train was filled with approximately seventeen hundred Hindu pilgrims, who were coming from Ayodhya, the mythological place of Rama’s birth (and location of the 1992 Babri Masjid riots). As frequently occurs with Indian train travel, the stop meant riders could get out on the platform to stretch their legs and have a cup of tea. The chaiwallas, or tea vendors, in Godhra were largely Muslim, and some scuffling and shouting matches reportedly ensued between the two communities.

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It is here that we have confusing reports. The initial account was that as pilgrims loaded back onto the train, they were harassed by the Muslim vendors and had objects thrown at them. Someone pulled the emergency brake before the train was all the way out of the station, and the Muslim mob reportedly surrounded the train, still throwing things and beating on the sides of the cars. The passengers shut their windows for protection, sealing themselves in. The train eventually pulled out again, and then stopped shortly afterward. The initial report was that a Muslim had thrown a Molotov cocktail into the car, and coach S-6 was engulfed in flames. Fifty-eight men, women, and children, mostly Hindu, died in the fire. With the help of forensic evidence and the gathering of witness accounts months later, a different story emerged. After the verbal battle on the platform, the train pulled away, but a few dozen pilgrims were left behind, and scrambled onto the cars. As the train slowly pulled away, they shouted to the sizable station crowd and the area around that the Muslims had attacked them. Word spread quickly, and, by the second time the train stopped (again, no one is sure why the emergency brake was pulled), there was a physical battle between Hindu and Muslim onlookers, including the throwing of bricks, bottles, and stones. The windows were shut, and, as the train pulled away, its locks were reset. The fire started soon after, with tragic results—not from a Molotov cocktail as initially reported but likely from an explosion inside the car. A travelling cooking stove has been posited as one possibility. In any case, it was not an act of terrorism. This, however, was not the story that circulated on that evening in 2002. The word was that Muslims had assaulted a train full of pilgrims, become violent, instigated a riot, and then burned a car full of innocent Hindus to a crisp. The conspiracy spread, and police arrested Muslims who allegedly participated in the incident. It was rumored that this was a Muslim conspiracy from the highest clerics, and hostility against the Muslim population in Gujarat reached a boiling point. For days afterward, violence against the Muslim residents ensued, in what can only be described as pogroms. The documentary “Final Solution” by Rakesh Sharma reveals firsthand accounts by Muslims (mostly women) who watched, as their families were butchered and raped during the riots. The total destruction has been estimated to be in the range of one to two thousand dead (three times as many Muslims as Hindu casualties), 223 missing, and twenty-five hundred injured. The chief minister of Gujarat at the time was Narendra Modi (the current prime minister), lauded for the infrastructure improvements and economic growth in Gujarat under his ten-year administration but sharply criticized for his culpability in the 2002 riots. He has been accused of condoning the violence and to let it “play out” rather than condemning it the moment it started, calling it a “chain of action and reaction” (Nussbaum 2009, 26). Police did nothing to stop the rioters,

Hinduism: Hindu Mahasabha

having been instructed to not intervene and, in fact, encouraged the Hindu mob in their violence that included lynchings, rape, assault, and arson. The magazine Tehelka carried out a six-month undercover investigation in 2007 that resulted in video evidence that the riots were organized and supported by Gujarat police and Chief Minister Modi. The video also implicated several members of the Bajrang Dal (a militant Hindu nationalist group) and the BJP (one of India’s main political parties). Nonetheless, in 2011, the Gujarat High Court ruled that the incident was a preplanned conspiracy by the Muslims, even though evidence points to the contrary. For critics of Modi, the 2002 riots remain a stain on his office, one that has even affected international relations. Many Indians in the diaspora saw the Gujarat Pogroms as a deliberate human rights violation. A U.S. group called Coalition against Genocide (CAG), comprised mostly of Gujarati Indians, undertook letter-writing and phone-call campaigns to the U.S. Department of State, and, in 2005, President Bush revoked Modi’s visa. The visa was reinstated by President Obama in 2014, after Modi became prime minister. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) FURTHER READING Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2012. “Gujarat 2002: What Justice for the Victims?” Economic and Political Weekly 47, no. 8: 77–89. Nussbaum, Martha. 2009. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Sarkar, Tanika. 2002. “Semiotics of Terror: Muslim Children and Women in Hindu Rashtra.” Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 28: 2872–76. Sharma, Rakesh. 2003. “Final Solution.” DVD. ­http://​­rakeshfilm​.­com​/­finalsolution​.­htm.

HINDU MAHASABHA The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha (All-India Hindu Grand Council), or simply Hindu Mahasabha, is one of India’s older Hindu nationalist organizations, forming in 1909. The group was formed in response to the All India Muslim League and the Minto-Morley reforms, which gave the Muslims in British India a separate electorate. The Hindu Mahasabha was created to protect Hindu rights in a political landscape that was increasingly divisive, as the British struggled to maintain control of India. Although the Hindu Mahasabha do not occupy the political stage in the way other Hindu nationalist parties do, they are ever present and intertwined

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with modern, radical Hindu nationalism, with their former leader Savarkar and his idea of a Hindu nation. While the Hindu Mahasabha has not risen to the power of other nationalist organizations, such as the RSS or the BJP, it has remained a presence at the periphery of Indian politics. Its members have included V. D. Savarkar and Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, both of whom were highly influential in creating Hindu nationalist ideologies that are still present in modern politics. Since its inception, the organization has been antagonistic to the Indian National Congress, whose secular policies are seen by the Mahasabha as favoring minority religions. The Hindu Mahasabha remained in the background during the most visibly demonstrative protests prior to Partition. During the Quit India Movement, which was spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi, the organization cautioned against joining the boycott movement or in any open agitation against the British Raj. Savarkar, in particular, was a critic of Gandhi and was implicated in the assassination conspiracy, although he was acquitted due to lack of evidence. The death of Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, is celebrated by the Hindu Mahasabha as Balidan Diwas, or a day to remember the sacrifice of martyrs. The Hindu Mahasabha embraces Savarkar’s ideological vision of India as a “Hindu nation,” ethnocentrism, support of the caste system, and the belief that Christianity and Islam are foreign religions (see “Hindutva”). They are against secularism, which they see as the “appeasement” of minority religions, particularly Muslims, who have their own religious laws around marriage, divorce, inheritance, and other personal legal matters. For this reason, the Mahasabha supports the idea of a universal civil code, which would abolish the Religious Personal Law in India, again, seeing it as making special provisions rather than understanding “secular” as “equal treatment.” They also support agitation for cow protection and the banning of all beef slaughter and consumption in India. The organization is openly hostile to both Christian and Muslim communities, with fairly incendiary rhetoric demonizing the two religions or categorizing them as utterly foreign to India (and therefore having no place in a Hindu nation). There are numerous articles on their website discussing “rape jihad,” “population jihad,” and forced conversions to Christianity. In response to Islam, especially, which was seen as a cohesive and strong religious culture, the idea of Hindutva or “Hinduness” has become more urgent, and they work toward a goal of homogenous and “pure” Hindu culture in India. U. N. Mukherji’s famous book Hindus: A Dying Race (1909) was used in arguing that Hindus were in danger of becoming extinct in India and, thus, needed defending. The Hindu Mahasabha has been tangentially connected to a number of violent incidents. Direct Action Day (a.k.a. the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946) was a violent communal conflict between Muslims and Hindus in Bengal during the

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British Raj, during which four thousand people were killed. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 was by an RSS member, but Savarkar’s alleged involvement linked the organization to the event as well. The placing of Ram and Sita statues inside the Babri Masjid in 1949—as well as continued agitation for the mosque’s destruction—were also connected to members of the organization. The Hindu Mahasabha is one of the three organizations that have been allotted a third of the disputed site of the former mosque at Ayodhya. More recently, they have been connected to the spate of violence around the issue of cow protection. Criticizing the BJP as being lax on the subject, despite the party’s rhetoric of cow protection, the Mahasabha has positioned their campaign as “eco-friendly” (against the destruction of animals), although it clearly targets Muslims who slaughter animals for holidays and consume beef regularly. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Hindutva; Saffron Terrorism FURTHER READING Bapu, Prabhu. 2013. Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India, 1915–1930: Constructing Nation and History. Vol. 13. London: Routledge. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 1999. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s: Strategies of Identity-Building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India). London: Penguin Books India.

HINDUTVA The term “Hindtuva” is a Sanskrit neologism for “Hindu-ness” and was popularized by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 treatise Hindutva―Who Is a Hindu? Savarkar extended Hindu-ness beyond religious adherence to a term of ethnic nationalism and outlined what he saw as a potential for a Hindu rashtra (nation). This document proved to be highly influential and is generally considered to mark the epoch of twentieth-century nationalist movements, which were undergirded by Independence in 1947. Hindutva has come to mean a range of things, depending on context, time period, and who is employing the term. It can be understood as “cultural nationalism”; “political Hinduism”; “ethnonationalism”; or, in recent decades, “radical, militant Hinduism.” V. D. Savarkar (1883–1966) was born in the village of Bhagur, into a Brahmin family in a long line of landowners and Sanskrit scholars. In 1902, he attended Fergusson College in Pune for his bachelor’s degree, and during this time, he became involved in many political organizations, including the Swadeshi movement and

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Swaraj Party. He openly spoke out against British government through political speeches and protests. In 1906 he went to a small law school in London to be a barrister. Abroad, his political interests only grew, and he organized the Free India Society, which recruited nonresident Indians for the revolutionary nationalist cause. He wrote and circulated controversial criticisms of British policy and was implicated in the assassination of British Member of Parliament, Sir Curzon Wylie. Wylie was actually shot by a Savarkar follower, but his work and lack of denunciation of the act were considered provocative enough that Savarkar was arrested and deported to India in 1910, where he remained in prison until 1924. It was in prison that he wrote Hindutva, which was smuggled out and published by his supporters. Hindutva immediately polarized the political community; some found the work a much needed reenforcement of Indian ideals and identity; others criticized it for political separatism―particularly with regard to Muslims. Nonetheless, Hindutva remains an important piece in the discussion of Indian identity, both as a cultural and a political entity. Hindutva is written in an almost lyrical manner, conveying a romantic yet logical framework upon which Savarkar locates the term “Hindu.” Seductive and patriotic at some moments, pragmatic and pedagogical at others, Savarkar leads the reader through a methodical and historical progression of the term “Hindu,” locating its etymology at the time of the Vedas. Placement of a modern term such as “Hindu” among the time of the Vedas may seem anachronistic, but Savarkar defends this linguistic lineage by what he states is the interchange of letters sa (s) and ha (h). Not only had these people been known to themselves as “Sindhus,” but we have definite records to show that they were known to their surrounding nations—at any rate to one of them—by that very name “Sapta Sindhu.” The letter S in Sanskrit is, at times, changed into H in some of the Prakrit languages, both Indian and non-Indian . . . And then we actually find that the Vedic name of our nation Sapta Sindhu has been mentioned as Hapta Hindu in the Avesta by the ancient Persian people. Thus, in the very dawn on history we find ourselves belonging to the nation of the Sindhus or Hindus and this fact was well known to our learned men even in the Puranic period. (Savarkar 2005 [1923], 6–7)

Hindutva was published in English, presumably because that was the language of the educated and elite—that is, those in positions of power and most able to affect the political landscape. Savarkar made good use of his English proficiency and his British education in the articulation of his ideas in Hindutva. He began his essay by asking the Shakespearean query: “What is in a name?”

Hinduism: Hindutva The very fact that a thing is indicated by a dozen names in a dozen human tongues disarms the suspicion that there is an invariable connection or natural concomitance [sic] between sound and the meaning it conveys. Yet, as the association of the word with the thing it signifies grows stronger and lasts long, so does the channel which connects the two states of consciousness tend to allow an easy flow of thoughts from one to the other till at last it seems almost impossible to separate them. (Savarkar, 2005 [1923], 1)

As an authoritative voice, Savarkar’s first task was both to point toward historical evidence of the origin of the word “Hindu,” as well as to admit that a word can have several meanings, and those meanings are construed through context and discourse. Much of Hindutva is a revelation of that discourse, both pointing outward to language and vernacular uses, as well as actively promoting an internal reiteration of “Hindu” and its definitions, which create an authenticity through their repeated patterns. As Savarkar declares, “Hindutva is not a word but a history,” a central focus of his text addresses the ancient history of India as a blending of two great cultures: the Indus Valley Civilization (a.k.a. Harappa civilization) and the Aryans. Savarkar supports the “Aryan migration theory”—that is, the account of a light-skinned, horse-riding people from central Asia, who migrated to the Harappa area, settled, and comingled. From this comes the “noble bloodline of the Hindus.” Thus, the Aryans are not presented as conquerors who dominated and subsumed the native peoples of the region but, rather, became an integrated part of the continent’s population. This is the retelling of history that Savarkar chooses to present. The other notable and influential element of Savarkar’s text—which has become central to how we understand the ethnonationalism of modern Hindu nationalism—is his definition of “Who Is a Hindu?” Savarkar submits three requisite qualities: jati (race), rashtra (nation), and samskirti (culture). Jati or race, as Savarkar uses the term, refers to that “noble bloodline” previously mentioned—that is, an ethnic identity that is tied to the earliest formation of the Indian people. The second quality, rashtra, is perhaps the crux of Savarkar’s definition, however. His definition of Hindu is a person who regards the land of Bharat as his Fatherland and “holy land.” That is to say, one cannot be a Hindu if one considers a non-Indian place (Mecca, Palestine, Rome) as the holy land. This essentially excludes all foreign religions, notably Islam, thus forever denying nationhood to Indians who are not Hindu. Lastly, a Hindu is one whose culture is expressed in the common classical language of Sanskrit, shares a common history, art, laws and jurisprudence, religious rites and rituals, ceremonies, sacraments, and festivals—that is, the broad category of samskirti. As an ideology, Hindutva had cachet, especially as national identities were newly forming. It became a central tenet and reiterated across various forms of

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propaganda in the 1980s and 1990s, as the BJP formed and began its first ascension in power. Early iterations in BJP propaganda and on its websites position Hindutva as “cultural nationalism,” a seemingly innocent description that does not overtly target non-Hindus but rather holds an idealistic imagining of India as having a historically consistent and uniformly recognizable Hindu tradition that has survived a number of colonial invasions. Another popular tract, “Hindutva: The Great Nationalist Ideology” (no author attributed), has been on the BJP websites since 1996 and remains an important piece of propaganda, reiterating the proud history of the Hindu people, the repeated assault of invaders, the idea of sanatana dharma (eternal truth), and calling for the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya to “reclaim” the sacred city from memories of Muslim rule. The RSS has accused the BJP of pedaling “soft Hindutva,” critiquing the semisecular tones of their “cultural nationalism” definition. For the RSS and other groups, Hindutva is a call to defend the Motherland by any means necessary and, therefore, has been employed as a rallying point around which militant groups have organized. The masculine chauvinism of Hindutva is highlighted, evident by the paramilitary training camps called shakhas that the RSS use for inculcating Hindu values and martial skills in male youth. Christophe Jaffrelot has referred to Hindutva as “cultural vigilantism.” He argues that as a nationalist movement, Hindutva is not singularly reliant upon rhetoric and propaganda but physically enforces its ideologies through violence at worst, and legal restrictions at best. On-the-ground campaigns have included “love jihad” (the prevention of Hindu women marrying Muslim men) and cow protection, which has resulted in violence and even murder of Dalit or Muslim Indians who have been accused of eating beef. Hindutva-wallas have been instrumental in the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the 2002 riots in Gujarat, the Kandhamal riots, and other events that have been noted for their violent clashes between religious communities. The general rhetoric of Hindutva—particularly from more radical parties such as the Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, or RSS—tends to be incendiary and legitimizes violence against Muslims (and sometimes Christians) in the name of defense. The self-defensive posture of radical Hinduism relies upon a historical narrative of constant invasion and also the impending threat of Pakistan (and a general Islamophobia that seems globally pervasive post 9/11). Hindutva then becomes a strategy of cultural preservation, ethnic pride, and defense of the Motherland, Bharat Mata. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS); Saffron Terrorism

Hinduism: Kandhamal Riots FURTHER READING Bhatt, Chetan. 2001. Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths. Oxford: Berg. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2017. “India’s Democracy at 70: Toward a Hindu State?” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 3: 52–63. Savarkar, V. D. 2005 (1923). Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? Jhansi, India: Hindi Sahitya Sadhan. Sharma, Jyotirmaya. 2011. Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism. London: Penguin Books India. Thapar, Romila. 2000. “Hindutva and History.” Frontline 17, no. 19: 15–16.

KANDHAMAL RIOTS(2007, 2008) Hindu-Muslim violence is a well-publicized occurrence in India, but HinduChristian violence is another issue that has, unfortunately, become more frequent and challenges India’s claims to being a secular and pluralistic country. In the region of Orissa, the minority Christian population faces persecution, forced “reconversions,” property destruction, and physical violence. They have been targets of Hindu nationalist parties in particular, who have worked to bring India’s tribal communities more into the mainline Hindu fold. The state of Orissa (Odisha) occupies the eastern coast of India and is largely Hindu, with Christians accounting for about 2.8 percent of the population (nationwide, Christians account for about 2.3 percent). It is also home to several tribal communities, who are protected under India’s Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act, which, among other protections, gives land reservations to tribal people in this area. The Kandhamal district is home to the Kandha tribe, who practice a more animistic form of Hinduism, as well as Christian converts. The issue of conversion has been a tense one, not only in this region but in other areas of India, where tribal and Dalit (low-caste) communities are seen as particularly vulnerable to conversion to other religions, which often promise more egalitarian treatment. Though technically tribals and Dalits do not belong to the formal varna (caste) system of Hinduism, politically, they are seen as Hindu and, therefore, any conversion is seen as moving away from this tradition. Conversion has, therefore, become politicized, not only as anti-Hindu but as anti-nation, and Hindu nationalist organizations have targeted these communities for “reconversion” campaigns—sometimes with violent results. In December 2007, Kandhamal Christians erected a decorative Christmas arch, with the permission of the local government, in the town of Brahmanigaon. Hindu protestors accused the Christians of deliberately putting the arch up in the same

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location as the annual Durga Puja, which they found insulting and deliberately provocative. Three people were killed, and several shops were attacked in the following weeks of violence. To support the local Hindu community, local Brahmin and spiritual leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati went to Brahmanigaon, where he was reportedly attacked, which only further fueled hostilities between the two communities. The All India Christian Council reported that during the 2007 Christmas season, at least fifty Christians were killed, over seven hundred homes were burned, and ninety-five churches or prayer halls destroyed by Hindutva activists. Swami Lakshmanananda had a reputation for working toward the upliftment of tribal communities and was popular with Hindus in the region, although he openly accused Christian missionaries of using force in their conversions. On August 23, 2008, he was assassinated at his ashram in Jalespata, Kandhamal district. Three VHP members were also killed in the raid, which was reported to consist of thirty gunmen who stormed the girl’s school wing of the ashram. The murder of the swami threw fuel on a fire of resentment that was still burning from the previous year, and Hindu mobs unleashed their rage on the Christian communities across the region. A curfew was imposed across the entire Kandhamal district, although violence continued into September. The total estimated damage came to eighteen thousand injured, and fifty thousand displaced and forced to flee to the jungles or to refugee camps. Forty-six hundred homes, 252 churches, and thirteen schools were also destroyed. Death tolls vary, but forty-five people were reportedly killed in the initial wave of riots after Lakshmanananda’s death (U.S. Department of State 2008). Although the Christian community was blamed for the death of the Hindu Brahmin, the attack was eventually attributed to Maoist guerrillas, who had also been conflicting with local populations for several years. Accusations were made toward the BJP government in Orissa, as well as other Hindu nationalist organizations, for stirring up communal conflicts. In 2010, BJP leader Manoj Pradhan was sentenced to seven years in prison for murder and rioting, in one of the few convictions of Hindu leaders involved in the conflict. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks FURTHER READING Iqbal, Javed. 2014. “The Temptations of Peace.” Tehelka 11, no. 30, September 20, 2014. ­http://​­www​.­tehelka​.­com​/­2014​/­09​/­odisha​-­6​-­years​-­after​-­anti​-­christian​-­kandhamal​-­riots​ /#.­WeSuyFuPLRY. Kanungo, Pralay. 2008. “Hindutva’s Fury against Christians in Orissa.” Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 37: 16–19.

Hinduism: Kashmir Sasi, K. P. 2016. Voices from the Ruins: Khandamal in Search of Justice. Documentary. KP Sesai Films. U.S. Department of State. 2008. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. ­https://​ ­2009​-­2017​.­state​.­gov​/­j​/­drl​/­rls​/­hrrpt​/­2008//​­index​.­htm.

KASHMIR Immediately after the Partition of India, India; Pakistan; and, later, China contested the territory of Kashmir. Three territories—Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh—are administrated under India, while Pakistan controls the northwest region, and China controls the northeastern portion. Today, the boundary dispute is largely a rejection of how the former princely states were partitioned by Britain and later boundary agreements by Afghanistan and Russia. The issue of Jammu-Kashmir remains central to Indian political campaigns, particularly among Hindu nationalist parties, such as the BJP and the RSS. Kashmir is in the northernmost region of India, which is a highly mountainous and mineral rich area that also has religious significance as a center of Kashmiri Shaivism. It was part of the Mughal Empire from 1586 to 1751, then Afghani between 1752 and 1819, and then Sikh rule until 1845, when the First Anglo-Sikh War broke out. The Treaty of Lahore surrendered the region of Kashmir to the East India Company (EIC), whereupon Kashmir became a princely state and continued through the British Raj until 1947. Kashmir Valley (India controlled) is 95 percent Muslim, with Hinduism as the minority. Jammu is 66 percent Hindu and 30 percent Muslim, and Ladakh is 50 percent Buddhism and 46 percent Muslim. Sikhs, Christians, and Jains account for remaining percentages (BBC News). The first war for the territory of Jammu-Kashmir was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, also known as the First Kashmir War. The war was a tribal militia conflict that did not change the borders or resolve the tensions. The second war was the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, which was instigated by Operation Gibraltar, a strategic infiltration into Jammu-Kashmir that was intended to start an insurgency against the Indian government. Pakistan’s troops disguised themselves as locals and attempted to stir up agitation among other Kashmiri Muslims. This, too, did not have the desired effect, and the conflict was over in a few months. In 1999, Pakistan used similar techniques, inserting Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militia across the Line of Control, with the hope of infiltrating the Indian army. This conflict, called the Kargil War, also lasted a few months but is noted as being a modern example of open warfare between two nuclear-armed states. India launched air strikes and fighters against the Pakistan fighters, who shot down one of the Indian Armed Force MI-17s. Pakistan also bombed the National Highway One (NH 1A),

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an important route in North India that connects the valley of Kashmir to Leh in Ladakh. By intercepting communications between the Pakistan Army, India built a case for the international community, asserting the conflict as a Pakistan’s violation of territorial boundaries. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was urged by U.S. President Bill Clinton to cease the conflict in Kargil. Pakistani troops pulled out a month later, and the conflict ended, again, only a few months after it started. Although these three wars are the official conflicts for the region, Indianadministered Kashmir endures almost constant skirmishes and terrorist activity. There are a number of designated terrorist groups in Kashmir, namely the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HuM), and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Other pro-Pakistan/anti-India militia groups are supported politically by the government of Pakistan, although the government denies supporting them financially. Although many of the radical organizations are banned in Jammu-Kashmir, they carry out terrorist acts on Indian soil as protest to India’s continued presence in Kashmir. The 2008 Mumbai attacks were carried out by the LeT who used a “fidayeen” attack (combination of machine-gun firing and grenade throwing), common to strategies used by Kashmiri militia. In 2016–2017, there has been increased violence and unrest in Kashmir. A leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a Kashmiri Islamic militant organization, was killed by Indian security forces in July 2016. The man, twenty-two-year-old Burhan Wani, was a popular militant who was active on social media, engendering a folk hero status in Kashmir. He was visiting his brother for the holiday of Eid when he was taken and killed. Wani’s death triggered a series of anti-Indian government protests across Kashmir Valley, including assaults on local police stations. Curfews were imposed and disregarded, train services interrupted, and violence continued into the next year. There were several periods during which the internet, news, and/ or cell services were shut down entirely to curtail the circulation of news or social media dissent. More than one hundred deaths are reported to have occurred during the months of unrest, with an estimated nineteen thousand people displaced. The Indian government has been accused of covering up numerous cases of human rights abuses, including torture and abduction. Al-Jazeera reported that over sixty thousand people have been killed in the insurgencies that have occurred in the last two decades alone. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Islam: Kashmir and Global Jihad FURTHER READING BBC News. “The Future of Kashmir?” Interactive Maps. ­http://​­news​.­bbc​.­co​.­uk​/­2​/­shared​ /­spl​/­hi​/­south​_asia​/­03​/­kashmir​_future​/­html​/.

Hinduism: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Duschinski, Haley, and Bruce Hoffman. 2011. “Everyday Violence, Institutional Denial and Struggles for Justice in Kashmir.” Race & Class 52, no. 4: 44–70. Kaul, Nitasha. 2017. “Kashmir: The Communalisation of a Political Dispute.” AlJazeera, July 26, 2017. ­http://​­www​.­aljazeera​.­com​/­indepth​/­opinion​/­2017​/­07​/­kashmir​ -­communalisation​-­political​-­dispute​-­170725082030871​.­html. Widmalm, Sten. 2014. Kashmir in Comparative Perspective: Democracy and Violent Separatism in India. London: Routledge.

LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM (LTTE) The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are an insurgent group in Sri Lanka that has been fighting for the creation of a separate Tamil State since the 1970s. The Tamils are a minority Hindu ethnic group that have been systematically discriminated against by the Buddhist ethnic group, the Sinhalese, since Ceylon (Sri Lanka) gained independence from the British in 1948. The Sinhalese, with the help of the Buddhist religious leaders, have controlled political and economic spheres in Sri Lanka for decades. The LTTE has been responsible for hundreds of suicide attacks and repeated military conflicts, including the famous 1990 Batticaloa Massacre. They surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in 2009. Starting as one of several armed insurgency groups fighting for Tamil independence, the LTTE became an effective militia group, assassinating several high-level politicians—notably, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa. They have been classified as a terrorist organization by thirty-two countries, including India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. They are also known for their use of suicide missions, carried out by the LTTE’s “Black Tigers,” a subgroup specially trained for this purpose. Their innovative suicide vest, first used in the 1990s, became famous and replicated by terrorist groups in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Other tactics included trucks filled with explosives and suicide belts. They have also used women as suicide bombers, as was the case with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassin. Although the Tamils were largely Hindu, their ideology had nothing to do with religion and even criticized elements of traditional Hindu culture, such as gender inequality and caste. The LTTE saw themselves as a secular, revolutionary independence movement that was pushing back against decades of oppression at the hands of the Sinhalese—many of whom, despite being Buddhist, have employed violent tactics and have campaigned for ethnic cleansing on the non-Sinhalese. The LTTE have also been accused of ethnic cleansing, forcibly removing Muslims from regions that the Tamils controlled. In 1990 the LTTE were responsible for the massacre of over six hundred unarmed police officers in the Eastern Province. The Indian Peace Keeping Force

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(IPKF) had been working with the local government and with the LTTE to broker a cease-fire, but there was no consensus agreement. The IPKF were directed to continue talks, despite the increased war preparation among the LTTE. On June 11, 1990, the LTTE invaded and occupied the Batticaloa police station, taking in a sizable number of weapons from the armory. After directing all police across the Eastern Province to lay down their arms, the LTTE abducted 899 officers. Although some escaped, the majority of the officers were taken to the jungle, and then executed. The LTTE’s campaign for a separate Tamil state was eventually modified to a demand for regional autonomy, and a cease-fire was agreed upon on 2002. According to the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, the cease-fire was violated 3830 times between February 2002 and May 2007. Despite the supposed cease-fire, the fighting became a full-scale war by 2006, and the Sri Lankan Army took control of several key cities. Thoppigala, an LTTE stronghold in the Eastern Province, fell to the army in 2007. Other operations centers and strongholds were taken by the army, until the LTTE was forced to retreat to the jungles for a last stand. In May 2009, over eleven thousand LTTE members surrendered fully to the Sri Lankan military, ending a twenty-six-year conflict. Human rights groups have criticized the LTTEs tactics on a number of points. The use of child soldiers was a common practice, according to HRW, and UNICEF reported that they had as many as five thousand children in their ranks. LTTE also targeted civilians and civilian buildings. Juli L. Gittinger See also: State Violence: Sri Lankan Civil War FURTHER READING DeVotta, Neil. 2009. “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Lost Quest for Separatism in Sri Lanka.” Asian Survey 49, no. 6: 1021–51. Spencer, Jonathan. 1990. “Collective Violence and Everyday Practice in Sri Lanka.” Modern Asian Studies 24, no. 3: 603–23. Tambiah, Stanley J. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

MUZAFFARNAGAR RIOTS(2013) Not since the Babri Masjid destruction in Ayodhya in 1996 had UP seen such communal violence as it did in 2013, when Muslims and Hindu Jats (an agricultural caste) clashed in the village of Kawal in Muzaffarnagar District. The tally

Hinduism: Muzaffarnagar Riots

of people displaced from the riots is estimated at fifty thousand, with over sixty deaths (twice as many Muslims as Hindu), and over ninety injured. The political fallout and accusations against the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) allowed the BJP to sweep UP in the 2014 elections. UP is approximately 80 percent Hindu and 19 percent Muslim, with the remaining population including Sikhs, Christians, and Jains. As the most populous state in India, its religious demographics vary slightly from India’s national demographics (83 percent Hindu, 15 percent Muslim). UP has the highest Muslim population in the country (about 38.5 million) with a four-to-one ratio of Hindus to Muslims. There are four major parties that vie for control in UP: the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Indian National Congress. The politics of these parties range from socialist to secular to Hindu nationalist. Thus, religious tensions are complicated by caste and political tensions in this region, making it a crucible for Indian politics nationwide. It is home to Ayodhya, the famed city of the Ramayana and mythic place of God-King Rama’s birth—and, in 1996, the site of one of the worst communal riots in India’s post-Partition history. On August 21, 2013, communal violence broke out in UP over a rumored incident between a Muslim man and two Hindu men—although there were conflicting rumors of the instigation. One version of the story claimed that a traffic accident between two Hindu Jats and a Muslim man turned into hostile verbal conflict and eventual brawl; the second story involved a Hindu girl being sexually assaulted by the young Muslim man. Two brothers of the girl who was allegedly assaulted killed the Muslim youth, and then the two brothers were beaten to death by a Muslim mob. The mixed accounts most certainly contributed to the subsequent violence. The brothers, Sachin and Gaurav Singh, were reported to have picked a fight with Shahnawaz Qureshi after a motorcycle accident, which is the official police report. The account of Qureshi assaulting the Singhs’ sister is not part of the official record but, rather, a popular community account. To further incite tensions between the two groups, it was also reported that the police arrested members of the girl’s family for their involvement in the lynching of Qureshi but did not make any arrests of the Muslim mob who killed the brothers. News of the Kawal incident spread to other villages, and clashes between Muslims and Hindu Jats continued in the subsequent weeks. The Jat community organized a panchayat (village council meeting) to protest the lynching of the two Jat youths and the complicity of the police superintendent, who was accused of negligence. It was decided that a mahapanchayat (great council) of numerous villages would be called on September 7, coinciding with a bandh, or strike, called by the BJP. In an effort to prevent the gathering, the administration of the Muzaffarnagar District deployed Army and Rapid Action Force troops.

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The September 7 Jauli Canal riot became the worst conflict in the series of violence that followed the initial incident. Two thousand Jats on their way to the mahapanchayat were fired upon by Muslims with assault rifles and other weapons. Eyewitness accounts from survivors state that the police did nothing, even as bodies of the dead were dumped into the canal. Violence was directed at Muslims as well: encouraged to rally by political parties, Jats rioted and burned Muslim homes and businesses, displacing thousands in the process. In response to this heightened violence, the local government was forced to impose a curfew. There are two provocations that are considered to have greatly contributed to the violence. The first is a rather incendiary speech given by local BJP leader Sangeet Som that encouraged Jats to rise up. The other provocation came through the form of social media, when Sangeet Som uploaded a video of a Hindu man being lynched by a Muslim mob—an incident that was posted as part of the Muzaffarnagar District conflicts but was, in fact, an unrelated incident in Pakistan. Such misinformation and the ease by which it circulated demonstrated the dangers of social media in situations of communal and political violence, which can certainly be inflamed by such images. Som was arrested on charges of violating the Indian Penal Code and IT Act, both of which regulate against inciting violence between religious communities through misinformation or propaganda. Much of the violence was exacerbated by political tensions as well. The state government was run by the SP, a self-proclaimed “secular” party that had been accused of being discriminatory toward Hindus. For this reason, the BJP, a right-wing Hindu nationalist party, was supportive of the Jats, even inciting them to uprising. In 2015, the Vishnu Sahai Commission appointed by the SP government submitted a report to the UP governor, scrutinizing both SP and BJP politicians and their role in inciting violence in Muzaffanagar and other UP districts. Ultimately, the blame was put on local intelligence officials, thereby clearing the SP government of culpability. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) FURTHER READING Bhatt, Virendra Nath. 2013. “What Led to the Muzaffarnagar Communal Riots?” Tehelka, September 8, 2013. ­http://​­www​.­tehelka​.­com​/­2013​/­09​/­what​-­led​-­to​-­the​-­muzaffarnagar​ -­communal​-­riots​/. CNN-IBN. 2013. “Muzaffarnagar Riots: The Inciteful Speeches That Fanned Rioters’ Fury.” Video on FirstPost, September 13, 2013. ­http://​­www​.­firstpost​.­com​/­politics​ /­muzaffarnagar​-­riots​-­the​-­inciteful​-­speeches​-­that​-­fanned​-­rioters​-­fury​-­1103789​.­html.

Hinduism: Pakistani Hindus, Persecution of Mander, Harsh. 2016. “Muzaffarnagar Riots: Judicial Panel Fails to Hold Up the Light to Truth.” Hindustan Times, May 19, 2016. ­http://​­www​.­hindustantimes​.­com​/­analysis​ /­muzaffarnagar​-­riots​-­judicial​-­commission​-­fails​-­to​-­hold​-­up​-­the​-­light​-­to​-­the​-­truth​ /­story​-­L58wKP4Ln9gTTr0c9myHIJ​.­html.

PAKISTANI HINDUS, PERSECUTION OF What is now modern Pakistan was once part of the greater subcontinent. Some of Hinduism’s most ancient history comes from the region, including the famous Mohenjodaro city of the Harappa valley, from which Hindu civilization is thought to have arisen. Pakistan has the fourth-largest Hindu population in the world as of 2016, although Hindus comprise less than 2 percent (196 million) of Pakistan’s Muslim-dominated population. Pakistan is understood to be an Islamic republic but does not ban the practicing of other religions, which make up a very small minority. Pakistan gained independence on August 14, 1947, one day before its neighboring India officially became independent. During the division of the country into two nations, the largest human migration in history sent an estimated 7.5 million Hindus and Sikhs from (both East and West) Pakistan into India, and 7.5 Muslims from India into Pakistan. While many Muslims remained in India (accounting for approximately 14 percent of the population as of 2016), few Hindus remained in Pakistan. This was largely due to the religious motivations behind the two new countries; while Pakistani leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah shared Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru’s opinions on the role of religion in politics (both having fairly secular ideations of their countries), Pakistan was formed out of a fear that Muslims would always be a persecuted minority in India, and, thus, the Muslims needed their own state. Although the creation of an independent Pakistan arose from Muslim nationalism, Jinnah’s religious outlook was arguably secular, as he believed that under Islam, all religions would have equal rights (unlike in India, where he feared Muslims would be the eternally persecuted minority). In his famous speech, given August 11, 1947 (prior to independence), he called for unity between the diverse religious communities within Muslims and Hindus, stating that such community divisions “has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago.” More famously is his declaration of religious equality: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state” (Allana 1969). Like Nehru, he

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felt religion should remain out of politics, and he pointed to the conflicts in England at the time between Catholics and Protestants. Jinnah died of tuberculosis within a year after Pakistan’s independence—this is marked as an unfortunate turn for Pakistan’s burgeoning democracy. It has been argued that this early demise created a rupture that allowed for more politically Islamic parties to come to power, along with the bifurcation of East Pakistan in 1971 (creating Bangladesh). Subsequent prime ministers were increasingly conservative, engaging in a project of Islamicizing Pakistan, which has resulted in more conservative framing of Islamic law as well as a decline in non-Muslim populations such as Hindus and Sikhs—many of whom continue to migrate to India. In 2014, Pakistan Muslim League member Ramesh Kumar Vankwani told the National Assembly that an estimated five thousand Hindus migrate from Pakistan to India per year (Ahmed 2019). The Hindu American Foundation, an international watchdog group, says that non-Muslim citizens live in a form of “religious apartheid,” systematically excluded in laws and rights. Reports of extortion for “protection,” destruction of temples, and abduction of young girls are among the complaints, although this is consistently part of an Islamophobic rhetoric found in India. Despite increased strength of Sharia Law in Pakistan, Hindus have made progress in several areas. In 2017 the Hindu Marriage Bill was passed, allowing for religious personal law to regulate marriages, much in the way that Muslim personal law exists in India. Such laws also protect families, widows, and children. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif openly stated in 2017 that forced conversion and destruction of non-Muslim places of worship are a crime in Islam. Hindu festivals such as Diwali and Holi are now official public holidays in Pakistan. Despite this apparent olive branch, Sharif is also criticized for being more conservative than his predecessors and lax in curtailing militants who have attacked India and Afghanistan. Tensions between Hindu and Muslim communities do exist, however, especially since the challenge of Sindh province’s Hindu Minority Bill (which protects against forced conversions). Ultraconservative Islamic parties have called for a repeal, saying that the bill is a ploy to make Pakistan a liberal secular country. Hindus in Pakistan report forced conversions through marriage (of young Hindu girls to Muslim men), though much of this is alleged. It is difficult to separate anti-Muslim fears from realities, making legal evaluation of such marriages difficult—is it free will, or was she coerced? The consensus has been that a conversion (or marriage) under the age of eighteen will be considered forced, thereby protecting children and allowing adults eighteen and over to be responsible for their own decisions on the matter. Sindh province is reportedly the worst for these cases, but there has not been a countrywide survey of abducted girls, so there is no research to support the claims.

Hinduism: Partition

There are other incidents that target Hindus and Hindu culture. March 2014 was one of the worst spates of violence against Hindus in Pakistan, with five temples attacked during the month (compared to nine temples attacked in all of 2013). Blasphemy laws remain dangerous because of the tendency for mob rule to eliminate the accused before they get to court. In July 2016, a Hindu man was accused of burning pages of the Qur’an, which incited riots in Sindh’s Ghotki District. Derogatory statements against Hinduism in school textbooks is also reported (U.S. Department of State 2015), provoking intolerance at the institutional level. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Partition (1947) FURTHER READING Ahmed, Khaled. “A Hindu in Pakistan.” The Indian Express. January 19, 2019. ­https://​ ­i ndianexpress​ .­c om​ /­a rticle​ /­o pinion​ /­c olumns​ /­r amesh​ -­vankwani​ -­h indu​ -­l eader​ -­i n​ -­pakistan​-­5545509​/. Allana, G. 1969. “Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s First Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan [August 11, 1947].” Pakistan Movement Historical Documents, Department of International Relations, University of Karachi, 407–411. Karachi,­ Pakistan. ­http://​­www​.­columbia​.­edu​/­itc​/­mealac​/­pritchett​/­00islamlinks​/­txt​_jinnah​ _assembly​_1947​.­html. The Economic Times. 2017. “Pakistan May Face Isolation If Minorities Bill Repealed.” October  17,  2017. ­http://​­economictimes​.­indiatimes​.­com​/­news​/­international​/­world​ -­news​/­pakistan​-­may​-­face​-­isolation​-­if​-­minorities​-­bill​-­repealed​-­lawmaker​/­articleshow​ /­56180342​.­cms. France 24. 2017. “Pakistan: Islamist Angry at New Law Against Forced Conversions.” International News Channel. (Video), January 3, 2017. ­http://​­www​.­france24​.­com​/­en​ /­20170103​-­focus​-­pakistan​-­sindh​-­law​-­forced​-­conversions-​ ­islam​-­hindu​-­young​-­women​ -­kidnappings. Imtaz, Saba. 2017. “Hindu Today, Muslim Tomorrow.” The Atlantic, August 14, 2017. h­ ttps://​ ­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­international​/­archive​/­2017​/­08​/­hindu​-­muslim​-­pakistan​/­536238​/. Javaid, Maham. 2014. “Forced Conversions Torment Pakistan’s Hindus.” Al-Jazeera, August  18,  2014. ­http:// ​­ w ww​.­a ljazeera​ .­c om​ /­i ndepth​ /­f eatures​ /­2 014​ /­0 8​ /­f orced​ -­conversions​-­torment​-­pakistan​-­hindus​-­201481795524630505​.­html. U.S. Department of State. 2015. “Pakistan 2015 International Religious Freedom Report.” Washington,  DC. ­https://​­2009​-­2017​.­state​.­gov​/­j​/­drl​/­rls​/­irf​/­religiousfreedom//​­index​ .­htm​#­wrapper.

PARTITION (1947) Instigating the single largest human migration in history, the Partition of India and Pakistan is marked as a tragic event that has resulted in a legacy of communal tensions

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and fractured geopolitics in South Asia. The delineation of the India-Pakistan borders and subsequent exiting by the British administration forced an estimated fifteen million people to cross from one side to the other, dividing the country along religious affiliations and providing a backdrop for intense communal violence. The British, like other European countries, colonized parts of India, with trade arriving as early as 1601. Forming the EIC, British interests were largely economic, exploiting resources and pursuing trade on the Indian subcontinent. Goods such as tea, saltpeter, saffron, indigo, cotton, silk, and other items were highly valued in European markets. Soon British expansion obscured earlier colonies of the Dutch and Portuguese and eventually overcame the last Mughal remnants, making the British the dominant imperial power in India. A turning point in British rule occurred in 1857, the famed “tallow grease” incident that led to an uprising. The cartridge used in the rifles of the Indian Army—comprised of both Hindu and Muslim soldiers—had to be bitten in order to release the gunpowder before loading. The rumor was that the cartridges were lubricated with a mixture of either (or both) pig and/or cow fat, an unclean substance in either religion (Muslims abstain from pork and Hindus from beef). The result was the Sepoy Mutiny, also called India’s First War of Independence. It lasted for over a year, concluding at the end of the EIC and the beginning of the British Raj, as India officially became directly ruled by the Crown. The Raj consisted of British India (governed by Her Majesty) and princely states (independently ruled provinces, but suzerain to Britain). If there was a watershed moment that made the ousting of the British inevitable, it was the Jallianwallah Bagh Massacre. On April 13, 1919, General Dyer of the British Indian Army marched his troops into the Jallianwallah Bagh, a public garden near the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar, and fired upon unarmed protestors. An estimated four hundred people were killed, and over a thousand wounded, though some sources have suggested a much higher casualty rate. This was also the event that reportedly motivated Mahatma Gandhi to begin his noncooperation political protests, urging nonviolence as a response to the tragedy. The division of India into two countries was controversial at its outset and is credited with causing ongoing conflicts between Hindu and Muslim communities even today. The leader of the Muslim League, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, campaigned for an independent Muslim state, fearing that Muslims would forever be treated like a minority in India and, thus, required their own independent nation, where they would not be persecuted for their religion. Mahatma Gandhi was initially against the “two nation theory,” believing that Hindus and Muslims could live in a unified India but acquiesced in the end, when rioting made it apparent that this would not be an acceptable solution. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan would have Islam as its official religion (though constitutionally, it would allow other religions

Hinduism: Partition

to remain), and the Republic of India would be a secular country, as supported by Jawaharlal Nehru. The Mountbatten Plan was announced in June 1947—the geographic division of India based on a variety of factors, including populations, railways, and rivers. The actual line of division (also known as the Radcliffe Line) was not revealed, however, until after independence. For people living in Bengal and Punjab, this exacerbated tensions for communities living in the regions along the rumored borders. Villages with one religious majority attacked or attempted to subsume a neighboring community of a different religion, hoping to prevent land allocations from going to a group other than their own. Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus all participated in the violence, both as instigators and as victims. There were pogroms and purges of Hindus in East Bengal (Pakistan), for example, while anti-Muslim riots rocked Delhi, as the city swelled with Hindu and Sikh refugees. Calcutta was a stronghold of Muslim League, and, in August 1946, Muslims rallied to demand a separate homeland, after Jinnah announced a “Direct Action Day.” While the protest was largely a strike and nonviolent protest, local gangs and rioters headed for Hindu neighborhoods, burning houses and slaughtering Hindus. Hindus then retaliated. Around five thousand people were killed in three days of rioting. British withheld their troops, not wanting to get involved, as they were already in the process of leaving India. Many villages in Punjab also saw communal break down. Neighboring communities, which had lived in peace for years, were suddenly engulfed in violence, as rumors of threats from other religious groups spread. A lack of British patrols allowed bands of Sikhs to ride from town to town, attacking Muslims, in hopes of cleansing them from the region. Muslims were the majority population in Punjab, however, and aggressively fought back. Barrister Cyril Radcliffe was blamed for such instances of regional violence, as he was ignorant of population numbers or local contexts when he sat in his office drawing up the border lines. Hoping to maintain control of various regions in Punjab, minority religious communities were purged or killed in hopes of maintaining majority control of the region. Pakistan celebrated its independence on August 14, 1947—one day before India’s official independence—without knowing exactly which cities would fall to which side. In Lahore, tensions had also increased. Lahore was full of Hindu businesses, and, as the shining jewel capital of Punjab, it was presumed that it would fall on the Indian side of the border. Violence increased on the streets of Lahore, as Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh neighborhoods cleared people outside of their majority religious community. The British presence was minimal at that point, forcing Gurkhas and local army units to maintain order, which proved impossible to control. As thousands fled, entire Hindu and Sikh areas of the historic city were set on fire by Muslim gangs.

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Only after independence was it finally announced that Lahore would be part of Pakistan. People who were on the wrong side of the border packed up what belongings they could and left the homes they had known. Once the entire border lines were formalized and publicized, migrations began—Hindus and Sikhs moving from Pakistan (both East and West) into India, and Muslims moving from India into Pakistan. An estimated total of nearly fifteen million people migrated across the borders, making it the largest human migration in history. Over two million are estimated to have gone missing during the population transfer. There were innumerable accounts of violence of various sorts during migration and Partition. At the level of a basic humanitarian crisis, thousands of people died of thirst, exhaustion, or abandonment while in transit. British soldiers reported seeing babies left by the side of the road, abandoned. Train cars, overburdened with bodies on their roofs and hanging off the sides, moved painfully slow and were also vulnerable to attacks, not to mention a lack of water. There was no medical attention available for refugees while on the road, and many sick or elderly also perished. Columns of people stretched for miles, while hundreds of thousands of people walked across Pakistan-India borders on foot. Most of the migration had no military escort, and on these stretches, armed bands of robbers set upon the migration. Many of the casualties and deaths from this period are from deliberately instigated violence between religious communities. Punjab was a region that saw large-scale rioting and assaults on villages, arson, murder, and rape between all factions. First-hand accounts are still related across news and media on the anniversary of Partition—a reminder of the unimaginable horror that people experienced as the costly price of independence. Women were a particular target for communal violence. They were abducted, raped, and killed—those who remained alive were often fearful of returning to their families and remained on the sides of their captors. There are stories of women who threw themselves down their village wells for fear of being raped by bands of gangs who were going village to village, raiding. Fear of capture or forced conversion meant fathers killed their daughters rather than having them captured, as many accounts have also related. In retrospect, much of the violence from Partition is attributed to the way in which the border drawing was handled. Barrister Radcliffe had never been to India—and reportedly never left his hotel room—and thus had no experience or context for the complexity of India’s population. Yet he drew the lines without consideration to religion, ethnicity, or culture. The delay in releasing information that officially delineated sides also contributed to the chaos—wealthy families who saw the writing on the wall were able to migrate long before the worst of the rioting started, but poorer families stayed until it was no longer possible. As the British had sent

Hinduism: Ramayana

back the majority of their troops, there was a dearth of soldiers and administrators left to handle the logistics of the mass migration—much less police the skirmishes and riots. The whole process was rushed by Mountbatten, the last viceroy, who had only spent a few months in India. The Partition of India is considered the ultimate example of imperial hubris, where European colonials made world-changing decisions with little knowledge or consideration of the people they affected. The trauma of Partition has been captured in popular cultural works across a variety of media. Literature recalls the trauma of Partition through the works of Saadat Hasan Manto and Intizar Hussein, both Pakistani writers, who wrote graphic and controversial short stories, with particular attention to violence against women. A number of films have recalled the event—either historically or poetically—including Deepa Mehta’s controversial love story Earth (1998). Popular fiction that discusses the trauma and violence around Partition includes Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism) FURTHER READING Brass, Paul R. 2003. “The Partition of India and Retributive Genocide in the Punjab, 1946– 47: Means, Methods, and Purposes 1.” Journal of Genocide Research 5, no. 1: 71–101. Butalia, Urvashi. 2000. The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India. Durham: Duke University Press. Pandey, Gyanendra. 2001. Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. Vol. 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stewart, Frank, and Sukrita Kumar. 2007. Crossing Over: Stories of Partition from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

RAMAYANA One of two great epics in Hindu tradition, the Ramayana is a story of romance and battle and provides ideal role models for both men and women in the figures of Rama and Sita. Authorship is attributed to the sage Valmiki, it is categorized as itihasa or history, although Rama is an earthly manifestation or avatar of Vishnu. King Rama can be understood as a mythological figure, since the events of the Ramayana occurred during the Treta Yuga, the Second Age, which lasted over 1.2 million years—although many Hindus regard the story as a historically true event. Its date of composition is widely debated, with a range of thousands of years, but the oldest known copy is dated from sixth century CE.

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The story can be read as a battle of good versus evil, but the moral qualities of the characters are so highlighted that it can be understood as an ethical text as well. Rama is established through a series of backstories as a talented warrior but also as level-headed, honest, humble, and just. Ravana, the antagonist, is never truly evil but rather lacks the discipline that Rama has, and thus gives into his baser instincts of rage, lust, and deception. Sita’s representation is perhaps most notorious, counterintuitive to modern feminism, with her submission, purity, and unwavering devotion to her husband, although she demonstrates strength of character at many points in the narrative. In the story, Rama is established as the oldest of four sons by Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya. Although he is in line to take the throne, the king’s third wife schemes to have her son (Rama’s youngest half-brother) crowned instead of Rama, by calling in a boon long ago promised to her by the king. As part of the request, she makes calls for banishing Rama into the forest for fourteen years, and he agrees, with no protest. Rama is accompanied by his wife, Sita, and half-brother Lakshman. In the forest, Rama and Lakshman protect Sita from danger for thirteen years, but, in the final year, they are lured away by a golden deer that is conjured as a distraction. While they are away, Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, snatches Sita and takes off in a flying chariot back to his kingdom. He proceeds to seduce or cajole Sita into sharing his bed, but she remains steadfast to her love, Rama. Her piety and devotion to her husband are often seen as exemplary qualities of wifely dharma, for which she is revered. Eventually, Rama and Lakshman employ allies in the monkey kingdom, led by Hanuman (monkey-faced god) to rescue Sita. After a battle, Ravana is defeated, and Sita is rescued. Sita’s agnipariska, or trial by fire, is one of the most widely represented scenes in popular culture, although it is only briefly accounted in the epic. Since she has lived with a man for several months, Rama questions her purity. She proves her innocence by throwing herself on a pyre and remaining unscathed by the flames, a miracle provided by the fire god Agni. Once she has proven herself, she either goes back with Rama and lives happily ever after or remains shunned and banished, depending on the version of the account. As in the Mahabharata, the great battle in the Ramayana details many celestial weapons and strategies of war. The ethics of war in Hindu texts usually decree that celestial weapons should not be used against mortals, that deception and trickery are dishonorable, and that you should never strike someone who is running away (i.e., backstabbing). These ethics are all demonstrated in the text. For example, Ravana uses trickery by shooting Rama and Lakshman with “serpent arrows” to make them “swoon” (understood as some sort of tranquilizers), and then flies Sita above the apparently dead bodies to break her resolve. Brokenhearted, she threatens to kill herself, but then she sees her heroes revived and regains her composure. (In the

Hinduism: Ramayana

Bengali version, the Adbhuta Ramayana, Sita sees their bodies and turns into Kali and kills her enemy.) Later in the battle, Ravana tries the same deception, using an image of a dead Sita to dishearten the monkey army. These instances demonstrate the shady moral character of Ravana, who apparently is not above such trickery. The weapons used in battle are godly, from Rama’s bow to Ravana’s trident, but the battle takes a turn when they start using the asthras. Asthras are mantras or magical utterances, like spells, which are given by gods to be used only when necessary. Maya (illusion) and Thama (darkness) are asthras that are invoked by Ravana, which Rama counters with Gnana (wisdom) and Shivasthra (counteracts Thama). Eventually, Rama uses the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, Brahmasthra, “a special gift to be used only when all other means had failed” (Nayaran 1972, 146). Brahmasthra is described in a number of Puranas as well and is said to burn with a thousand suns, killing all life in the wide area it was used, poisoning the Earth and creating infertility. It has been likened to the effects of an atomic bomb, a theory popularized by Robert Oppenheimer’s fascination with Indic texts and his quoting of the Gita when he saw the first atomic bomb explode. Once Ravana has been defeated, Rama inspects the body and finds, to his horror, a wound on his enemy’s back. Fearful that he might have struck an unethical blow when Ravana’s back was turned, he is consoled, when Ravana’s brother assures him that the scar is an old one. This is an important detail, reiterating Rama’s honor even after he has become victorious. Rama is one of the most popular figures in modern Hinduism, valorized as an ideal husband, king, and warrior through the Ramayana, but he also takes on the role of an idealized masculine and martial Hindu man. Modern representations depict him as more muscular, with a rippling abdomen and a more superhero flair. This reappropriation of Rama as a more politicized iteration of Hindu masculinity and heroism can be connected to the rise of right-wing nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s. While there are many versions of the Ramayana across various regions and literary traditions, Sagar’s 1987 television serial version has arguably become canon (Lutegendorf 1995). The series was such a sensation, running weekly for a year and a half, that politicians took advantage Rama’s popularity as a paradigm of Hindu masculinity and morality, making him the centerpiece of their campaign imagery and efforts to build a Ram temple in historic Ayodhya. Conversely, Jain versions of the Ramayana tell that it was Lakshman who defeated Ravana, while Rama took vows of austerities to become a monk and seek liberation. Ravana is also predicted to eventually return as a Tirthankara (teacher) in the Jain tradition. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Lutgendorf, Philip. 1995. “All in the (Raghu) Family: A Video Epic in Cultural Context.” Media and the Transformation of Religion in South Asia, 217–253. Narayan, R. K. 1972. The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic. New York: Penguin. Pollock, Sheldon. 1993. “Ramayana and Political Imagination in India.” The Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 2: 261–97. Valmiki. 2007. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India. n.p.: Motilal Banarsidass. [Vol 1–7, each with different translators and commentary].

RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH(RSS) The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, “National Volunteer Organization”) is one of the oldest organizations in the Sangh Parivar, or “family of organizations,” to which the triumvirate RSS-BJP-VHP belong. It has long been considered to favor a more militant activism and formed prior to Partition as a lone proponent of Hindu nationalism (vis-à-vis Muslims) during a time when Indian nationalism (vis-à-vis the British) was more prevalent. The RSS was initially formed of upper-caste Hindus who were committed to protecting Hindu religion and culture from outside interests and to working not only for an independent India, but a Hindu India. Its goal is to unite Hindus, regardless of caste, and work toward a Hindu rashtra, or nation. The RSS was founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889–1940) against a backdrop of Hindu-Muslim tensions and cow-protection riots. Savarkar’s ideological treatise Hindutva—Who Is a Hindu? (1923) was of great influence to Hedgewar, who employed much of Savarkar’s ethnonationalist rhetoric. It was Hedgewar’s belief that the British had emasculated the Indian male, and, in order to reassert themselves, young men needed to train physically and mentally to strengthen and discipline their bodies. To do this, they needed to cultivate character and discipline to “strengthen” warriors in this political, cultural, and religious struggle. This was to be achieved through training camps called shakhas. The RSS system of shakhas (branches) is derived from the akhara, a place where men gathered for physical exercise and wrestling. Akharas generally have a temple to Hanuman, the monkey god devoted to Rama, who embodies strength, and exercises include both physical and mental disciplines. This model, transformed into the shakha, provides young men with similar training, along with indoctrination in the Bhagavad Gita and patriotic hymns. They are also required to practice celibacy and restraint. Until very recently (2017), the uniform within the shakhas was a white button-up shirt and khaki shorts, but the shorts have been replaced

Hinduism: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

with long pants. Men may also train in weapons at the shakhas, such as the lathi (long staff) and other martial weapons. This drilling and organized exercise, along with a generous helping of ideology and ritual, shape young RSS members into effective foot soldiers for the nationalist project. The RSS was active during the anti-British movements in the early part of the twentieth century, but they were not political in the way that Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru were. The RSS were to work toward a Hindu rashtra that was unified but not directly opposed to the British government. Members were instructed to keep clear of Gandhi’s Quit India and satyagraha movements—a position that curried favor with the regional governments. Hedgewar was openly opposed to Gandhi’s politics, notably his willingness to work with both the British and the Muslim League in negotiating the details of India’s independence. Hedgewar also rejected the new tricolor national flag of India in favor of the saffron-only flag, which he felt was more authentic to India’s history. After Hedgewar’s death, M. S. Golwalkar took the helm of the RSS in 1940 and was the leader of the organization during World War II and through independence in 1947. Under Golwalkar, the RSS continued to refrain from taking part in Gandhi’s political activism and civil disobedience, preferring an “active” role to a “passive” one. RSS members played a key role in the communal rioting that took place during Partition and voiced increased hostility against Gandhi and Nehru. Golwalkar favored a racial ideation of Hindus and was influenced by Adolf Hitler’s writings. For Golwalkar, the Muslim minority had to be opposed not only because it was backing the formation of an Islamic state, but it disrupted the racial continuity of a Hindu India and was ultimately a “foreign” presence. According to Christophe Jaffrelot, Golwalkar conflated Hitler’s idea of “racial purity” with Savarkar’s idea of “Hinduness” (a combination of ethnicity, culture, and loyalty), resulting in a goal of cultural homogeneity. In 1948, less than a year after Partition, Nathuram Godse, a former member of the RSS, assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. The organization was banned, and several RSS leaders were arrested on conspiracy to commit murder. To this day, Gandhi is not valorized as a hero among RSS members, as his passive and peaceful strategies—along with his sadhu attire and demeanor—are contradictory to the martial, masculine nationalism embodied by Shivaji and Rama, two heroes of the RSS. This is consonant with Savarkar’s Hindutva, who discussed at some length the good fortune that India did not take up Buddhism (a nonviolent philosophy) because the Motherland required the fortitude and strength of warrior to defend her. The ban was lifted in 1949, but the organization was banned on two subsequent times: in 1975, during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency Rule, during which she banned all opposition organizations, and in 1992, after the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which resulted in weeks of riots.

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Today, the RSS is an important part of the Sangh Parivar triumvirate, being the parent organization to the BJP, which is the main political party opposing the Congress Party, and in complement to the VHP, whose goal is to unite Hindus not only in India, but worldwide. The RSS is estimated to have close to five million members, with over fifty-seven thousand shakhas active in 2017. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); Hindutva; Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) FURTHER READING Golwalkar, Madhav Sadashiv. 1966. Bunch of Thoughts. Bangalore, India: Vikrama Prakashan. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 1999. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s: Strategies of Identity-Building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India). New York: Penguin Books India. Nussbaum, Martha. 2009. The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). ­www​.­rss​.­org. Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. 1969 (1923). Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? New Delhi: Hindi Sahita Sadan.

SAFFRON TERRORISM Terrorism is stereotypically associated with monotheistic, exclusivist religions in popular press around the world. Islam, in particular, has unfairly become synonymous with religious violence, and such prejudices exist in India as well as in the West. Hinduism is often juxtaposed against Islam as its opposite: tolerant, pluralistic, secular in government, and nonviolent. For this reason, the idea of Hindu terrorism seems to be a contradiction in terms, yet, as with all religious traditions, it too is not immune to extremism, nationalism, or violence. Terrorism with Hindu cultural and religious motivations has been called “saffron terrorism.” The use of the word “saffron” rather than “Hindu” refers to a particular brand of Hindu nationalism, which still rallies around the saffron orange flag of pre-Partition India rather than accepting the tricolor flag of modern, secular India. The term was first used in 2002 by the news outlet Frontline, with the marked increase of violence from extremist Hindu nationalist groups in 2006 and 2008. The Abhinav Bharat in particular has been tied to the terrorist acts during that period. The earliest incarnation of Abhinav Bharat was a militant, revolutionary organization that was banned shortly after Partition for their alleged involvement in

Hinduism: Saffron Terrorism

a number of assassinations. The organization was reformed in 2006 by Ramesh Upadhyay, a retired officer of the Indian Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit. The Abhinav Bharat was involved with the 2008 Malegon bombing, which killed eight people and injured over eighty. Initially these blasts were blamed on Islamic groups, such as the Students Islamic Movement India or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, a Pakistani terrorist organization), and, as such, dozens of Muslim suspects were arrested. It was not until 2011 when Swami Aseemanand, a pracharak (activist/agitator for the RSS) gave his famous confession regarding his involvement with various terrorist acts, stating that the goal was to bomb ka jawab bomb se dena chahiye (answer bombs with bombs). He also identified key members of the Abhinav Bharat and RSS as instigators of the terrorism. Aseemanand, Lieutenant Colonel Purohit, Sunil Joshi, and other high-level members of the right-wing organizations were arrested. The confession shocked the Indian press, so used to reporting Islamic terrorism but now faced with evidence of “saffron terrorism.” There was much controversy regarding Aseemanand’s confession. The swami later recanted and claimed that the journalists who reported the confession had made it up—although there were tape-recorded interviews that contradicted his denial. In fact, there was a series of meetings during which Purohit, Upadhyaya, and others were secretly recorded in 2007 and 2008, revealing discussions about how the country needed to be “defended” and how Hindus should unite in this fight for a “Hindu rashtra (nation).” It is clear from these transcripts that Purohit meant for the Abhinav Bharat to be aggressive and unflinching in its mission. It was said that Purohit had a gift for finding radical members among more mainstream organizations, such as the VHP or RSS, and recruiting them to join the Abhinav Bharat (Jaffrelot 2010, 54). It was clear that these alliances were not only steeped in anti-Muslim rhetoric and the defensive posture of Hindutva ideology, but willing to take action—even if it meant violence. Purohit saw the Sangh Parivar, the larger coalition of Hindu nationalist parties, as failing to follow through on such actions, even though they had an “army” of karsevaks or volunteers who were waiting to be mobilized. The term “saffron terrorism” has also been applied to the Gujarat Riots in 2002, the Samjhauta Express bombing in 2007 (to which Aseemanand also confessed), the 2007 attack on the Sufi shrine at Ajmer (for which the RSS was blamed), and the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing. Members of the RSS and other groups have been connected to many of these incidents and continue to campaign for a Hindu rashtra with incendiary rhetoric. The Hindu Rashtra Sene leader, Pramod Muthalik, was quoted as saying, “The Malegaon blast is just a glimpse of what we can do” (Hafeez 2009) and Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray stated, “Hindus must become human bombs” in 2008 (DNA India).

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Much of the forensic work for the Malegaon blast was compiled by the vigilant efforts of the Anti-Terrorism Squad, with investigations led by Hemant Karkare. Karkare began to make connections that implicated Hindu organizations rather than the suspected Islamic groups. As this evidence came forward, Karkare was anonymously threatened for his claims that Hindus could be responsible for such violence, stating that he was politically motivated and was creating a smear campaign against certain nationalist organizations. He was shot in the chest during the November 26, 2008 Mumbai siege (which was perpetrated by an Islamic terrorist organization). Although his death was in the line of duty and officially attributed to the Islamic terrorists, there are conspiracy theories that claim he was assassinated to keep him quiet. The manner in which the terrorist acts played out in 2006 and 2007 was a curious “stigmatization and emulation” of Islamic terrorism, according to Jaffrelot (2010, 51), who notes that the use of such bombing techniques were indiscriminate, local, and anonymous. Saffron terror has also been used in to anti-Christian violence, particularly in Orissa, where there have been repeated clashes between Hindus and Christian converts. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Buddhism: Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna); Saffron Revolution (2007); Hinduism: Anti-Christian Attacks; Gujarat Riots (2002); Hindutva; Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) FURTHER READING Bidwai, Praful. 2008. “Confronting the Reality of Hindutva Terrorism.” Economic and Political Weekly 43, no. 47: 10–13. DNA India. “Hindus Must Become Human Bombs, Invade Pakistan: Shiv Sena.” August 18, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­dnaindia​.­com​/­india​/­report​-­hindus​-­must​-­become​-­human​-­bombs​ -­invade​-­pakistan​-­shiv​-­sena​-­2115908. Hafeez, Mateen. 2009. “ATS Looks at Muthalik-Malegaon Link.” Times of India. ­January 30, 2009. ­https://​­timesofindia​.­indiatimes​.­com​/­india​/­ATS​-­looks​-­at​-­Muthalik​ -­Malegaon​-­link​/­articleshow​/­4049853​.­cms. Jaffrelot, Christophe. 2010. “Abhinav Bharat, the Malegaon Blast and Hindu Nationalism: Resisting and Emulating Islamist Terrorism.” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 36: 51–58. Khetan, Ashish. 2011. “In the Words of a Zealot . . .” Tehelka Magazine 8, no. 2 January 15, 2011. ­http://​­old​.­tehelka​.­com​/­in​-­the​-­words​-­of​-­a​-­zealot​/.

SINGH, JYOTI (1989–2012), GANG RAPE OF On December 16, 2012, twenty-three-year-old Jyoti Singh and Awindra Pandey, a male friend from school, were returning from a movie theatre in the Saket

Hinduism: Singh, Jyoti, Gang Rape of

neighborhood of Delhi. They got on a bus home at around 9:30 p.m. and were violently assaulted by the six men on the bus. The incident is also referred to as the Delhi Gang Rape and stands as the most brutal sexual assault case ever publicized in India. A 2015 BBC documentary, India’s Daughter, detailing the incident and the case following, gave the rape international attention and has since opened up a more public discussion about Indian masculinity, the safety of women, and the culture of rape. Jyoti was a hard-working young woman with ambitions to go into medicine, and she even worked nights in a call center to pay for her studies. Her parents were very supportive of her, especially her father, who sold ancestral property to pay for her education. Jyoti had just completed her exams and was going to start her internship in physiotherapy. She was celebrating a break from her studies with her friend Awindra by going to see Life of Pi, which was playing in a theater in Delhi. After the movie, they looked for transportation home, when a charter bus pulled up and a young man said that they were heading that way. There were few other passengers on board, so the couple decided to get on the bus. It became clear that the driver, the young man hawking for passengers, and the other riders all knew each other and were actually out for a joyride. As the ride progressed, the men began harassing the couple, asking why they were out so late. When Jyoti and Awindra tried to get the driver to stop and let them off, Awindra was attacked and beaten unconscious with an iron rod. Jyoti was then ambushed and dragged to the back of the bus to be beaten and brutally raped by the five men. The medical accounts are incredibly graphic, including evidence that she was penetrated multiple times with the iron rod, causing massive internal damage and caused her intestines to trail out of her body. After the incident, both bodies were tossed from the moving bus by the side of the road, left for dead. A passerby discovered the victims at around eleven that night and called the Delhi police, and they were taken to Safdarjung Hospital. Awindra, her companion, survived with broken bones and contusions. Jyoti underwent a number of surgeries in the following days and was eventually airlifted to a hospital in Singapore. She died of her injuries on December 29, 2012. The police tracked down and arrested the rapists within twenty-four hours of the incident, with a body of forensic evidence that included the bus, the bloody iron rods, CCTV footage of the vehicle, and witnesses. All six men were arrested for the incident, one of whom was seventeen years old and, thus, a juvenile. After Awindra Pandey testified in court, the charge sheet was filed, calling for the maximum punishment for the perpetrators. The juvenile defendant was not tried as an adult, although there were petitions to do so, given the violent nature of the crime. He was given the maximum of three years in prison. One of the adult rapists confessed and died in prison, supposedly suicide by hanging. The remaining four rapists were charged with kidnapping and murder

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in addition to rape. The Delhi High Court found them guilty of rape, murder, “unnatural offences,” and destruction of evidence—bearing a capital punishment penalty, death by hanging. The defendants’ lawyers appealed, and their executions were stayed while the case went to the Indian Supreme Court. In May 2017, the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty, and the four are scheduled to be executed. A controversial and gut-wrenching documentary on the incident titled India’s Daughter was produced by the BBC and officially released in March 2015, although it was not aired in India. Aside from recounting the brutal events themselves, the film includes interviews with Jyoti’s family, as well as with the lawyers and one of the rapists. The latter drew particular ire from women’s groups, who saw the film as sensationalizing the rapists and giving them a platform. One of the young men convicted of the crime seemed fairly remorseless, saying, “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy . . . A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night” (Udwin 2015). Perhaps even more enraging were the comments from the lawyer, who said he’d set his own daughter on fire if she behaved as shamelessly as Jyoti had. In India, the film was banned and remained a controversial topic in the media. The issue for political parties, however, was not that it sensationalized the crime but rather that it made India look bad. The film raises important issues about the responsibility of men toward the issue of rape and how devaluation of the female is socially inculcated at a very early age. The expectations that women should not be out in public after dark is another topic that remains at the center of Indian feminist movements—that Jyoti was “asking for it” because she was out at night was part of the justification for her assault. Juli L. Gittinger FURTHER READING Udwin, Leslee. 2015. India’s Daughter. L. Udwin (Producer). London: UK: Berta Films.

VISHVA HINDU PARISHAD(VHP) Like the BJP and the RSS, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, “World Hindu Council”) is one of the three dominant parties of the Sangh Parivar or “Family of Organizations” and is a powerful Hindu nationalist party. In addition to political activism in India, VHP also focus on rallying Hindus living abroad and, therefore, promote a sort of global-Hindu nationalism that speaks directly to diaspora communities. They have been connected with a number of violent incidents, largely due to their youth wing, who engage in the more militant activities.

Hinduism: Vishva Hindu Parishad

According to its website, the VHP is a “social, Dharmic, and cultural organization of Hindus living in Bharat as [sic] also in a number of foreign countries,” and its agenda is “to retrieve the Hindu Nation engulfed in the crises and the Hindu community from its unfortunate plight.” The crisis, as the VHP see it, is one of identity, and several steps are suggested in order to solve this problem: embracing Hindutva ideology, making Sanskrit and Vedic teachings compulsory, building the Ram temple at Ayodhya, banning cow slaughter of any kind, banning conversion, and making Jammu-Kashmir an undisputed part of India. The list goes on, stressing over and over that Hindus should be the only citizens in India (although, like Savarkar’s Hindutva treatise, it is noted that Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains are part of that family). Thus, the goal of a Hindu nation is paramount. The VHP was primarily founded by M. S. Golwalkar, formerly of the RSS and author of two provocative tracts: Bunch of Thoughts (1966) and We Our Nationhood Defined (1939). Golwalkar’s writing is openly hostile to Muslims and Christians and argued for purity of race (drawing from Nazi ideologies) and for the necessity a Hindu nation. Other founders of the VHP include Swami Chinmayananda, a spiritual leader and proponent of Advaita Vedanta, and Dadasaheb Apte, who was the first general secretary. As their mission statement declares, their objective is “to organize, consolidate the Hindu society and to serve, protect the Hindu Dharma.” This is done through service and through temple building. The VHP are very active in social work, assisting with educational programs, disaster relief services, vocational training, and health services. The VHP were the first of the major Hindu organizations to have a U.S. chapter (VHP-America), which defends Hinduism in the public sphere through alliances with Hindu anti-defamation groups. Fund-raising for temple-building campaigns is greatly dependent on U.S. Hindus who, through the Indian Defense Relief Fund, contribute millions of dollars a year to various Hindutva-aligned projects. The Ayodhya dispute is one of the notable political events in which they were openly involved. They actively promoted demonstrations and agitations against Muslims and circulated petitions calling for the destruction of the mosque. The Ram temple is still a primary goal in their political agenda, with numerous essays and reports on the issue available on their website. As recently as 2017, they have been stockpiling stones for the construction of the temple—even though the 2010 ruling of the Allahabad High Court divided the property among three parties (including the Sunni Waqf), the VHP seem confident that a BJP-dominant government in UP will open the way for a temple to finally be built. Unlike the BJP, the VHP does not have political parties that run for office, but they are involved in politics nonetheless, through their militant youth wing, who serve as “foot soldiers” in the campaign to make India a Hindu nation. The Bajrang

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Dal, founded in 1984, is the militant youth wing of the VHP and has gained a reputation for extremism and religious radicalism. Members of the Dal are trained in camps similar to the RSS shakhas (branches), indoctrinated in Hindutva ideology, cultural traditions, and martial weapons. Their website, disabled in 2013, was filled with virulent anti-Muslim propaganda and pro-violence essays. The organization was banned following the Babri mosque demolition and are alleged to be key instigators in the 2002 Gujarat riots. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Babri mosque demolition, December 6, 2017, a ceremony will prepare a planned two hundred thousand Bajrang Dal youths to become dharam yodhas (religious warriors), whereupon they will receive ceremonial trishul (trident weapon of Shiva). The event is also planned as a recruiting effort. The Bajrang Dal is not the only youth wing of the VHP—there is a girl’s branch as well. The Durga Vahini began in 1991 with the goal of including more women in cultural activities and political activism. Also modeled on the RSS shakhas, the Durga Vahini camps train young women in self-defense, although such assertive behavior is couched more in an ideal of protecting Indian womanhood than as a feminist philosophy. The 2012 documentary The World before Her shows rare footage filmed from inside a Durga Vahini camp, demonstrating how young women are also mobilized and militarized for the goal of a Hindu nation. Juli L. Gittinger See also: Hinduism: Ayodhya; Gujarat Riots (2002); Hindutva; Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) FURTHER READING Jaffrelot, Christophe. 1999. The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s: Strategies of Identity-Building, Implantation and Mobilisation (with Special Reference to Central India). New York: Penguin Books India. Lochtefeld, James G. 1994. “The Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Roots of Hindu Militancy.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 62, no. 2: 587–602. van der Veer, P. T. 1994. “Hindu Nationalism and the Discourse of Modernity: The Vishva Hindu Parishad.” Accounting for Fundamentalisms: 653–668. Vishva Hindu Parishad. ­www​.­vhp​.­org​.

ISLAM

INTRODUCTION This chapter surveys the teachings of Islam regarding violence, as well as cases of violence committed by and against Muslims today and the mind-sets fostering intergroup conflict so intense that, in some cases, adversaries carry out violence against each other. By violence, we mean the intentional use of physical force against persons or property. The teachings of Islam we examine range from those defining legitimate and illegitimate use of violence to Islamic perspectives on nonviolent actions, such as blasphemy, that are deemed so offensive as to justify violence in response under certain conditions. After a brief introduction to Islam, this overview identifies the way Muslims have traditionally categorized the circumstances in which Islam permits or forbids the use of violence. This also includes examples of situations today in which Muslims carry out violence in the name of religion and situations in which Muslims are the targets of violence. This overview and the following entries in this Islam chapter focus primarily on the traditions of Sunni Islam and Sunni Muslims, who comprise approximately 90 percent of Muslims in the world. (As exceptions, the entries “Hezbollah” and “Martyrdom (Shia Islam)” are specifically about Shiism.) As of 2015, there were about 1.8 billion Muslims, about 24.1 percent of the world’s population. This is expected to rise to 2.76 billion, or 30 percent of the world’s population, in 2050 (Lipka 2017). Muslims live on every continent except Antarctica. The religion of Islam originated on the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE. Muslims believe that Muhammad (ca. 570–632 CE), a prophet, received revelations from God via the angel Gabriel. These revelations came to Muhammad in Arabic and are recorded in Arabic in the Qur’an, the holy scripture of Islam. The second-most important set of texts Muslims revere are the Hadith, the reports of the statements and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. The text of the Qur’an used by Sunni and Shia Muslims is identical, whereas there are some differences between the Sunni and the Shia Hadith collections. Islam is a monotheistic religion that

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recognizes as prophets many major figures of the Jewish and Christian traditions, such as Moses, Abraham, Noah, and Jesus. Muslims believe that these pre-Islamic prophets were divinely guided. After Muhammad began sharing in public the revelations he was receiving in private, the religion of Islam emerged simultaneously with the formation of the community of believers of Islam. The way Islamic scholars categorize different types of violence reflects the day-to-day situational contexts in which the traditions of Islam developed. As Justin Parrott discusses in the entry below on the Qur’an, the revelations to Muslims condoning violence came in contexts in which the early community of Muslims faced armed hostilities from other groups. Parrott explained, “First, Muslims were given “permission” to fight back “because they have been wronged” (Qur’an 22:39), and then they were commanded to “fight in God’s cause against those who fight you, but do not overstep the limits” (Qur’an 2:190), and they were finally ordered to “kill them, seize them, besiege them, wait for them at every lookout post” (Qur’an 9:5). This latter verse and its interpretation, among a handful of passages sometimes called the “sword verses” (the sword being a traditional symbol of justice), is the principal source of the dispute over whether the Qur’an sanctions religious violence or not.”

Military Expansion, Sectarianism, and Violence against Muslims Muslim-led empires included the Umayyads (651–750 CE), Abbasids (750–1258 CE), and the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923 CE) in the Middle East and, at times, across North Africa and into the Balkans. The main Muslim-led empire to the east was the Mughal Empire (1526–1857 CE) in South Asia. These Muslim-led empires, and others, used military force to expand their territories and maintain control of the lands they ruled. There were also periods of sectarian violence by Muslims against other Muslims, such as the violence by a group known as the “Assassins.” The Assassins, whose guerilla tactics included “martyrdom” (i.e., suicide) attacks, were from a particular sect called the Nizari Ismailis. (The Ismailis themselves are an offshoot of Shia Islam.) The Assassins were active from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. The invasion of the Mongols into the Middle East in the mid-thirteenth century largely decimated the Assassins, though a few small groups remained active into the fourteenth century. The targets of their attacks included Sunni Muslims, as well as Christian Crusaders. Christians engaged in fighting that was targeted against Muslims. One example is the Reconquista (“reconquest”) on the Iberian Peninsula (today Spain and Portugal). This started in the eighth century, when Muslim forces came from North Africa and took control over most of the peninsula. This lasted until the fall of

Islam: Introduction

Granada in 1491, when Christian forces retook control of the Iberian Peninsula. Another example is from 1095 to 1291, when Christians from Europe led a series of military campaigns, known as the Crusades, against Muslims in the lands on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea. These Crusades were, in part, an effort to return control of Jerusalem to Christians (an effort that eventually failed) and to challenge the Muslims’ expansion of their territorial control during this period. In the modern era in eastern Europe and Asia, Muslims have been targeted in communist efforts to eradicate (or at least control) religion. Here are just a few examples of this. In the U.S.S.R., under the rule of Joseph Stalin, this included deportation of Muslim-majority ethnic groups, often leading to widespread death, especially in the 1940s. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in China, the government targeted several Muslim-majority ethnic groups, with severe religious restrictions on practicing their faith, destruction of mosques, and deadly violence. In the late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia persecuted, among others, the Muslim-majority Cham ethnic group, killing many of the Cham Muslim religious scholars, as well as large portions of the Cham population. The hostility to religion by the communist government in Albania (1945–1991) included persecution of Muslims and the destruction of religious buildings. In the 1990s, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, there was extensive, some would even say genocidal, violence targeted against Bosnian Muslims (Sells 1998).

Muslim Scholars and Their Views on Violence Within Islam, scholars view some violence as legitimate and some as illegitimate. This includes violence conducted by or against organized groups, as well as individuals. The use of violence and responses to violence are topics, along with many others, in the sacred texts of Islam—that is, the Qur’an and the Hadith. Over the centuries, Muslim scholars have developed robust traditions of interpretation for these sources. Relying on the Qur’an and Hadith, as well as various scholarly interpretations, Muslims seek to regulate violence by both state and nonstate actors. However, there is a range of views on these topics, and application of these principles can vary, depending on the context. Since Muslims believe God revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad, over the centuries, Muslims have sought to live out their faith in diverse contexts, and they have developed extensive and varied approaches to interpreting the Qur’an and the Hadith. This has added many layers of complication to methodologies and diversities of viewpoints in relation to interpretation of these texts. This complexity is manifest in the topic of violence. Legal rulings in Islam, including those regarding the use of violence, are derived from the Qur’an and the Hadith. At the same time, the actual conduct of

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Muslims in relation to violence reflects a mix of competing interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadith, complex interactions with non-Muslims, and aspirations that may be a mix of religious ideals and less pure worldly aims. In what follows, we provide an overview of traditional Sunni Muslim teachings regarding violence, with historical, as well as modern examples of these. Following this, we situation the relationship between Muslims and violence in the modern world. These teachings about violence fall into two main categories, with several types of violence in each category. The first category is violence conducted by government authorities. This includes two forms of violence that are legitimate within limits: struggle in the context of warfare (martial jihad) and some corporal forms of criminal punishment. The second category is violence by nonstate actors. This includes violence that Islam deems illegitimate, namely brigandage (hiraba), rebellion (baghy), vigilantism, so-called “honor killings,” and domestic violence. This also includes self-defense, which can be legitimate in certain circumstances.

Use of Force by Government Authorities With certain exceptions, Islam entrusts the use of force solely to government authorities. The principles of Islam govern the way state authorities may use force to wage war and maintain domestic peace and security. However, application of these teachings is complicated today because the definitions of “state” or “government” in traditional sources of Islamic teachings do not always align with modern definitions of the nation-state. In particular, the question of who has authority to guide the interpretation of Islamic teachings is disputed frequently today. During the early centuries of Islam, empires were the primary political context in which Muslim scholars developed methods of interpreting and applying the teachings of the Qur’an and Hadith. This meant that a single source of political authority had control over vast territory and diverse populations. The authoritative Muslim scholars of each empire, known as ulema, largely had independence from these political rulers, while the presence of a (relatively) stable, strong political power enabled a parallel structure of stable, strong power of the ulema to exercise religious authority. This authority included the ability to define legitimate uses of violence and punish illegitimate uses according the Islamic law. This authority under Muslim-led empires was more clearly defined than it is today under the different structures of modern nation-states. Since the dissolution of the last Muslim-led empire, the Ottomans, into smaller, independent nation-states, disputes over who has the authority to carry out legitimate use of violent force and who has the authority to carry out Islamically justified corporal punishment (itself a form of violence) have been contentious and even chaotic. In the confusion, some violent vigilantes and insurgents have claimed that

Islam: Introduction

they were acting on behalf of Muslims, while other Muslims, seeking order, have sought to develop new channels of teaching and authority to adapt to the structures of the modern world. This tension between chaos and new forms of order can be seen today in both armed conflict and criminal justice.

Jihad The term jihad is an Arabic word that means striving or struggle. It may refer to an internal struggle with evil temptations, such as one’s doubts about faith; it may also refer to speaking out against wrongdoing. In the military sense, jihad means war waged by a Muslim polity for a reason and in a manner consistent with Islamic precepts. Classical Muslim jurists divided military jihad into two categories, defensive jihad (jihad al-daf’) and offensive jihad (jihad al-talab). Defensive jihad is waged to repel foreign forces that have invaded Muslim territories. An example of this is the Bosnian Muslims’ effort in the early 1990s to defend themselves against genocide following the collapse of Yugoslavia, which was viewed as a legitimate defensive jihad by many religious authorities. Offensive jihad is a military campaign waged by Muslim authorities to spread the message of Islam in non-Muslim territories. The aim of offensive jihad, in the view of classical scholars, was not to compel people to believe in Islam but to expand Muslim territory and safeguard and institutionalize missionary activity. For example, in the seventh century, the Muslim empire under the Caliph Umar seized Egypt from the Byzantine Empire, pursuant to an offensive jihad. Many contemporary scholars argue that classical scholars’ rulings on offensive jihad should be reconsidered, given modern changes in political circumstances. In waging any form of military jihad, the Prophet Muhammad prohibited Muslims from targeting children, women, the elderly, and clergy, and from destroying places of worship, trees, livestock, and wells. Most jurists extended this protection to all noncombatants, including men of fighting age. If women or elderly individuals are engaged in hostilities, however, they may be fought. Thus, jihad in Islam is distinguishable from the terroristic violence waged by contemporary Islamist extremist groups, despite their claims of religious legitimacy. It is noteworthy that this spread of terroristic violence in the name of Islam has been a distinctly modern phenomenon. To understand how twentieth-century terrorist movements built momentum in modern Islam, even while violating traditional teachings of the religion; for example, regarding jihad, one must examine the question of who has the authority to say what is legitimate or not within Islam, in this case within Sunni Islam. In the early twentieth century, several Muslim thinkers, such as Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) and Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj (1952–1982) of Egypt, who were dissatisfied with

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the leadership in their nation-states, began arguing that individual Muslims would be justified to label these political leaders and Muslim scholars under their leadership as heretics—that is, as non-Muslims.

Takfir The act of one Muslim declaring another Muslim an unbeliever is called takfir. Traditional Muslim scholars shunned takfir. To them, allowing each and every Muslim to have the authority to determine who and who is not Muslim would unleash chaos. Takfir has serious consequences. Not only does declaring someone a heretic imply that the unbeliever is (probably) going to hell in the next life, but it also means that a Muslim is no longer bound by the traditional ban on one Muslim waging violent jihad against another Muslim. Takfir provided a rhetorical and theological route for Muslim political extremists to get around this prohibition. These modern extremist political activists within Islam gave themselves a new, self-proclaimed “authority” to carry out takfir against other Muslims, especially against political leaders they did not like. This is how they became known as “takfiris.” When mainstream Muslims tell these takfiris that they are not allowed to declare other Muslims to be unbelievers, the takfiris simply label these mainstream Muslims as disbelievers in order to justify ignoring the perspectives of mainstream Muslims, especially of scholars. From there, these new political takfiri activists began to organize and target violence against fellow Muslims. Sufis are one segment of mainstream Muslims who have generally been particularly vocal in opposing modern takfir. Sufism is not a separate sect but rather a movement within Islam, found among both Sunnis and Shia, that is characterized by a more spiritual, less rigidly legalistic approach to interpreting sacred texts, as well as emphasis on individual internal spiritual development. In general terms, Sufis’ emphasis on spiritual, even mystical, interpretation can allow for a relatively broad approach to Islamic orthodoxy, in contrast to the narrow approach of takfiris, and Sufis’ focus on the internal path of the human soul stands in contrast to the external societal engagement of politically oriented Islamists. Because of their interpretive breadth, Sufis, and especially their shrines, have been the targets of violent attacks by movements, such as Salafis and Wahhabis, who have relatively narrow interpretive approaches. Sufi Muslims are not, however, necessarily less violent than Muslims following other interpretive approaches. Over the centuries, Sufis have formed institutions and associations, sometimes known as Sufi brotherhoods or orders. In settings of conflict, Sufi orders, with their strong group-solidarity and built-in religious fervor, have been recruited to justify, organize, and carry out violence against opposing groups. For example, Sufis played a prominent role during two and a half centuries of jihad in West

Islam: Introduction

Africa (1645–1900), a period that also included Sufi groups engaging in violent conflict with each other. In Indonesia, Sufi groups helped legitimize and carry out armed struggle against colonial powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in Malaysia, in 2000, a Sufi group waged armed jihad against the government of Malaysia (Woodward et al. 2013, 71–73). While broad-spirited Sufis are not always peaceful, the more narrow-spirited Salafis and Wahhabis are not necessarily violent. Wahhabism was a zealous reform movement in the eighteenth century, started on the Arabian Peninsula, that focused on trying to “purify” Islam from human-made accretions; as such, Wahhabism, and its related offshoot Salafism have tended toward relatively narrow, rigid interpretive approaches. Yet some Wahhabis and Salafis, have applied their reformist zeal by withdrawing from, rather than fighting against, mainstream society in order to practice what they consider to be “pure” Islam within smaller communities. As a result, some branches of Wahhabism and Salafism tend to be peaceful and quietist, to “live in self-imposed social isolation . . . They lead pious lives and avoid contact with what they consider to be a hopelessly defiled world” (Woodward et al. 2013, 69–70). Yet in recent decades, the blending of Wahhabism and Salafism with political Islamism has tended to draw Wahhabis and Salafis into violent conflict (whereas this connection has not had the opposite effect of attracting political Islamists toward quietism). The most notorious examples of this blend of Wahhabism or Salafism with political Islamism have been extremist violent groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (known also as ISIS).

Criminal Justice Islamic law permits and, in some cases requires, corporal and capital punishments for certain offenses. There is unanimous agreement among Islamic law jurists that such punishments may only be applied by legitimate governmental authorities. Criminal law in Islam consists of two categories. The hadd (plural hudud) are a set of fixed, mandatory criminal sanctions, ranging from lashing to the death penalty. The term hadd means that which is set or defined; it refers to the offenses as well as their associated punishments. Offenses in this category include murder, adultery and fornication, highway robbery, insurrection, consumption of intoxicants, and theft. Because these offenses and their punishments are explicitly defined in the Qur’an itself, they are deemed to be revealed by God and may not be altered or waived by the authorities once they become aware of the commission of the crime and sufficient evidence is properly presented. An exception is the case of murder, which the Qur’an states may be forgiven by the victim’s family. The second category of criminal sanctions are the tazir, or discretionary punishments. This category comprises acts that are not specified in the Qur’an and

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Hadith as offenses and which pose less of a threat to public safety than the hudud but are still considered to be harmful. In the case of tazir, the authorities may forego punishment or choose from a range of punishments, such as verbal chastisement, imprisonment, or whipping, based on public interest and the policy preferences of the judge or ruler. Unlike hadd offenses, tazir offenses are amenable to intercession and pardon. There is a consensus among Muslim jurists that the Prophet Muhammad did not intend that criminal punishments be frequently or easily applied. He encouraged Muslims to forgive and overlook crimes and avoid bringing them to his attention. He stated, “Avoid applying the hudud upon the Muslims as much as you can. If the criminal has a way out, then leave him to his way. Verily, it is better for the leader to make a mistake forgiving the criminal than it is for him to make a mistake punishing the innocent.” This and other factors, such as an exceedingly high standard of evidence meant that in premodern Islamic polities, the hudud were rarely applied. Few states apply the hadd punishments today. In those that do, there is concern that judicial authorities lack expertise in the interpretative canons of Islamic jurisprudence that tended to reduce the frequency of their application in the premodern era. An additional complication is that most states today have adopted codified systems of law, whereas Islamic law itself is more flexible, relying heavily on application of expert interpretation to each individual case. Some modern politicians seek to apply hadd punishments as a way of making a dramatic public statement, thereby casting themselves as defenders of Islam, even in cases when detailed analysis of a case shows that a hadd punishment would actually violate the locally applicable norms of Islamic law. In Pakistan, where blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue among Muslims, politicians can garner mass public attention and support by using hadd punishments as a way to portray themselves as being tough on blasphemy. However, most of Pakistan’s blasphemy cases are charges against non-Muslims, and, according the interpretive methodology followed in Pakistan, namely the Hanafi school of Islamic law, hadd punishments should not apply to non-Muslims in cases of blasphemy (Royer 2018). Some politicians have become concerned about the politicization and, in some cases, injustice associated with the issue of hadd punishments in Pakistan.

Use of Force by Nonstate Actors Islam’s proscription of the use of violence by anyone other than legitimate government authorities stems from the strong emphasis its doctrine places on peace, order, and security as conditions for human flourishing. As described below, such prohibited use of force includes such things as insurrection, vigilantism, and violent crime.

Islam: Introduction

The use of force is allowed under certain narrow conditions to remove oppressive rulers and for self-defense.

Brigandage (Hiraba) Hiraba, often translated as brigandage or highway robbery, is a category of offense in Islamic law comprising of acts of violent, disruptive lawlessness. The essence of the offense is nonstate violence that tends to spread fear and insecurity. Included in this category are armed robbery, terrorism, and insurrection. Some jurists also consider rape to fall within this category. The description of hiraba in the Qur’an and the severity of its prescribed punishment reflects Islam’s abhorrence of disorder and insecurity: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter. (Qur’an, Surah Maidah 5:33)

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, some Muslim jurists declared the attacks an act of hiraba—that is, forbidden, harmful violence—and not an act of jihad. In 2016, Saudi Arabia charged two brothers with hiraba for killing their mother when she attempted to prevent them from joining ISIS.

Rebellion (Baghy) Generally speaking, Islam forbids rebellion, or baghy, against political authorities and counsels Muslims to be patient if their ruler oppresses them. Muslim jurists permit rebellion against an unjust ruler only if he has abandoned Islam and the means exists to overthrow him, and then only if overthrowing him does not lead to greater harm. Some modern, violent Islamists have tried to exploit the exception that rebellion against a ruler who has abandoned Islam may be justified. They do so by declaring the ruler and anyone who works for the government to be an apostate on the basis of the ruler’s alleged failure to fully implement Islamic law or his subservience to Western powers. On this basis, Islamist revolutionaries have, in recent years, staged terrorist attacks and insurrections in Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Contemporary Muslim jurists are virtually unanimous in condemning such actions, holding that the rebels’ excommunication of these rulers is invalid and that the harm they inflict outweighs any injustice by these governments.

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Vigilantism Islam reserves the right to punish criminals for the government authorities and views vigilantism as a form of anarchy and disrespect for the law. Classical jurist Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali (d. 1335 CE) said that it is forbidden for a Muslim to take the law into one’s own hands “even if the authorities themselves are falling short in fulfilling their responsibilities” (Abdul-Faraj 2002, 608). The Egyptian scholar Abu Bakr al-Dimyati (d. 1893 CE) wrote that if anyone other than the authorities kills a criminal, “then he will be punished for transgressing against the authorities” (Abu Bakr Uthman 1995, 157). In 2011, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan was assassinated by his bodyguard, who believed the governor was a blasphemer and that Islam, therefore, justified the murder. The Supreme Court of Pakistan remarked that if this rationale were to be accepted, “Then a door shall become open for religious vigilantism which may deal a mortal blow to the rule of law in this country” (Qadri v. State 2015, cited in Royer 2018, 8). In 2016, Pakistan executed the governor’s assassin.

Domestic Violence Islam encourages tranquility within the home and forbids domestic abuse. The Qur’an admonishes men in regard to their wives, “Live with them in kindness” (Qur’an, Surah Nisa 4:19), and tells married couples, “Do not forget kindness between yourselves” (Qur’an, Surah Baqarah 2:237). The Prophet Muhammad said, “The most complete of the believers in faith are those with the best character, and the best of you are the best in behavior to their women.” A controversial verse in the Qur’an concerning marital discord is often cited as evidence that Islam permits men to beat their wives. The verse reads, “But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance: [first,] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you, seek no means against them” (Qur’an, Surah Nisa 4:34). However, the Prophet explained that “strike” in this verse means “without pain,” and jurists and classical Qur’anic commentators said that the intent is symbolic, akin to a slap on the wrist when teaching manners. This is evident from other teachings of the Prophet, as when he admonished his followers, “How does one of you beat his wife as he beats a camel and then embrace her?” Thus, the Syrian scholar Ibn Abidin (d. 1836) held that men may be prosecuted for harming their wives. U.S. Muslim researcher Tesneem Alkiek observed, “Abusers take advantage of misinterpretations of religious texts and exploit scripture as a justification for harming others both physically and mentally. Religious communities and leaders,

Islam: Introduction

on the other hand, can provide fundamental resources to raise awareness of the harms and impermissibility of domestic violence and provide support for victims” (Alkiek et al. 2017).

“Honor Killings” An “honor killing” is the murder of a woman, often by a family member or members, motivated by the perception that her actions have somehow dishonored the family. This practice does not originate in the Qur’an or the Hadith. Rather, such murders tend to occur in cultures that deem women the primary bearers of a family’s honor and in which honor is valued more than life, the bonds of kinship, and the dignity of the human person. Honor killings are often triggered when a woman is suspected of adultery, refuses an arranged marriage, seeks a divorce, or is raped. In such cultures, family members often feel pressured to commit the murder by their immediate social circle, family, tribe, or village. Honor killings occur around the world and among diverse cultures and religions. Muslim-majority regions where this cultural practice persists include Jordan, Turkey, and the Indian subcontinent. In such countries, the law or custom often treats such crimes with leniency. Islam itself, however, forbids honor killing, deeming it to be murder like any other murder. Historically, however, opinions differed among Islamic law jurists in the case of a man who discovers his wife in the act of having intercourse with another man, and then kills one or both of them. Some said that the husband’s jealous rage was a mitigating factor and that he was exempt from punishment, while others held that he should be punished. Such crimes of passion are arguably distinct from honor killings, as they are motivated by jealous rage and are not premeditated. In any event, contemporary religious authorities in Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine have decreed that those who commit such murders are not exempt from punishment.

Self-Defense Islamic law permits the use of force to defend oneself against robbery and violent aggression. The Prophet Muhammad said, “Whoever is killed while defending his wealth is a martyr. Whoever is killed while defending his religion is a martyr. Whoever is killed while defending his life is a martyr. Whoever is killed while defending his family is a martyr.” The jurists stipulated that the use of force in self-defense is legitimate only as a last resort and only to the extent necessary to repel an intruder or attacker; in other words, deadly force is not permissible when a lower level of force would suffice to end the attack.

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Muslims in the World Today Violence involving Muslims in the world today includes violence in which Muslims are the perpetrators and violence in which Muslims are the victims. Muslim perpetrators can roughly be grouped under the label “violent Islamists” (see Islamist). Muslims are targets of violence in primarily two settings. The first situation is in Muslim-majority areas, where mainstream Muslims, along with religious minorities, are often the victims of attacks by violent Islamists. Second, there are some Muslim-minority groups that are subjected to violence at the hands of non-Muslims; for example, in India, Myanmar, and China and harassment in the West. The significant amount of nonstate and state violence in several Muslim-majority regions of the world today is due to several factors. One challenge is that many of the countries that emerged in the twentieth century from the Ottoman Empire and European colonialism are governed by oppressive authoritarian regimes, conditions in which extremism and political violence can take root. The oppression, combined with aspirations for justice inspires violent reactions. Such violence then begets government crackdowns, which, in turn, deepen grievances, setting off a cycle of violence that results in violent repression or the chaos and instability of revolt. Islamist violent extremist movements that emerge from such environments justify their violence with ideologies and historic stories that draw on Islamic sources, but they often use passages very selectively, remove them from their context, ignore traditional interpretive nuance, and twist their meanings. Religion plays a role in such conflicts, but this violence comes from a combination of multiple causes at once. To call this “religious violence,” as if religion were a sole cause, would be inaccurate. Religion is a factor, and it makes a difference, but Islamic scriptural sources do not stand in isolation as a cause for Islamist violence. Instead, the Islamist interpreters of these sources, shaped by their own contexts and objectives, bring to these texts their own lenses, through which they make sense of them in pursuit of their own objectives. As William McCants observed: Muslim political behavior has varied greatly throughout history. Some Muslims have cited Scripture to justify violence, and some have cited it to justify peace. If Scripture is a constant but the behavior of its followers is not, then one should look elsewhere to explain why some Muslims engage in terrorism. . . . Indeed, even the ultratextualist followers of the self-proclaimed Islamic State ignore Scripture that is inconvenient for their brutal brand of insurgency. (McCants 2015)

The types of aggression violent Islamists carry out include terrorism, quasi-state actions, and vigilante justice. The Islamic legitimacy of all three forms of violence is rejected by mainstream Muslim scholars.

Islam: Introduction

Terrorism, defined as subversive violence by nonstate actors with the intent of instilling fear to achieve political aims, is one form of such violence. Violent Islamists, often incubated under the authoritarianism of Muslim-majority governments, launch attacks against both Muslim governments and populations they deem to be insufficiently Islamic, as well as against non-Muslims. To justify violence against Western populations, they often cite Western support for authoritarian governments in Muslim-majority countries as a primary rationale. These attacks against Western interests can provoke foreign military interventions or invasions, such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003, resulting in more violence. Ironically, terrorist groups have said that one purpose of their attacks is actually to invite invasions and crackdowns, with the aim of garnering support from local Muslims in the resulting chaos—they carry out their terrorism, knowing full well it will bring harm to Muslims. To bolster their claims to be the champions of “true Islam,” such terrorist groups also have a tendency to scapegoat and target Muslims whom they deem heterodox or disloyal to their cause, Muslims from minority sects, and non-Muslim religious minorities such as Christians. Alongside terrorism, some violent Islamist groups, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State in northern Syria and Iraq, have controlled territory and claimed to form “governments” for brief periods, even though the Taliban were recognized by only three countries in the world, while no countries recognized the Islamic State as a state. Other groups, such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, have taken control of ungoverned areas. These groups have used such ungoverned “safe havens” as bases from which to strengthen their groups, conduct attacks, and engage via social media. Another form of religiously related violence involving some Muslims today is when nonstate actors, such as terrorist groups or restive religious revival movements, administer harsh punishments, such as cutting off the hands of thieves, as a form of vigilante “justice” to assert claims to power and legitimacy in the perceived absence of a just Islamic government. Those who carry out such vigilante “justice” often claim Islamic justifications for their actions, but the lack of judicial procedures and the brutality of such “justice” are usually far removed from historical Islamic practices, in which the administration of justice, and especially all harsh punishments, was buffered by sophisticated, complex jurisprudential considerations and the existence of religious authorities with the high-level scholarly qualifications needed to navigate traditional Islamic jurisprudence. There are scores of violent Islamist groups throughout the world. By one estimate, there were sixty-seven such groups in the world in 2008 (Jones et al. 2018, iv). Seth Jones and his team identify four main strands of violent Islamists, whom they refer to as “Salafi-jihadists”: (1) the Islamic State and its “provinces,” (2) al-Qaeda and its “affiliates,” (3) other allied groups, and (4) “inspired networks

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and individuals.” These groups are generally decentralized, and adherents move back and forth between groups (Jones et al. 2018, iv). Sometimes these groups collaborate, while they more frequently compete with each other for notoriety, funding, and recruits. Each tries to outdo the other in projecting public images of Islamic legitimacy while they often share many of the same texts that they use to buttress their claims to Islamic authenticity. When mainstream Muslim scholars dispute the interpretations of violent Islamists, the violent Islamists respond with efforts to discredit the authority of such scholars. The following chart, “Number of Salafi-Jihadist and Allied Groups 1980– 2018” (from Jones et al. 2018, 7) helps to show the distinctly recent, modern nature of these “Salafi-jihadist” movements.

The next chart, “Estimated Number of Active Salafi-Jihadist Fighters, 1980– 2018,” provides additional context, showing the relatively small number of individuals involved in Islamist violence relative to the overall number of Muslims in the world. Seth Jones and his colleagues estimate that in 2009, there were about fifty thousand to one hundred thousand active “Salafi-Jihadist” fighters in the world (Jones et al. 2018, 9). The Pew Research Forum estimates that in 2009, there were 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, of whom about 90 percent were Sunni (Pew 2009), or about 1.41 billion. This would mean that in 2009, “Salafi-Jihadist” fighters represented about 0.0035 to 0.0071 percent of the world’s Sunni Muslims.

Islam: Introduction

It is important to understand not only that Salafi-Jihadists represent only a tiny fringe of Sunni Muslims in numerical terms but also that a very large gap exists between the relatively small number of Muslims willing to carry out subversive violence on the one hand and, on the other, the dominant presence of these Salafi-Jihadists in media coverage related to Islam, especially in non-Muslim majority countries in the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001. In this media landscape in which the violent Islamists are dominant while information about mainstream Muslims is relatively scarce, some in the public may developed a distorted impression that the violent Islamists are numerous, while mainstream Muslims may be few in number, when in fact the opposite is true. At the same time, it is understandable that there is significant media coverage of these hard-core fighters because there is often gruesome violence that is targeted at civilians; this can leave civilians feeling frightened that they themselves may become victims of this violence in their day-to-day lives, and this is no coincidence. These Islamist fighters want to disrupt the otherwise peaceful, secure day-to-day lives of the public. Such violence is often labeled terrorism because nonstate actors use this tactic of dramatic, public, disruptive violence on purpose to instill widespread terror into the general public. One challenge for public communication about this violence is that the extensive media attention on this violence, combined with lack of public information about mainstream Muslims can result in a distortion for the public regarding the actual size of this problem. An additional challenge is that an ongoing threat from Islamist violence remains. Due to these fighters’ intense dedication, disregard for law, willingness to

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use utterly vicious forms of violence (not least of all against civilians), control of un- or poorly governed territory, and global media reach, their impact in both local conflicts and international relations has been very significant in recent years and is likely to remain significant for some years. The entries that follow delve into a closer analysis of specific situations in which Muslims engage in violence using religious justifications, Muslims who reject these purportedly Islamic justifications for violence, and situations in which Muslims are targeted and become victims of violence. The entries below provide information primarily about Sunni Muslims. However, the entries on “Hezbollah” and “Martyrdom (Shia Islam)” are about religiously related violence carried out by Shia Muslims; the entries on “Ahmadiyya, Persecution of,” “ISIS (Islamic State),” and “Salafism” include information about violence targeted against Shia Muslims. Jennifer S. Bryson and Ismail Royer See also: Islam: Al-Shabaab; Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict; ISIS (Islamic State); Islamophobia; Jihad; The Neglected Duty (1981); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Qur’an; Rohingya, Persecution of; Salafism; Takfir; Taliban; Uyghurs FURTHER READING Abdel Haleem, Muhammed, Adel Omar Sharef, and Kate Daniels, eds. 2003. Criminal Justice in Islam: Judicial Procedure in the Shariʿah. London: I. B. Tauris. Abou El Fadl, Khaled. 2006. Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Abu Bakr Uthman b. Muhammad Shata al-Bakri ad-Dimyati. 1995. Vol. 4 of I’anat at-Talibin ala Hill Alfadh Fath al-Mu’in. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 157. Abul-Faraj Zayn-ud-Deen ‘Abdur-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Rajab. 2002. Vol. 2 of Majmu‘ ar-Rasa’il. Cairo: al-Faruq al-Hadithah lit-Tiba‘ah wan-Nashr, 608. Al-Dawoody, Ahmed. 2011. The Islamic Law of War: Justifications and Regulations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Alkiek, Tesneem, Dalia Mogahed, Omar Suleiman, and Jonathan Brown. 2017. “Islam and Violence against Women: A Critical Look at Domestic Violence and Honor Killings in the Muslim Community.” Yaqeen Institute. ­https://​­yaqeeninstitute​.­org​/­en​/­tesneem​ -­alkiek​/­islam​-­and​-­violence​-­against​-­women​-­a​-­critical​-­look​-­at​-­domestic​-­violence​-­and​ -­honor​-­killings​-­in​-­the​-­muslim​-­community​/#­Domestic​-­Violence. Jackson, Sherman A. 2001. “Domestic Terrorism in the Islamic Legal Tradition.” Muslim World 91, no. 3/4 (Fall): 293–310. Jones, Seth G., Charles Vallee, Danika Newlee, Nicholas Harrington, Clayton Sharb, and Hannah Byrne. 2018. The Evolution of the Salafi-Jihadist Threat: Current and Future Challenges from the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and Other Groups. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Lange, Christian, ed. 2009. Public Violence in Islamic Societies: Power, Discipline, and the Construction of the Public Sphere, 7th–19th Centuries CE. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Islam: ­Ahmadiyya, Persecution o Lipka, Michael. 2017. “Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and around the World.” Pew Research Center, April 6, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­pewresearch​.­org​/­fact​-­tank​/­2017​/­08​ /­09​/­muslims​-­and​-­islam​-­key​-­findings​-­in​-­the​-­u​-­s​-­and​-­around​-­the​-­world. McCants, William. 2015. “Islamic Scripture Is Not the Problem.” Foreign Policy, July/ August  2015. ­https://​­www​.­foreignaffairs​.­com​/­articles​/­2015​-­06​-­16​/­islamic​-­scripture​ -­not​-­problem. Pew Research Center. 2009. “Mapping the Global Muslim Population.” October 7, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­pewforum​.­org​/­2009​/­10​/­07​/­mapping​-­the​-­global​-­muslim​-­population​/. Royer, Ismail. 2018. Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law and Non-Muslims. Philadelphia: Lampost Productions. Sells, Michael. 1998. The Bridge Betrayed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woodward, Mark, Muhammad Sani Umar, Inayah Rohmaniyah, and Mariani Yahya. 2013. “Salafi Violence and Sufi Tolerance? Rethinking Conventional Wisdom.” Perspectives on Terrorism 7, no. 6: 58–­78​.

­AHMADIYYA, PERSECUTION OF The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was founded in India in 1889. Its followers are known as Ahmadis, named after their founder, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835– 1908), or sometimes they are called Qadianis, referring to the village Qadian where the movement started—formerly in India, and today in Pakistan. The Ahmadis are highly controversial among Muslims. Most Sunni and Shia Muslims do not consider them to be Muslim because they consider the Ahmadi teachings heretical, whereas the Ahmadis identify themselves as Muslim. The Ahmadis are subject to ostracization and violent persecution around the world in many Muslim-majority countries, as well as in Muslim-majority communities in countries where Muslims are a minority. The Ahmadis’ claims about their founder are viewed as heretical and as a threat to orthodoxy by Sunni and Shia Muslims. Ahmadis believe their founder was both the Messiah (the “metaphorical second coming” of Jesus) and “Mahdi” (a rightly guided one prophesied by Muhammad) (Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA 2017). By contrast, Sunni and Shia Muslims still await the second coming of Jesus as the Messiah and the coming of the Mahdi. Sunni and Shia Muslims consider Muhammad as the final prophet, and they accuse Ahmadis of violating this central tenet of Islam by elevating Ahmad to the level of being a prophet. Ahmadis claim that their founder, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a “messenger” but not a “prophet”—a distinction so subtle that it is lost on many. The Ahmadis have a wide geographic spread, both because they are active in missionary work around the world and also because many have fled from persecution in Muslim-majority countries. The international headquarters of the community is in the United Kingdom. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community call themselves Muslims, they call their houses of worship mosques, and they

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identify with Islam in their social media outreach, using such website addresses as “­alislam​.­org” and “­trueislam​.­org​.” Persecution of the Ahmadis takes the form of vigilante violence, social ostracization, and government policies. These types of persecution can feed into each other. Vigilante violence can lead politicians to view anti-Ahmadi policies as a way to garner popular support, as happened after the 1953 and 1974 anti-Ahmadi riots in Pakistan. At the same time, government policies such as laws against blasphemy can foster an environment favorable to regulation of speech and to punishing unpopular speech. In such an environment, vigilante violence, especially to punish speech of unpopular minority groups such as the Ahmadis, finds support instead of restraint (Grim and Finke 2011). Pakistan is the country where all three forms of discrimination and persecution against the Ahmadis are most prevalent. The government of Pakistan responded to the 1974 anti-Ahmadi riots by amending the Constitution to define, relatively narrowly, who can be considered a Muslim. This and other anti-Ahmadi laws in Pakistan have made it illegal for the Ahmadi to call themselves “Muslim,” call their houses of worship “mosques,” propagate their beliefs, or make a call to prayer in public. In 1986, the Pakistani Parliament amplified the country’s laws against blasphemy. The Ahmadis’ claims about Ahmad are considered blasphemy under these laws, an offense that is punishable by death. In Muslim-majority countries other than Pakistan, anti-Ahmadi laws and popular sentiment are widespread, and, in some, there are incidents of vigilante violence. Muslim-majority governments persecute the Ahmadis regardless of the actual size of the local Ahmadi community. In September 2017, the head of the very small Algerian Ahmadiyya community was found guilty of “offending Islam” by a court in Algiers (AFP 2017). In Malaysia, Ahmadi Islam has been declared illegal by the government. In 2008, the Indonesian government banned Ahmadis from promulgating their beliefs and set the punishment at five years in prison. The Indonesian government has closed approximately one hundred Ahmadi mosques (USCIRF 2017). As for vigilante violence against Ahmadis, Sunni Islamist militants attacked two Ahmadiyya houses of worship in Pakistan in 2010, killing ninety-four and injuring scores. From July 2012 to June 2013, there were a total of forty attacks against Ahmadis in Pakistan alone (USCIRF 2014, 4). In 2015, there was an attack during Friday prayer at an Ahmadi house of worship in Bangladesh. Similarly, in 2011 a mob attacked Ahmadis in Indonesia, killing several and wounding others. There has been violence against Ahmadis outside of the law in Europe. In 2016, in Glasgow, Scotland, a Sunni Muslim named Tanveer Ahmed, claiming to defend Islam, murdered an Ahmadi shopkeeper, Asad Shah; Tanveer is now in prison. Majority-Muslim governments, including those of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, have been criticized for doing little to prevent or prosecute attacks against

Islam: Al-Shabaab

Ahmadis. Government responses in these countries have often been to further limit the religious freedoms of the Ahmadiyya communities by restricting their ability to build mosques, promulgate their beliefs, and other aspects of practicing their faith. Governments have reasoned that these measures prevent Ahmadis from offending extremist groups and bringing violence onto themselves. Many have criticized this approach because it is seen as appeasing extremist groups rather than protecting Ahmadis by prosecuting extremists and protecting the free religious expression of Ahmadis. Moreover, it is noteworthy that in Sunni Muslim-majority countries where there is persecution of Ahmadis, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, there is also persecution by violent Sunni Muslims of other non-Sunni minority religions, including Shia Muslims (see USCIRF 2017; Grim and Finke 2011). Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Blasphemy; Takfir FURTHER READING Agence France-Presse (AFP). 2017. “Ahmadiyya Community’s Local Head Convicted of Blasphemy in Algeria.” The Express Tribune, September 14, 2017. ­https://​­tribune​.­com​.­pk​ /­story​/­1505904​/­ahmadiyya​-­communitys​-­local​-­head​-­convicted​-­blasphemy​-­algeria​/. Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. 2017. “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.” ­https://​ ­www​.­ahmadiyya​.­us​/­about​-­ahmadiyya​-­muslim​-­community. Grim, Brian, and Roger Finke. 2011. The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Cambridge University Press. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 2014. “Factsheet Pakistan.” ­https://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­Pakistan​%­20Factsheet​.­pdf. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 2017. “2017 Annual Report.” ­https://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­2017​.­USCIRFAnnual Report​.­pdf.

AL-QAEDA. See 9/11 AND AL-QAEDA AL-SHABAAB Al-Shabaab is a Somali Islamist movement based in southern Somalia and active in East Africa. Al-Shabaab is an Arabic word meaning youth. The full name of the group is Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, the Movement of Young Jihadists. Its main objective is uniting Somalis in East Africa under a unified Islamist political authority; al-Shabaab also has affiliations with organizations aspiring to global pan-Islamist rule, such as al-Qaeda.

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Al-Shabaab as an organization started out as a youth arm of the Islamic Courts Union, which had tenuous control over Somalia in 2006, but its roots go back several decades. In the 1960s, Salafism and Wahhabism was introduced into Somalia from Egypt and Saudi. These newly introduced interpretations of Islam were a contrast to the widely accepted, relatively tolerant Sufi-influenced Islamic traditions of Somalia. Some Somalis fought in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Those who returned to Somalia afterward brought further influences of politically oriented Islam, as well as organizational and leadership experience. They formed groups such as Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya and tried to overthrow Somalia’s largely secular government. The chaos following the collapse of the government of Somalia in 1991 offered Somali Islamists new opportunities to recruit and gain experience fighting, while they remained in contact with the network of Islamist fighters from the Afghan jihad. For example, the absence of a government opened opportunities for charities with Salafi and Wahhabi affiliations to provide services and thus expand their influence. In 1992 and 1993, Muhammed Atef visited Somalia from the al-Qaeda hub in Khartoum. Atef later helped plan the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania as well as the 9/11 attacks (Harmony Project 2007, 79). After deployment of U.S. troops to Somalia in the mid-1990s, along with a United Nations mission, al-Qaeda issued a fatwa from Khartoum to provide religious justification, as well as encouragement, for Somali Islamists to fight against this foreign, non-Muslim presence. Al-Qaeda-trained fighters killed eighteen U.S. soldiers in Somalia in October 1993. In the absence of a government in Somalia, a network called Islamic Courts Union (ICU) formed to provide at least a limited justice system based on Sharia Law. In the meantime, scores of Somalis traveled to Afghanistan to fight with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001 and 2002; many later returned to fight in Somalia, and, in 2005, some of them started forming the core of what would become al-Shabaab (Jones et al. 2016, 11–12). In 2006, the ICU ruled Somalia briefly. The United States, however, supported largely secularist clan warlords. Ethiopian forces, with U.S. support, invaded Somalia in 2006 and 2007 and removed the ICU from power. Then an African Union force named AMISOM, including troops from Kenya, Uganda, and Burundi, entered to try to bring stability. In the chaos and amid the outrage of having foreigners invade, groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda expanded recruitment. Al-Shabaab broke off as a radical splinter from the ICU. Many of the religious moderates in the ICU subsequently emigrated from Somalia. Ousted from power on the ground, al-Shabaab expanded its internet presence in 2007, not only spreading propaganda but also fund-raising and recruiting from Somali communities abroad. For disaffected young Somali émigrés in the United States and elsewhere, al-Shabaab offered a mix of adventure, nationalism, and

Islam: Al-Shabaab

religious duty (Elliott 2009). In 2010, al-Shabaab aligned itself with al-Qaeda (and then pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2012), thereby adding to their allure through the opportunity to get in on al-Qaeda’s global resistance to the West. This combination, minus the nationalism, also drew some foreigners to join al-Shabaab. In addition, al-Shabaab expanded its fund-raising to include Arab donors (Wise 2011, 9–10). In local recruitment, “intimidation and cash bonuses” have also played a role (Wise 2011, 7). In justifications for their violence, Al-Shabaab use religious terminology, and they depict the world in conflicting categories of religious identity, in stark terms of Muslims versus non-Muslims. For example, one al-Qaeda document about Somalia found in Mali reads: The French and the English are to be treated equally: Their blood and their money are halal wherever they may be. No Muslim in any part of the world may cooperate with them in any way . . . It leads to apostasy and expulsion from Islam . . . Kenyans, Ugandans, and Burundians are just like the English and the French because they have invaded the Islamic country of Somalia and launched war on Islam and Muslims. (Jones et al. 2016, 3)

Al-Shabaab has also described its Ethiopian neighbors, who invaded in 2006, with a population that is about 50 percent Christian, as “crusaders,” and it named its 2010 Ramadan offensive the “end of the apostates” (Nahayatu Muxtadiin) (Wise 2011, 3 and 20). Al-Shabaab’s control of territory has remained limited to the south of Somalia, though their range of operations has extended outside the country. In 2010, they killed seventy-six civilians watching a World Cup soccer match in Uganda in revenge for Uganda’s participation in AMISOM. Al-Shabaab captured media attention with its 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya, killing at least fifty-nine. In 2015, al-Shabaab targeted Christian students in an attack, killing 148 people at Garissa University in Kenya. In recent years, multinational efforts supporting stabilization in Somalia have diminished al-Shabaab’s ability to control territory, and al-Shabaab’s own infighting has diminished its strength. However, al-Shabaab continues. The lack of wellfunctioning governance in Somalia, local clan rivalries, and the vitality of Islamist hubs elsewhere in the world continue to offer al-Shabaab grievances to exploit, a haven in which to operate, and access to support and inspiration. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Taliban; Wahhabism

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Elliott, Andrea. 2009. “A Call to Jihad, Answered in America.” New York Times, July 11, 2009. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2009​/­07​/­12​/­us​/­12somalis​.­html​?­mtrref​=​­www​.­google​ .­com​&g­ wh​=​­10A78D69AB996A638A10A218F82968EA​&g­ wt​=​­pay​&a­ ssetType​=​ ­REGIWALL. Harmony Project. 2007. “Al-Qa’ida’s (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa.” US Military Academy, Combating Terrorism Center. ­https://​­ctc​.­usma​.­edu​/­app​/­uploads​/­2010​/­06​ /­Al​-­Qaidas​-­MisAdventures​-­in​-­the​-­Horn​-­of​-­Africa​.­pdf. Jones, Seth G., Andrew M. Liepman, and Nathan Chandler. 2016. Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency in Somalia Assessing the Campaign against Al Shabaab. Santa Monica: RAND. Keating, Michael, and Matt Waldman, eds. 2019. War and Peace in Somalia: National Grievances, Local Conflict and Al-Shabaab. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wise, Rob. 2011. “Al-Shabaab.” AQAM Future Project Case Studies Report. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies. July 2011.

ASSAM BODO-MUSLIM CONFLICT Western Assam state in northeast India has had decades of tensions between indigenous Assamese ethnic groups, especially the Bodo, and Bengali-speaking Muslim immigrants and their descendants. The Bodo consider these Muslims, even those who have been there for generations, “outsiders” and “invaders.” The Bodo have repeatedly targeted violence against these Muslims, causing many deaths, as well as ongoing instability in the region. The state of Assam, the namesake of Assam tea, is located in northeast India. During British rule (1858–1947), the colonial authorities encouraged immigration, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in order to expand the labor pool for agricultural work, especially on tea plantations. The immigrants were Muslims who came from primarily East Bengal, the area known today as Bangladesh. Then, and still today, local population groups in Assam considered an “invasion” of alien culture, ethnicity, and religion, even though some of these Muslims have now lived in the region for generations. The main ethnic group in Assam opposing the Bengali-speaking Muslim immigrants and their descendants is the Bodo, thus this conflict in Assam is often described in media as “Bodo-Muslim” violence. The languages of the Bodo and several other ethnic groups of western Assam are Sino-Tibetan languages, whereas the Muslims of western Assam largely speak Bengali, an Indo-Aryan language using a distinct alphabet. These Muslim immigrants into Assam during the period of British colonialism and up to today come from several ethnic groups, but they are often labelled

Islam: Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict

collectively as “Bengali,” or, in a political effort to emphasize their “foreignness,” some label them “Bangladeshis.” (In addition, other immigrants recruited to the region under British colonialism, many from central India, are sometimes referred to as “tea-tribes,” often in an effort to emphasize their association with immigration as tea plantation laborers, and, thus, they are not indigenous to Assam). The Muslims in western Assam are a mix of descendants of the colonial-era immigrants, as well as some new, often illegal, immigrants from Bangladesh. Assamese groups have rallied local support against Muslims by labeling them all “illegal immigrants” and “settlers.” (This narrative bears striking resemblance to the way anti-Muslim Buddhist activists in Burma rally opposition to the Muslim-majority ethnic Rohingya, who are mostly descendants of colonial-era immigrants from the area known today as Bangladesh.) The Bodo opposition to the Muslims includes both political parties that participate in local and state elections, as well as armed groups such as the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT). The Bodo identify the NDFB, BLT, and other armed nonstate groups as “security forces,” while others identify them as “armed militia” and “insurgents.” In addition, throughout the tensions of recent decades, several local tribal groups have supported the Bodo, both in participating in violence against Muslims and in aligning with the Bodo against Muslims in local elections. However, there has also been armed conflict between tribal groups in this region. Instability is not uncommon in northeast India. Ideological movements overlap with ethnic movements. There are several Maoist-affiliated groups and a Baptist-Christian/ethnic group known as the National Liberation Front of Tripura (listed as a terrorist organization by the government of India). Adjacent ethnic groups of this region fight variously against the Bengali-speaking Muslims, against each other (when they are not allied with each other against the Muslims), and/ or sometimes against Indian government forces. In addition, there are intratribal splits, including several different Bodo factions that, at times, fight against each other. In this environment of ongoing regional instability, accessing illicitly traded weapons is not exceedingly difficult. The demands of the Bodo and other ethnic groups fighting against the Muslims of western Assam range from ethnic “purification,” to land rights, to autonomous political control for their own ethnic group, to recognition by the Indian government as a “Scheduled Tribe,” a status that brings with it access to particular political rights as well as government subsidies and other benefits. The forms of subversive undertakings vary; Amnesty International’s 2016/2017 report for India observes, “Armed groups in northeastern states including Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya were accused of extortion, abduction and unlawful killings” (Amnesty International n.d.).

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Increasing competition for land, water, and other natural resources has increased tensions along preexisting ethnic and religious fissures. The government of India has attempted peace negotiations, reaching two agreements over the years, namely the Assam Accord in 1985 between the government of India and the Assam Movement and an agreement in 2003 between the government of India and the BLT, establishing the semiautonomous Bodo Territorial Administered Districts within northwest Assam. However, hostility among the Bodo against the Bengali-speaking Muslims has, if anything, only increased since 2003, and sporadic violence continues. In a 2015, the International Displacement Monitoring Center estimated that there were about ninety thousand displaced persons in western Assam at the time of their report (International Displacement Monitoring Centre 2015). Most of these displaced persons are Muslims. Below is a timeline of key incidents in the Assam-Bodo Muslim conflict: •

•

• •

• •

•

1979–1985: Assamese university students, calling their effort the “Assam Movement,” fostered public agitation against “illegal immigrants” (i.e., against Bengali-speaking Muslims). 1983: Riots following the election that year, most notably the “Nellie Massacre” on February 18, during which largely Bodo mobs killed several thousand Muslims of Bengali descent over several hours; a key point of tension was the decision by the prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, to allow those of Bengali heritage living in India to vote. 1996: Train bombing, killing over thirty; the government of India blamed the attack on Bodo militants. 2008: Ten to eighteen bombs exploded in marketplaces, and one exploded near the residence of an Assam government official. Over eighty people were killed, and police blamed the attacks on the NDFB. 2012: Several attacks on Bengali-speaking Muslims in early May, following dissatisfaction by some with the results of a local election. 2014: A series of attacks on Muslims over several days, Over three dozen, including children, were killed; homes of Muslims were set on fire; and a few hundred Muslims fled toward the border with Bangladesh. Local police blamed Bodo militants for the attacks. The catalyst for the violence appears to have been accusations by a Bodo politician against Muslims in west Assam that they failed to vote for Bodo politicians (the Bodo politicians fared unusually poorly in the election, while the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party had record high success). 2016: Attack on a marketplace by Bodo militants, with at least fourteen killed.

Islam: Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict

The incidents listed above were largely attacks by Bodo against Bengali-speaking Muslims and in the population at large to induce terror. The Muslims have, so far, not responded with organized violence, though the possibility of this has been on the radar of Indian security forces. For example, in the spring of 2017, the government of Assam issued a warning for Assam security forces to be on high alert due to risks of recruitment of Assam Muslim youth into ISIS and ISIS-inspired movements, as well as what they claimed was the possibility of ISIS-related or -inspired attacks in Assam. Jaideep Saikia, the author of the 2002 book Terror Sans Frontiers: Islamist Militancy in Northeast India, claims that by the 1990s, al-Qaeda had an interest in the situation of Muslims in Assam, along with the nearby areas of Bangladesh and Burma (Saikia 2016). The ongoing tensions and periodic outbreaks of violence in Assam have attracted attention both regionally beyond just Assam and even internationally. Regionally, due to the geographic location on Assam, in the so-called narrow “chicken’s neck” connecting the main part of India to its territories north and northeast of Bangladesh, the negative impact on rail transit caused by instability in Assam has an impact in India, both to the west and to the east. Moreover, Assam is located near India’s international borders with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, China, and Burma. International media outlets with a particular interest in the affairs of Muslims, such as Al Jazeera, have covered the violence in Assam. Also, for example, the Indian American Muslim Council (AMC) issued a report about the 2014 riots titled, “Rationalizing Ethnic Cleansing in Assam.” Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of FURTHER READING Amnesty International. n.d.“India 2016/2017.” ­https://​­www​.­amnesty​.­org​/­en​/­countries​/­asia​ -­and​-­the​-­pacific​/­india​/­report​-­india​/. Bhaumik, Subir. 2012. “What Lies behind Assam Violence?” BBC News, July 26, 2012. ­https://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­asia​-­india​-­18993905. Deka, Hira Moni. 2014. “Politics of Identity and the Bodo Movement in Assam.” Scholars World. ­http://​­www​.­jneis​.­com​/­wp​-­content​/­uploads​/­2018​/­08​/­7​.­2​.­7​.­pdf. FirstPost. 2014. “Assam Violence: 5 Key Facts about the Bodo-Muslim Conflict.” May 4, 2014. ­http://​­www​.­firstpost​.­com​/­india​/­assam​-­violence​-­5​-­key​-­facts​-­about​-­the​-­bodo​ -­muslim​-­conflict​-­1507865​.­html. International Displacement Monitoring Centre. 2015. “India: Countrywide Response Urgently Required to Address Chronic Internal Displacement.” h­ ttp://​­www​.­internal​ -­d isplacement​ .­o rg​ /­s ites​ /­d efault​ /­files​ /­p ublications​ /­d ocuments​ /­2 01504​ -­a p​ -­i ndia​ -­overview​-­en​.­pdf.

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BLASPHEMY The English word blasphemy means irreverent speech or action concerning the sacred. There is no single term in Arabic, the main language of the Islamic tradition, that parallels the word. Nevertheless, Islam strongly condemns the conduct covered by the English term, and, thus, it is reasonable to discuss the religion’s position on blasphemy. Blasphemy in Islam comprises insulting or belittling God or any of his prophets, especially the Prophet Muhammad. The Qur’an states that God will severely punish blasphemy in the hereafter. Scholars of Islam have differed on the consequences of blasphemy in this life under Islamic law. In determining offense and punishment, they considered several factors, including the blasphemer’s religion and gender, and what had been the object of the blasphemy. Scholars also differed about whether and in what circumstances repentance for blasphemy is possible. Many modern Muslim-majority countries have enacted laws against blasphemy. Some contemporary Islamic scholars argue that these laws are contrary to the aims of Islam and that classical opinions on punishment for blasphemy should be reconsidered. The Qur’an is clear that blasphemy is a grave sin and that blasphemers will be punished in hell in the hereafter (Qur’an, Surah al-Kahf, 18:106). However, the Qur’an prescribes no punishment for blasphemy in this life. Rather, it tells Muslims that every prophet was mocked by his people (Qur’an, Surah al-Hijr, 15:11) and encourages Muslims to be patient with such abuse (Qur’an, Surah Ali Imran, 3:186). When Muslims hear someone mocking God’s word, they are to leave until the subject is changed (Qur’an, Surah an-Nisa, 4:140) and are not to take such people as friends (Qur’an, Surah al-Maidah, 5:57). In the period following the death of the Prophet Muhammad (632 CE), Islamic jurists prescribed punishments for blasphemy, based in part on certain reports from the life of the Prophet that they understood to support such punishments. While the justifications offered by the jurists for this varied, their overarching aim was to ensure public reverence for the sacred, which they saw as both the source of communal order in this life and of individual salvation in the next. As discussed below, blasphemy was handled differently under classical Islamic jurisprudence, depending on whether the blasphemer was a Muslim or non-Muslim, a man or a woman, and whether he or she had insulted God or the

Islam: Blasphemy

Prophet. The jurists agreed, however, that such punishments could only be imposed by the legitimate government authorities. Classical scholars of Islamic law agreed that blasphemy by a Muslim nullified the blasphemer’s faith and rendered him or her an apostate. Since apostasy was held to be punishable by death, the Muslim blasphemer was therefore exposed to the death penalty if the offense were to come to the attention of the authorities. If the individual had insulted God, the blasphemer could avoid execution by repenting, but if he or she had insulted the Prophet, most jurists held that repentance did not lift the obligation of execution. They reasoned that God could forgive insults, but that since the Prophet was not alive to forgive those who insulted him, his honor had to be vindicated by worldly authorities. However, jurists of the Hanafi school, one of the four schools of Sunni legal thought, held that the Muslim blasphemer could avoid execution by repenting, and they further held that a woman who blasphemed against either God or the Prophet was not to be executed but imprisoned until she repented. In the empires in which classical Islamic jurisprudence was developed, nonMuslim religious minorities were deemed to be semiautonomous nations, subject to a treaty that allowed them to live peacefully under Muslim dominion. Therefore, for many jurists, the question of what to do about a non-Muslim who insulted Islam or the Prophet Muhammad primarily came down to whether by doing so the non-Muslim violated the treaty, rendering him or her “at war” with the Muslims. The majority held that it did and that the non-Muslim blasphemer should thus be executed. However, most Hanafis and some from the Shafi’i school of thought, held that non-Muslims who insulted the Prophet did not break the treaty and that the authorities could pardon them or punish them with something less than execution if deemed in the public interest. The end of the age of empires, the colonization of many lands formerly ruled by Islamic empires, and the subsequent reordering of the world into nation-states has changed the way blasphemy is handled in Muslim-majority countries. Many of those countries have laws criminalizing blasphemy, but such laws, for example, in Pakistan, often derive from codes imposed by colonial rulers in order to preserve communal order. Many parts of the Muslim-majority world are plagued with disruptive protests and vigilante violence related to blasphemy accusations. Also, some Muslims who live as minorities have responded with violence to what they see as blasphemy. In light of current social and political circumstances, some contemporary Islamic scholars have called into question the applicability of Islamic jurisprudence that was developed in premodern conditions. According to a U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report authored by Joelle Fiss and Jocelyn Kestenbaum, twenty-nine Muslimmajority countries criminalize blasphemy; most impose fines or imprisonment, while two, Iran and Pakistan, mandate the death penalty (Fiss and Kestenbaum 2017). In

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many of these countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, blasphemy laws do not originate in classical Islamic jurisprudence but in codes imposed by European colonial powers seeking to facilitate their rule by imposing order on religiously and ethnically diverse populations. Blasphemy laws are not enforced to the same degree in all Muslim-majority countries, but in Pakistan, over one thousand people have been charged under the version of its law passed in the 1980s. Critics of Pakistan’s blasphemy law say accusations under this law are frequently made for the purpose of settling personal scores and scapegoating religious minorities. In 2017, Indonesia’s blasphemy law was invoked to convict the Christian governor of Jakarta for citing a verse of the Qur’an to argue that Islamic scripture did not prevent non-Muslims from holding political authority over Muslims. Classical jurists agreed that criminal laws could only be enforced by legitimate government authority. Nevertheless, blasphemy laws in Muslim countries are often exploited by populist religious leaders who build clout by inflaming popular religious sentiments with accusations that someone has insulted the Prophet Muhammad, often sparking violent protests. Such protests often influence government action; Indonesia’s prosecution of Jakarta’s Christian governor was driven by massive rallies held by a hardline religious organization. Pakistan presents an especially severe case. Despite the high number of prosecutions, Pakistan has not yet executed anyone for blasphemy; however, many of the accused have been murdered by vigilante mobs before they can stand trial, while others have served long prison terms. Those who seek reform of Pakistan’s law have been targeted for assassination. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, was murdered in 2011 by his own bodyguard for seeking a presidential pardon for a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. Protests and vigilante violence over blasphemy are much less common among Muslim minorities in the West, but they have occurred. In 1988, thousands of Muslims in the United Kingdom protested the release of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, which implied that the Prophet had been inspired by Satan rather than God. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a young man of Moroccan heritage who was upset over Van Gogh’s criticism of Islam. In 2015 in Paris, two brothers of Algerian descent used automatic assault rifles to murder twelve people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine that had published cartoons mocking the Prophet. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack. Some contemporary Muslims scholars conclude that classical rulings on blasphemy should be reconsidered, since the conditions under which they were developed have changed (Rabb 2012, 156). Under current understandings of political order in the Muslim-majority world, minority religious groups are not considered

Islam: Boko Haram

conquered peoples but equal citizens; thus, irreverent speech concerning what Islam deems sacred no longer signifies defection from the political community, warranting punishment. Hamza Yusuf, a U.S. Muslim scholar of Islam, has argued that applying premodern rulings on blasphemy and apostasy today undermines their original purpose by fostering disrespect for religion rather than piety. Ismail Royer See also: Islam: Charlie Hebdo Attack (2015); Qur’an FURTHER READING Fiss, Joelle, and Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum. 2017. “Respecting Rights? Measuring the World’s Blasphemy Laws.” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. ­https://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­Blasphemy​%­20Laws​%­20Report​.­pdf. Rabb, Intisar. 2012. “Negotiating Speech in Islamic Law and Politics.” In Anver M. Emon, Mark Ellis, and Benjamin Glahn, eds. Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 144–67. Royer, Ismail. 2018. “Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law and Non-Muslims.” Lamppost Education Initiative. ­https://​­lamppostedu​.­org​/­5531​-­2. Wahid, Kyai Haji Aburrahman. 2011. “God Needs No Defense.” In Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, eds. Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 213–18.

BOKO HARAM Boko Haram is a violent Islamist organization that was founded in 2002 in northeastern Nigeria. The formal name of the group is “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” The nickname “Boko Haram” translates loosely to “Western education is sinful.” Since Boko Haram began in 2002, over 3.5 million people in Nigeria and neighboring states have been displaced, about 2.5 million of whom remain displaced (IOM 2016). Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands (CFR 2012). The primary location of Boko Haram violence and disruption of public life has been in northeast Nigeria, but they have attacked other parts of Nigeria sporadically, including the capital, Abuja, and negative impacts of Boko Haram have spread into neighboring Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. “Boko” is a derogatory word in Hausa, the dominant language of northern Nigeria. Historically “boko” refers to something that is “bogus” or “weird,” often connoting deceit, and it became a shorthand way of referring to Western education. “Haram” means forbidden. Before the colonial era, the Hausa people held those with an Islamic education in high regard. After the British introduced Western education in Nigeria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, initially

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via the non-Muslim areas in the south of Nigeria, the Hausa Muslims felt that non-Hausa Nigerians and the British looked down on their respected, Islamically educated members of Hausa society. Thus, Boko Haram’s public stance of opposition to Western education is a way to position the organization as a defender of the dignity of the religious—that is, Islamic—and cultural traditions of Hausa lands, along with other Muslim-majority areas of northern Nigeria and West Africa. The founder of Boko Haram was a Nigerian Muslim named Muhammad Yusuf (1970–2009). Yusuf was a populist preacher who subscribed to a Salafi interpretation of Islamic faith, with his base in Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern state of Borno, in Nigeria. Boko Haram started with the mission of “curbing insecurity, corruption and moral decadence among the youths” (Ofongo 2016, 146). Yusuf was known for fiery preaching that called for the renouncing of any sociopolitical attachment of West African Muslims to Western values, cultures, and educational system. Over time, Boko Haram became increasingly entangled in political objectives. At the height of his preaching, Yusuf called for the overthrow of the secular regional and federal governments of Nigeria and their replacement with a Sharia-based government under the leadership of those who followed his particular interpretation of Islam. In the 1970s, there were initial developments among Hausa Muslims of what was called an “izala movement.” Izala is an Arabic term meaning “removal” or “eradication.” The target was the eradication of what they perceived as “religious innovation” (in Islam, inappropriate innovation, bida’, is a serious sin). This movement sought to “purify” the local practice of Islam. Around this time, there was also a Muslim Brotherhood movement in the region; some who viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as insufficiently committed broke off and formed a group focused on “izala” called “Izala l-Bida wa Iqama s-Sunnah,” or “Removing Innovation and Establishing the way of the Prophet.” Yusuf, prior to founding Boko Haram, was part of this breakaway izala group. He then broke away from the group; he and his followers accused the izala group of being insufficiently “pure” Muslims. The Muslim “reform” and “purification” movements of the 1970s and 1980s in northern Nigeria were not the first such trends among Hausa Muslims and some other Muslim ethnic groups of the region. The most prominent precursor was Uthman Dan Fodio (1754–1817). However, in contrast to the movement started by Dan Fodio, the modern izala movements, not the least of which is Boko Haram, have been more puritanical and have been prone more toward destruction. It is as if the new movements seek to wipe the slate clean, no matter how much violence this might take, and start over rather than just reform what is already there. Although Boko Haram began as a fringe religious faction, its growth can be attributed in part to the large swaths of the population, especially young men and teenage boys, who had a strong appeal for it. Boko Haram emerged at a time when

Islam: Boko Haram

religious, sociopolitical, and economic fault lines were filled with tension due to bad governance, the politicization of ethnic and religious identities, economic competition, and conflicts over political power, both inside Nigeria and in neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Moreover, an atmosphere of impunity had characterized Nigeria’s postcolonial history due to prolonged military rule and a faulty judicial system. Socioreligious conflicts, ethnic riots, and regional geopolitical conflicts in recent years have also had negative impacts on the region. Adding to this, illiteracy, unemployment, and social displacement were widespread among young men and teenage boys who were migrating in search of jobs at a time when the elites of Nigeria were becoming wealthier, and corruption was becoming more widespread. Boko Haram’s ideology as an anti-status quo religious movement made it particularly attractive to some youth in northern Nigeria. Boko Haram emerged and has remained rooted in northeast Nigeria, especially Maiduguri and its neighboring towns and villages. Both local and regional governance is weak in this part of Nigeria, far from Nigeria’s capital Abuja and near poorly monitored borders with Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. In 2009, Nigerian security forces killed Boko Haram’s founder Muhammad Yusuf. Under the subsequent leadership of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram has become even more brutal, and it has extended its international relations, though it remains focused on local grievances and objectives. In 2015, Boko Haram announced its allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and, in recent years, Boko Haram members are said to have sought militant training in jihadist camps in Somalia, Sudan, Mali, and even Afghanistan. Under the new leadership of the extremely militant Abubakar Shekau, the members learned guerilla war tactics and bomb-making techniques and planned to wreak havoc on the Nigerian armed forces, Christians, and anyone who opposed their ideology among Muslims. Shekau declared in a propaganda video, “I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill—the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams” (BBC 2014). Boko Haram received extensive international coverage when militants abducted close to three hundred schoolgirls from Chibok, which is in the state of Borno, on April 14, 2014. As of mid-2017, only about a hundred of the kidnapped girls were rescued, escaped, or released through a prisoner swap with the government; some of these girls were pregnant from having been raped by Boko Haram members. The group has been responsible for the widespread use of suicide attacks against military and civilian targets and has been increasing its use of children to carry out attacks. In the first eight months of 2017, Boko Haram used at least eighty-three children to carry out bomb attacks, many of them suicide attacks, four times as many as in all of 2016 (Al Jazeera 2017) . Relative to the large size of the Muslim population in Nigeria, Boko Haram remains a fringe movement. For the most part, Muslims in the central and western

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areas of northern Nigeria—that is, the Muslim-majority region of Nigeria, have not been attracted to the destructiveness of Boko Haram. Also, many Muslims in the northeastern seat of Boko Haram have not joined this movement. Nonetheless Boko Haram continues to attract followers and instigate them to carry out bombings, assassinations, and other planned attacks. Boko Haram’s targets include people, including Muslims, who oppose their ideology, as well as targets of symbolic and strategic significance such as mosques, churches, government buildings, and schools. Food insecurity in northeast Nigeria is growing because farmers are increasingly unable to plant or harvest as a result of the instability brought on by Boko Haram. In 2011, the United States officially designated Boko Haram a terrorist organization. Nigerian security agencies have responded by sending more troops to the northeastern of the country. They have killed, arrested, and demolished many Boko Haram hubs in the region and raided bomb factories. Yet, Boko Haram continues. Jennifer S. Bryson and Mazhun Idris See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); Martyrdom (Sunni Islam); Muslim Brotherhood; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Takfir; Wahhabism FURTHER READING Al Jazeera. 2017. “UNICEF: Boko Haram Use of Child Bombers Soars.” August 22, 2017. ­http://​­www​.­aljazeera​.­com​/­news​/­2017​/­08​/­unicef​-­boko​-­haram​-­child​-­bombers​-­soars​ -­170822160541719​.­html. BBC. 2014. “Nigeria’s Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau in Profile.” May 9, 2014. ­http://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­africa​-­18020349. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). 2018. “Nigeria Security Tracker.” h­ ttps://​­www​.­cfr​ .­org​/­nigeria​/­nigeria​-­security​-­tracker​/­p29483. International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2016. “Over 2.6 Million Displaced in Lake Chad Basin: IOM.” December 9, 2016. ­https://​­www​.­iom​.­int​/­news​/­over​-­26​ -­million​-­displaced​-­lake​-­chad​-­basin​-­iom. Ofongo, Olusegun Anthony. 2016. “The Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria: What Could Have Been the Precursors?” Journal for Deradicalization no. 7 (Summer): 145–163. ­http://​­journals​.­sfu​.­ca​/­jd​/­index​.­php​/­jd​/­article​/­viewFile​/­61​/­51. Searcy, Kim. 2016. “All Politics Is Local: Understanding Boko Haram.” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective 9, no. 9 (June). ­http://​­origins​.­osu​.­edu​/­article​ /­all​-­politics​-­local​-­understanding​-­boko​-­haram.

BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING(2013) On April 15, 2013, two homemade pressure-cooker bombs detonated near the finish line of the 117th annual Boston Marathon. Three spectators, two women and

Islam: Boston Marathon Bombing

a child, were killed, and at least 264 people were injured, seventeen of whom lost limbs. Two brothers, twenty-six-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and nineteen-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were identified as the bombers. A four-day manhunt for the terror suspects followed. Tamerlan died after a shootout with the police on April 18. Dzhokhar (pronounced jow-har) was captured on April 19. In 2015, he was sentenced to death; he remains in prison. The brothers planned and executed the attack on their own. However, narratives and rhetoric spread by Islamist terrorist movements played a role in the Tsarnaevs’ story. The Boston Marathon is held annually on Patriots’ Day, which celebrates the victories at the battles of Lexington and Concord at the start of the American Revolutionary War. Since Patriots’ Day is a legal holiday in Massachusetts, many with the day off line the race route and cheer on the runners. The marathon is a major public event. The 2013 race had twenty-three thousand participants. Around 2:50 p.m., two bombs filled with shrapnel and other dangerous materials, hidden in backpacks near the finish line, exploded. The four-day investigation to track down the perpetrators involved over one thousand federal, state, and local law enforcement officials (­History​.­com 2014). On April 18, 2013, one of the Tsarnaev brothers shot and killed a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as they attempted to steal the officer’s weapon. Shortly after that, Tamerlan stole an SUV, threatening its owner at gunpoint and revealing himself to be one of the marathon bombers. Taking the man hostage, Tamerlan drove the vehicle, while Dzhokhar followed in another car. The SUV’s owner escaped when they stopped at a gas station, and he informed the police that the Tsarnaevs were using stolen vehicles and could be tracked via the hostage’s cell phone, which remained in the SUV. Police located the vehicles and attempted to detain the suspects before a gunfight broke out as the brothers exchanged fire and threw explosive devices at the police. An officer tackled Tamerlan; Dzhokhar drove the SUV into them and sped away. Tamerlan was severely wounded and later died. The manhunt for Dzhokhar continued. On April 19, Boston-area schools were closed, public transport was suspended, and residents were told to remain indoors while the authorities conducted door-to-door searches in Watertown, where the suspect was last seen. That evening, after the lockdown ended, a resident went into his yard to check on his boat, where he found an injured and bleeding Dzhokhar hiding in the covered vessel. The man called the police, who came and took the suspected terrorist into custody. On the inside of the boat, Dzhokhar wrote a message using grandiose religious language. He said he was “jealous” of his injured brother who, “inshallah” (God willing), had gone to paradise. He pleaded, “I ask Allah to make a shahied”—that is, a martyr—and “to allow me to return to him and be among all the righteous

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people in the highest levels of heaven.” He also wrote of political grievances: “The U.S. government is killing our innocent civilians . . . I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished . . . We Muslims are one body, you hurt one, you hurt us all” (Levenson 2015). On one of his Twitter accounts, Dzhokhar tweeted just a few weeks before the attack about his desire to go to “Jannah,” using “#alfirdaus” (both Islamic references to paradise) (Kimball 2015, 21–22) and recommended followers listen to recordings of notorious Islamist ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki (Kimball 2015, 23). His brother Tamerlan was very concerned about the violent struggle in their ethnic homelands of Chechnya and Dagestan, and he showed an interest in al-Qaeda-related social media. Also, Tamerlan became increasingly anti-American; for example, criticizing recognition of Thanksgiving and Martin Luther King Jr., at a Massachusetts mosque (Reitman 2013). Tamerlan traveled to Dagestan with an apparent interest in joining terrorist activity; Russia and the United States placed him on watchlists. At the time of the attack, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in his second year of studies at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012. Tamerlan was a former amateur boxer and had frequently been unemployed. He was married and had a young child and held only a green card. The brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan. Dzhokhar arrived in the United States with his parents in 2002, and, shortly after that, they applied for political asylum and started their new lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tamerlan and his two sisters joined the family in 2003. Their parents were from predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the Caucasus. Their father, an ethnic Chechen, was employed as a car mechanic, while their mother, an ethnic Avar from Dagestan, worked in a salon. Peers described Dzhokhar as a popular student in high school. Tamerlan was considered more rigid and aggressive. Interviews with their friends and teachers suggest that they found the attacks of September 11, 2001 to be justified. In July 2013, Dzhokhar pleaded not guilty to thirty federal charges against him, including the use of weapons of mass destruction resulting in death. On April 8, 2015, he was found guilty by a federal jury on all thirty charges and was sentenced to death in May. At his sentencing hearing in June 2015, he apologized in court and admitted that he was guilty. The bombing prompted an increase in public discourse about and policy attention to homegrown terrorism in the United States. Jennifer S. Bryson and Tania Marie Ghazar See also: Islam: Martyrdom (Sunni Islam); 9/11 and al-Qaeda FURTHER READING Gunaratna, Rohan, and Cleo Haynal. 2013. “Current and Emerging Threats of Homegrown Terrorism: The Case of the Boston Bombings.” Perspectives on Terrorism 7, no. 3: 44–63.

Islam: Charlie Hebdo Attack ­History​.­com Editors. 2014. “Boston Marathon Bombings.” ­http://​­www​.­history​.­com​/­topics​ /­boston​-­marathon​-­bombings. Kimball, Stephen. 2015. United States v. ­Tsarnaev​-­FBI​.­March 9, 2015. Levenson, Eric. 2015.“Here’s the Note Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Wrote Inside the Boat Where He Was Captured.” ­Boston​.­com, March 10, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­boston​.­com​/­news​/­local​ -­news​/­2015​/­03​/­10​/­heres​-­the​-­note​-­dzhokhar​-­tsarnaev​-­wrote​-­inside​-­the​-­boat​-­where​-­he​ -­was​-­captured. Reitman, Janet. 2013. “Jahar’s World.” Rolling Stone, July 17, 2013. ­http://​­www​.­rollingstone​ .­com​/­culture​/­news​/­jahars​-­world​-­20130717. Sargent, Hilary. 2015. “The Tsarnaev Twitter Account You Haven’t Seen.” B ­ oston​.­com, March  9,  2015. ­https://​­www​.­boston​.­com​/­news​/­local​-­news​/­2015​/­03​/­09​/­the​-­tsarnaev​ -­twitter​-­account​-­you​-­havent​-­seen. Wen, Patricia. 2015. “Tsarnaev Posted Radical Messages on Second Twitter Account, FBI Agent Testifies.” Boston Globe. March 10, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­bostonglobe​.­com​ /­metro​/­2015​/­03​/­09​/­tsarnaev​-­had​-­second​-­secret​-­twitter​-­account​-­witness​-­testifies​ /­lgiJqqmXlD3ua8HmFLnAZO​/­story​.­html.

CHARLIE HEBDO ATTACK (2015) On January 7 to 9, 2015, in Paris, France, three young Muslim men killed seventeen people in a string of attacks. The highest profile was a shooting on January 7 at the office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing twelve. This attack was considered by many an attack on freedom of expression. Another stage of the attack was at a kosher grocery store in Paris, where four were killed. Charlie Hebdo, founded in 1970, had a well-established track record of sharp, controversial satire regarding religious, social, and political topics in France; the Catholic Church was a frequent target. Controversy heightened in 2006 when Charlie Hebdo decided, after much deliberation, to republish twelve cartoons of Muhammad in order to show its solidarity with the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which came under fire for its decision to publish the twelve drawings originally in 2005. The cartoons included one with Muhammad wearing a turban with a bomb in it. The editor of Charlie Hebdo at the time, Philippe Val, defiantly said that religious fundamentalists “don’t get to tell us what we can or can’t print” (Hamburger 2017). The 2015 attackers portrayed themselves as heroes who were defending the Prophet Muhammad. In a phone interview with French journalist Igor Sahiri during a seven-hour standoff with police, attacker Cherif Kouachi defended himself and his accomplice in the Charlie Hebdo shooting, his brother Said, saying, “We are the prophet’s defenders peace and blessings be upon him.” He claimed to have been dispatched to carry out the attack by al-Qaeda in Yemen and said that U.S.born terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki (1971–2011) had financed the operation. Kouachi elaborated:

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Kouachi used insults against Muhammad—that is, blasphemy—as a justification to kill. However, other Muslims have rejected the claim by violent extremists that insulting Muhammad is a justification for violence. Due to its printing of Muhammad cartoons and other satire, some accused Charlie Hebdo of being anti-Muslim. Charlie Hebdo denied this, and when the free expression advocacy organization PEN America gave Charlie Hebdo a Freedom of Expression Courage Award in 2015, PEN announced, “We believe that Charlie Hebdo’s intent was not to ostracize or insult Muslims, but rather to reject forcefully the efforts of a small minority of radical extremists to place broad categories of speech off limits—no matter the purpose, intent, or import of the expression” (PEN 2015). Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Blasphemy; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Judaism: Antisemitism FURTHER READING CNN Library. 2017. “2015 Charlie Hebdo Attacks Fast Facts.” ­https://​­www​.­cnn​.­com​/­2015​ /­01​/­21​/­europe​/­2015​-­paris​-­terror​-­attacks​-­fast​-­facts​/­index​.­html. Hamburger, Jacob. 2017. “What Charlie Hebdo Taught Me about Freedom of Speech.” LA Review of Books, January 7, 2017. ­https://​­lareviewofbooks​.­org​/­article​/­what​-­charlie​ -­hebdo​-­taught​-­me​-­about​-­freedom​-­of​-­speech​/. NBC News Translation. 2015. “Paris Killer Cherif Kouachi Gave Interview to TV Channel Before He Died.” January 9, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­nbcnews​.­com​/­storyline​/­paris​ -­magazine​-­attack​/­paris​-­killer​-­cherif​-­kouachi​-­gave​-­interview​-­tv​-­channel​-­he​-­died​ -­n283206. PEN America. 2015. “Rejecting the Assassin’s Veto.” ­https://​­pen​.­org​/­rejecting​-­the​-­assassins​ -­veto​/.

“THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?”(HUNTINGTON, 1993) In 1993, Foreign Affairs published an article titled “The Clash of Civilizations?” by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington. Huntington argued that post-Cold War politics will be molded, and fought, along cultural lines. In other words, although nation-states will continue to be the primary political agents, they will form their

Islam: “The Clash of Civilizations?”

identities and act in collaboration with those who share common cultural tendencies rather than on purely ideological or economic ones. Huntington’s 1993 article was based on a 1992 lecture and later expanded into a book in 1996. There have been hundreds of responses to the article and the book in both academic writing (Russet et al. 2000, 584) and in public commentary, especially following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory was often cited in the media as a way to help make sense of the attacks. At the same time, many have criticized Huntington’s framing of modern conflict. Huntington argued as follows: It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future. (Huntington 1993, 22)

Huntington identified eight civilizations in the modern world: the West, Orthodox, African, Indic, Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, and South American. He argued that in the coming modern era, these eight “civilizations” will be in a constant quest for domination over each other. In his estimation, if the West is to preserve its values and uphold its economic, political, and intellectual authority in the world, it has to barricade all potential threats to its existence—the most pernicious of which he saw as Islam and Confucianism. Huntington argued that because the Islamic civilization and the West have a history of conflict (most famously the Crusades), the feud is unlikely to disappear any time soon. On the contrary, “It could become more virulent” (Huntington 1993, 32). To alleviate this potential conflict between the West and Confucianism, on the one hand, and Islam, on the other, Huntington proposed the following plan: exploit the expansion of military in Islamic states; exploit the differences in those states; and support civilizations that are sympathetic to Western culture, values, and ideals. In addition to conflict between the West and Islam, Huntington further maintained that, “The conflict of civilizations is deeply rooted elsewhere in Asia”; for example, between Muslims and Hindus in India, as well as between China and the United States (Huntington 1993, 33–34). Huntington’s theory received much criticism. Among the many who rejected his framing of the post-Cold War politics of the new world order was Edward Said, who offered a sociopolitical critique. First, Said challenged Huntington’s idea of civilization. Huntington defined civilization as “the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of what distinguishes

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humans from other species” (Huntington 1993, 24). Said criticized this for being an inaccurately “monolithic and homogeneous” view (Said 1998, 4). Civilizations, Said maintained, are always engaging and reengaging their cultural, political, and economical beliefs and behavior. They are inherently dynamic and shifting. Moreover, he argued, civilizations have borrowed many tools, values, and behaviors from other civilizations and, thus, a static, siloed civilization would be an anomaly. Secondly, Said believed that a theory of “clash of civilizations” bolsters, not lessens, intercivilizational conflict. For example, Said accused Western countries of using “clash of civilization” type language to justify exploiting the resources of colonized countries. Said argued that the “lesser people,” the ones Said called “the objects of the imperial gaze,” respond to these threats with resistance rather than cooperation (Said 1998, 6). Thus, while Huntington sees the reason why “Islam has bloody borders,” as he argued, in civilizational conflicts (Huntington 1993, 34), Said sees these conflicts as a reaction by Muslims to being defined by others, such as colonial powers, as a separate and distinct civilization. Said, while acknowledging cultural difference between neighboring states, argued that the interference of Western civilization has been one of the primary causes that has worsened relations between different nations and ethnic groups. Moreover, Islam is not the only civilization to have bloody borders; rather, civilizations around the world, throughout history have engaged in a degree of conflict along their fringes. Several sociologists challenged Huntington’s theory using statistical analysis. One of them, Giacomo Chiozza, applied several statistical models to explain the reality of the post-Cold War world. He found that intracivilizational conflict—that is, between countries of the same civilization—was actually more likely to occur than intercivilizational conflict. He concluded that although religious, social, and cultural makeup of certain countries might be similar, this is not a sufficient cause for violence against a country of a different cultural makeup. In another quantitative analysis of Huntington’s theory, a team of researchers concluded, “The evidence we have assembled strongly indicates” that civilizations “do not define the fault lines along which international conflict occurs. More relevant are the common bonds of democracy and economic interdependence that unite many states, and separate them from others” (Russett et al. 2000, 602). Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: The Neglected Duty (1981); 9/11 and al-Qaeda FURTHER READING Chiozza, Giacomo. 2002. “Is There a Clash of Civilizations? Evidence from Patterns of International Conflict Involvement, 1946–97.” Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 6: 711–34.

Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation Huntington, Samuel. 1993. “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Policy. 72, no. 3 (Summer): 22–49. Russett, B. M., J. R. Oneal, and M. Cox. 2000. “Clash of Civilizations, or Realism and Liberalism Déjà Vu? Some Evidence.” Journal of Peace Research 37, no. 5: 583–608. Said, Edward. 1998. “The Myth of ‘The Clash of Civilizations.’” Media Education Foundation Transcript. ­http://​­www​.­mediaed​.­org​/­transcripts​/­Edward​-­Said​-­The​-­Myth​-­of​ -­Clash​-­Civilizations​-­Transcript​.­pdf.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(ISLAM) Both nonstate and state actors use Islamic justifications in the modern era for violence related to gender and sexual orientation. In both situations, the violence ranges from beatings to execution as punishment for actions such as wearing clothing deemed immodest or same-sex sexual activity. In addition, some Islamist militant groups have also used sex slavery and rape as tactics in their struggles. The most high-profile examples of nonstate actor violence have been by the Islamic State and the 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub in Florida. In the process of taking control of parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS carried out targeted sexual violence against religious minorities, mostly against women, and cited religious justifications for its actions. To justify the use of women, and in some cases girls, from the Yazidi religious minority as sex slaves, ISIS called them “polytheist” (Arabic: mushrik), a term from the Qur’an that would distinguish them from “People of the Book,” such as Jews and Christians, to whom the Qur’an grants special protection. ISIS furthermore claimed that its reinstitution of slavery was in accord with several prophecies (McCants 2015, 112). Male ISIS fighters used these Yazidi women and girls for forced sex, while ISIS fighters from the all-female “Khansa Brigade” managed the imprisonment of these female Yazidis. This name of this women’s unit used a reference from the history of Islam to give it an aura of religiosity. “The Khansa Brigade,” explains William McCants, “is named for a pagan poetess who converted to Islam in the time of Muhammad.” Women from the Khansa Brigade also patrolled behavior in the streets of Raqqa; for example, enforcing what they considered to be Islamically required standards of modest dress (McCants 2015, 113). The Somali group Al-Shabaab also enforced public dress standards, especially for women. They carried out public whipping of women as a punishment for wearing bras (Sheikh 2009). ISIS also used violence to intimidate and punish homosexuals, especially men. A penal code issued by ISIS in December 2014 included the death penalty for sodomy (Carroll and Mendos 2017, 128). Men who fled from ISIS-controlled territories told of ISIS carrying out public executions, with cheering crowds, and the stoning of men accused of same-sex activity. There were also reports that Al-Nusra

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Front, an al-Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria, engaged in “systematic torture and murder of men thought to be gay” (Segalov 2015). In Bangladesh, Islamist militants murdered the editor of the only lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) magazine in the country (Carroll and Mendos 2017, 122). In Nigeria, Boko Haram targeted a school for girls, took scores captive, and raped many of them. The deadliest single attack in the modern era with a connection to sexual orientation was the June 12, 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in which Omar Mateen killed forty-nine people and injured fifty. Police killed Mateen in a shootout at the end of the attack. The BBC reported, “His father, Seddique Mateen, said his son became ‘very angry’ after seeing two men kissing in Miami recently.” Some have speculated that Mateen chose Pulse because it was well-known as a gay nightclub, yet others have disputed this. Also, Mateen’s alleged ties to ISIS are unclear. In a 911 call during the attack, Mateen pledged his allegiance to ISIS. The FBI investigated Mateen in 2013, after he was reported to have made remarks supportive of ISIS, and again in 2014, about possible ties to another American involved with ISIS, but they did not find cause to investigate further. Investigations after the 2016 shooting did not find ties between Mateen and ISIS leading up to the attack (BBC 2016). Ten of the eleven countries listed in a 2017 report as having a death penalty for same-sex acts in at least part of the country are states with Muslim-majority populations: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen (Carroll Mendos 2017). Not all these governments actively enforce the punishment of death for same-sex acts, but even so, the threat of this remains codified in law. In some but, to be clear, not all other Muslim-majority countries, corporal punishment is used. For example, in 2018 in Malaysia, two women were sentenced by a Sharia court to caning for attempting to engage in sexual activity; the punishment was carried out in public (AP 2018). Jennifer S. Bryson See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Al-Shabaab; Boko Haram; ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Associated Press (AP). 2018. “Malaysian Muslim Lesbian Couple Caned in Public Punishment.” September 3, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­apnews​.­com​/­5bcdc78424f743b8a93fbb3e59 d585ca.

Islam: Hadith BBC. 2016. “Orlando Nightclub Shooting: How the Attack Unfolded.” June 15, 2016. ­http://​­www​.­bbc​.­com​/­news​/­world​-­us​-­canada​-­36511778. Carroll, A., and L. R. Mendos. 2017. State Sponsored Homophobia 2017: A World Survey of Sexual Orientation Laws: Criminalisation, Protection and Recognition. Geneva: International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), May, 2017. ­http://​­ilga​.­org​/­downloads​/­2017​/­ILGA​_State​_Sponsored​_Homophobia​_2017​ _WEB​.­pdf. McCants, William. 2015. The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Segalov, Michael. 2015. “‘Being Gay in the Islamic State’: Men Reveal Chilling Truth about Homosexuality under ISIS.” The Independent, August 25, 2015. ­http://​­www​ .­independent​.­co​.­uk​/­news​/­world​/­middle​-­east​/­being​-­gay​-­in​-­the​-­islamic​-­state​-­men​ -­reveal​-­chilling​-­truth​-­about​-­homosexuality​-­under​-­isis​-­10470894​.­html. Sheikh, Abdi. 2009. “Shabaab Rebels Destroy Grave and Mosque in Somalia.” Reuters, October  19,  2009. ­https://​­www​.­reuters​.­com​/­article​/­us​-­somalia​-­conflict​/­shabaab​ -­rebels​-­destroy​-­grave​-­and​-­mosque​-­in​-­somalia​-­idUSTRE59I1HQ20091019.

GLOBAL JIHAD. See KASHMIR AND GLOBAL JIHAD HADITH The Hadith, or plural Ahadith (“sayings” or “traditions”), are the recorded words and deeds attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. Next to the Qur’an, the Hadith generally functions as the second-most authoritative source for Islamic theology, law, practice, and ethics. The Hadith, like the Qur’an, can be marshaled to both justify or prohibit religiously inspired violence, and it is for Muslims to determine whether such interpretations are plausible in their theology. There are several reasons why Muslims interpret the Hadith in diverging ways, whether to support or oppose violent action. The Hadith consist of a large corpus of separate texts and compilations, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands of individual reports about what Muhammad is said to have said or done in a single compilation. Many Hadiths repeat an incident in a slightly different wording, or some are truncated, while others place the event in a larger context. Muslims have developed a system to grade each individual Hadith on a scale according to the reliability of the narrating authorities, generally ranging from sahih (“authentic”), hasan (“good”), da‘if (“weak”), or mawdu‘ (“fabricated”). Depending on a Muslim’s school of thought, they may or may not incorporate a particular Hadith into their theology and practice. Moreover, the Sunni and Shia branches differ in which compilations of Hadith they recognize as authoritative. As such, the diverse nature of the Hadith corpus allows Muslims to choose from multiple interpretative options.

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Violent extremists tend to interpret Hadith on the topic of warfare, or the lesser jihad, in a literal, decontextualized sense. They also do not give much weight to ethical injunctions in the Hadith. Mainstream Muslims, on the other hand, typically respond to extremist arguments by contextualizing statements related to warfare and emphasizing ethical arguments in the Hadith. Sometimes they bring forth more sophisticated arguments to rebut the interpretation of individual texts within a traditional framework of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or sometimes that argue that violence by governments against antigovernment terrorists is religiously sanctioned. In 1998, Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) issued a proclamation, known as the World Islamic Front Statement, in which he called upon Muslims to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians. Advocating attacks on noncombatants was far outside the Muslim mainstream, as classical Islamic laws of war, rooted in Hadith interpretation, generally protected women and children from deliberate violence. However, bin Laden attempted to support his opinion with the single Hadith, “I have been sent ahead of the Hour [Day of Judgment] with the sword until people worship Allah alone.” Not only do some Muslims question the authenticity of this Hadith, many Muslims found it to be an interpretive stretch to infer permission to kill civilians from this text. Bin Laden called his proclamation a fatwa (Islamic legal opinion), yet mainstream Muslims did not consider it valid as a formal legal opinion within a traditional framework of Hadith interpretation. Instead, he mostly justified his actions as a pragmatic reaction to real and perceived U.S. transgressions. Bin Laden not only had to sidestep the issue of civilian immunity in Islamic law, but also the sanctity usually afforded to Muslim life, again rooted in Hadith interpretation. After all, the United States was the home of a significant Muslim population, many of whom were civilians. Bin Laden tried to overcome this hurdle by appealing to takfir (excommunication), which was to claim that U.S. Muslims and allied Muslim nations were not true Muslims at all. Drawing on the dichotomy expressed by Muslim Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) in his book Milestones, bin Laden declared to news organization Al Jazeera in October 2001 that the world had been divided into two camps, believers and infidels, with the United States and allies in the camp of unbelief. On this basis, bin Laden, as leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, justified the 9/11 attacks he had coordinated less than one month earlier, attacks that killed over three thousand civilians, including U.S. and foreign Muslims. Terrorist organizations, such as Islamic State and other offshoots of al-Qaeda, continue to mimic bin Laden’s nontraditional use of Hadith to validate their attacks on civilians, and especially on religious minorities. For example, writing for the ISIS magazine Dabiq, the largely unknown Abu Hamzah al-Muhajir paraphrased a Hadith to claim that the goal of jihad is so “the word of Allah becomes the highest”

Islam: Hadith

(Daskin 2016, 1). The name Dabiq itself comes from the Hadith. It is a town mentioned in some eschatological Hadith—that is, statements about the End Times. In this way, ISIS uses the Hadith references to Dabiq to imply that ISIS is fighting an apocalyptic battle against the United States and its allies. On the other hand, mainstream Muslim organizations and scholars have issued a plethora of responses to violent extremism, often utilizing Hadith interpretation to back up their views. The Amman Message delivered in 2004 by King Abdullah II of Jordan (1962–) argues for an end to takfir by relying on the Hadith: “The Merciful [God] has mercy upon those who are merciful” (Abdullah II, King of Jordan 2008). That is, the Amman Message argued, based on the Hadith, that the actions of terrorists are not consistent with an Islamic ethical framework based upon compassion. The British Muslim Forum, Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, and Fiqh Council of North America, among many other organizations, have followed a similar moral approach in their denunciation of terrorism. Because Islamist terrorist groups attempt to project loyalty to classical Islamic law, despite their dismissal of key parts of it, some Muslims have authored more detailed legal responses to extremist arguments. Oxford-based scholar Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti (1976–) published a treatise entitled Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless Against the Killing of Civilians in response to the July 2005 London bombings. Al-Akiti’s rebuttal is from the perspective of traditional Sunni Shafi’ite jurisprudence, founded on a solidly authenticated and widely narrated Hadith that Prophet Muhammad forbade the killing of women and children (Akiti and Haddad 2005, 20). Pakistani Muslim scholar Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (1951–) likewise wrote an extended refutation of over five hundred pages, including many Hadith, in his 2010 work Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings (Tahir-ul-Qadri et al. 2010). Hundreds of Muslim leaders signed a 2014 response to the leader of ISIS in Open Letter to Al-Baghdadi. The letter hinges its argument on Hadith of an ethical nature, “Truly, My mercy is greater than My wrath” (Bin Bayyah et al. 2014, 4) as well as those of a legal nature, “Wage war, but do not be severe, do not be treacherous, do not mutilate or kill children” (“Open Letter,” 12). The Hadith are a large and complex corpus. As such, interpretive approaches and methods of interpret Hadith vary among Muslims. Thus, the Hadith can potentially be used to justify or prohibit terrorism and religious violence. Since Hadith are complementary sources to the Qur’an and the classical heritage, Muslims are tasked with deciding whether or not extremist interpretations of Hadith are congruent with the greater totality of Islamic tradition as they understand it. Justin Parrott See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); Jihad; Martyrdom (Sunni Islam); Muslim Brotherhood; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Qur’an; Takfir

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Abdullah II, King of Jordan. 2008. The Amman Message. Amman, Jordan: Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. ­http://​­ammanmessage​.­com​/. Akiti, Muhammad A., and Gabriel F. Haddad. 2005. Defending the Transgressed by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians. London: Aqsa Press and Warda Publications. Bin Bayyah, Abdullah, et al. 2014. “Open Letter to Dr. Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, alias ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’: And to the Fighters and Followers of the Self-Declared ‘Islamic State.’” September 19, 2014. ­http://​­www​.­lettertobaghdadi​.­com​/; ­https://​­rissc​ .­jo​/­wp​-­content​/­uploads​/­2019​/­04​/­Letter​_to​_Baghdadi​-­EN​.­pdf. Brown, Jonathan. 2018. Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. London: Oneworld Academic. Daskin, Emin. 2016. “Justification of Violence by Terrorist Organisations: Comparing ISIS and PKK.” Journal of Intelligence and Terrorism Studies 1: 1–14. Kamali, Mohammad H. 2016. A Textbook of Hadith Studies: Authenticity, Compilation, Classification and Criticism of Hadith. Markfield: The Islamic Foundation. Tahir-ul-Qadri, Muhammad, John L. Esposito, and Joel S. A. Hayward. 2010. Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings. London: Minhaj-ul-Quran International. Yaqoubi, Muḥammad. 2016. Refuting Isis: Destroying Its Religious Foundations and Proving It Has Strayed from Islam and That Fighting It Is an Obligation. Herndon: Sacred Knowledge.

HAMAS Hamas is an Islamist organization fighting against Israel that formed in the 1970s and 1980s as a splinter out of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas, which means “zeal” in Arabic, takes its name from the Arabic acronym Harakat al-Muqawwama al-Islamiya, the Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas frequently uses violence, often combined with vitriolic religious rhetoric, in pursuit of its objectives. Starting in the early 1970s, Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, established a network of mosques and social services in Gaza called al-Mujamma’ al-Islami (Tamimi 2007, 36). The network served as the precursor to Hamas, which was officially founded in 1987, shortly after the beginning of the First Intifada (1987– 1991) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas carried out attacks, but much of its work was initially focused on dawa (outreach) and providing social services for the needy. Hamas’ dawa program functioned as an elaborate patronage system; Hamas won goodwill and loyalty, making Palestinians reliant on the group. Hamas used this reliance to influence the population to become more supportive of violence and jihad. Also, Hamas differentiated itself from traditionally secular Palestinian organizations, such as Fatah, by identifying itself as a religious, Islamic

Islam: Hamas

movement and through its use of religious rhetoric. In 1991, Hamas formed the al-Qassam Brigades, its military wing (Schanzer 2008, 37). While social services remain a significant component of the group’s activities, its primary goal is the destruction of Israel—as delineated clearly in the group’s 1988 charter (Yale Law School 1988). Hamas’ record of violence is extensive. Hamas began with attacks on Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Israelis. Hamas then moved on to attack Israeli soldiers and, later, Israeli civilians. Hamas used its violence to undermine the Oslo peace process in the 1990s through a campaign of suicide bombings, including the use of female attackers. The usage of suicide bombers presented jurisprudential problems for the group—suicide is forbidden in Islam—but Sheikh Yassin possessed sufficient religious credentials to withstand the criticism (Malka 2003; Tamimi 2007, 159–166). Hamas’ campaign of violence against Israeli civilians led the United States, the European Union, and others to designate the group as a terrorist organization (Executive Order No. 12947, 1995; Official Journal of the European Union 2019; Public Safety Canada 2002). During the Second Intifada (2000–2005), Hamas continued to distinguish itself by carrying out horrific acts of terrorism against Israel. For example, a Hamas suicide bombing in Netanya on March 27, 2002, during the holiday of Passover, killed thirty Israelis and injured 140. Though Fatah leader Yasir Arafat was the one who launched the intifada after the collapse of peace negotiations with Israel, Hamas quickly exploited it. In response to Hamas’ terrorism against Israel, the Jewish state assassinated the group’s cofounders, Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, in March and April 2004, respectively (Zanotti 2010). The assassinations severely weakened Hamas, prompting the group to establish a decentralized cell structure that would be less susceptible to targeted killings (Schanzer 2008, 33). Senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshal soon took over Hamas’ political operations, which he controlled until 2017, when Hamas managed a smooth transition to its current leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who had previously served as prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority and governor of Gaza. Hamas initially eschewed Palestinian elections, viewing them as a corrupting force. However, Hamas decided to participate in the Palestinian municipal elections of 2004–2005 and fared well, especially in Gaza, where it won nearly two-thirds of the seats (Anderson 2005). Hamas continued its electoral success in 2006, winning 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian legislative elections under the “Change and Reform” list and two more as independents (Schanzer 2008, 95). Hamas succeeded thanks to widespread discontent with the corruption and incompetence of its political rival, Fatah, buttressed, in part, by Hamas’ dawa programs and Palestinians’ general admiration for the group’s violent resistance against Israel. Fatah’s refusal to relinquish power and the international community’s unwillingness to recognize a terrorist group as the elected party led to intense friction. The

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tension boiled over during six days in June 2007, when Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip. Street fighting was fierce and bloody. Fatah retained control of the West Bank, thus creating a major division between the two majority-Palestinian territories. Since seizing Gaza, Hamas’ rule has been characterized by repression and mismanagement. Hamas has also raised tensions on Israel’s southern border that have periodically resulted in war. Hamas began launching rockets at Israel in the early 2000s but intensified its barrages after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In 2006, Hamas launched a cross-border raid, killing several Israeli soldiers and kidnapping another, Gilad Shalit. Israel immediately launched a military campaign to free Shalit but only succeeded to free Shalit in a prisoner swap in 2011. In late 2008 until early 2009, Hamas and Israel fought a bloody war that left more than one thousand Palestinians dead, including three hundred Hamas members. Tensions rose again in 2012, with a serious escalation that killed more than one hundred Palestinians. In 2014, Hamas and Israel fought a seven-week campaign that killed about two thousand Palestinians, hundreds of whom were militants, and sixty-seven Israeli soldiers. During these battles, Israel documented numerous cases of Hamas using the Palestinian population as human shields. In its struggle against Israel, Hamas has evolved its tactics. Hamas began with shooting attacks but focused on suicide attacks during the Oslo years. As Israel closed off borders and successfully defended against infiltration, Hamas focused on mortar and rocket attacks against Israeli civilian centers. As Israel developed anti-rocket technology, Hamas devoted more energy to tunnel infiltrations. As Israel countered that threat, Hamas, in spring 2018, attempted to use waves of civilians to tear down the border fence. Lately, the group has encouraged Gazans to send incendiary devices, such as kites and balloons into Israel. In 2017, in another effort to improve its image, Hamas released a policy document that suggested an acceptance of a two-state solution based on 1967 borders yet opposed ceding any part of Jerusalem, opposed Israel’s right to exist, and still advocated for the “full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” (Hamas 2017). Though some saw these newer documents as an indication of Hamas’ moderation, they did not replace or supersede the anti-Semitic 1988 charter. Moreover, the 2017 document still called for the destruction of the State of Israel. David May See also: Islam: Jihad, Martyrdom (Sunni Islam); Muslim Brotherhood FURTHER READING Anderson, John Ward. “Hamas Dominates Local Vote in Gaza.” The Washington Post, ­January 29, 2005. ­https://​­www​.­washingtonpost​.­com​/­wp​-­dyn​/­articles​/­A44058​-­2005 Jan28​.­html.

Islam: Hezbollah Executive Order No. 12947, 3 C.F.R. (1995). ­https://​­www​.­treasury​.­gov​/­resource​-­center​ /­sanctions​/­Documents​/­12947​.­pdf. Gunning, Jeroen. 2008. Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence. New York: Columbia University Press. Hamas. 2017. “A Document of General Principals and Policies,” May 1, 2017. ­https://​ ­hamas​.­ps​/­en​/­post​/­678​/­a​-­document​-­of​-­general​-­principles​-­and​-­policies. Hamas. 1988. “The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” August 18, 1988. ­https://​­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­20th​_century​/­hamas​.­asp. Levitt, Matthew. 2006. Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. New Haven: Yale University Press. Malka, Haim. 2003. “Must Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over Suicide Attacks.” ­Middle East Quarterly (Spring 2003): 19–28. Official Journal of the European Union. 2019. “Council Decision (CFSP) 2019/25,” January  8,  2019. ­https://​­eur​-­lex​.­europa​.­eu​/­legal​-­content​/­en​/­TXT​/­HTML​/?­uri​=​­CELEX: 32019D0025&from=EN. Public Safety Canada. 2002. “Currently Listed Entities.” ­https://​­www​.­publicsafety​.­gc​.­ca​ /­cnt​/­ntnl​-­scrt​/­cntr​-­trrrsm​/­lstd​-­ntts​/­crrnt​-­lstd​-­ntts​-­en​.­aspx​#­25. Schanzer, Jonathan. 2008. Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tamimi, Azzam. 2007. Hamas: A History from within. Northampton: Olive Branch Press. Zanotti, Jim. 2010. “Hamas: Background and Issues for Congress.” Congressional Research Service, December 2, 2010. ­https://​­fas​.­org​/­sgp​/­crs​/­mideast​/­R41514​.­pdf.

HEZBOLLAH Hezbollah is a Shiite militant organization in Lebanon. It was founded in the 1980s and remains active today. The Arabic name “Hezbollah” means “Party of God.” The second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 provoked the mobilization of Shiite militant Islamic groups, intent on creating a new military structure to drive Tel Aviv’s troops from Lebanese soil. Aided by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran), in July 1982, the leaders of these Shiite groups set up an Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (IRL) as a paramilitary organization to oppose the Israeli presence. Initially, it fought under the banner of the Lebanese National Resistance Front, an association of multi-ideological, interconfessional resistance groups. From 1984 on, however, the IRL battled under its own name. Several months after forming the IRL, its leadership realized the need to attach a civilian apparatus to it that would carry out parallel missions on behalf of the IRL: mobilizing within the Lebanese Shiite community and defending IRL interests in the social and, eventually, the political spheres. This is when Hezbollah was born. The name “Party of God” refers to two passages in the Qur’an: chapter 58 (al-Mujadala), verse 22: “It is the party of God that will know bliss” and chapter 5 (al-Maida), verse 56: “It is the party of God that will be the victor.”

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Historically, the relationship between Hezbollah and the IRL is the reverse of how the civilian and armed sides of Palestinian Hamas are organized. From the very start, Hamas was conceived as a Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood and only moved to add a military appendage in a second stage. In Hezbollah’s case, the armed group appeared first, and then created a civilian annex for itself. Instead of the IRL being Hezbollah’s armed fist, Hezbollah is the IRL’s sociopolitical arm. Consequently, IRL is not a paramilitary organization that promptly intervenes on the Lebanese scene to ramrod through measures decided on by the organization’s civilian leadership. The civilian organization that is Hezbollah instead is duty bound to defend the IRL’s interests on the political and social stages. The IRL and Hezbollah complement each other’s functions: IRL, as a fighting entity against Israel and Hezbollah as a political operation for sustaining an environment conducive to the success of the armed mission and the struggle against domestic opponents. As such, the IRL-Hezbollah duo is comparable to the Irish IRA-Sinn Fein pairing. Hezbollah projects itself through a network of social, political, and media institutions. Unlike other Islamic groups in the Middle East, the structure of Hezbollah utilizes communist party-like cells and institutional linkages. Also, the rules that govern relations between members and the internal functioning are based on communist party models. Yet the media posture Hezbollah conveys and its mission are wrapped in images and slogans of Shiite Islam. In particular, in supporting the IRL, Hezbollah must make its propaganda all about resistance. To this end, it relies on a weekly journal al-Intiqad (also known as al-ʿAhd), al-Nour radio, and especially the al-Manar television network. In the social sphere, Hezbollah supports the IRL through a chain of social and charitable institutions for helping victims of the Israeli occupation from 1982 to 2000 and Israeli armed attacks. For example, the Foundation of the Martyr covers the expenses of families of fighters fallen on the battlefield: their daily expenses, health care costs, school fees for their children, and university tuition. The War Wounded Foundation lets anyone harmed by Israeli bombardments obtain medical care free of charge or for modest sums subsidized by Hezbollah: office visits; medications, operations, and even major procedures are covered. The Struggle for Construction, in effect, Hezbollah’s public works wing, rebuilds at its expense all the houses, apartments, office buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, and churches damaged or destroyed during the attacks. While Hezbollah and the IRL are highly popular in Lebanon’s Shiite community (40–45 percent of the total population), many Sunni (22–23 percent of the population) and a disproportionately large share of Christians (33 percent of the Lebanese population) also support them. This is due, above all, to the IRL’s key role in Lebanon’s national struggle against the Israeli occupation. Ever since the early 1990s, in fact, the Islamic Resistance harassed the Israeli forces, firing

Islam: Hezbollah

on their positions and attacking their convoys. In a series of operations steadily escalating year by year from 378 in number in 1994 to 1528 in 1999, it carried out a grand total of 4231 attacks during the decade. It also conducted several “martyr operations” (known in the West as “suicide attacks”). The most spectacular ones were carried out in August 1992 and in April 1995, each costing the Israeli Army between twenty and thirty dead or wounded. On May 24, 2000, the Israeli military withdrew from Lebanon. In January 2004, a prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Tel Aviv freed 430 Lebanese and Arab detainees from Israeli prisons. At the ceremony organized by Hezbollah to mark the occasion, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, pledged an all-out effort to liberate the last Lebanese still held in Israel’s prisons. During the next two years, the IRL tried several times to capture Israeli soldiers in the border zone to use them as bargaining chips in exchanges. One of its commando units finally succeeded on July 12, 2006. Attacking an Israeli patrol, it killed six soldiers and abducted two others, while losing only one of its own fighters as it withdrew. Nasrallah called operation al-Waʿd al-Sadiq, or Truthful Pledge. Anxious to avoid an escalation, he invited the Israeli government to engage in indirect negotiation. The Israelis turned a deaf ear. Israeli Ehud Olmert’s government set out as its primary objectives the recovery of the two kidnapped soldiers, “breaking Hezbollah,” and forcing the Lebanese government to implement UN Resolution 1559, which called for the IRL to be disarmed. He ordered Operation Change of Direction, a series of air and ground attacks that observers and the public soon called the Thirty-Three-Day War. Nearly twelve hundred were killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 120 Israeli soldiers paid with their lives. When the conflict ended, not one of the Israeli objectives had been achieved: the dead bodies of the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped on July 12 were only returned in 2008, and the IRL emerged from it militarily more popular than ever within the Shiite community. Since May 2013, the IRL has been immersed in the Syrian conflict on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime’s military. Beyond representing an attempt to save al-Assad, Hezbollah’s leadership rationalizes this intervention as follows: advances by radical Sunni jihadists in the area and their intensifying attacks against Shiite areas on Lebanese, as well as Syrian territory, raised fears that they would move deeply into Lebanon. This left the IRL “no choice” but to launch a counterattack that would push the aggressor back far enough to restore peace and security on the Lebanese border. While this lets the IRL present its incursion into Syria as a defensive move, there appears to be another, overriding motive, namely avoiding adverse repercussions for the IRL’s own cause that would result if were al-Assad to fall. Since the early 1990s, the strategic alliance between Hezbollah and the government of Syria had mainly served to facilitate the logistics of weapons flows through Syrian territory to the IRL. These arrangements, in all likelihood, would

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not survive if the Free Syrian Army and/or its Sunni jihadist allies were to seize power from al-Assad in Syria. In parallel with the IRL’s activities on the battlefield, Hezbollah since 1992 has made progressive inroads into Lebanese politics. Ever since then, it has sent deputies to Parliament with every election. It has also had ministers in the government since 2005. The Saad Hariri government, formed in 2019, includes two Hezbollah ministers with the portfolios for youth and sports and for parliamentary affairs. Interestingly, Hezbollah regularly leaves the most strategic cabinet posts to its allies, notably Amal (Shiite) and the Free Patriotic Current (Christian). With its main agenda of stifling laws or decisions that would put the IRL’s interests at risk, Hezbollah’s key political tactic is to have its allies control the levers of the security forces (police, army, and intelligence). Hezbollah carefully manipulates its client/ patron relationships to serve its own ends. The Hezbollah organization of Lebanon should not be confused with other organizations of the same name in other Middle Eastern countries. It has no organic relationships with them, and their goals and practices differ from this organization. In the global dimension, Hezbollah is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, which blames it for attacking U.S. forces stationed in Beirut in the 1980s and in several other countries. The European Union, for its part, has only listed the “armed branch” of Hezbollah (i.e., the IRL and the security apparatus of Hezbollah) as a terrorist organization since July 2013, following an attack on a busload of Israeli tourists in Burgas (Bulgaria) in 2012 and the IRL’s intervention in Syria. Aurélie Daher See also: Islam: Hamas, Jihad, Martyrdom (Shia Islam) FURTHER READING Daher, Aurélie. 2019. Hezbollah. Mobilization and Power. New York: Oxford University Press. Hamzeh, Nizar. 2004. In the Path of Hizbullah. New York: Syracuse University Press. Harik, Judith Palmer. 2004. Hezbollah. The Changing Face of Terrorism. London: I. B. Tauris. Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal. 2002. Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion. London: Pluto Press. Saadé, Bashir. 2016. Hizbullah and the Politics of Remembrance. Writing the Lebanese Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ISIS(ISLAMIC STATE) The self-proclaimed “Islamic State,” known by the acronym ISIS, emerged out of an Islamist-jihadi group that was formed in 1999 by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Islam: ISIS

and initially pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the group repositioned itself as a leader of Iraqi resistance to the Americans. Its strength varied for several years. In 2014, al-Qaeda severed ties with ISIS, and then, a few months later ISIS proclaimed establishment of the Islamic State. ISIS has distinguished itself from other Islamist groups by the extreme brutality of its conduct and the apocalyptic themes of its rhetoric. The acronym ISIS stands for Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, though it is sometimes referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “Al-Sham” is the Arabic name for the region of the Levant, roughly corresponding to Lebanon and Syria today. The group is also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh, as well as just as Islamic State (IS) or as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). After a U.S.-led coalition toppled the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the U.S. decision to disband the Iraqi Army created a large pool of well-networked, very angry, and experienced military personnel who were suddenly unemployed and out of favor with the government of Iraq. Al-Zarqawi’s group recruited from Islamist fighters as well as these and other Iraqi Sunni Muslims disenfranchised by the Americans’ action to change the government of Iraq. The United States killed al-Zarqawi in an airstrike in 2006, but the resistance movement he fostered did not abate. In fall 2006, a coalition of several groups of Islamist fighters united under the name “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI). They spoke of grand aspirations to establish a global Islamic government (caliphate), while stoking, as well as capitalizing on, local Sunni hatred of Shia Muslims and building alliances with Sunni tribes. In 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi became the leader of ISI. In recruiting for ISI, he further exploited the bitterness and disenfranchisement of former members of Saddam Hussein’s army. After the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, al-Baghdadi sent fighters into Syria to establish the al-Nusra Front. In 2013 ISI and al-Nusra united under the name Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). As ISIS began to assert itself more aggressively, relations with al-Qaeda became increasingly strained. In February 2014, al-Qaeda cut ties with ISIS. Then, on June 29, 2014, ISIS proclaimed that it had established itself as the head of a global Islamic government, a caliphate, calling itself the Islamic State. No government in the world recognized this so-called “government,” and leaders of Muslim-majority states, as well as prominent Muslim scholars, rejected the Islamic State’s claim to be a caliphate to which all Muslims in the world owed allegiance. In 2014, an international coalition of prominent Sunni Muslim scholars issued a detailed refutation of ISIS ideology that became known as the “Letter to al-Baghdadi” (Bin Bayyah et al. 2014). In this letter, these scholars articulated the horror many mainstream Muslims felt toward ISIS. However, in a world dominated by social media, this scholarly treatise faced competition for the attention of

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youth from the slick, exciting videos and media-savvy tweets of ISIS. Plus, “the messages from mainstream clerics fail to resonate largely because of their links to authoritarian regimes” of Muslim-majority countries (Hassan 2016, 20). Moreover, while other Islamist groups, such as al-Qaeda, preached about long-term strategy and perseverance, ISIS attracted impatient youth with its proclivity for decisive action. The declaration of an Islamic State attracted foreign fighters to travel to the Middle East to join ISIS, and, by July 2014, Islamists elsewhere in the world, first in the Philippines, and then in Libya, Nigeria, and elsewhere, had proclaimed their loyalty to the new Islamic State. As ISIS began to take control of territory in 2014, its brutality knew few limits. ISIS fighters sometimes beheaded opponents and often shared gruesome videos of their actions. Claiming to bring a return of Islamic law to the land, ISIS carried out severe punishments and even reestablished slavery, which included the exploitation of women and girls, especially those from the Yazidi religious minority, as sex slaves. The ideology of ISIS is influenced by Salafi zeal for returning Islam to its “pure” origins, and ISIS shares with the Salafis a rejection of the nuanced, complex methodologies of Sunni Islam’s mainstream schools of jurisprudence. ISIS has manifested Salafis’ tendency to iconoclasm in extreme ways, utterly destroying many cultural and religious heritage sites that had been left untouched for centuries by mainstream Muslims (Curry 2015). So, too, ISIS has taken the narrowness of Salafis’ definition of who is authentically Muslim to extremes, accusing many who identify as Muslims of not being orthodox enough to qualify as Muslims. Furthermore, ISIS has engaged in practices “rejected by traditional Salafis,” such as suicide bombing, as well as “rebelling against rulers, declaring ordinary Shia apostates, and bombing mosques” (Hassan 2016, 16). In intra-Islamist competition for recruits and funding, ISIS has worked hard to boost its aura of Islamic significance by highlighting the connections between the territories of its struggle and mention of these towns and regions in Islamic prophecies about the End Times. One such town, Dabiq, is predicted to play a key role in signaling that the End Times have come. ISIS conquered the town of Dabiq and named its online propaganda magazine Dabiq. ISIS also used prophetic references to try to bolster its aura of Islamic authenticity and to convince foreign fighters of the cosmic significance of traveling to join this particular fight. One Islamic prophecy that ISIS played up in trying to convey the importance of its particular struggle is that Jesus would return to a location in or near Damascus to mark the end of the apocalypse. ISIS portrayed its fighting as a way to help hurry this along. “References to the End Times fill Islamic State propaganda. It’s a big selling point with foreign fighters, who want to travel to the lands where the final battles of the apocalypse will take place . . . The Islamic State has stoked the apocalyptic fire” (McCants 2015, 147).

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And yet, mapping centuries-old prophecies onto modern struggles is not always simple and straightforward. When apocalyptic predictions seemed directly relevant, ISIS fighters were enthusiastic. When parts of the predictions, however, did not quite match reality, the ISIS fighters suddenly developed newfound flexibility in interpretive methods to find ways to continue to portray a connection between Islamic prophecy and the actions of ISIS. As William McCants explained, “In the apocalyptic imagination, inconvenient facts rarely impede the glorious march to the end of the world” (McCants 2015, 105). The United Nations and governments ranging from the United States and India to Muslim-majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, have declared ISIS to be a terrorist organization. On December 19, 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.” Yet few expect this to be the last we have heard of ISIS. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Takfir FURTHER READING Bin Bayyah, Abdullah, et al. 2014. “Open Letter to Dr. Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, alias ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’: And to the Fighters and Followers of the Self-Declared ‘Islamic State.’” September 19, 2014. ­http://​­www​.­lettertobaghdadi​.­com​/. Curry, Andrew. 2015. “Here Are the Ancient Sites ISIS Has Damaged and Destroyed.” National Geographic, September 1, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­nationalgeographic​.­com​/­news​ /­2015​/­09​/­150901​-­isis​-­destruction​-­looting​-­ancient​-­sites​-­iraq​-­syria​-­archaeology. Hassan, Hassan. 2016. “The Sectarianism of the Islamic State: Ideological Roots and Political Context.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 13, 2016. h­ ttps://​ ­carnegieendowment​.­org​/­2016​/­06​/­13​/­sectarianism​-­of​-­islamic​-­state​-­ideological​-­roots​ -­and​-­political​-­context​-­pub​-­63746. McCants, William. 2015. The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

ISLAMOPHOBIA The term Islamophobia (literally “fear of Islam”) refers to bigotry, discrimination, prejudice, and violence affecting Islamic institutions, communities of Muslims (people who follow Islam), and various other religious, ethnic, and racially defined groups. This term became popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, during an apparent increase in concern about Islamophobia in many nations across the world. By the late twentieth century, Islamophobia had been discussed as a significant factor

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in political and social trends in some North American and European countries, as policy proposals and statements by political leaders referred to the purported threats coming from Islamic societies and Muslim groups. Some experts argue that, in addition to Islam and Muslims, Islamophobia affects an even wider range of ethnic, national, and religious communities because it is often an expression of racism. However, other experts believe that Islamophobia should not be seen as a major concern, arguing that the term is overused in an effort to silence legitimate criticism of Islam, Muslim cultures, and related political movements. Many of the root causes of the phenomenon that today is often called Islamophobia began centuries ago in some of the early contacts between peoples living in southwestern Asia (or the “Middle East”) and Europe. Even before Islam was founded, there were many connections between peoples living in these regions, involving both peaceful interactions and war. After Islam was founded in the seventh century CE, the religion quickly gained many new believers. By the eighth century, some existing powerful empires in the region, including the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, had significant contacts with Muslim peoples. Many of these contacts were peaceful, but there were also various wars, some of which are remembered today as the Crusades. It is from these early contacts, hundreds of years ago, that ideas started and continue to exist in a different form today, in the argument that Islam and Muslims pose major threats to European societies. That concept of a threat from Islam and Muslim-majority societies played an important role in the European colonization of Africa and Asia in the seventeenth century and beyond. By the 1600s, Europeans began to lay claim to parts of Africa and Asia, where many Muslim communities had lived for one thousand years. The idea that Europeans could and should take over those distant lands required an understanding of the world as “us” versus “them,” with Muslims often seen by Europeans as dangerous and inferior. By the twentieth century, many former colonies became independent countries, forming Muslim-majority nation-states in northern Africa and southwestern Asia, such as Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan. Nevertheless, the old, well-established bigotry that Muslim peoples were somehow all the same, inferior, and threatening remained influential in European culture and politics well into the 1900s and 2000s. Still, because of the many cultural and economic exchanges that existed between these countries, diverse Muslim communities began to grow in Europe, including vibrant and sizable groups in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. A similar history played out in North America, where immigration policies in the United States and Canada became more accepting of Asian and African migrants after World War II. This led to a growing number of immigrants from formerly colonized places, including many more Muslims than had chosen to migrate to North America ever before (the first Muslim migrants to North America were

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enslaved people brought across the Atlantic Ocean in the sixteenth century). Meanwhile, ideas about “us” versus “them,” already widespread in North American culture, led to the mainstream establishment of Islamophobic bigotry and stereotypes by the twentieth century. Then, around the turn of the twenty-first century, the United States led several major military campaigns into southwest Asia, actions that were perceived by some to reinforce the centuries-old idea that peoples in that region are dangerous. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, some experts argued that Islam and Muslim-majority countries now presented the greatest threat to North America and Europe. These ideas became more influential after several violent terrorist attacks, many of which were led by militant organizations claiming to represent Muslim causes. Although terrorist attacks are perpetrated by all sorts of groups, a lot of attention was given to these “Islamist” terrorist attacks, again contributing to the false idea that Muslims are somehow predisposed to violence. In the first decades of the 2000s, Islamophobia was called a major concern by many world leaders, as the numbers of reported hate crimes in Europe and North America went up. Simultaneously, social and political trends in Europe and North America included many anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim elements. Some scholars noticed that Islamophobia affected non-Muslims as well; for example when Sikhs (followers of Sikhism, a religion originating in South Asia) faced violent attacks and many anti-Muslim slurs. This happened because, in some places, socially constructed racial categories lumped Muslims together with many other ethnic and religious communities. The concept of Islamophobia has been criticized by many experts, who worry that it is counterproductive or even harmful. One line of criticism is that the concept of Islamophobia is imprecise. For example, some experts dislike that the term includes the suffix -phobia, which means “irrational fear.” These experts say that Islamophobia is not necessarily caused by fear but rather is brought on by racism, culture, and politics. Yet another concern is that legitimate discussion and debate about Islam might be censored if it is wrongly labeled as Islamophobia. Even some Muslim scholars and activists argue that Islam, Muslim cultures, and the politics in Muslim communities must not be immune from criticism. Despite these concerns over the concept itself, Islamophobia has been frequently discussed in scholarship, in the news media, and in popular culture in recent years. Erik Love See also: Islam: Boston Marathon Bombing (2013); Charlie Hebdo Attack (2015); “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Huntington, 1993); 9/11 and al-Qaeda FURTHER READING Love, Erik. 2017. Islamophobia and Racism in America. New York: New York University Press.

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Religious Violence Today Runneymede Trust. 1997. Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All. London: Runneymede Trust. Runneymede Trust. 2017. Islamophobia: Still a Challenge for Us All. London: Runneymede Trust. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Shryock, Andrew, ed. 2010. Islamophobia/Islamophilia: Beyond the Politics of Enemy and Friend. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

JIHAD Jihad is an Arabic word that means “struggle” or “exertion,” against someone or something. The word is popularly understood by many non-Muslims to refer to “holy war,” usually with the connotation of fanatical zeal such as that of modern violent extremist jihadi groups. However, for Muslims, jihad actually has a wider variety of meanings. The martial, or military, form of jihad as religiously sanctioned warfare against non-Muslims is only one of several forms of jihad. In addition, there is a spiritual form of jihad. Spiritual jihad is a personal struggle against the base desires of the individual person in order to achieve good character. Spiritual, nonviolent jihad is often referred to as the “greater jihad,” while the martial form of jihad is the “lesser jihad.” According to a saying (Hadith) attributed to Muhammad, “Upon his return from battle Muhammad said, ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad, the struggle of the servant [of God] against the base desires of one’s soul.’” (However, not all Muslim scholars accept the authenticity of this saying.) Spiritual jihad can also connote nonviolent social struggles for justice. This article will focus primarily on the martial use of the word jihad as understood by Sunni Muslims. See the “Further Reading” section, below, for resources covering Shia perspectives on jihad. It is essential to recognize that, outside of the common theoretical framework about the nature of jihad that premodern jurists shared, the rules and regulations of jihad are not contained in a single code of law but are, rather, a bundle of different opinions. Significantly, these are subjected to ongoing analysis and debate among Muslim jurists today, not least of all in response to new and emerging circumstances.

ASSOCIATED TERMS Words linguistically related to jihad appear forty-one times in the Qur’an, only ten of which focus on violent conflicts. A person who wages jihad is called a mujahid (plural mujahidun or mujahidin). In the Qur’an itself, warfare is often

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referred to with the word qital, which is also used by contemporary jihadi groups. Another associated term is siyar which refers to all relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states and includes regulations for war between them.

THE BASIS FOR THE PREMODERN DOCTRINE OF JIHAD The sacred text of Islam, the Qur’an, does not present a single doctrine of relations with non-Muslims. Instead, the Qur’an presents seven different attitudes toward non-Muslims, which scholars have interpreted and applied based on context. These are commands to (1) be patient with disbelievers (that is, non-Muslims) and stay away from them; (2) forgive disbelievers and treat them kindly; (3) tolerate disbelievers; (4) preach among or argue in a compelling manner against disbelievers; (5) fight disbelievers when they attack Muslims while observing certain rules of engagement; (6) make peace with disbelievers; and (7) fight against the disbelievers without restriction. Which of these seven attitudes applies and how depends on the circumstances. Muslims, by and large, view the origin of jihad as a concept developed by premodern Islamic jurists. This narrative begins during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (ca. 570–632 CE) on the Arabian Peninsula. While in Mecca during the early years of his mission, the Prophet Muhammad was forbidden from war by God. After migrating to Medina, the Muslims were permitted to fight, both in self-defense and in retaliation for the injustices done to them by the Meccans who did not follow Muhammad. After some time, the Muslims were ordered to fight polytheists under certain restrictions. The Muslims were also allowed to make peace with their enemies. Next, both the restrictions on war and the treaties that Muslims had signed were nullified. Last, the Muslims were ordered by God to fight against disbelievers without restrictions. This narrative is based in particular on Qur’an verses 9:5 and 9:29 (commonly known as “the sword verses”). At the same time, other Muslims reject this narrative because dozens of Qur’an verses contradict this framing of jihad.

THE THEORY OF JIHAD For the majority of premodern jurists who said that the purpose of jihad was the preservation of the Muslim-dominated political order, they presumed that the alternative would be anarchy or a perpetual “state of war.” (This bears a striking similarity to the assumption of anarchy as a default state of affairs made by modern realist theories of international relations.)

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Premodern jurists disagreed about the scope of martial jihad. The majority of premodern scholars viewed the purpose of jihad as the physical security and reinforcement of the Muslim-dominated political order. A minority of premodern jurists adopted the position that the purpose of jihad is to end polytheism. Premodern jurists agreed, however, that the doctrine of jihad should be divided into offensive and defensive categories. They justified offensive jihad—that is, conquest—as a legitimate means of strengthening the Muslim-dominated political order. Jurists from the medieval era write about offensive jihad (jihad al-talab) with great confidence and esteem. These jurists had a historical memory of a long tradition of Muslim conquest, starting from the Arabian Peninsula and expanding from Spain to India. As such, they unanimously emphasize the importance of offensive jihad, with some even ruling that the ruler of an Islamic polity bordering a non-Muslim one should engage in offensive jihad at least once a year. These jurists hold a particular authority in the collective imaginations of Muslims, since they lived during a time of Muslim civilizational preeminence and wrote from a position of political strength. Most premodern jurists agreed that offensive jihad is a collective obligation upon Muslims. This means that as long as enough Muslims participate in a jihad so that it is successful, then the religious obligation for jihad is fulfilled for all Muslims. In defensive jihad, on the other hand, who has the authority to wage a legitimate jihad and who has an obligation to participate are handled differently than in offensive jihad. Since premodern jurisprudence developed at a time when travel and communication across geographic distances were slow, the jurists allowed some flexibility in defensive jihad; for example, citizens living in locations far from the military forces of an empire could form a local militia to wage defensive jihad. Some Islamist violent extremists today try to exploit this allowance, taking it out of context and ignoring modern circumstances, and make claims, rejected by mainstream jurists, that Muslims anywhere can take up arms and label their effort “defensive jihad.” Not only is the question of authority different in defensive jihad, the notion of obligation is different as well. Depending on the circumstances, the obligation to wage defensive jihad can be a communal obligation among a group of Muslims or an individual obligation for Muslims. This is another aspect Islamist violent extremists have tried to exploit in order to recruit fighters to their own causes: by declaring their own fighting to be “defensive jihad” (a claim disputed by mainstream Muslim jurists) and, in turn, claiming that this “defensive jihad” is an “individual obligation”—that is, mandatory for each and every Muslim in the world. Areas of ongoing deliberation and disagreement among jurists about jihad, both historically and into the modern day, include when to fight, when to retreat,

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how to conscript soldiers, how to treat prisoners captured during war, how to distribute the spoils of war, and a variety of other practical and tactical questions. These questions would be answered according to the particular methodological approach of each jurist. In other areas, there is a substantial amount of common ground among jurists. For example, the jurists agreed that there are more rules and regulations for offensive jihad than defensive jihad.

MODERN VIEWS ON JIHAD Modern views of jihad can be grouped into roughly four main categories: 1. Wahhabi. Wahhabi doctrines of jihad reflect the minority opinion among premodern scholars that the primary motivator of jihad is the disbelief of non-Muslims. Wahhabis, therefore, focus their violence on non-Muslim groups, and Muslim groups that they have claimed are so heretical as to be outside the fold of Islam. 2. Political Ideologies. Modern political Islamists, adopting visions of a pan-Islamic theocratic government, affirm the legitimacy of offensive jihad for the purposes of strengthening the Islamic political body relative to other political blocks. Influential figures in this group, such as Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) and Abu‘l-‘Ala al-Mawdudi (1903–1979) present a historical reading that presents Christians and Jews as inherently hostile to Muslims. (“Christians and Jews” is now often used as a proxy term for the West.) Using this historical reading, these thinkers argue in favor of jihad against the West to strengthen Muslim political power and to subjugate non-Muslims in Muslim-majority lands to control their hostility. However, some political Islamists, such as some branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, claim that they have rejected violence as a means to attain their political objectives. At the same time, the ideologies of groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS are a more violent extension of this view of jihad. 3. Humanitarian-Defensive. Some Muslims today advocate for a departure from classical jihad doctrines by rejecting offensive jihad and arguing instead for limiting the scope of offensive jihad to humanitarian intervention. They also argue that the only legitimate actor in a defensive jihad is the state. This humanitarian-defensive view of jihad has much in common with Christian just war theory. 4. Missionary Jihad. Modern Sunni religious figures, such as Yusuf alQaradawi, Wahba al-Zuhayli, Muhammad Sa’id al-Buti, and Muhammad Abu Zahra put forth a framework for jihad one could call missionary jihad.

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These modern Muslims articulate a theory of jihad affirming the legitimacy of war for humanitarian intervention, but unlike those who argue for the humanitarian-defensive understanding of jihad, missionary-jihad advocates affirm that under certain circumstances, preemptive wars are legitimate. They define these circumstances more narrowly than do the political ideologues.   This group views the wars during the lifetime of Muhammad as evidence of support for an expansionary political project, and they place this inside of the framework the missionary call to Islam, known by the Arabic word dawa. In this missionary-jihad perspective, offensive jihad is limited to only those states that do not allow peaceful missionizing efforts or that severely restrict the freedom of Muslims to practice their religion.   Lastly, modern missionary-jihad scholars treat the historical fact of Muhammad’s early wars as a precedent specifically to protect Islam within the Arabian Peninsula. This limits the geographic precedence of the early wars, which the political modernists, by contrast, use as justification to engage in an expansionary political project.

CONCLUSION Today significant discussions are underway among Muslims regarding jihad because circumstances, such as political structures, have changed from the time when the concept was first articulated in the Qur’an. A key area of modern debate is who may wage jihad. In modern international law, nation-states are assumed to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Premodern jurists place the responsibility for offensive jihad onto the ruler of an Islamic polity. Yet today, the relationship between religion and the state in many Muslim-majority countries often has much more ambiguity, and the status of Muslim minorities in modern nation-states is taking on new forms and has new legal protections that did not exist during the time premodern jurists issued their opinions. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Hadith; ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Qur’an; Salafism; Wahhabism FURTHER READING Afsaruddin, Asma. 2013. Striving in the Way of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Islam: Kashmir and Global Jihad Bin Humaid, ’Abdullah. 1996. “A Call to Jihad.” In Muhammad M. Khan, trans. Summarized Sahih al-Bukhari. Compiled by Zain-ud-Din Az-Zaubaidi, Imam. Maktaba Dar-us-Salam Publishers & Distributors, pp. 1079–96. Ibn Rushd. 2000. “Book of Jihad.” In Imran A. K. Nyazee, trans. The Distinguished Jurist’s Primer. Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization, Vol. 1, pp. 545–87. Jackson, Sherman. 2002. “Jihad and the Modern World.” Islamic Law and Culture 7, no. 1: 1–26. Landau-Tasseron, Ella. 2017. “Jihad.” Encyclopedia of the Qur’an. Edited by Jane D. McAuliffe. Leiden, The Netherlands: BrillOnline. March, Andrew F., and Naz K. Modirzadeh. 2013. “Ambivalent Universalism? Jus ad Bellum in Modern Islamic Legal Discourse.” European Journal of International Law 24, no. 1: 367–89. Syed, Mairaj. 2013. “Jihad in Classical Islamic Legal and Moral Thought.” In Jacob Neusner, Bruce D. Chilton, and R. E. Tully, eds. Just War in Religion and Politics. Washington, DC: University Press of America, pp. 135–62.

KASHMIR AND GLOBAL JIHAD Jammu and Kashmir is a region in South Asia where India and Pakistan, especially, but also China, share highly disputed borders. The disputes involve the political status of the population and the borders of the territory, both unresolved since the Partition of India in the late 1940s. For many in this region, ethnicity and religion (mostly Islam and Hinduism) tend to overlap; as a result, ethnic tensions may take on a religious dimension, and religious tensions may involve ethnic group conflict. Armed conflict is carried out by proxy groups and, to a lesser extent, the militaries of India and Pakistan; more recently, international jihadi fighters, some with relations to proxy groups, engaged in armed conflict. The Jammu and Kashmir conflict provides an example of how the international nature of a religious network can both feed and exploit a long-term unresolved conflict. (For a general discussion of the Kashmir conflict, see “Kashmir” in the section on Hinduism.) Many aspects of the Kashmir dispute have a local focus, such as tensions over ethnic identity, language, and access to natural resources. However, the question of whether Muslims or non-Muslims would govern the predominantly Muslim population in the region of Kashmir was central to the origins of the Kashmir conflict. As a result, the Kashmir conflict has been perceived by some Muslims outside of Kashmir as a matter of importance to Muslims. This identification of the struggle with Islam (whether as a group identity, religious doctrine, or a mix of the two) has connected the struggle in Kashmir to Islam-related activism elsewhere in the world, and it has transformed the nature of the struggle in Kashmir.

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Whereas in the early decades, the struggle focused on local control of Muslim-majority territory by local Muslims, in more recent decades, the connection of the Kashmir dispute with Islamist jihadi fighters has involved an infusion of rhetoric about aspiring to a global caliphate and even rejection of concepts such as “sovereignty” (Garner 2013, 426). Garner explained, “The paradox of political Islam can be found in Kashmir as well: nationalist leadership employed Islamic slogans instrumentally to mobilize the population and inspire them to victory, but empowered radical players with more serious Islamic aspirations at the same time” (Garner 2013, 423). The main Islamist groups engaged in Kashmir include Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Hizbul Mujahideen, which started in the region. At the same time, given “the opportunistic franchising strategy of Al Qaida towards these once nationalist movements,” such as Kashmir and Chechnya (Garner 2013, 431), al-Qaeda, too, set roots in the Kashmir fight, adding Kashmir to the list of grievances it used to motivate Muslims to join its cause. More recently, ISIS has been making forays into Kashmir with its own local group, Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir, claiming to help the locals but also using the Kashmir conflict to serve its broader strategic interests. The long-term nature of the fighting has made it possible for Kashmir to become a hub among global Islamist fighters. The ability of a network, such as that of Islamist fighters, to engage in and sustain violence in new and emerging conflicts elsewhere in the globe is enhanced by the availability and mobility of trained, experienced fighters elsewhere. The Islamist fighters in Kashmir have both incorporated those with experience from elsewhere into their cause, and they have exported trained fighters as well. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, some of the jihadist infrastructure developed for the Afghan war shifted to Kashmir; it is no coincidence that the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and an Islamist insurgency began to flare up in Kashmir in the early 1990s. Moreover, LeT cells have been found in both the United States and Europe and, in reverse, LeT recruits Americans and Europeans to come to Kashmir (Rassler et al. 2013, 3). These fighters receive training at LeT centers, and some have gone on to participate in international terror attacks (Rassler et al. 2013, 34). Other protracted conflicts, such as Chechnya, have seen a similar trajectory of evolution from local, nationalist struggles to struggles viewed as outposts in a larger “pan-Islamist” global struggle (Garner 2013). The longer the Kashmir dispute continues, the more opportunities there will be for fighters from resolved struggles elsewhere to find places to continue to fight in Kashmir, and the more experienced fighters there will be from Kashmir to send to exacerbate emerging struggles. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Hinduism: Kashmir; Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda

Islam: Martyrdom (Shia Islam) FURTHER READING Behera, Navnita Chadha Behera. 2006. Demystifying Kashmir. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. D’Souza, Shanthie Mariet, and Bibhu Prasad Routray. 2016. “Jihad in Jammu and Kashmir: Actors, Agendas and Expanding Benchmarks.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 27, no. 4: 557–77. Garner, George. 2013. “Chechnya and Kashmir: The Jihadist Evolution of Nationalism to Jihad and Beyond.” Terrorism and Political Violence 25, no. 3: 419–34. Rassler, Don, C. Christine Fair, Anirban Ghosh, Arif Jamal, and Nadia Shoeb. 2013. “The Fighters of Lashkar‐e‐Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death.” Occasional Paper Series. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. ­https://​­ctc​.­usma​.­edu​ /­app​/­uploads​/­2014​/­07​/­Fighters​-­of​-­LeT​_Final​.­pdf.

KORAN. See QUR’AN MARTYRDOM (SHIA ISLAM) Within Shia Islam, martyrdom is a powerful political concept with roots that go back to the founding Shia story of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed in Karbala in 680 CE. Lebanon, with its significant Shia population and recent history of conflict, is one country where one can see various uses of the term “martyrdom” manifested. At the same time, in the Arabic speaking areas of the Middle East, among the largest religious communities of all denominations—that is, Christians and Muslims—the term martyrdom is used in a broad, generic sense. For example, when a Christian Lebanese newspaper mentions an attack of the Israeli Army that killed dozens of civilians, it routinely refers to those killed as “martyrs,” similar to the way a U.S. newspaper might use the term “victims.” Yet the concept of martyrdom today is often understood in the West only as a frightening practice in Middle East, linked with fundamentalism and religious fanaticism. A martyr (from the Greek noun Martus, meaning “witness”), for Christians and Muslims alike, typically refers to someone who consents to die to give evidence of his own faith. From the legal meaning of the term in ancient Greek, martyr becomes, in the Christian context, persons who, through their own deaths, testify, or bear “witness,” to the strength and the veracity of their faith. In the Qur’an, the meaning is basically the same. The word “martyr” (shahid in Arabic) refers to witness that is, bearing witness of human faith, whether it is God, the Prophet, or the believers. The meaning of “witnessing the Word of God with death” mentioned in the Christian religion cannot be found in the Qur’an. This

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meaning was later brought within Shia Islam and the new interpretations of the martyrdom of Husayn. In the Shia tradition, Husayn embodies the ultimate meaning of martyr. He was asked by the people of Kufah (Iraq) to take the lead of the Muslim community. At this time, Yazid (r. 680–683) was the caliph (ruler of the Muslim community at a time when Muslims were still unified). Earlier, Yazid’s father Muawiyah (r. 639– 661) had succeeded Ali (r. 656–661), Husayn’s father, as a caliph. Husayn refused to pledge allegiance to Yazid, as there was a disagreement over the legitimacy of the way in which Yazid became caliph. Seeking to challenge Yazid, Husayn traveled from the Arabic Peninsula toward Kufah, but his caravan was stopped by the army of the local governor, who was loyal to Yazid. This army killed Husayn and his seventy-two companions. The Shia historiography specifies that the majority of his companions were women and children and that Husayn led the expedition with peaceful intentions. Husayn and his seventy-two companions are portrayed as victims. The Sunni-Shia split emerged from this incident. The figure of the martyr thus emerged from Shia history as both a tragic and doleful ideal of what religion should be. The death of Husayn and the associated conception of martyrdom were formative in the Shia tradition, a community that claims to be and perceives itself as a martyred community. Martyrdom itself is the founding story of the Shia faith. When Shia Muslims commemorate Ashura (the annual commemoration of the death of Husayn and his companions), it arouses a feeling of culpability that the community must assume as an indelible mark of having abandoned Husayn to his fate, and for which they have to punish themselves from generation to generation. Today, the traditionally sorrowful interpretation of this event faces competition from, or is even being supplanted by, another interpretation, in which Husayn appears as a symbol of resistance. This new understanding of the ritual began to appear in the 1960s, interpreting the martyrdom of Husayn as a call to protest. In this recasting of martyrdom, Husayn is no longer a victim but, rather, personifies the one who fights for Truth: fully aware of his fate, he would have decided to face the army and testify his faith as the only way to keep the religion alive as his grandfather had preached it. With that in mind, he accepted his own death, not passively, but as a proof of his real faith. One of the slogans in contemporary Shiism, “Ashura: victory of blood over the sword,” illustrates this new interpretation. In Islam, dying as soldier in the path of God determines one’s status in the afterlife. The intention of the one who dies is essential to determine whether or not she or he is a martyr. The one who dies fighting to defend Islam is a martyr. The one who dies with the intention of protecting his family is also a martyr. In this way, the meaning given to the expression “in the path of God,” frequently used in the Qur’an when mentioning the death of a believer, is broad. The untargeted victims of a bombing are martyrs; they are called “martyrs by injustice” (al-shahid

Islam: Martyrdom (Shia Islam)

al-mazlum). In Arabic, these terms can be used by other communities without linking the meaning to a religious reference. For example, the people who died during the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and the Qana massacres in 1996 and 2006 in Lebanon are considered to be martyrs. Associating the conditions in which they died with martyrdom resonated all around Lebanon and beyond. Martyrdom as a category emphasizes the manner of dying and, hence, points out the illegitimacy and injustice of those responsible of the death. A series of events that occurred in Lebanon in recent decades has favored a martial interpretation of martyrdom. The country was partially occupied by the Israeli Army between 1982 and 2000 and has had conflict with Israel since then, especially the 2006 military attack by Israel. From the first days of the Israeli invasion in 1982, different parties gathered to fight together. From 1982 to 1985, most attacks against the occupying forces were led by the Lebanese National Resistance Front. In 1985, Hezbollah (literally: “the party of God”) was officially founded; however, as Hasan Nasrallah emphasized, its existence begun with the Israeli occupation. The soldiers who die in this context of ongoing military struggle are considered martyrs by all movements of Lebanese resistance, insofar as they fight for a common cause. However, every faction has its own definition of what their cause is, whether it is Islam or the protection of the nation or the land. Whether they fight in the path of God or the path of the nation, the rhetoric is similar. “We are fighting for Liberation . . . The young martyrs . . . do not sacrifice themselves for some heaven or to find plenty of young virgins. They fight to release their territory with what they have,” said Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, one of the former leaders of the Palestinian Hamas, in 2002 (Paris 2002). Whatever their cultural matrix is, all of them fight for their land, for their homeland and their families. In the case of the so-called suicide bombers, the fighters from all factions testify that they do not choose to die to run away from life: “We love life and it is because we love life that we have chosen to die,” said a member of the Lebanese Communist Party in his will. Within a quarter of a century, from 1980 to mid-2006, a total of thirty-eight “suicide attacks” occurred in Lebanon: thirteen of them were carried out by Hezbollah, and the largest portion of the remainder were carried out by secular movements in Lebanon. The motivations of those who carried out these attacks often proceeded from a “deep anger” facing the military occupation and were built on the conviction, developed in the early 1980s, that “killing the greatest number of enemies” is the way to chase the enemy out of Lebanon. In the case of Lebanese Hezbollah, martyrs are highlighted and put on display in multiple formats, from large-format billboards to audiovisual testaments and resistance songs, as well as the regular maintenance of the graves and the organization of commemorations during political partisan and annual religious events, such as Ashura, the Martyr’s Day, and Resistance Week. The portraits of martyrs are depicted in an iconographic style that all recognize: red flowers, military uniforms,

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or images of soldiers. Geographic locations of religious-political significance are also common. Until 2012, the most common image was the city of Jerusalem. However, since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, the mausoleum of Zaynab, Husayn’s sister, near Damascus has been attacked repeatedly by groups affiliated to ISIS; since 2012, pictures of this mausoleum have largely replaced Jerusalem in Lebanese Shia martyrdom imagery. The martyrs punctuate the visual landscape in Lebanon and mark the territory with the visual identity of the political parties these martyrs supported when they were living. This practice is widely used and not only within Hezbollah. Lebanon’s other political movements and parties employ this iconography, especially during election periods. In modern Shia Islam, religion certainly plays a part, but mainly it is in the context of national resistance: “It is truer to say that martyrs make faith than that faith makes martyrs,” said Miguel de Unamuno (De Unamuno 1965, 304). Kinda Chaib See also: Islam: Hezbollah; Jihad; Martyrdom (Sunni Islam) FURTHER READING Abou Zahab, Mariam. 2008. “‘I Shall Be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise’: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e Taiba (Army of the Pure).” In Aparna Rao, Michael Bollig and Monika Böck, eds. The Practice of War: The Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence. New York: Berghahn Books, pp.133–61. Chaib, Kinda. 2010. “Hezbollah Seen Through Its Images: The Representation of the Martyr.” In Sabrina Mervin, ed. The Shi’a Worlds and Iran. London: Saqi Books, pp. 115–39. De Unamuno, Miguel. 1965 (1921). Le Sentiment tragique de la vie. Paris: Gallimard. Donohue, John J. 1998. “For Truth and Justice: Martyrdom in the Three Religious Traditions.” In J. J. Donohue and C. W. Troll, eds. Faith, Power, and Violence. Muslims and Christians in a Plural Society, Past and Present. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale, pp. 1–18. Khosrokhavar, Farhad. 1995. L’islamisme et la mort; le martyre révolutionnaire en Iran. Paris: L’Harmattan. Paris, Gilles. 2002. “Les attentats-suicides, arme du désespoir des Palestiniens.” Le Monde. June 13, 2002. Wensinck, A. J. 1921. “The Oriental Doctrine of the Martyrs.” In Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Nederlansche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde. Amsterdam: Deel 53, Serie A, n. 6.

MARTYRDOM (SUNNI ISLAM) A martyr in Islam is known in Arabic as shahid, literally a witness to their faith. Martyrdom is a powerful impulse that is shared across religions and cultures. It is

Islam: Martyrdom (Sunni Islam)

the idea that one sacrifices oneself for one’s beliefs, community, or for the sake of a just cause. Like Christianity, Islam was also born in persecution, and, as such, martyrdom in combat or in nonviolent situations has deep historical echoes in the faith. This entry focuses on martyrdom in Sunni Islam. The Qur’an says, “Whether you are killed for God’s cause or die, God’s forgiveness and mercy are better than anything people amass” (Abdel Haleem, Qur’an 3:157) and again in another verse, “Do not think of those who have been killed in God’s way as dead. They are alive with their Lord, well provided for” (Qur’an 3:169). These verses are said to have been revealed after the Battle of Uhud (625), a battle that Muslims lost badly and in which many were killed. They were told that those who died in the battle were indeed martyrs and enjoying themselves in paradise. In the Hadith, many statements are attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that praise courage in battle and a willingness to sacrifice oneself for the Muslim community. “I would love to be martyred in the way of God, then come back to life and be martyred, then come back to life and be martyred” (Hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari 7226). Other statements discourage cowardice in the face of danger” “Whoever died and did not go forth in battle or did not think about it in himself, he has died on a branch of hypocrisy” (Hadith collection Sahih Muslim 1910). Martyrdom might also involve simply being killed in an unjust manner. In early Muslim history, it is said that the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (579–656) refused to defend himself or order others to defend him shortly before he was assassinated by his political enemies, citing the verse, “If anyone kills a person . . . it is as if he kills all mankind” (Qur’an 5:32). This example echoes the story of Cain and Abel in the Qur’an (which is shortly before the verse cited in the same chapter), as Abel refused to defend himself: “If you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you. I fear God, the Lord of all worlds” (Qur’an 5:28). However, martyrdom was not only limited to the battlefield; one could be a martyr in other ways. “The martyrs are five: one killed by plague, one killed by stomach sickness, one who drowned, one who was crushed under buildings, and a martyr in the way of God” (Sahih al-Bukhari 2829). The leading classical Hadith scholar Al-Bukhari (d. 870) asserted that there are at least seven different types of martyrdom beside being killed in battle. Like jihad, which could take nonviolent forms, martyrdom itself also does not necessarily entail violence. Martyrdom, like other religious concepts, can, however, be interpreted in an extreme way that promotes violence. In the modern period, it is often embedded in the discourse of political conflicts involving Muslims. Martyrdom was a major theme in the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988), as both Sunni Iraqis and Shiite Iranians invoked martyrdom to inspire their populations. It also plays an important role in perceptions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The extremist group Hamas

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employed martyrdom in support of suicide attacks, redubbed as “martyrdom operations.” Their branding of suicide attacks as martyrdom was supported by popular Muslim televangelist Yusuf Qaradawi, who issued a religious edict (fatwa) permitting them in Israel. Even the comparatively secular nationalist opposition to Israel, the Palestinian Authority, had administered the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund for years to support those involved in political violence and resistance against the Israeli government; the stated purpose of such activity was to undermine the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian lands. Suicide attacks have also been carried out for different political motives by Muslim extremists in Lebanon, Chechnya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Martyrdom narratives are used as an emotive tool in the online recruitment strategies of terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS). On the other hand, governments of Muslim-majority states sometimes invoke martyrdom to inspire their populations in their operations against nonstate actors. The UAE commemorates Martyr’s Day (Yawm al-Shahid) every year on November 30 to recognize Emirati citizens who have died in the country’s military operations, including the First Gulf War (1990–1991) and the war against Houthi rebels in Yemen (2014–present). Like jihad, martyrdom can be martialed toward nonviolent or violent ends, self-defense or aggression. While martyrdom in Islam can be a strong incentive for Muslims to carry out acts of courage and self-sacrifice in constructive ways, those who desire to carry out political violence, even terrorism, also try to harness the symbolic and emotive power of martyrdom for their own causes. Justin Parrott See also: Islam: Hadith; Jihad; Martyrdom (Shia Islam); Qur’an FURTHER READING Abdel Haleem, M. A. 2016. The Qurʼan: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edwards, David B. 2017. Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Esposito, John L. 2011. “Do Muslims Have a Martyrdom Complex?” In What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 151–53. Hatina, Meir. 2015. Martyrdom in Modern Islam: Piety, Power, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hatina, Meir, and Meir Litvak. 2017. Martyrdom and Sacrifice in Islam: Theological, Political and Social Contexts. New York: I. B. Tauris. Oxford Islamic Studies Online. 2019. “Suicide Bombings and Martyrdom.” January 8, 2019. ­http://​­www​.­oxfordislamicstudies​.­com​/­article​/­book​/­islam​-­9780195174304​ /­islam​-­9780195174304​-­chapter​-­72.

Islam: Maute Group

MAUTE GROUP(ISLAMIC STATE OF LANAO) The Maute Group, also known as the Islamic State of Lanao, was founded in 2012 and is one of several violent Islamist groups in the southern Philippines. The name Maute comes from a wealthy, influential family in the region. Muslims are minorities in the Philippines. For decades, there have been clashes between groups fighting for the rights of Muslims in the south of the Philippines, where most of the country’s Muslims live, and the government of the Philippines. The Maute Group is just the most recent in a long string of organizations opposing the government. The Maute Group has collaborated with other violent Islamist groups in the southern Philippines and appears to be developing ties to regional violent Islamist groups. The Maute Group mixes terrorism with earning money through petty crime and protection extortion. They have had violent clashes with the Philippines security forces off and on since 2013, most recently in and around Marawi City. In 2015, the Maute Group proclaimed its affiliation with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Maute Group has operational and familial ties to older Islamist groups of the region, including Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Abu Sayyaf has been active in Islamist violence in the southern Philippines since the early 1990s, and, for a time, it was aligned with al-Qaeda. In 2017, Abu Sayyaf announced that it was merging with the Maute Group, and Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS, even claiming to have become the regional ISIS leader for Southeast Asia. The Maute Group also has ties to MILF, a violent Islamist group in the southern Philippines, which emerged in the early 1990s after deeming the previously Marxist Moro National Liberation Front insufficiently committed to secession from the Philippines. In May 2017, the Maute Group and its allies took over the city of Marawi. This takeover, combined with the counteraction by security forces of the Philippines, caused significant destruction in Marawi. While a violent faction of Muslims supported the Maute Group and the Maute Group targeted Christians for hostage taking, other Muslims extended protection to the Christian minorities of the region (Allard 2017). In a siege to retake the city of Marawi in the fall of 2017, the Philippines military killed the two Maute brothers leading the group and Abu Sayyaf leader Hapilon. While the government of the Philippines claims the demise of the Maute Group will now follow, the actual future of the Maute Group remains unclear. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Allard, Tom. 2017. “Muslims Protect Christians under Attack from ISIS-Linked Group as They Flee Marawi.” The Independent, June 3, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­independent​.­co​.­uk​/­news​ /­world​/­asia​/­muslims​-­christians​-­philippines​-­marawi​-­isis​-­flee​-­seige​-­a7771126​.­html. Regencia, Ted. 2017. “Marawi Siege: Army Kills Abu Sayyaf, Maute Commanders.” Al Jazeera,  October  16,  2017. ­http://​­www​.­aljazeera​.­com​/­news​/­2017​/­10​/­marawi​-­siege​ -­army​-­kills​-­abu​-­sayyaf​-­maute​-­commanders​-­171016072551985​.­html. Santos, Ana. 2017. “How Two Brothers Took Over a Filipino City for ISIS.” The Atlantic,  August  12,  2017. ­https://​­www​.­theatlantic​.­com​/­international​/­archive​/­2017​/­08​ /­philippines​-­isis​/­536253​/.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD The Muslim Brotherhood—al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in Arabic—was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949). The ideology of the group, which emerged partially in response to the colonialist presence in Egypt and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, seeks to implement Islamic law (Sharia), reduce Western hegemony, and ultimately supplant what it views as “Western” structures of government with its own version of conservative Islamic governance. The group, which is now a network of interconnected global organizations, serves for some as a gateway for extremism and jihadist violence. Al-Banna, a visionary school teacher inspired by the works of Indian scholars Abu Ala al-Mawdudi (1903–1979) and Abu Hasan al-Nadwi (1914–1999), as well as earlier thinkers, such as medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328), urged Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere to embrace Islam as a perfect system of social organization and apply Islamic teachings in all affairs of life—political, social, and economic. Through what would become a famous Islamist motto, “Islam is the solution,” al-Banna contended that any attempt to separate Islam from politics should not be tolerated. In his 1940s epistle The Message of the Teachings, he stated that an “Islamic government” would ensure the proper implementation the “rules and teachings of Islam” in order to establish the “lost Caliphate” (Frampton 2018). In the late 1930s, al-Banna set up al-Nizam al-Khass, or the “Special Apparatus,” a secret paramilitary wing that engaged in violence. The Brotherhood argued that the Special Apparatus was created to provide military assistance to Palestinians, but its operatives also targeted British and Jewish interests in Egypt and engaged in bombings and assassinations against Egyptians. In 1948, the Brotherhood assassinated Judge Ahmed al-Khazindar and Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Naqrashi. After this, the Egyptian government banned the organization. In 1949, Al-Banna was assassinated in Egypt by an unknown gunman.

Islam: Muslim Brotherhood

Although the Brotherhood was already involved in political violence during the leadership of al-Banna, it was through Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966), a leading Islamic theorist of violent jihad, that the group became openly supportive of violence. Qutb advocated jihad against jahiliyya (ignorance) to create an Islamic order. Qutb’s use of the term jahiliyya has strong historic echoes for Muslims. When the Prophet Muhammad and other early Muslims fought against pre-Islamic paganism, they considered this a fight against jahiliyya. Qutb also believed that the only path to overcome jahiliyya was to submit to al-hakimiyya, the total sovereignty of God, which, for Qutb, meant adopting Sharia as the foundation of all laws. By accusing the leaders of Egypt and the Egyptian society, of jahiliyya, Qutb was, in effect, accusing them of not being true Muslims and, therefore, turning them into legitimate targets of jihad. In 1952, after the Free Officers toppled the king of Egypt, the relationship between the Brotherhood and the Free Officers was initially cooperative, but it deteriorated when the new government established a secular state. In 1954, the Brotherhood attempted to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser. In retaliation, the government conducted a massive crackdown on the group, forcing it underground. However, this did not eliminate the ideas underpinning the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb’s writings, especially his 1964 book, Milestones, which laid out the basis for modern Sunni militancy, have since inspired the founders of major terrorist groups, including Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and Islamic State. His 1966 execution by the government of Egypt elevated him to a martyr and hero in the eyes of his followers. After this, his radical ideology gained supporters in Syria, Jordan, other Arab states, and outside the Middle East as well. After Nasser’s death in 1970, Anwar al-Sadat became president of Egypt and used the Brotherhood as a counterweight to his political rivals, Nasser loyalists, and leftists, particularly on university campuses. Also, Sadat tried using reconciliation with the Brotherhood as a way to reduce violence in order to introduce a capitalist order that would allow Egypt to open up to Western investors. During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a growing rise in violent acts targeting both Coptic Christians and the government carried out by two Brotherhood-affiliated groups, namely Takfir Wal Hijra (Excommunication and Emigration) and al-Jamaah al-Islamiyyah (the Islamic Group). Sadat’s effort at reconciliation did not succeed. The Islamic Group assassinated him in 1981. The United States designated the Islamic Group a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Since its inception, the Brotherhood sought to be a mass political movement in Egypt. In 2005, the group, together with allied independent candidates, won 20 percent of the parliamentary seats. With the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011, the Brotherhood exploited the antigovernment protests. In June 2012, Mohammed Morsi, the chair of the political arm of the Brotherhood, the Freedom

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and Justice Party, became Egypt’s first elected president. Other Brotherhood branches in Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco made major political strides. In Tunisia, the Brotherhood-affiliated Ennahda political party, led by Rached Ghannouchi, came second in the 2014 elections and formed a coalition government with the largest secular party. In Libya, the Justice and Construction Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Muhammad Sawan, came second in the 2012 elections but lost out to secular liberals in the 2014 vote. Meanwhile, in Morocco, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) has led the government since 2011, when King Mohammed VI ceded some powers to ease “Arab Spring” protests. In Egypt, when Morsi became president, he monopolized power by issuing decrees that awarded himself far-reaching powers, validating criticism that the group had used the democratic process merely to implement Sharia Law. On June 30, 2013, millions of Egyptians took to the streets to demand Morsi’s resignation, prompting the military, on July 3, to overthrow this Islamist president. In retaliation, new Brotherhood-affiliated groups, like HASM (an acronym for the Arabic name of the Forearms of Egypt Movement), Liwa al-Thawra (Revolution Brigade), Kataib Helwan (Helwan Battalions), Revolutionary Punishment, and Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt), engaged in armed assaults against police, military, and state officials (Schanzer 2018). Furthermore, Brotherhood supporters and Islamist youths attacked and torched roughly 80 churches in Egypt as well as numerous homes and businesses of Christians. Such actions prompted the Egyptian authorities, in 2013, to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist group, dissolve its political arm, and confiscate all its assets. As part of its counterterrorism strategy, some Western countries, including the United States and Britain, designated violent Brotherhood affiliates such as HASM and Liwa al-Thawra as terrorist groups. Throwing their weight behind Egypt, other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, have since designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. By contrast, Turkey and Qatar remain the group’s principal regional supporters, housing many Brotherhood leaders and supporters. The group is now a global movement, operating in as many as ninety-two countries, with various offshoots, including Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Ennahda in Tunisia, the Brotherhood branch in Syria, the Islamic Action Front in Jordan, the Justice and Construction Party and Hizb al-Watan in Libya, Al-Islah Party in Yemen, the PJD in Morocco, and the Islamic Constitutional Movement in Kuwait. The group takes different forms in different host countries, and the extent of offshoots’ affiliation with the Brotherhood in Egypt varies. In some countries, these groups are often viewed as a legitimate part of the political system, while, in others, they are essentially underground terrorist groups. Several organizations in North America, such as the Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, the AMC, and the Muslim American Society, have varying

Islam: Muslim Brotherhood

degrees of association with the Brotherhood (Vidino 2010, chapter 7). Meanwhile, in Europe, Brotherhood affiliates include the Muslim Association of Britain and the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (Vidino 2010, 83 and 140). The European network is controversial due to its suspicious ties with terror groups. In the United Kingdom, a complex network of Brotherhood-tied charities raises funds for Hamas. In 2003, the U.S. Treasury designated the UK charity Interpal a terrorist entity for its alleged links to Hamas. Moreover, two figures of this network, Syrian-born Ghaleb Himmat and Egyptian businessman Yussuf Nada, whom the U.S. Treasury accuses of funding Hamas and al-Qaeda, were designated as terrorism financiers in 2001 by various Western countries and by the United Nations (Vidino 2010, 31). A recent German report released by FOCUS Online, citing German intelligence and security authorities, deemed the Muslim Brotherhood in the medium term as “more dangerous to democracy than the ISIS and al-Qaeda to democracy in Germany” (Al Arabiya English 2018). A key concern remains the Brotherhood’s ideology, which has inspired modern jihadism. Several prominent militants were previously members of the Brotherhood, including Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Qaeda theoretician Mustafa Setmariam (also known as Abu Musab al-Suri). Similarly, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam (1941–1989), who helped found al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was previously a member of the Brotherhood (Pargeter, 2013). How to define the entire Muslim Brotherhood remains a contentious issue in the West. Some experts believe that the group is a political movement and fear that designating it as a terrorist organization may backfire, as it would be tantamount to a declaration of war against nonviolent political Islamists and Islam itself. Others argue that the group is not homogenous, with certain groups embracing extremism, while others seek to integrate with their domestic political systems. As this debate continues, the concept of violence remains enshrined in the group’s motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our constitution. Jihad is our way. Death in the way of Allah is the loftiest of our wishes. Allah is great, Allah is great” (Pargeter, 2013). Romany Shaker See also: Islam: Hamas; Kashmir and Global Jihad; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Takfir FURTHER READING Al Arabiya English. 2018. “Muslim Brotherhood More Dangerous to Germany han ISIS, Qaeda, Says Report.” December 14, 2018. ­http://​­english​.­alarabiya​.­net​/­en​/­News​/­world​ /­2018​/­12​/­14​/­Muslim​-­Brotherhood​-­more​-­dangerous​-­to​-­Germany​-­than​-­ISIS​-­Qaeda​ -­says​-­report​-.­html.

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Religious Violence Today Frampton, Martyn. 2018. The Muslim Brotherhood and the West: A History of Enmity and Engagement. London: Harvard University Press. Pargeter, Alison. 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood: From Opposition to Power. London: Saqi Books. Schanzer, Jonathan. 2018. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Global Threat: Testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security.  115th  Congress. ­https://​­docs​.­house​.­gov​/­meetings​/­GO​/­GO06​/­20180711​ /­108532​/­HHRG​-­115​-­GO06​-­Wstate​-­SchanzerPhDJ​-­20180711​.­pdf​.­https://­oversight​ .­h ouse​.­g ov​/­w p​-­c ontent​/­u ploads​/­2 018​/­0 7​/­S chanzer​-­F DD​-­S tatement​-­M uslim​ -­Brotherhood​-­7​-­11​.­pdf. United Kingdom Government. 2015. Muslim Brotherhood Review: Main Findings. ­https://​ ­assets​.­publishing​.­service​.­gov​.­uk​/­government​/­uploads​/­system​/­uploads​/­attachment​ _data​/­file​/­486948​/­53163​_Muslim​_Brotherhood​_Review​_-­_PRINT​.­pdf. Vidino, Lorenzo. 2010. The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West. New York: Columbia University Press.

THE NEGLECTED DUTY (1981) The Neglected Duty was a pamphlet printed and disseminated by the assassins of Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat (1918–1981). The assassins were members of an Islamist group known as the Society of Jihad (Jamaat al-Jihad). Authorship of the pamphlet was attributed to Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj (1952–1982), an electrician at Cairo University and a preacher at a Cairo mosque. Faraj was later apprehended and executed in 1982 for his involvement in the assassination. The Neglected Duty examined the Islamic concept of jihad and argued that jihad is the duty of every Muslim. It was first published under the Arabic title al-Faridah al-Ghaibah in December 1981 in the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahrar. The pamphlet was part of an ongoing discussion within the greater Islamic community concerning the role of Islam in political and social life and concerning the ethicality and Islamic legitimacy of violent jihad. First and foremost, the publication argued that jihad is an individual duty, incumbent on all Muslims. This argument also speaks to a bigger theological question in the study of Islam: whether jihad is the duty of individual Muslims or if it is the collective duty of the Islamic community, and who has the authority to make this determination. The pamphlet derived its interpretation that jihad is an individual duty from what the author conceived to be the obligation of the Islamic community (ummah) to establish an Islamic state. Thus, it laid out a theory of just war, with the end goal being the establishment and continuance of an Islamic state. According to the pamphlet, the enemies of Islam are nonbelievers, “infidels,” including even those who claim to be Muslim, while not committing themselves to the author’s definition of jihad. In order to understand the relevance of The Neglected Duty, it

Islam: The Neglected Duty

is important to know who the pamphlet deemed the targets of jihad. Faraj used the word “infidel” to describe the enemies of Islam, and he defined infidels as those who do not take up jihad to establish an Islamic state. Therefore, the true Muslim, in the logic of Faraj, is only the Muslim who fights for the rule of Islam. The 1981 Sadat assassination made clear the intentions of the Society of Jihad. Throughout his presidency (1970–1981), Sadat maintained a ban on religious parties that began under his predecessor, President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970). However, in an effort to win over Islamist support, Sadat went by the title “The Believing President” to emphasize his Islamic faith to the Egyptian people. Thus, Sadat identified as a Muslim and even attempted to depict the importance of religion in the political realm in positive ways. However, merely identifying with Islam could not save Sadat from having the Society of Jihad deem him an infidel for maintaining the largely secular nation-state system in Egypt, thus making him a target of the Society of Jihad. Faraj was not the first to use this maneuver of declaring leaders of Muslimmajority countries to be non-Muslim as justification for violence. Scholar Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) did so and, before him, in the earliest years of Islam, the Khawarij had taken a similar approach. Ibn Taymiyyah lived under the Mongol occupation of Greater Syria and used theology and the language of jihad to justify fighting the Mongol rulers. The Mongols in Greater Syria had converted to Islam, but he argued that the leaders and their supporters were only pretending to be Muslims, thus justifying them as targets of jihad. The Neglected Duty draws a comparison between the Mongols described by Ibn Taymiyyah and the “rulers of Muslims” in 1981 as a way of justifying the killing of “Muslim leaders” (Jansen 2002, 172–175). In this way, The Neglected Duty disassociates the contemporary leaders of Muslim-majority countries from the community of Islam. Leaders were not the only targets of violence in The Neglected Duty. Faraj justified the use of violence against anyone he deemed an obstacle in the path to an Islamic state, which includes the killing of Muslims who fight for the infidels, or even those who may be mistakenly killed along the way. The pamphlet went beyond propaganda; it also laid out a strategy that could be repurposed by other Islamist movements. The violent doctrine of The Neglected Duty has had a much wider impact than just the assassination of one Egyptian president. Its strategy, justifications for violence, and descriptions of the enemy have been echoed and repurposed by Islamist terrorist organizations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Gates H. Young See also: Christianity: Just War Ideology; Islam: Jihad; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Takfir

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Al-Arian, Abdullah. 2014. Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Henzel, Christopher. 2005. “The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy.” Parameters, ­http://​­www​.­dtic​.­mil​/­dtic​/­tr​/­fulltext​/­u2​/­a486421​.­pdf. Jansen, Johannes J. G. 2002. “Faraj and ‘The Neglected Duty’—Interview with Professor Johannes J. G. Jansen.” Religioscope, ­http://​­english​.­religion​.­info​/­2002​/­01​/­15​ /­faraj​-­and​-­the​-­neglected​-­duty​-­interview​-­with​-­johannes​-­jansen​/. Jansen, Johannes J. G., and Muḥammad ʻAbd Al-Salām Faraj. 2013. The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins. New York: RVP Press.

9/11 AND AL-QAEDA On September 11, 2001, also known as 9/11, nineteen Islamist terrorists from al-Qaeda carried out attacks they called jihad by hijacking civilian planes and flying two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. The attackers killed 2977 people in addition to themselves and injured over six thousand. The attacks also led to illness and deaths among those who responded to the massive aftermath. The military and law enforcement responses catalyzed by these attacks continue today. The 9/11 attackers and those who helped organize the attacks were led by Osama bin Laden (1957–2011). They had declared their loyalty to bin Laden’s movement called al-Qaeda (the base). Bin Laden was a Saudi, influenced by Salafi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam, who had fought in the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and continued his jihad after the defeat of the Soviet Union, aspiring to establish a global caliphate (Islamic government). In the 1990s, al-Qaeda established training camps in Afghanistan for jihadi fighters from around the world and sent their trained, well-networked Islamist fighters to support local conflicts involving Muslims in Somalia, Bosnia, and beyond. Bin Laden and his associates planned the 9/11 attacks, in large part, from their camps in Afghanistan. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Two were from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. All nineteen were Muslims. Following the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda and those sympathetic to them framed the meaning of the attacks in cosmic terms. They used references to the teachings of Islam (often selectively chosen to support their own ends), Islamic symbols, and Islamic history to justify their actions. To describe the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden claimed, “God Almighty hit the United States at its most vulnerable spot. He destroyed its greatest buildings” (bin Laden 2001). Al-Qaeda situated their grievances within modern politics, the dynamics of local conflicts, and culture. For

Islam: 9/11 and al-Qaeda

example, referring to a sense that Muslim-majority states, especially in the Middle East, suffered from inferiority to the West and experienced decades of failure, especially politically, bin Laden lamented, “Our [Muslim] nation has been tasting this humiliation and contempt for more than eighty years” (bin Laden 2001). While the 9/11 attacks were a surprise, indeed a profound shock, to the United States, bin Laden’s hostility to the United States was no secret. For example, bin Laden had issued a “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries” in 1998 about his desire to get U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca and Medina, two of the most important holy sites of Islam (U.S. troops had been stationed in Saudi Arabia since the First Gulf War in 1991) (Kepel 2008, 46). Yet Americans and their allies underestimated the implications of such proclamations and concrete hostilities, such as the August 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In a February 1998 declaration, bin Laden declared that he aimed to “expel the pagans from the Arabian peninsula” (Kepel 2008, 274). His mention of “the pagans” has two connotations: on the one hand, this is a reference to Westerners, especially Americans. At the same time, bin Laden associated himself and his fighters with Muhammad and the early struggles to establish Islam, struggles that began by expelling pagan polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century. Similarly, in a 1998 statement, bin Laden asserted, “Killing the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty to every Muslim who can carry it out in any country where it proves possible, to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy sanctuary [Mecca] from their grip, and to the point that their armies leave all Muslim territory, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of God Almighty, ‘and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,’ and ‘fight them until there is no tumult or oppression, and justice and faith in God prevail.’” (Kepel 2008, 55). Bin Laden’s 1998 declaration is an example of how Islamists use Islamic sources selectively in justifying violence. Bin Laden asserts that Muslims have an obligation to “fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together” (Kepel 2008, 55). Here bin Laden referred to Qur’an verse 8:72, but he used only the first half. He omitted the second half of the verse: “except against people with whom you have a treaty: God sees all that you do.” This second half of the verse places limitations on those whom the Muslims should fight and reminds them that God “sees” what they do (with an implied reminder that God will judge them for their actions). Moreover, Muslim scholars of Islam point out the need to understand Qur’an verse in connection with its Qur’anic context. Al-Qaeda tried to foster an adversarial “us versus them,” Muslims versus non-Muslims, worldview. In a statement after the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden called

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U.S. President George W. Bush “the head of the world’s infidels,” and said that, in contrast, “every Muslim should rush to defend his religion” against the world’s “infidels.” Further emphasizing an “us versus them” framing, bin Laden declared, “These incidents divided the entire world into two regions—one of faith where there is no hypocrisy and another of infidelity, from which we hope God will protect us” (bin Laden 2001). As Michael Doran explained, bin Laden’s 9/11 “attack was designed to force those governments [of Muslim-majority countries] to choose: You are either with the idol-worshiping enemies of God or you are with the true believers,” with the “true believers” being al-Qaeda and their followers (Doran 2002). This is the public narrative al-Qaeda pushed. Yet underneath it all, argued Doran, the 9/11 attacks were really just episodes in what he called, “somebody else’s civil war.” Doran maintained that bin Laden “has embroiled the United States in an intra-Muslim ideological battle” (Doran 2002). Bearing this out, in the wake of 9/11, Muslims in many parts of the world who are opposed to al-Qaeda’s violent methods, and some even to its objectives, issued statements condemning the attacks, and today, internal disagreements among Sunni Muslims are robust in both religious interpretations as well as questions of how to relate to worldly powers. As for Muslim responses to the 9/11 attacks, an international coalition of Muslim scholars, including many from Islamist movements, such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, issued a joint statement on September 14, 2001: “The undersigned, leaders of Islamic movements, are horrified by the events of Tuesday 11 September 2001 in the United States which resulted in massive killing, destruction and attack on innocent lives. We express our deepest sympathies and sorrow. We condemn, in the strongest terms, the incidents, which are against all human and Islamic norms. This is grounded in the Noble Laws of Islam which forbid all forms of attacks on innocents. God Almighty says in the Holy Qur’an: ‘No bearer of burdens can bear the burden of another’ (Surah al-Isra 17:15)” (Kurzman, n.d.). On September 15, 2001, Abdulaziz bin ‘Abdallah Al-Ashaykh, the Chief Mufti (Islamic legal authority) of Saudi Arabia, declared, “Firstly: the recent developments in the United States including hijacking planes, terrorizing innocent people and shedding blood, constitute a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam, which views them as gross crimes and sinful acts. Secondly: any Muslim who is aware of the teachings of his religion and who adheres to the directives of the Holy Qur’an and the sunnah (the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) will never involve himself in such acts, because they will invoke the anger of God Almighty and lead to harm and corruption on earth” (Kurzman, n.d.). However, some of these statements, which, at first, appeared to be condemnations, were actually rather ambiguous. For example, on September 27, 2001,

Islam: 9/11 and al-Qaeda

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood supporter Yusuf Qaradawi and four other Muslim scholars proclaimed: All Muslims ought to be united against all those who terrorize the innocents, and those who permit the killing of non-combatants without a justifiable reason. Islam has declared the spilling of blood and the destruction of property as absolute prohibitions until the Day of Judgment. . . . [It is] necessary to apprehend the true perpetrators of these crimes, as well as those who aid and abet them through incitement, financing or other support. They must be brought to justice in an impartial court of law and [punished] appropriately. . . . [It is] a duty of Muslims to participate in this effort with all possible means. (Kurzman, n.d.)

Yet Qaradawi frequently used the same language to justify suicide attacks against Israelis, including civilians. And on September 16, 2001, on the Arabic-language satellite channel Al Jazeera, Qaradawi declared that if the Americans were to respond to the attacks of September 11, 2001 by invading Afghanistan, then Muslims should resist. He said, “When the enemy is the Americans, is that a different situation? No, the situation is not different, because neither the Russians nor the Americans are important to us. What is important to us is resisting the aggressor, we help the oppressed until they are victorious over the oppressors” (Bryson 2001). Still, many Muslims tried hard to distance themselves from any association with al-Qaeda. U.S. Muslim scholar Hamza Yusuf was one of many who rejected the claims of bin Laden and his followers to have Islamically legitimate justifications for their attacks. Bin Laden was an engineer, not a scholar of Islam. According to the mainstream Sunni orthodox traditions of Islam, he did not have standing to issue a “declaration of war” or a fatwa. Regarding 9/11, Yusuf explained, “There’s no Islamic justification for any of it. . . . You can’t kill innocent people. There’s no Islamic declaration of war against the United States. I think every Muslim country except Afghanistan has an embassy in this country. And in Islam, a country where you have embassies is not considered a belligerent country. In Islam, the only wars that are permitted are between armies and they should engage on battlefields and engage nobly” (Kurzman, n.d.). At the time of this writing, in late 2018, al-Qaeda continues to propagate justifications for, and carry out, terrorist violence. In addition, other Islamist organizations, often competing with al-Qaeda for recruits but inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology and actions, have formed. The most prominent of these is the ISIS and its affiliates around the world. The 9/11 attacks catalyzed a military response against al-Qaeda led by the United States. On October 8, 2001, the U.S. and British militaries launched attacks in Afghanistan to cut off al-Qaeda’s access to its safe haven there. By December

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2001, an international coalition formed to continue this fight. Today, the U.S. and U.S.-allied military and intelligence agencies continue to fight against al-Qaeda and its supporters in Afghanistan and around the world. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); Jihad; Martyrdom (Sunni Islam); Qur’an; Salafism; Taliban; Wahhabism FURTHER READING bin Laden, Osama. 2001.“Bin Laden’s Warning: Full Text.” BBC News, October 7, 2001. ­http://​­news​.­bbc​.­co​.­uk​/­1​/­hi​/­world​/­south​_asia​/­1585636​.­stm. Bryson, Jennifer. 2001. “Analysis: Al-Jazeera on Islam.” Newsmax, December 2, 2001. ­https://​­www​.­newsmax​.­com​/­pre​-­2008​/­analysisal​-­jazeera​-­islam​/­2001​/­12​/­02​/­id​/­660733​/. Doran, Michael S. 2002. “Somebody Else’s Civil War.” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2002. ­https://​­www​.­foreignaffairs​.­com​/­articles​/­united​-­states​/­2002​-­01​-­01​/­somebody​ -­elses​-­civil​-­war. Kepel, Gilles, and Jean-Pierre Milelli, eds., and Pascale Ghazaleh, trans. 2008. Al-Qaeda in Its Own Words. Cambridge: Belknap. Kurzman, Charles, ed. (n.d.). “Islamic Statements Against Terrorism.” h­ ttp://​­kurzman​.­unc​ .­edu​/­islamic​-­statements​-­against​-­terrorism​/.

QUR’AN The Qur’an is the holiest book in Islam, believed to be the literal word of God that was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (ca. 570–632 CE) by the angel Gabriel in the Arabic language over a period of twenty-three years. It is the primary source of Islamic theology, law, practice, and ethics. Over the centuries, Muslims have developed an extensive tradition of commentary and critical interpretation of the Qur’an. Like the scriptures of many world religions, the Qur’an can be quoted to either support or prohibit religious violence and intolerance. The biography of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Sirah, has a great influence on the way Muslims interpret the Qur’an. Muhammad began his religious mission in his hometown of Mecca (in modern-day Saudi Arabia), and he called his Meccan neighbors to Islam for about thirteen years. He encountered fierce opposition by the city’s elite tribe, the Quraysh. The chapters of the Qur’an that Muhammad preached at this time are known as the revelations of the Meccan period. These verses counseled patience (50:39), forgiveness (45:14), and “gracious avoidance” (73:10) in the face of mounting hostility. Encountering an intolerable level of persecution, Muhammad and his followers were forced to make an emigration (hijra) the nearby town of Medina, marking

Islam: Qur’an

the beginning of the Islamic lunar calendar in 622 CE. In Medina, Muhammad began building a small city-state, with new Qur’anic revelations prescribing laws for issues such as marriage and divorce (2:228), inheritance (4:11), and alcohol consumption (2:219). The regulations of warfare, or armed jihad, were revealed in Medina through progressive stages. First, Muslims were given “permission” to fight back “because they have been wronged” (22:39); then they were commanded to “fight in God’s cause against those who fight you, but do not overstep the limits” (2:190); and finally they were ordered to “kill them, seize them, besiege them, wait for them at every lookout post” (9:5). This latter verse and its interpretation, among a handful of passages sometimes called the “sword verses” (the sword being a traditional symbol of justice), is the principal source of the dispute over whether the Qur’an sanctions religious violence or not. From the standpoint of textual analysis, Qur’an scholar M. A. S. Abdel Haleem argues that the main clause of the verse “kill them” is unfairly singled out as representative of the Islamic attitude toward non-Muslims. Verses in the same chapter urge Muslims to uphold their peace treaties (9:7), grant amnesty to surrendering fighters (9:6), and remind that the enemy “attacked you first” (9:13). The whole of this context, according to Abdel Haleem, is ignored “by those who simply isolate one part of a sentence to build on it their theory of war and violence in Islam” (Abdel Haleem 2010, xxiii). While attempts to contextualize the sword verses in this way are convincing to many readers, Muslims nevertheless need to grapple with the use and abuse of the classical doctrine of Qur’anic abrogation (naskh). In an attempt to reconcile what appear to be contradictory verses, classical Muslim scholars argued that verses revealed later on can “abrogate” or repeal the rules stated in the verses revealed previously. The philosopher-jurist Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), known in the West as Averroes, noted that disagreement between Muslim jurists on the topic of war is due to the apparent contradiction between the sword verse and another Qur’anic command, “If they incline towards peace, you [Prophet] must also incline towards it” (8:61). According to some interpretations, the command to fight revealed in the later Medinan period overrides, or abrogates, the patience and forgiveness counselled in Mecca as well as the early commands to make peace in Medina. This nearly wholesale cancellation of peaceful verses is favored by modern Muslim extremists seeking to justify belligerence towards nonMuslims and likewise, perhaps ironically, by opponents of Islam seeking to cast aspersion on the entire religion as inherently violent. Yet the concept of Qur’anic abrogation in relation to the sword verses was by no means universally understood or agreed upon in the classical period. It was actually much more nuanced than the way it is characterized in popular discussion today. For instance, Abu Jaʿfar al-Naḥḥas (d. 949), Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201), and al-Suyuti (d. 1505) were major scholars who all accepted about twenty cases of

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Qur’anic abrogation, none of which involved the alleged sword verses (Blankinship 1995). The linguistic usage of “abrogation” also carried subtler meanings than simply cancelling previous verses or rules. Scholars interpreting the Qur’an within the first few centuries of Islam often used the word “abrogation” as a synonym for words such as “specification” (takhsis), “restriction” (taqyid), “explanation” (tafsir), “clarification” (tabyin), “exceptional” (istithna’), and “conditional” (shart). In other words, scholars might have considered a verse to be abrogated only in a partial sense, as if a latter verse were making an exception to a general rule that was stated earlier. This process of Qur’anic interpretation regarding if and to what extent peaceful verses were considered abrogated had important implications for the legal question of casus belli, or what condition justifies declaring a religiously sanctioned war. For example, may Muslims attack non-Muslims only as a response to aggression, or may Muslims attack them simply because they are non-Muslims? Proponents of the position that the sword verses completely abrogated the peaceful verses maintain that non-Muslims can be attacked merely for refusing to accept Islam. However, in the medieval period, when this was being debated, this view was held only by a small minority. Among the four dominant classical Sunni schools of law, only the Shafi’i school contained the opinion that a non-Muslim nation’s different religion alone was a just cause for war. Furthermore, this minority opinion was itself disputed among Shafi’i scholars and was eventually discarded by them altogether (Royal Aal al-Bayt 2009, 33). The majority of Muslim legal scholars, in the classical period and today, hold that non-Muslims may only be fought when they take up arms (hirab) against Muslims. Most Muslims today consider the following Qur’an passage as setting the tone for Muslim and non-Muslim relations: “[God] does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with anyone who has not fought you for your faith or driven you out of your homes: God loves the just. But God forbids you to take as allies those who have fought against you for your faith, driven you out of your homes, and helped others to drive you out: any of you who take them as allies will truly be wrongdoers” (60:8–9). These verses are an important interpretive key through which other verses dealing with hostile non-Muslims are understood. Muslims are allowed to have good relations with peaceful non-Muslims, and the harsher verses such as, “You who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as allies” (5:51) are contextualized to refer only to specific hostile groups and not to all non-Muslims in general. In the modern period, mainstream Muslims tend to reconcile the verses of peace and war as contextual and complementary, rather than one cancelling the other altogether. Shaykh Mahmoud Shaltut (d. 1963), the late grand imam of al-Azhar in Egypt and a leading authority on Sunni Islam in his time, attempted to provide

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principled interpretive consistency on this matter in his essay “The Qur’an and Combat.” Clearly rejecting the idea that the peaceful verses were abrogated, Shaltut asserted that “every situation has its own legislation and these verses [of peace and forgiveness] are also fixed and unassailable” (Shaltut 2013, 17). Moreover, virtually all Muslim-majority countries are now members of the United Nations and signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both of which prohibit unprovoked violence against other countries and individuals. In theory and in practice, most Muslims today interpret the Qur’an in a manner consistent with international norms of peace and nonviolence. Nonetheless, extremists and terrorists are still able to draw upon largely abandoned, fringe interpretations in the classical heritage to justify their misdeeds, a challenge that mainstream Muslims will need to contend with for the foreseeable future. Justin Parrott See also: Christianity: New Testament; Hinduism: Bhagavad Gita; Islam: Hadith; Jihad FURTHER READING Abdel Haleem, Muhammad A. S. 2010. The Qur’an: English Translation and Parallel Arabic Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blankinship, Khalid Yahya. 1995. “Sword Verses.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford Islamic Studies Online. ­http://​­www​.­oxfordislamicstudies​.­com​/­article​ /­opr​/­t236​/­e0979. Dagli, Caner K. 2015. “Conquest and Conversion, War and Peace in the Quran.” In Seyyed H. Nasr, et al., eds. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary. New York: HarperOne. Royal Aal Al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. 2009. “Jihad and the Islamic Law of War.” Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. ­http://​­rissc​.­jo​/­jihad​-­and​-­the​-­islamic​-­law​ -­of​-­war​/. Shaltut, Mahmoud. 2013. “The Qur’an and Combat.” In H. R. H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, ed. War and Peace in Islam: The Uses and Abuses in Jihad. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society.

ROHINGYA, PERSECUTION OF The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority based primarily in Rakhine State in southwestern Myanmar, near the border with Bangladesh. The majority of the population of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is Buddhist, and some in Myanmar have sought to use Buddhism as the dominant identity of the country, creating tensions for Muslims (as well as for Christians and other

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minorities). The August 2017 “clearance operations” by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya ethnic minority group is only the most recent example in a decades-long history of state-perpetuated, often popularly supported, practice of discrimination and violence targeting the Rohingya because of their race, ethnicity, and religion. In fact, since 1982, Myanmar has even refused to recognize the Rohingya residing inside the territory of Myanmar as citizens. The vast majority of ethnic Rohingya are Sunni Muslims and speak an Eastern Indo-Aryan language, related to some of the languages spoken in modern Bangladesh and India. Before the August 2017 military crackdown, most Rohingya lived in Rakhine State and made up at least a third of the population of the state—second to the largely Buddhist Rakhine. In addition to living in one of the poorest states in Myanmar, the Rohingya of Rakhine State are further marginalized and confined to the poorest villages and towns or even internment camps, and their access to vital services such as health care and education is restricted because of their lack of citizenship (Fortify Rights 2017). After over seven hundred thousand Rohingya refugees fled the August 2017 attacks by the Myanmar military, the Rohingya population in Myanmar that once counted in the millions has dwindled to hundreds of thousands. The history of the people known today as the “Rohingya” and the territory known as Arakan (modern Rakhine state) is highly disputed. The stakes of this debate are high, as the competing historical narratives are used to justify who does, or does not, belong to “the peoples” of Rakhine. Buddhist-nationalists and Myanmar government officials have increasingly tried to claim that a people called Rohingya do not even exist in Myanmar or that the Rohingya are “Bengali,” illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. While some Rohingya trace their family roots in Arakan back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, historians largely agree that the Rohingya immigrated to Myanmar in significant numbers in the nineteenth century, when the British were recruiting agricultural laborers, especially for work in rice fields. Thousands of these laborers were Bengalis from the Chittagong region. Those Rohingya families who can trace their lineage and roots in Rakhine back generations are still labeled in public rhetoric as “Bengali,” in an effort to frame the Rohingya as foreigners and outsiders (similar to how the Bodo of Assam province, India label as “Bengali” those Muslims who have lived in Assam for generations as foreigners or outsiders). During World War II, while the Japanese aligned with the Buddhist ethnic groups in the region, the British armed the Rohingya in an effort to create a barrier between areas under British influence and the encroachment of Japanese forces. This added to the “us versus them” and “Buddhist versus Muslim” social structures and narratives and remains in the communal memories of these groups.

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A 2016 report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom assessed that “Burma’s government directly and indirectly fomented a groundswell of sometimes violent ethno-religious nationalism with strong anti-Muslim undertones” (USCIRF 2016). Since a military coup in 1962, the government of Myanmar has fostered narratives of nationalism framed in pro-Buddhist ethnoreligious terms, pitting largely Buddhist ethnic groups against ethnic groups associated with minority religions, such as Islam and Christianity. This is largely due to military efforts to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Portraying Muslims, who have a different race, ethnicity, look, and religion, as an existential threat to Buddhist culture and civilization bolsters the military’s legitimacy as the protector of Myanmar as a Buddhist nation. According to this narrative, who is and who isn’t Burmese is rooted in one’s ethnicity and religion, and not in who is physically present in the country. Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar has framed not only Rohingya Muslims as outsiders. Other, smaller ethnic groups that are largely Muslim, such as the Kaman, as well as minorities of other religions, such as the largely Christian Kachin and Chin, are also targeted by Burmese Buddhist nationalists. This conflation of race, religion, and ethno-religious identity began with Prime Minister U Nu’s introduction of Buddhism as the state religion in 1961. Though it was later repealed, today’s Burmese Constitution states that the government “recognizes the special position of Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union.” General Ne Win, who took power in a 1962 military coup d’état, further fueled hatred of non-Buddhists. In 1978, he launched operation Naga Min (Dragon King) to expel so-called foreigners, an operation that started in Rakhine state. In the aftermath of such operations, around two hundred thousand Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. Of those who fled, an estimated ten thousand were killed, one hundred and eighty thousand were forcibly repatriated, and ten thousand remained in Bangladesh (MSF 2002). In 1991 and 1992, “forced labor, land confiscation, religious intolerance, rape and other forms of persecution by the Myanmar military regime forced more than 250,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh” (MSF 2002, 5). In 1982, Ne Win’s regime passed a new citizenship law, which stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship. The law restricted the definition of the “races” of the nation who were eligible for citizenship to those people groups who were recognized as part of Myanmar in 1823, the year the British first occupied what was then Arakan State. Difficulties in providing conclusive evidence of family history in the region going back to that date barred many Rohingya from receiving their citizenship—rendering the majority of Rohingya, many of them poor, illiterate, and lacking documentation, stateless. This status as noncitizens restricts the access of Rohingya individuals to education, employment, marriage, religious freedom,

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freedom of movement, and holding public office. The 2014 Myanmar Census did not even count the Rohingya. In 2015, Myanmar adopted four laws for the “protection of race and religion,” continuing its exclusionary treatment of the Rohingya. These laws included population-control measures in Rohingya-dominated areas, such as restrictions on polygamy, interfaith marriages, conversion to Islam, and how often women could give birth. Laws also impeded the ability of the Rohingya to construct houses and mosques and restricted Muslim marriages (Martin 2017). In addition, Muslims face difficulty obtaining medical care, education, and ID cards; suffer religious intolerance; experience poor conditions and confinement due to displacement or violence; and are excluded from “Muslim-free” villages (Burma Human Rights Network 2017). In recent decades, state-led violence and persecution of the Rohingya have come primarily from the military which controls significant portions of the Myanmar government, but more recently this comes increasingly from some segments of the Buddhist religious community and the citizens of Myanmar. Nationalist Buddhist monks have increased their public activism, including social media activism, stoking anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar. Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu is the leader of the 969 Movement and the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion, also known as Ma Ba Tha. Wirathu’s efforts to inflame anti-Muslim sentiment have included calling to protect the country’s Buddhist identity and to limit the population growth and rights of Muslims (U.S. Department of State 2016). When Sitagu Sayadaw, a prominent Buddhist monk in Myanmar, spoke at an army training school in 2017, he used Buddhist stories to justify Burmese military action against the Rohingya. Sayadaw told about an ancient Buddhist king who was concerned after killing so many non-Buddhists. Sayadaw reassured the Burmese military that those protecting Buddhism against non-Buddhists are not culpable for any non-Buddhist deaths (Fuller 2017). Many international observers hoped the 2015 victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) over the incumbent military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party would herald a new era of greater tolerance for ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar. Unfortunately, little has changed. The NLD has even gone so far as to defend military action against the Rohingya and called the Rohingya illegal immigrants. In response to allegations that security forces had raped Rohingya women and girls, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi (a Nobel Peace Prize laureate) described such claims as “rumors,” “fabricated stories” and “one-sided accusations.” Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar, refuses to use the term “Rohingya” and claims that they are illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Due to decades of manipulation of Burmese identities by government officials to serve political ends, much of the Burmese population shares the same sentiment

Islam: Rohingya, Persecution of

as the NLD and its stereotypes involving race, religion, look, and ethnicity of the Rohingya (see Wade 2017). Radical Buddhists in Myanmar who foster anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim sentiments in Myanmar claim that there is significant radicalization, even armed threat against Myanmar, among the Rohingya. Yet the response of the Rohingya to mass atrocities has largely been to flee the violence. An anomaly to this widespread peaceful response by the Rohingya is the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). ARSA, formerly known as Harakah al-Yaqin when it first appeared in 2016, is considered a terrorist organization under Myanmar law. However, ARSA is not well-funded or well-organized and, by most accounts, is not associated with international extremists (though extremist Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda have called on Muslims around world to defend the Rohingya through violence). In each attack perpetrated by ARSA, militants were armed with mostly sticks, knives, and crude explosives (Lone and Slodkowski 2017). In October 2016 and August 2017, several Burmese security officials were killed in attacks attributed to ARSA on Burmese security outposts. ARSA was also implicated in atrocities in 2017 against a small Hindu community, in which sixty-nine Hindus were executed or abducted (Amnesty International 2018a). The Myanmar Army responded to the October 2016 and August 2017 ARSA attacks with far-reaching “clearance operations” that claimed to target militants but resulted in the deaths and displacement of large portions of the civilian population. The August 2017 “clearance operations” led to the deaths of over ninety-four hundred Rohingya (MSF 2018, 5) and the displacement of over seven hundred thousand Rohingya who joined the two hundred thousand already in Bangladesh (IOM 2018, 1). The Myanmar Army, police, and armed civilians razed entire villages, murdered men, women, and children, raped and gang-raped Rohingya women and girls, arbitrarily arrested many Rohingya men and boys, and continued to destroy Rohingya villages and properties even after their occupants had fled (Fortify Rights 2017). Survivors recount particularly egregious crimes perpetrated by the Myanmar Army, including slitting throats, killing infants, raping women, burning individuals alive, hacking bodies to pieces, beheading victims, and so forth (Fortify Rights 2017). The NLD government, Burmese citizens, and Burmese military have largely refused to acknowledge the perpetration of crimes against the mostly Muslim Rohingya. Even when the government recognizes a problem, it portrays it as minimal. For example, after the August 2017 violence, the government claimed that four hundred people died in the following weeks. This is in sharp contrast to estimates by Médecins Sans Frontières, which lists the death toll at ninety-four hundred individuals (MSF 2018). In addition to those Rohingya who have fled recent violence, there continue to be an estimated one hundred and twenty thousand

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Rohingya confined by the government in thirty-eight internment camps (Human Rights Watch 2017). The current escalation of this crisis has been labeled as ethnic cleansing by UN officials, with some describing it as having the “hallmarks of genocide.” Luke Adams See also: Buddhism: Ma Ba Tha; Islam: Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict; 9/11 and al-Qaeda FURTHER READING Amnesty International. 2018a. “Briefing: Attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Hindus in Northern Rakhine State.” ­https://​­www​.­amnesty​.­org​/­download​ /­documents​/­asa1684542018english​.­pdf. Burma Human Rights Network. 2017. Persecution of Muslims in Burma. London: BHRN. Fortify Rights and the United States Holocaust Museum: Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. 2017. They Tried to Kill Us All. Washington, DC: Fortify Rights. ­h ttps://​­w ww​ . ­f ortifyrights​ . ­o rg​ / ­d ownloads​ / ­T HEY​ _ TRIED​ _ TO​ _ KILL​ _ US​ _ ALL ​_Atrocity​_Crimes​_against​_Rohingya​_Muslims​_Nov​_2017​.­pdf. Fuller, Paul. 2017. “Sitagu Sayadaw and Justifiable Evils in Buddhism.” h­ttp://​­www​ .­newmandala​.­org​/­sitagu​-­sayadaw​-­justifiable​-­evils​-­buddhism​/. Human Rights Watch. 2017. Massacre by the River: Burmese Army Crimes against Humanity in Tula Toli. New York City: Human Rights Watch. ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​ /­report​/­2017​/­12​/­19​/­massacre​-­river​/­burmese​-­army​-­crimes​-­against​-­humanity​-­tula​-­toli. International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2018. “IOM Bangladesh: Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis Response, External Update.” September 21–27, 2018. ­https://​­www​ .­iom​.­int​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­situation​_reports​/­file​/­bangladesh​_sr​_20180921​-­27​_0​.­pdf. Lone, Wa, and Antoni Slodkowski. 2017. “‘And Then They Exploded’: How Rohingya Insurgents Built Support for Assault.” Reuters, September 6, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­reuters​ .­com​/­article​/­us​-­myanmar​-­rohingya​-­insurgents​-­insight​/­and​-­then​-­they​-­exploded​-­how​ -­rohingya​-­insurgents​-­built​-­support​-­for​-­assault​-­idUSKCN1BI06J. Martin, Michael F., Rhoda Margesson, and Bruce Vaughn. 2017. “The Rohingya Crisis in Bangladesh and Burma.” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. November 8, 2017. ­https://​­fas​.­org​/­sgp​/­crs​/­row​/­R45016​.­pdf. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). 2002. “10 Years for the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: Past Present and Future.” Holland. ­https://​­www​.­msf​.­org​/­ten​-­years​-­rohingya​ -­refugeespast​-­present​-­and​-­future​-­report​-­summary. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). 2018. “‘No One Was Left’ Death and Violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, Myanmar.” New York City. ­https://​­www​ .­doctorswithoutborders​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­2018​-­08​/%­27no​-­one​-­was​-­left​%­27​ _-­death​-­and​-­violence​-­against​-­the​-­rohingya​-­in​-­rakhine​-­state​%­2C​-­myanmar​.­pdf. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 2016. Suspended in Time: The Ongoing Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma. Washington, DC: USCIRF. ­https://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­Suspended​%­20in​%­20Time​.%­20The​ %­20Ongoing​%­20Persecution​%­20of​%­20Rohingya​%­20Muslims​%­20in​%­20Burma​.­pdf.

Islam: Salafism United States Department of State. 2016. “Atrocities Prevention Report: Targeting of and Attacks on Members of Religious Groups in the Middle East and Burma.” March 17, 2016. ­https://​­www​.­state​.­gov​/­j​/­drl​/­rls​/­254807​.­htm. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2017. 2016 Report on International Religious Freedom: Burma. Washington, DC: United States Department of State. ­https://​­www​.­state​.­gov​/­j​/­drl​/­rls​/­irf​/­2016​/­eap​/­268718​.­htm. Wade, Francis. 2017. Myanmar’s Enemy Within. London: Zed.

SALAFISM Salafism is a Sunni interpretive approach to Islam that emphasizes emulating Muhammad and the first three generations of followers (salaf) of Islam in both thought and action. It is more rigid and narrow in its interpretive method than most other schools of Islamic thought. The connection between Salafism and violence is ambiguous. In most cases, Salafism does not lead to violence. However, characteristics of Salafism may be more open to serving as paths to violence than are the mainstream interpretations of Sunni Islam. For a minority of Salafis, Salafism’s inflexibility, intolerance, decentralization of authority, and disdain for human governance have made it a sort of way station along a trajectory that has led to ideologies of Islamist violent extremism. Salafism and Wahhabism share many teachings, but Wahhabism is a distinct offshoot of Salafism; both are distinct from the mainstream four schools of legal thought (madhhab) and theological thought (aqida) in Sunni Islam. Salafi-type thinking has long been present in Islam. However, Salafism surged in momentum in the fourteenth century, influenced by Muslim scholar Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 CE); again in the eighteenth century, catalyzed by puritanical reformers such as Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (1703–1792 CE); and again in the twentieth century due to a combination of crises of authority in Sunni Islam and support from Saudi oil wealth. Some have compared Salafism’s role in Islam to Protestantism’s role in Christianity (Brown 2014 and Henzel 2005). Salafis and Protestants have both viewed themselves as “purifying” their religions from human-made doctrines, hierarchies, and practices that they considered foreign to the original, “pure” faith. Salafi violent iconoclasm and Salafism’s role as a gateway to more extreme ideologies share some similarities with the violent iconoclasm of early Protestants and the way Protestantism opened the way to violent movements such as the Münster Rebellion (1534–1535 CE). Also similar is the nonviolent tendency toward quietism and withdrawal from society, as seen among many Salafis, as well as Protestants, such as some Anabaptists.

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INFLEXIBILITY To inform their approach to Islam, Salafis mainly limit themselves to the Qur’an, the Hadith, and accounts of the first three generations of Muslims. Salafis are sometimes referred to as Ahl al-Hadith, “the Hadith People.” These three sources are important to other Muslims too; however, Salafis take a more literalist, narrow approach to determining the meaning of these three sources than do mainstream Muslims. Another difference is that mainstream Muslims avail themselves of a broader range of source material and intellectual methods to inform their understanding of Islam and to navigate new, emerging issues. The four widely accepted schools of legal thought in Sunni Islam constitute the cumulative work of scholars over many centuries, going back to their eighthand ninth-century founders. The robust intellectual traditions in these four schools of law elucidate the law as found in the Qur’an and Hadith in order to facilitate worship for the masses of Muslims, who could not be tasked with the burden of deriving each and every ruling for themselves. Especially for complex questions, mainstream Muslims defer to well-established scholars, both living and dead. These four schools of law, with their vast intellectual heritage and rigorously established set of intellectual methods, are seen as essential, or at the very least as a very helpful development, by most orthodox Sunni Muslims. Salafis (and Wahhabis), on the other hand, attempting to “purify” Islam from accretions, see these schools of legal thought as superfluous or, worse yet, as heretical innovations. Another aspect of Salafi inflexibility is that dedication to literalism in following only the ways of Muhammad and his early companions presents challenges for adapting in a changing world. From new political structures, such as the nation-state, to new technologies, the world is increasingly filled with things that did not exist during the lifetimes of Muhammad and his followers. By contrast, the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence allow use of analogy and, in some cases, even speculative reasoning, and they use these intellectual tools to provide Islamic perspectives on new questions.

INTOLERANCE A Salafi tendency toward intolerance is present in both intra-Muslim relations and in relations with non-Muslims. The traditional four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence share a broad agreement to tolerate a variety of views on many topics and allow a diversity of opinion. The Salafis, by contrast, see themselves as the ones who know the correct way to emulate Muhammad and his early followers. They reject other views as wrong.

Islam: Salafism

In their focus on “purifying” Islam, Salafis tend to have a relatively narrow view of what qualifies as Islamic orthodoxy. They are especially opposed to the Shia and to Sufis. This inclination to clearly and narrowly define who is “in” and who is “out” has led some influence by Salafism to go further and adopt violent takfiri ideologies, taking it upon themselves to declare who is and who is not Muslim and to carry out punishments—even death—for those deemed to be outside of or to have left the fold. As for non-Muslims, Salafis assert a strict understanding of “loyalty and disavowal” (al-wala wa-l-bara), narrowly defining with whom one may interact and broadly those whom one must avoid so as not to be led astray. While this leads some quietist Salafis to largely withdraw from society, in others, this may foster a disposition of intolerance. Violent extremists exploit the latter.

DECENTRALIZATION OF AUTHORITY Salafis are a largely nonhierarchical movement. They reject the traditional, even if somewhat informal, authority structures and the role of consensus (ijma) in establishing authority that have developed over centuries in mainstream Islam, especially in the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence. As such, Salafis tend to reject the government-appointed Islamic authorities of Muslim-majority states with government ministries of religion. This decentralized nature of Salafism has made it hard for mainstream orthodox Muslims who reject such violent extremism to have influence over those who follow or are influenced by Salafi thinking. One consequence is that this makes it easier for Salafi-influenced charismatic, radical preachers, such as Boko Haram founder Muhammad Yusuf (1970–2009 CE), to start independent groups and even entire movements.

DISDAIN OF HUMAN GOVERNANCE The concept of the oneness of God (tawhid) is central to all Muslim theology. Salafis, however, apply this concept more broadly and literally than mainstream Muslims. One example is that Salafis consider “human legislation” a form of polytheism because, in their view, God alone can determine laws. Again, most Salafis don’t use this as justification for violence, but this mind-set can make some individuals more open to the claims of violent groups that violence against parliamentary governments, and those who vote for them, is justified. Also, the unwillingness of most Salafis to participate in democratic governance by voting, for example, can

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seemingly leave violence and establishment of their own version of “Islamic government” for some Salafis as the only way to change policies. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Boko Haram; ISIS (Islamic State); Takfir; Wahhabism FURTHER READING Brown, Jonathan. 2014. “What Is Salafism?” YouTube Video. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​ /­watch​?­v​=​­2cXJzzpPQNI. Henzel, Christopher. 2005. “The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy.” Parameters, ­http://​­www​.­dtic​.­mil​/­dtic​/­tr​/­fulltext​/­u2​/­a486421​.­pdf. Lauzière, Henri. 2015. The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. Olidort, Jacob. 2016. “Salafism and the Islamic State.” Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ­https://​­www​.­youtube​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­fDb​-­vOBSzNw. Wagemakers, Joas. 2016. Salafism in Jordan: Political Islam in a Quietist Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, AL-QAEDA ATTACKS OF. See 9/11 AND AL-QAEDA SEXUAL ORIENTATION. See GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION (ISLAM) TAKFIR Takfir is an Arabic term meaning the act of excommunication or, more specifically, the act of one Muslim declaring another Muslim to be an apostate—that is, a person who has left the religion of Islam. In the eyes of those who advocate takfir, the punishment for those who leave Islam is death, even including vigilante murder. Today, takfir plays such an important role among violent Islamist groups that the adjectival form takfiri is used (even in English) to describe the ideologies of these groups and those who adhere to these ideologies. Takfir has always been a fringe practice among Muslims, yet it has deep historical roots in early Islam, with a movement called the Khawarij (pronounced kha-WAA-rij) that practiced takfir. Takfir has historically been a common and important element of the ideologies of violent, insurrectionist groups claiming to represent Islam. The practice of takfir has traditionally been and remains a fringe, relatively infrequent practice among

Islam: Takfir

Muslims. However, because takfir provides justification to subvert established authority and to murder, it is highly disruptive, even when its role is only marginal. The way takfir results in violence by Muslims against other Muslims is not a new problem. Muslims competing to outdo each other in the perfection of practicing their religion and exerting authority by excommunicating each other emerged as a problem in the first century of Islam. Following the death of Muhammad (632  CE), a struggle for control ensued among his followers. During this time, a small faction in the struggle broke ranks from their leader, Ali, because they believed that he was not sufficiently strict in seeking to follow the way of God. Thus, this faction became known as the Khawarij—that is, those who broke ranks, or those who exited. Familiarity with the historical precedent of the Khawarij is important for understanding how mainstream Muslims today view fringe takfiri groups, such as Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS). The Khawarij followed a very narrow interpretation of Islam, according to which they were the only orthodox and pure Muslims, and they thought that all others who did not follow their narrow ways were apostates. At this time, apostates were considered on par with traitors and as a threat to political power, and, thus, the punishment for apostates was death. Today, violent Islamist groups usurp for themselves the authority to determine who is a “true” Muslim and who is not. By contrast, mainstream Muslim scholars have traditionally not easily accused others, not even the Khawarij, of becoming apostates. These mainstream Muslims adhere to the teaching that the ability to see into people’s hearts to determine who is truly Muslim, and who is not rests with God alone. They are referred to sometimes as murjiites—literally “those who postpone,” in this case those who postpone the determination about who is and who is not Muslim to the afterlife, leaving the decision to God. A modern example of the connection of takfirism to violence and the contrast with murjiites is seen in ISIS. Takfir is such a central concept to ISIS, and murjiism is seen as such a threat, that the ISIS manual The Management of Savagery calls to fight specifically against “Murji’ite” ideas and those who adhere to them (Naji 2006, 14 and 151). Note that the cause of conflict is not the holding of clear beliefs, such as who is going to heaven and hell. Mainstream Muslims have clear, firm, exclusionary beliefs on such matters (e.g., that not everyone is going to heaven). The difference is whether or not there is tolerance in this life to live side by side with those who may hold different views. For mainstream Muslims, leaving the final judgment to God in the afterlife relieves them of any duty to judge and punish belief in this life. For those holding takfiri ideologies, they take it upon themselves to punish, often with violence, those deemed to be apostates. In this way, takfir figures prominently in violent ideologies by providing a maneuver to get around the prohibition against Muslims killing other Muslims.

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Mainstream Islam forbids one Muslim to kill another Muslim, except in cases such as self-defense or when government judicial powers exercise the death penalty for a severe crime. Like the Khawarij, in order to assert their own authority against other Muslims, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and similarly oriented groups engage in widespread accusations of takfir against other Muslims, including religious leaders who disagree with them and, not least of all, against political leaders. In doing so, these groups claim to have created a justification to launch violent insurgencies against governments. The Khawarij, like ISIS and like-minded groups today, believed that killing a Muslim leader they deemed insufficiently orthodox was justified in order to prevent that leader from leading other Muslims astray and in order to assure that Muslim-majority lands would be protected from non-Muslims. Such ideological maneuvers by violent Islamist groups are part of a broader modern struggle for control of Islam and, thus, for authority over other Muslims. Control over the religion of Islam and over Muslims, or at least intimidating most Muslims into submission, are highly sought-after goals of violent Islamist groups. The question of who has the authority to determine who is, and who is not, legitimately Muslim—that is, who can excommunicate another Muslim, has long been inextricably linked to competing claims of political and religious power. While Khawarij-like extremist groups practicing takfir have reemerged periodically throughout Islamic history, such groups have, just like the first Khawarij, always been marginal. Both historically and today, mainstream Muslims have rejected the practice of takfir (Parrott 2014). Many modern mainstream Muslim scholars have compared violent Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their affiliates to the seventh-century Khawarij as a way to paint these modern violent movements as being outside the mainstream of the traditions of Islam. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); The Neglected Duty (1981); 9/11 and al-Qaeda FURTHER READING Adang, H., H. Ansari, M. Fierro, and S. Schmidtke. 2016. Accusations of Unbelief in Islam: A Diachronic Perspective on Takfir. Leiden: Brill. Hassan, Muhammad Haniff. 2015. “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: An Analysis of Islamic State’s Takfir Doctrine.” Eurasia Review, August 12, 2015. ­http://​­www​.­eurasiareview​.­com​ /­12082015​-­a​-­wolf​-­in​-­sheeps​-­clothing​-­an​-­analysis​-­of​-­islamic​-­states​-­takfir​-­doctrine​/. Naji, Abu Bakr. 2006. The Management of Savagery: The Most Critical Stage through Which the Umma Will Pass. Translated by Will McCants. Cambridge: John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Islam: Taliban Parrott, Justin Elias. 2014. “Dangers of Takfir, Declaring Muslims to Be Apostates.” Abu Amina Elias, November 4, 2014. ­https://​­abuaminaelias​.­com​/­dangers​-­of​-­takfir​-­declaring​ -­muslims​-­to​-­be​-­apostates​/.

TALIBAN The Taliban are a loosely defined movement that have contended for power in Afghanistan from the mid-1990s to the present. They are known for advocating harsh, narrow interpretations of Islam, on the one hand, and for involvement in narcotics trade and other smuggling operations, on the other. Their power base is largely in the ethnic Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. When Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Afghan militias who had united and joined with foreign fighters to oppose the Soviets began fighting against each other in a struggle to control Afghanistan. The divisions between these militias were intensified by strong tribal and ethnic ties in Afghan culture. Afghanistan was largely ungoverned. In this chaotic context, a group calling themselves the Taliban began to promise law and order. Taliban means “students.” In its early years, this movement was associated with Islamic schools for boys and young men that taught particularly rigid interpretations of Islam. These schools were influenced both by the Deobandi Islamic reform movement from India and also, through Saudi funding, by Wahhabism. When armed militias aligned with alumni of these schools began promising the population “Islamic law,” this, at first, seemed like a welcome promise to a population devastated by a decade of war with atheist Soviets, followed by a chaos that allowed for widespread crime and corruption. They called their government the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001). They controlled over 90 percent of Afghanistan’s territory yet favored Pashtuns, while excluding minorities such as Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks from government positions (Rashid 2010). They received recognition as a state from only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates; the United Nations did not recognize the Taliban government. The brutality of Taliban rule in Afghanistan generated new waves of Afghan refugees and international condemnation. The Taliban converted the Kabul soccer stadium into a site for public executions and floggings. They banned kite flying. They closed girls’ schools and forbade women from working outside the home. In spring 2001, the Taliban destroyed the massive Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, which had been built before Afghanistan became mostly Muslim and had stood for centuries alongside Islam in the land. However, in the reformist, relatively rigid interpretations of Islam in which many of the Taliban had been schooled, they would not tolerate such statues.

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Another distinct aspect of Taliban rule, which eventually led to their downfall, was their allowance of training camps in Afghanistan for Muslims preparing for various resistance wars and terrorist engagements around the world. The camps were run by foreigners, mostly Arabs, who had fought in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. Those trained in these camps fought in Bosnia, Chechnya, and other conflicts involving Muslims. In addition, some engaged in terrorism. When Americans discovered that these camps had played a key role in the planning for the 9/11 attacks in the United States, which killed over three thousand civilians, they began military engagement in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 to rid the country of them and prevent it from becoming a haven for Islamist terrorists in the future. At the time of this writing (late 2018), this war continues. The United States ousted the Taliban from power in the fall of 2001. Afghans established a new government that, unlike the Taliban, received broad international recognition. Since December 2001, an international military coalition has engaged in ongoing war with, and struggled against terrorist attacks by, the Taliban and other armed groups in Afghanistan, as the coalition has tried to support stabilization and solidification of control by the central government of Afghanistan. The Taliban, long critics of girls’ education, were widely criticized after they took credit for the 2012 attack on a bus of school girls in northern Pakistan, during which they shot several girls, including teenager Malala Yousafzai. In so doing, they catapulted Yousafzai to international fame. She became a high-profile voice for girls’ education and against the Taliban and went on to win the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2014. Nevertheless, the Taliban movement remains a significant competing power to the official government of Afghanistan, controlling and generally able to move freely across large territories. Since 2001, Pakistan has largely tolerated the Taliban in northern Pakistan. As of September 2018, estimates of the number of districts in Afghanistan outright controlled or at least contested by the Taliban range from 44 percent to as high as 61 percent (Norland et al. 2018). At the same time, information about the Taliban and their leadership has often been hard to obtain. One indication of the elusiveness of detailed information about the Taliban is that they appear to have kept secret the death of their founding leader, Mullah Omar, for two years, from 2013 until they announced it in 2015. This elusiveness has also made it difficult to identify potential negotiation partners for any future political settlement for Afghanistan. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: Al-Shabaab; Boko Haram; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Wahhabism

Islam: Uyghurs FURTHER READING Norland, Rod, Ash Ngu, and Fahim Abed. 2018. “How the U.S. Government Misleads the Public on Afghanistan.” New York Times, September 8, 2018. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​ .­com​/­interactive​/­2018​/­09​/­08​/­world​/­asia​/­us​-­misleads​-­on​-­afghanistan​.­html. Rashid, Ahmad. 2010. The Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Van Linschoten, Alex, and Felix Kuehn, eds. 2018. The Taliban Reader: War, Islam and Politics in Their Own Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

UYGHURS Responding to growing cultural and religious persecution by the Chinese government, the Uyghurs of western China are turning to the religion of Islam, as well as, for some, modern Islamist movements, as an outlet for dissent and renewed cultural identity. The escalation of tensions between ethnic and religious identity and aggressive government assimilation policies have coincided with the rise of global Islamist terror movements, making the situation more complicated for Uyghurs, both at home and abroad. Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang or XUAR) is the westernmost province of China. This province connects China to the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, as well as South Asian countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. While it is large in size, most of the Xinjiang is uninhabitable, and the population lives in major Silk Road cities, such as Urumqi and Kashgar. Xinjiang, which means “new frontier” in Mandarin, was claimed by China in the late nineteenth century as a buffer region against Russian-controlled central Asia. The current Chinese government has sought to integrate the region into the country as a whole and is concerned about losing control of the region due to the rise of Islamist movements there, as well as the growth of separatist sentiments, which have only increased after the independence of most central Asian states, resulting from the breakup of the Soviet Union. Xinjiang is home to approximately eighteen million Uyghurs. The Uyghurs are the second-largest of ten Muslim-majority ethnic groups in China. They are Sunni Muslim, like the Hui minority of the Ningxia region, which is the largest of the Muslim-majority ethnic groups in China. The Uyghurs maintain their own distinctive religious traditions and speak a Turkic language, not Mandarin, which is the dominant language in China. Ethnically, culturally, and linguistically, the Uyghurs are very similar to the Uzbeks, to the point that Uyghur refugees in Uzbekistan sometimes simply register themselves as “Uzbeks” (Castets 2006). Economically, Xinjiang is rich in oil, natural gas, and rare earth minerals, all of

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which are state owned and under direct control of Beijing. The Xinjiang region is crucial for China’s future plans to build gas and oil pipelines, as well as highway and railway projects through central Asia to Europe. The Uyghurs themselves have not benefited from this increased economic focus, as nearly all the major industries and political offices in the region are owned and operated by Han Chinese, and the government’s discrimination policies against the Uyghurs, and Muslims in general, has left them unemployed and impoverished. This has increased dissatisfaction among the Uyghurs with the Chinese government and has contributed to both civil unrest and organized resistance. The most extreme of the resistance organizations that have large Uyghur memberships and are suspected to be active in Xinjiang are Hizb ut-Tahir, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and East Turkestan Independence Movement (ETIM). The U.S. government has designated both IMU and ETIM as terrorist organizations. IMU, originally an Uzbekistan-focused group, recruits from across central Asia and performs operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East. It is connected to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), supplying both movements with soldiers. The IMU has drawn from Uyghur refugees in neighboring Central and South Asia, some of whom have since returned to Xinjiang to found their own movements. The East Turkestan Independence Movement, which seeks to transform Xinjiang into an independent Islamic state, has regular multilingual publications and has taken credit for several terrorist attacks in the region. Terror attacks attributed to ETIM include several car and government office bombings and assassination attempts (Council of Foreign Relations 2014). The Chinese government’s often liberal application of the label “terrorist” to other organizations is, at times, disputed. For example, China has classified the World Uyghur Congress and the Turkestan Independence Party (TIP) as terrorist groups. China blamed the World Uyghur Congress for inciting “civil unrest,” such as the 2009 Urumqi riot. The United States has refused to classify the World Uyghur Congress and the TIP as terrorist organizations, despite China’s claims. The World Uyghur Congress, in particular, emphasizes its focus on cultural support for the overseas Uyghur community and peaceful protest of human rights abuses, and was awarded $904,000 in grants from the U.S.-backed National Endowment for Democracy from 2016 to 2019 (NED 2019). Other countries, however, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have followed China’s lead in naming these organizations as terrorists. China’s 2015 counterterrorism law drew criticism from many human rights organizations for its broad definition of terrorism (Zhou 2016). XUAR’s own “Regulation on De-Extremification” is even more specific, with Article 9’s examples of “Acts of Extremification” including wearing veils and “spreading religious fanaticism through irregular beards or name selection” (CLT 2017).

Islam: Uyghurs

The government in Xinjiang controls information and population movement even more extensively than it does in other regions of China. Cities in Xinjiang have established “Convenience Police Stations” for every five hundred square meters in the region (Zenz and Leibold 2017). The Chinese government limits access to passports for Uyghur citizens, has set up security checkpoints in major cities, and restricts access by foreign journalists. This crackdown on security has made it very difficult to gather information, meaning that much of the information about events in Xinjiang comes from refugees. Among the antiterrorist measures sparking the most international criticism are reports of the establishment of “Transformation through Education” Centers, or “Reeducation Camps,” throughout Xinjiang. Due to the difficulty of procuring reliable information in Xinjiang, much about these camps is unknown. It is reported, however, that as many as several hundred thousand persons are interned in these camps, with approximately 11.5 percent of the total native adult population incarcerated (Zenz and Leibold 2018, 18). Uyghurs who claim to have been to these prison-like camps report stories of everything from brainwashing attempts (e.g., forced recitation of Communist Party songs, and chants), to sleep deprivation, to torture. The camps and such practices have drawn criticism from several human rights organizations, but Chinese news outlets have denied their existence and push back against perceived Western rabble-rousing. Aside from the camps, there are reports of crackdowns on Uyghur identity and Islamic practice. According to certain reports, these programs include, but are not limited to, banning certain child names such as Mohammed, closing Islamic schools while mandating attendance at Mandarin-language-focused public schools, forcing restaurants and shops to remain open during the Islamic month of Ramadan, prohibiting religious fasts, and forcing stores to sell alcohol. Many of these policies are not unique to Xinjiang; they are similar to the treatment of the Hui, Tibetans, and Fulan Gong by the Chinese government. These efforts to quell local traditions is consistent with the current Chinese party’s effort to integrate religious and ethnic minorities. Unlike China’s relatively isolated minorities, however, the Uyghurs’ institutional and cultural ties to fellow Turkic-language groups outside of Xinjiang provide both a support network and a broader constituency trying to bring international attention to the plight of the Uyghurs. At the same time, the Uyghurs’ international connections through both ethnolinguistic and religious affiliation mean that the radicalization of Xinjiang could spill over and further destabilize the broader region, while ongoing global Islamist extremism, along with any instability in central Asia and South Asia, could spill back into Xinjiang, heightening tensions even further. Christopher Rodrigues

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See also: Chinese Religion: Falun Gong; Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Rohingya, Persecution of; Uzbeks and Islamism FURTHER READING Castets, Rémi. 2006. “The Uyghurs in Xinjiang: The Malaise Grows.” China Perspectives. OpenEdition Journals, July 31, 2006. ­https://​­journals​.­openedition​.­org​ /­chinaperspectives​/­648​#­tocto1n6. China Law Translate (CLT). 2017. “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Regulation on De-Extremification.” March 30, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­chinalawtranslate​.­com​/?­lang​=​­en. Council on Foreign Relations. 2014. “The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).” September 4, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­cfr​.­org​/­backgrounder​/­east​-­turkestan​-­islamic​-­movement​-­etim Denyer, Simon. 2018. “Former Inmates of China’s Muslim ‘Reeducation’ Camps Tell of Brainwashing, Torture.” The Washington Post, May 17, 2018. ­ https://​­ www​ .­washingtonpost​ .­c om​ /­world​ /­a sia​ _ pacific​ /­f ormer​ -­i nmates​ -­o f​ -­c hinas​ -­m uslim​ -­r e​ -­education​-­camps​-­tell​-­of​-­brainwashing​-­torture​/­2018​/­05​/­16​/­32b330e8​-­5850​-­11e8​ -­8b92​-­45fdd7aaef3c​_story​.­html. Irwin, Peter. 2017. “Why Is China Banning Baby Names and Beards in Xinjiang?” The Diplomat, May 3, 2017. ­https://​­thediplomat​.­com​/­2017​/­04​/­why​-­is​-­china​-­banning​-­baby​ -­names​-­and​-­beards​-­in​-­xinjiang​/. National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 2019. Award Grants Search. ­https://​­www​ .­n ed​ .­o rg​ /­w p​ -­c ontent​ /­t hemes​ /­n ed​ /­s earch​ /­g rant​ -­s earch​ .­p hp​ ?­o rganizationName​ =​ ­w orld+ u­ yghur+­C ongress​ & r­ egion​ = ​ & p­ rojectCountry ​ = ​ & a­ mount ​ = ​ & f­ romDate ​ =​ &­toDate​=​&­projectFocus​%5­ B​%­5D​=​&­search​=​&­maxCount​=​­25​&­orderBy​=​­Year​&­start​ =​­1​&­sbmt​=​­1. Accessed December 19, 2019. Uyghur Human Rights Project. (n.d.) “UHRP REPORT: Discrimination, Mistreatment and Coercion: Uyghurs Face Severe Labor Rights Abuses in China and East Turkestan.” End of the Road: One Belt, One Road and the Cumulative Economic Marginalization of the Uyghurs. ­https://​­uhrp​.­org​/­press​-­release​/­discrimination​-­mistreatment​-­and​ -­coercion​-­uyghurs​-­face​-­severe​-­labor​-­rights​-­abuses​-­china. Xu, Beina, Holly Fletcher, and Jayshree Bajora. (n.d.) “The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).” Council on Foreign Relations. ­https://​­www​.­cfr​.­org​/­backgrounder​ /­east​-­turkestan​-­islamic​-­movement​-­etim. Zenz, Adrian, and James Leibold. 2017. “Chen Quanguo: The Strongman behind Beijing’s Securitization Strategy in Tibet and Xinjiang.” China Brief 17, no. 2 (September 21). ­https://​­jamestown​.­org​/­program​/­chen​-­quanguo​-­the​-­strongman​-­behind​-­beijings​ -­securitization​-­strategy​-­in​-­tibet​-­and​-­xinjiang​/. Zhou, Zunyou. 2016. “Rehabilitating Terrorists: The Chinese Approach.” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 8, no. 4 (April), 10–15.

UZBEKS AND ISLAMISM Uzbekistan is the most populous country in central Asia and is famous for ancient historical cities like Tashkent and Samarkand. The primary ethnic group

Islam: Uzbeks and Islamism

of Uzbekistan is Uzbek, though it has significant Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Karakalpak minorities. Like most countries of central Asia, Uzbekistan was formed from a former republic of the Soviet Union. Following its independence in 1991, the post-Soviet government of Uzbekistan followed policies of authoritarianism, including tight government restrictions on religion. These policies, along with economic mismanagement, generated discontent domestically and led many Uzbeks to emigrate, creating a presence of Uzbek émigré communities elsewhere in the world. These communities have been fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist terror organizations. During the final years of the Soviet Union, advocates for independence used Uzbekistan’s Islamic identity as a rallying cry, as well as a means of building support for nationalism. However, the leadership of post-Soviet Uzbekistan was comprised of hard-line Soviet-style secularists, who maintained complete control over the country’s religion as well as its media, natural resources, and education. President Islom Karimov, the former Soviet governor, began rigidly enforcing his particular brand of secularism and labeled any dissenters who practiced religion outside of state-sanctioned and -controlled Islam as extremists. The labeling and quashing of any and all dissent as “Islamic extremism” destroyed all moderate dissent to his regime. With moderate alternatives destroyed and ever-increasing bitterness, Karimov’s policies, in effect, left, and even fueled, Islamist parties and movements as the main avenue of anti-Karimov dissent.

ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was founded in the Ferghana valley (southeast Uzbekistan, near Afghanistan), with the purpose of overthrowing Karimov’s government and replacing it with an Islamic state. Apart from a 1999 car bombing in Tashkent, most of IMU’s operations have been outside of Uzbekistan. The organization has operations throughout central Asia and the Middle East and supports al-Qaeda in northern Afghanistan. The IMU draws from the Uzbek diaspora community and has since expanded to include other ethnic groups in its organization, including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs. Both its founders were killed by U.S. counterterrorism operations; Juma Namangami (a Soviet-Afghan war veteran) was killed during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and Tohir Yo’ldosh (an Uzbek Islamic leader) was killed by an air strike in Pakistan in 2009. The organization has since been folded into ISIS as its central Asian regional branch, granted the Islamic State access to its drug-smuggling enterprises, and trained operatives. Though hobbled, the IMU continues to act in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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TERROR ATTACKS FROM THE UZBEK DIASPORA Several recent terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by Uzbek émigrés, many of whom joined the Islamic State or other Syrian rebel groups. Of the 20,730 foreign fighters who joined in the Syrian conflict from 2014 to 2015, three thousand were from former Soviet nations, and five hundred were from Uzbekistan alone (Neumann 2015). Other Uzbek terrorists have no official affiliation with Islamist groups but are, instead, inspired by them. Several major attacks during 2017 were carried out by Uzbek nationals who were either citizens or residents of the countries they attacked. Abdulkadir Masharipov, the perpetrator of the Istanbul nightclub shooting, had been a resident of Turkey for at least a year before the attack. Akbarzhon Jalilov and Abror Azimov, Uzbek nationals from Kyrgyzstan, were naturalized as Russian citizens before carrying out a bombing in the St. Petersburg metro system with other perpetrators. Sayfullo Saipov, who carried out a truck attack in New York City’s Times Square, was also an Uzbek National who was admitted into the United States on the visa lottery. None of these men appear to have had formal ties to established international Islamist organizations but claimed to have acted on behalf of such organizations. When Karimov pursued an adversarial relationship with religion, especially Islam, through a mix of control and repression, dissatisfaction in the population ensued. The result was ongoing tension and dissatisfaction among Uzbeks, both inside the country and abroad. He died in 2016, and there are indications the new government is changing course. In a July 2018 speech at the U.S.-hosted Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “We applaud the steps that Uzbekistan is taking towards a more free society.” Whether Uzbekistan transitions out of the cycle of repression, leading to resistance and leading to more repression that leads to more resistance remains to be seen. Christopher Rodrigues See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); Jihad; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Uyghurs FURTHER READING Anzalone, Christopher. 2012.“The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan: Down but Not Out.” Foreign Policy, November 20, 2012. ­https://​­foreignpolicy​.­com​/­2012​/­11​/­20​/­the​ -­islamic​-­movement​-­of​-­uzbekistan​-­down​-­but​-­not​-­out​/. Hiro, Dilip. 1995. Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia. London: HarperCollins. Imamova, Navbahor, Edward Lemon, Peter Leonard, and Alexander Cooley. 2017. “The Uzbek Diaspora and the Immigrant Experience: Radicalization, Transnational Networks, and Media Portrayals.” Lecture, Columbia University, New York. December

Islam: Wahhabism 14,  2017. ­http:// ​­ h arriman​ .­c olumbia​ .­e du​ /­event​ /­u zbek​ -­d iaspora​ -­a nd​ -­i mmigrant​ -­experience​-­radicalization​-­transnational​-­networks​-­and​-­media. Neumann, Peter. 2015. “Foreign Fighters Total in Syria/Iraq Now Exceeds 20,000; Surpasses Afghanistan Conflict in the 1980s.” London: International Center for the Study of Radicalization. January 26, 2015. ­https://​­icsr​.­info​/­2015​/­01​/­26​/­foreign​-­fighter​-­total​ -­syriairaq​-­now​-­exceeds​-­20000​-­surpasses​-­afghanistan​-­conflict​-­1980s​/.

WAHHABISM Wahhabism is a Sunni interpretive approach to Islam that started in the eighteenth century on the Arabian Peninsula in present-day Saudi Arabia and which was originally inspired by the teachings of the Arab Muslim reformer Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab (1703–1792 CE). This Salafi-influenced approach to Islam is known for its preference for strict and literal interpretations of Islamic sacred sources. During the latter decades of the twentieth century, Saudi Arabia, with its newfound oil wealth, funded far-reaching efforts to spread this particular interpretation of Islam throughout the globe. While Wahhabism does not have an inherent relationship with violence, some have asserted that the intellectual rigidity of Wahhabism created fertile ground for the adoption of violence-prone Islamist extremist ideologies. Wahhabism is the name given to this movement by critics and other outside observers. Followers of this school reject being called Wahhabis because they do not view themselves as following a school of thought that is distinct from Sunni orthodoxy. Instead, they view themselves as the only Muslims who truly follow the original and universal message of Islam. They prefer to call themselves Al-Muwahhidun or Ahl Al-Tawhid, “the firm believers in monotheism,” to emphasize the centrality of the oneness of God in their doctrine and to distinguish themselves from those whom they believe follow a tainted theology. Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab considered the practices of many Muslims of his time to be incongruous with the monotheism of Islam, and he sought to propagate a puritanical practice of Islam to replace such practices. He and his followers fought fiercely against the practices and beliefs of Muslims that he deemed to be innovations or later developments with no precedent in early Islam. He accused the people of his time of being worse in their polytheism than the idol worshippers of the Prophet’s time, a particularly grave accusation for Muslims. Because Ibn ‘Abd Al-Wahhab’s view of what constituted correct Islamic belief was so narrow that he and his followers saw many Muslim groups as unorthodox. Practices that Abd al-Wahhab, and other Salafis, condemned included visiting the gravesites of those considered to be saints and seeking guidance from those

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they viewed as more spiritually mature than themselves (though, ironically, he was the guide to whom many looked up to as being more spiritually mature than themselves). His criticisms targeted Sufis particularly harshly. Abd al-Wahhab, like Salafis, largely rejected the traditional four schools of Sunni jurisprudence that had developed since the eighth and ninth centuries CE. However, unlike Salafism, Wahhabis are influenced heavily by, and some even follow, the Hanbali school of Sunni jurisprudence, the most rigid of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence and the one most prevalent on the Arabian Peninsula. But Abd Al-Wahhab was, for the most part, very critical of those who follow the four mainstream schools of Sunni jurisprudence. He called this kind of “blind following” of scholars of the past reprehensible. He considered it an unnecessary addition to the original sources of Islam. However, he did not offer an alternative set of intellectual resources and methodologies. His alternative was simply for Muslims to follow those whom he deemed to be proponents of the right belief. Abd al-Wahhab disagreed with much about the Ottoman Empire, especially its tolerance and inclusiveness of the many interpretations of Islam that its diverse peoples followed. Abd al-Wahhab wanted to find a governing leader who would implement his own strand of Islam and oppose interpretations he deemed false. In the mid-1770s, he aligned himself with Muhammad bin Saud, an ambitious chieftain of one of the tribes of Saudi Arabia, who sought to unite the tribes of Saudi Arabia under his rule and who also opposed Ottoman rule. In exchange for Abd al-Wahhab’s loyalty and to give Saud’s efforts a veneer of religious legitimacy, Saud promised military support for the propagation of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab’s ideology. The marriage of Ibn Saud’s son to Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s daughter helped seal their pact. When the Saud family finally established Saudi Arabia, they carried out a massive overhaul of religious sites on the Arabian Peninsula. Guided by Abd al-Wahhab’s fear of grave-worship and anything deemed even remotely polytheistic, the Saudi government destroyed many sites Muslims had considered sacred for a millennium. In the centuries since then, a hallmark of the spread of Wahhabism has been the destruction of shrines and statues by those espousing this interpretation of Islam. The puritanical nature of Wahhabism has been considered by some to serve as a stepping stone toward the ideologies of Islamist extremists. However, many Wahhabis do not explicitly support violent Islamist movements, and after attacks by such movements inside Saudi Arabia in the years after significant Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made moves, albeit tepid, to temper its enthusiasm for the harsher aspects of Wahhabism. Starting in the second half of the twentieth century, oil wealth enabled Saudi Arabia to put money behind the spread of Wahhabi ideology under many guises,

Islam: Wahhabism

including education grants and scholarships. As a result, some connection to Saudi Arabia, such as a degree of loyalty to the Saudi government or to scholars employed by the Saudi government, remains an aspect of Wahhabism that distinguishes it from Salafism in general. Even while Saudi Arabia claims to be embarking on a path of reform, its wealth continues to be the engine behind Wahhabism’s spread, albeit with limited popularity, in various regions of the world. Jennifer S. Bryson See also: Islam: 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Salafism; Takfir; Taliban FURTHER READING Algar, Hamid. 2002. Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. Oneonta: Islamic Publications International. Martin, Richard C. 2004. “Wahhabiyya: 2004.” In Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. New York: Macmillan. Noyes, James. 2016. The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam. London: I. B. Taurus.

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2



Religious Violence Today Faith and Conflict in the Modern World

VOLUME 2: Jainism to State Violence

Michael Jerryson, Editor

Copyright © 2020 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Every reasonable effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright materials in this book, but in some instances this has proven impossible. The editors and publishers will be glad to receive information leading to more complete acknowledgments in subsequent printings of the book and in the meantime extend their apologies for any omissions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Jerryson, Michael K., editor. Title: Religious violence today : faith and conflict in the modern world / Michael Jerryson, editor. Description: 1st edition. | Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: v. 1.—v. 2. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019056919 (print) | LCCN 2019056920 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440859922 (v. 1 ; hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859939 (v. 2 ; hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859908 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781440859915 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Violence—Religious aspects—History. | Political violence—Religious aspects—History. | Persecution—History. | Hate crimes—History. | Religion and politics—History. Classification: LCC BL65.V55 R568 2020 (print) | LCC BL65.V55 (ebook) | DDC 201/.76332—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056919 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019056920 ISBN: 978-1-4408-5990-8 (print) 978-1-4408-5992-2 (vol. 1) 978-1-4408-5993-9 (vol. 2) 978-1-4408-5991-5 (ebook) 24 23 22 21 20  1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available as an eBook. ABC-CLIO An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 147 Castilian Drive Santa Barbara, California 93117 ­www​.­abc​-­clio​.­com This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Preface, xiii Introduction: The Legacy of Religion and Violence, xvii Timeline, xxiii VOLUME 1 African Religion, 1 Introduction, 1 Assault Sorcery (War Magic), 11 Bentiu Massacre (South Sudan, 2014), 13 Central African Republic (CAR), Ethnoreligious Violence in, 16 Child Soldiers, 18 Christian and Muslim Responses to Ethnoreligious Violence in Africa, 20 Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: Ethnoreligious Violence in the Horn of Africa, 23 Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion), 24 Holy Spirit Movement, 29 Hunters’ Militias, 33 Lord’s Resistance Army, 35 Mai-Mai Rebels, 39 Millennialism (Africa), 42 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 43 Santeria, 46 Sudan and South Sudan, Ethnoreligious Violence in, 49 Voodoo (Vodun), 50 Witchcraft, 52

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Buddhism, 58 Introduction, 58 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 66 Ashoka (Asoka) (r. 268–232 BCE), 69 Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–), 71 Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force), 73 Buddhist End Times, 76 Chittagong Buddhists, Persecution of, 78 Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–), 81 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism), 85 International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88 Kachin, Persecution of, 90 Knowing Buddha Organization, 93 Ma Ba Tha, 95 Mahavamsa, 97 969 Movement, 100 Rakhine State Violence (Myanmar), 103 Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), 105 Saffron Revolution (2007), 107 Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, 109 Soldier Monks, 112 Southern Thailand, 114 Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–), 118 Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–), 120 Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), 122 Upayakaushalya Sutra (Skill-in-Means Sutra), 126 Vegetarianism, 128 Chinese Religion, 131 Introduction, 131 Analects, 137 Anti-Christian Attacks, 140 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 142 Art of War (Sunzi), 146 Chinese Atheism, 148 Daodejing, 150 Falun Gong, 153 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion), 155 Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 157 Martial Arts, 160

Contents

Martial Deities, 162 Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE), 165 Self-Inflicted Violence, 168 Spirit Medium (Tang Ki), 169 Xunzi (310–220 BCE), 173 Christianity, 176 Introduction, 176 Anti-Abortion Movement, 184 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 186 Armageddon, 189 Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–), 192 Catholicism and Sexual Abuse, 193 Christian Fundamentalism, 195 Christian Identity Movement, 198 Christian Reconstructionism, 200 Eugenics, 202 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity), 205 Guatemalan Predatory Pastoralism, 207 Ilaga, 210 Jehovah’s Witnesses, Persecution of, 212 Just War Ideology, 214 Ku Klux Klan, 217 Liberation Theology, 219 Martyrdom, 221 Narcoreligious Movements, 223 National Socialist Council of Nagaland, 226 New Testament, 228 Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971), 231 Roof, Dylann (1994–), 233 Sodom and Gomorrah, 235 Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas), 237 Hinduism, 240 Introduction, 240 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 246 Anti-Christian Attacks, 248 Anti-Muslim Attacks, 251 Ayodhya, 253 Bhagavad Gita, 255

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 258 Bhutanese Hindus, Persecution of, 260 Dalits, Violence against, 262 Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism), 265 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism), 269 Gujarat Riots (2002), 273 Hindu Mahasabha, 275 Hindutva, 277 Kandhamal Riots (2007, 2008), 281 Kashmir, 283 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 285 Muzaffarnagar Riots (2013), 286 Pakistani Hindus, Persecution of, 289 Partition (1947), 291 Ramayana, 295 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 298 Saffron Terrorism, 300 Singh, Jyoti (1989–2012), Gang Rape of, 302 Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), 304 Islam, 307 Introduction, 307 Ahmadiyya, Persecution of, 323 Al-Shabaab, 325 Assam Bodo-Muslim Conflict, 328 Blasphemy, 332 Boko Haram, 335 Boston Marathon Bombing (2013), 338 Charlie Hebdo Attack (2015), 341 “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Huntington, 1993), 342 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam), 345 Hadith, 347 Hamas, 350 Hezbollah, 353 ISIS (Islamic State), 356 Islamophobia, 359 Jihad, 362 Kashmir and Global Jihad, 367 Martyrdom (Shia Islam), 369 Martyrdom (Sunni Islam), 372

Contents

Maute Group (Islamic State of Lanao), 375 Muslim Brotherhood, 376 The Neglected Duty (1981), 380 9/11 and al-Qaeda, 382 Qur’an, 386 Rohingya, Persecution of, 389 Salafism, 395 Takfir, 398 Taliban, 401 Uyghurs, 403 Uzbeks and Islamism, 406 Wahhabism, 409 VOLUME 2 Jainism, 413 Introduction, 413 Ahimsa (Nonharm), 425 Anekantavada, 428 Anup Mandal, 430 Asceticism, 433 Bahubali Hill Affair (1980s), 436 Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict, 439 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism), 443 Mahavira (Fifth Century BCE), 446 Sallekhana (Santhara), 449 Svastika (Swastika), 451 Tirthankaras, 455 Vegetarianism, 458 Judaism, 463 Introduction, 463 Amalekites, 472 Antisemitism, 474 Antisemitism in the Arab World, 477 BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement, 479 Blood Libel, 481 Crusades, 484 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism), 487 Gog and Magog, 490

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Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994), 493 Gush Emunim, 494 Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh), 497 Holocaust and World War II, 501 Lehava, 508 Maimonides (1135–1204), 510 Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God), 512 Messianism/Messiah, 516 Operation Defensive Shield (2002), 520 Price-Tag Policy, 523 The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, 527 Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995), 528 Sikrikim, 530 Temple Mount, 532 Zealots, 535 Zionism and Anti-Zionism, 539 New Religious Movements, 547 Introduction, 547 Anticult Movement (ACM), 557 Atheists, Persecution by, 562 Atheists, Persecution of, 566 Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph and Hikari no Wa), 569 Black Separatism, 572 Branch Davidians, 575 Deprogramming, 578 The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (Strauss and Howe, 1997), 580 International Raëlian Movement, 583 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Occupation of (2016), 585 Millennialism, 588 Nativist Extremism, 593 Neo-Nazis, 597 Odinism, 600 Order of the Solar Temple, 603 Rodnoverie, 605 Satanism, 608 Scientology, 612 Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM), 617 The Turner Diaries (MacDonald, 1978), 622 United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, 625 White Nationalist Groups, 627

Contents

Sikhism, 633 Introduction, 633 Babbar Khalsa International, 642 Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984), 644 Dal Khalsa, 647 Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism), 650 Ghadr Movement, 652 Granth-Panth, 655 Guru Granth Sahib, 658 International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation), 661 Justice, Sikh Concern for, 664 Khalistan, 666 Khalistan Commando Force, 669 Khalistan Zindabad Force, 672 Khalsa, 674 Khanda, 677 Kirpan, 680 Martyrdom, 683 Miri-Piri, 686 Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012), 689 Operation Blue Star (1984), 691 Persecution of Sikhs (India), 694 Persecution of Sikhs (United States), 696 Sikh Activists, 699 Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999), 701 State Violence, 705 Introduction, 705 Cambodia: Truth and Reconciliation Process, 714 China: Taiwan Conflict, 716 Egypt: Coptic Church Conflict, 719 Indonesia: Maluku Conflict, 721 Iraq: Muslim Crisis, 723 Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict, 726 Israel: Palestinian Conflict, 728 Mexico: Cartel Saints, 733 Mexico: Chiapas Conflict, 735 Myanmar: Muslim Crisis, 738 Nigeria: Christian-Muslim Conflict, 740 Pakistan: Christian Crisis, 742 Philippines: Moro Conflict, 745

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Contents

Religious Nationalism, 747 Russia: Chechnya Conflict, 751 Russian Orthodox Resurgence, 753 Secularism, 756 Singapore and Religious Diversity, 761 Sri Lanka: Muslim Crisis, 764 Sri Lankan Civil War, 766 Tunisia and Religious Freedom, 769 Turkey: Armenian Christian Conflict, 771 United States: Muslim Crisis, 773 United States: Standing Rock Crisis, 778 Uzbekistan: Muslim Crisis, 780 Bibliography, 783 About the Editor and Contributors, 855 Index, 861

JAINISM

INTRODUCTION All beings are fond of life, like pleasure, hate pain, shun destruction, like life, long to live. To all, life is dear. —Acharanga Sutra, 1.2.3.4 All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. —Acharanga Sutra, 1.1.4.1

Most religions espouse peacefulness as a social good; many regard “inner peace” as a goal to try to achieve through faith, meditation, or other means. However, few have made avoiding violence their central social ethic and the way to attain salvation the way Jainism has. Ahimsa (uh-HIM-sah), meaning “nonharm” in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, is a key value shared by Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. However, it takes on different forms in practice depending on how each tradition defines “violence” in the first place. Jains consider that all actions have the potential to cause some degree of harm to other beings, great and small. They thus strive to avoid violence to free themselves from the bonds of karma that keep all souls mired in an otherwise eternal cycle of death and rebirth. While Jainism espouses extreme nonviolence as a central value, Jains live in the world as everyone else does. So, observant Jains make choices about how to minimize the violence they commit in their everyday actions. This chapter will examine how Jainism understands violence and teaches people to strive to avoid it. It will also examine how Jains have both committed and faced violence historically, as well as how they weigh the violence inherent in their everyday actions and livelihoods to seek to minimize it.

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Jains Jainism is practiced by a tiny minority of people. There are only about 4.5 million Jains in the world today. Most live in western or southern India, where they comprise just 0.36 percent of the total population in a country of 1.35 billion people. About two hundred thousand Jains live abroad, mostly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and eastern Africa, almost all of whom either emigrated from India or are the descendants of those Indian immigrants. There are very few “converts” to Jainism. Most Jains are vegetarians, avoiding even some vegetables that would kill the plant, such as potatoes and onions. A growing number of Jains, especially those living in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, are vegan. Despite their austere and ascetic religious ethics, Jains are one of the wealthiest religious communities in the world. Historically merchants and traders, a significant portion of Jains today participate in the global gemstone trade; many others work in banking, finance, medicine, and other industries whose potential for violence may be indirect but is still demonstrable.

Terms and Tenets In Jainism, all material that exists in the world, from the tallest trees and largest animals right down to the classical “elements”—earth, air, fire, and water—is imbued with souls (jivas; JEE-vahs). Our actions—including walking, talking, eating, sleeping, and even breathing—cause some degree of harm to these other beings. This harm reflects back on the actor in the form of karma, considered to be a kind of cosmic “dirt” that clings to the soul and causes it to wander from existence to existence in a cycle, called samsara (sum-SAH-rah), which has gone on for countless eons. Souls are reborn in any kind of lifeform, depending on the karma it acquired in its previous lives. A soul may be reborn in any form—human, animal, plant, even as a deity in one of fourteen heavens or a being in one of seven hells—until it sheds all of its karma. The only way to break this cycle of death and rebirth is to stop acquiring new karma, which can be achieved by practicing ahimsa, avoiding violence to other beings, and by shedding the karma already accumulated through asceticism (tapas; tuh-puhs), actions that deny the body material comforts, including fasting, meditation, and yogic postures. Only humans can attain moksha because only they have the right balance of joy and suffering, as well as the ability to choose to act rightly or wrongly, to make the conscious choice to avoid harming other life-forms, to perform karma-shedding asceticism, and to live in a way that will avoid accumulating new karma. Ascetic actions not only avoid violence toward others, they

Jainism: Introduction

also help to cut the mental link we make between the body and the self. That is, they help us to quiet the body and mind’s constant demands for comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction—the passions. Thereby, the mind becomes ever-more focused on being cautious not to harm others, while shedding the karma already accumulated to one’s soul. Once a person has shed all karma, he or she becomes omniscient, a natural property of every soul. A few omniscient souls—twenty-four in each vast era of time—spend the rest of their lives teaching others how to free their souls from karmic bondage. Such teachers are called Jinas (jin-ahs), meaning “victors,” as they have attained victory in the only battle that matters: freeing the soul from karma. Jains are, therefore, the “followers of the Jinas.” Upon death, an omniscient soul attains “liberation,” called moksha (MOK-shah), from the cycle of death and rebirth. The Jinas are also referred to as “tirthankaras” (TEER-tahn-kah-rahs), which means “one who shows the way across” samsara, thought of as a vast ocean, to moksha. Once a soul is liberated, it is never reborn again but exists in a permanent, unembodied state of limitless bliss, power, knowledge, and insight—all of which are natural properties of the soul that karma obscured when it was going from lifetime to lifetime. However, because a liberated soul has conquered all the passions, no longer attracted to comforts or averse to unpleasant things, it no longer has any will to engage with the world. All that is left behind are the teachings of the Jinas. What do the Jinas teach about how to avoid violence and shed karma? In short, they all teach that the everyday world in which we live involves unavoidable amounts of violence. We do violence not only in our actions, but even in our thoughts and words. We do violence in our efforts to acquire comforts and wealth for ourselves. Building a home, getting married, having sex, pursuing wealth, eating sumptuous food (especially meat), seeking fame  .  .  . all these actions involve violence and keep us mired not only in the cycle of death and rebirth but also in the misery that ultimately results from expecting true happiness and satisfaction to come from these temporary things. We have to keep in mind the minute forms of life that Jains regard as subject to violence in everyday actions. Building a home involves digging in the earth and cutting down trees; keeping a house involves acquiring and cooking food, lighting fires, and many activities that potentially harm small beings. Sex involves indulging the passions and seeking pleasure, as well as violence to small beings living on and in the body. Fine foods inflame the passions and potentially involve killing plants and animals. All of these must be avoided. The best way to distance oneself from these sources of karma is to renounce worldly life and to become an ascetic. Jain monks (sadhus; SAHD-hoos) and nuns (sadhvis; SAHD-hvees) leave home and family behind, renouncing call claims to their property and status. They take five major vows:

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1. Ahimsa: nonharm; abstaining from violence or harm to other beings 2. Aparigraha (uh-pah-ree-grah-ha): nonpossession; not owning any property 3. Asteya (uh-STAY-ah): non-stealing; not taking anything that is not freely given 4. Satya (sut-yah): truth; telling the truth in all speech 5. Brahmacharya (bruh-mah-char-yah): celibacy; abstaining from all physical contact with members of the opposite sex and never being in a secluded place alone with just one member of the opposite sex Further, the Jain scriptures make clear that not only are monks and nuns to abstain from these actions themselves, they are not to ask or cause another person to commit infractions against these vows, nor are they to even approve of others violating them.

Jain Ethics Early on, Jainism espoused a consequentialist ethical system. That is, they weighed the outcome of an action as more morally significant than the intention with which the action was performed. For example, whether one stepped on an ant accidentally or intentionally, the greatest karmic impact on the actor was the result—killing. Whether the act was done intentionally or not was merely a mitigating factor in how much karma would attach to a soul as a result. Certainly, killing an insect accidentally out of carelessness was not as bad as killing one intentionally out of anger or just for the fun of it. Still, the Jains recognized that placing intention as the central determiner of the profundity of one’s actions, as Buddhists do, could lead to justifying moral absurdities. In the Shvetambara scripture, Sutrakritanga (SOO-tra-krit-ang-ah; 2.6.2631), the Jain monk Ardraka debates with a Buddhist monk as follows: Buddhist: If (a savage) thrusts a spit through the side of a granary, mistaking it for a man; or through a gourd, mistaking it for a baby, and roasts it, he will be guilty of murder according to our views. If a savage puts a man on a spit and roasts him, mistaking him for a fragment of the granary; or a baby, mistaking him for a gourd, he will not be guilty of murder according to our views. Ardraka: Well-controlled men cannot accept (your denial of) guilt incurred by (unintentionally) doing harm to living beings. It will cause error and no good to both who teach such doctrines and who believe them. A man who knows the nature of movable and immovable living beings . . . who is afraid of injuring them and abstains from wicked deeds . . . will not be guilty of any (sin).

Jainism: Introduction

Here, Ardraka is clear that the Buddhist position leads to a moral absurdity, namely, that one would suffer no karmic consequences for killing and eating a baby if that person thought it were merely a gourd! Further, he emphasizes that one must abjure injuring living things and act in such a way in which one “abstains from wicked deeds.” Clearly, the outcomes of an action took on the greatest importance when judging its moral weight. However, this position began to change as Jainism developed a lay following. No longer just a band of liberation-seeking monks and nuns, a consequentialist ethical system would not suit lay Jains well. Instead, the emphasis shifted from judging the weight of one’s actions and turned instead to the mental disposition, or intention, behind the actions one performs. This even made its way into the Shvetambara justifications for mendicants to wear clothes. They argued that it was not the mere fact of wearing clothes that made one guilty of violating the vow of aparigraha, but rather the attachment one felt toward not only the clothes but also one’s body that determined whether a monk or nun were in violation of the vow. Approaching the wealth that Jain merchants had accumulated in this way allowed them to understand their highly practice-based religious ethics in new ways that accommodated the laity, instead of punishing them for being inadequate ascetics. This ethical system allowed lay Jains to earn merit (“good karma”) by giving material support to ascetics and by building temples, commissioning images, and conducting rituals that created a rich devotional Jain culture. Mendicants wrote hymns, consecrated temples and images, and participated in these devotional practices, linking the Jain community together. The outcome of a meritorious lay life would not be moksha, but rather a good rebirth, such as in a heaven or on a different “continent,” where Jinas are currently preaching. One other key ambivalence Jain literature expresses in terms of violence involves warfare. Jain literature is rife with stories of warfare and battle; the warrior ethos of the Kshatriya princes who were the source of early Jainism and Buddhism made imagery of battle and warfare a common way to describe asceticism as an interior form of heroism—the victory over the passions and karma. As the narratives of the lives of the Jinas began to be recorded, the Jains began to articulate the origin of the activities of civilized people. They traced the courtly arts that princes were trained to master to the first Jina, Rishabhanatha (RISh-ahb-ha-naht-ha), also known as Adinatha (AH-dee-naht-ah), the “First Lord.” While Jains hold that the world is uncreated and has always existed, they believe that human civilization—agriculture, government, the arts, warfare, and so forth—was introduced to humankind by the first Jina, when he was still the first universal emperor, before he renounced his throne to become an ascetic. Rishabhanatha introduced all the courtly arts—from painting and poetry to warfare—to humankind. Warfare itself, then, was understood to be a proper

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activity for kings and princes, as long as they followed the “rules of war.” While it seems incongruous that a tirthankara could have brought such violence into the world, it highlights for us that Jainism is a highly individualistic tradition in which a person must choose on his or her own to abstain from violence. The idea of engineering a peaceful society without social evils such as warfare is largely a modern concept for Jains, one that is still unevenly accepted among Jains as a goal to attain. The layperson’s world is the domain for pursuing prosperity and well-being, where merchants and rulers each pursue their legitimate aims. Only the person who learns of the suffering and violence of the world and wishes to refrain from such karma-laden activities needs to pursue the ascetic path. Others will wander from lifetime to lifetime until the agony of existence triggers the desire to pursue liberation.

Jains in History Although Jains maintain that there have been twenty-four Jinas who have appeared periodically during our vast cycle of time, we only have solid evidence for the last one. Like the Buddha, Vardhamana (vahrd-ha-MAHN-ah) was born a prince of a small kingdom in eastern India. He was a Kshatriya, part of the kingly, warrior caste. However, Vardhamana harbored the desire to become a monk even when in the womb, though he married and had a daughter. After his parents died, when he was thirty years old, Vardhamana left his home and family behind, giving away his personal wealth and leaving the principality to his brother. He wandered for twelve years, meditating, fasting, and subjecting himself to painful austerities in pursuit of the destruction of his karma. When he attained omniscience, he became known as “Mahavira” (mah-ha-VEER-ah), the “Great Hero,” who conquered his passions and destroyed his karma to attain complete freedom from death and rebirth. Jains traditionally date Mahavira to 599 to 527 or 510 BCE. Mahavira appears to have been a slightly older contemporary of the Buddha, so scholars date him to the following century, roughly 480 to 400 BCE. Early Jains spread their teachings along the trade routes built between the emerging cities of India, much the way Buddhist spiritual leaders did. Their efforts were aided by the emergence of the Mauryan Empire, the first major political power to span the subcontinent, which created social stability through military domination. Imperialism facilitated commerce; trade; and the circulation of art, culture, religion and philosophy across a vast territory. Emperor Ashoka, while ostensibly a convert to Buddhism, continued to foster peace and stability by offering support to “Brahmanas and Shramanas”; the latter group, meaning “strivers,” included Jains, as well as Buddhists. While Jainism began in eastern India, it became prominent in South India by the first century CE. It also spread westward in the early centuries

Jainism: Introduction

after the death of Mahavira, finding a home among the warrior clans and merchants in the desert and coastal areas of western India. Within a millennium of the death of Mahavira, the geographic spread also led to the development of two major denominations of Jains, the Digambara (dig-ahm-bah-rah) and the Shvetambara (Shvay-TAHM-bah-rah). The Shvetambara or “White Clad” Jains came to predominate in northern and western India. They are so named because their monks and nuns dress in white—one upper cloth and one lower cloth, unhemmed, wrapped around the body. Digambara or “Sky Clad” Jains became predominant in southern India. Digambara monks practice aparigraha by renouncing even clothing. For this reason, Digambaras maintain that women cannot attain moksha, but must be reborn as men to do so. For their part, Shvetambaras maintain that they do not “own” their robes, but rather are given them by pious laypeople and wear them without becoming “attached” to them; they merely wear them to maintain societal propriety. While it would be historically inaccurate to present Jains as somehow uniquely peaceful merely for the fact that the tradition values ahimsa, it would also be unfair to judge them as exceptionally hypocritical for participating in violent occupations or condoning violent pogroms. As a minority community, Jains have had to make certain judgments about how they participate in Indian society. Jains, like other middle-class people around the world, have generally supported majoritarian powers that offer security and stability. Further, preserving their community and helping it flourish often required participation in politics to make their interests known. As generals of armies, ministers to kings, and bankrollers of empires, Jains have historically participated in their share of violence. Although these are the actions of some of the wealthiest Jains in history, who translated their wealth into political power, they are still some of the most vaunted and revered laymen in the tradition. As stated above, Jains did not necessarily consider warfare beyond the scope of acceptable behavior for laymen. In fact, Jains briefly held power in ancient South India and were later generals and ministers to kings all over India. Jain gem-trading magnates in early modern Gujarat financed the armies of the Mughal Empire, helping to secure the succession to the imperial throne of princes who were favorably disposed (and indebted) to them. In eighteenth-century Rajasthan, a Jain was the chief general to the Hindu Jai Singhs. Their privileged place drew the ire and competition of some Hindus, who once seized a Jain temple and converted it to a temple to Shiva during the king’s absence. While Jains today largely avoid overly violent occupations, such as soldiering, there are Jain farmers, doctors, and others, whose occupations involve some gray areas for causing other beings pain and injury and have been topics of debate within the community. Some Jains are involved in the global gem trade, which can help to prop up unsavory labor practices that amount to de facto slavery, as in

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diamond-mining operations. Several Jains were instrumental in getting the Kimberly Accord signed, but many other Jain diamond merchants have disavowed their responsibility for taking part in a global industry that fosters such labor practices by claiming that, because they do not own the mines themselves, it is not their concern how the gems make it out of the ground. Many Jains work in the global financial industry, which contributes to maintaining the economic and power imbalances between developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries. These financial systems keep poor countries in perpetual debt, which contributes to the suffering of their citizens. While Jains of more moderate means have mostly managed to avoid participating in or committing overt violence against their neighbors, they have often been complicit in condoning, benefitting from, and failing to speak out against the communal violence that has periodically flared up in India since the early 1990s. Jain advocacy for oppressed minorities or the economically disadvantaged has rarely taken the form of public speech. Instead, Jains have preferred to work quietly, building hospitals, clinics, schools, and animal shelters. The “Jaipur Foot,” a low-cost prosthetic limb that is free to patients, is the invention and work of a Jain charity organization. They have outfitted over 1.8 million people with prosthetic limbs in India and twenty-six other countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. One way that Jains have lobbied to mitigate the violence of nonvegetarian diets is to try to enact bans on the sale of meat, fish, and eggs in certain locales or at certain times. In medieval India, Jains frequently lobbied kings—Hindu and Muslim—to issue bans on the sale of meat during the Jain holy week of Paryushan (par-YOO-shun). Recently, Jains successfully lobbied the government of Maharashtra to ban meat sales during Paryushan. In 2014, a state law was passed, banning the sale of meat in the town of Palitana (pahl-ee-TAHN-ah) in Gujarat, which lies at the foot of Shatrunjay (Shut-roon-jay), a sacred hill and a major Jain pilgrimage site. The Gujarat state government agreed to pass the law to end a hunger strike undertaken by some two hundred Jain monks and nuns. As meat had not been for sale on the Jain side of town approaching the sacred hill since a 1999 decree by city officials, the roughly 25 percent Muslim population of this town of sixty-five thousand people, who mostly live on the other side of town, bristled at this move, describing the monks’ actions as discriminatory (Buncombe 2014). As Palitana is located on a river in a fairly rural part of Gujarat, many people made their livelihoods by fishing. Further, the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr customarily includes the sacrifice of a goat.

Jains as Victims of Violence While Jains have largely been able to coexist with their Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and other neighbors in India, there have been several significant moments of

Jainism: Introduction

persecution, both historically and recently, that have subjected the Jain community to violence. In seventh-century Tamil Nadu, in South India, the Nayanmars (NIE-an-ahrs), a group of Hindu poet-saints and religious leaders, featured strong criticism of the Jains (and, to a lesser extent, Buddhists) as an expression of their devotion to the god Shiva. For example, the early Nayanmar Campantar (sam-bun-dar), took on the Jains in debate in the court of the king of Kanchipuram, a major city for Shiva devotion. The stakes could not have been higher: the losers would be impaled on pikes. Campantar’s invectives against the Jains take on a protonationalist tone: he suggested that they were not even Tamils. They studied different sacred texts, which were in Prakrit rather than in Tamil; their practices were strange; and they did not appreciate the beauty of the Tamil country, as classical Tamil poetry did (which, ironically, may very well have been at least partly written by Jains). Here is how Campantar prayed to Shiva to ask for the strength and wisdom to defeat the Jains: Primal Lord . . . for the sake of justice, will you favor me with your grace, so that I may defeat in debate the evil Jains who do not study the sacred texts? . . . Will you favor me with your grace, so that I may defeat in debate the evil Jains who declaim loudly in Prakrit and do not know good Tamil? . . . Will you favor me with your grace, so that I may destroy the destructive Jains who gather beached fish from salt marshes by the sea? . . . If you want to put an end to dishonor say the words of true [Campantar] who cries, in rhythmic Tamil verse, “O god of holy Alavay [Shiva] which rings with Tamil song!” to blot out the stain of the wicked Jains. —Peterson (1989, 277–80)

A mural painted on wooden panels in the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, shows the debate, scene by scene, laid out like a graphic novel. The final scene of the debate shows rows of Jain monks impaled on pikes planted into the ground, their bodies gray and running with blood, vultures picking at their heads.

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While it is more probable that the story of Campantar defeating the Jains in a debate is meant to explain why Shaivism came to dominate South India, supplanting Jainism, rather than an historical account of events (however embellished), it is noteworthy that the Shaiva tradition continued to tell the story in terms of committing violence as a display of devotion. The Tamil term vannanpu, meaning “violent love,” is one way Shaivas demonstrated the lengths to which great devotees went in the service of glorifying Shiva. To that end, we should be careful to regard this story less as a factual account of actual events and more as a story about the lengths great devotees went to show their devotion. Still, the rise of Shaivism in South India made villains of Jains (and Buddhists) by portraying them as foreigners, despite the fact that Jains had lived in South India for centuries. It demands that we ask how this kind of narrative would have resonated with Tamils who heard these poems and stories. Just to the north of Tamil Nadu, in thirteenth-century Karnataka, another Shaiva tradition arose, known as the Lingayatas or Virashaivas. In similar fashion to the events in Tamil Nadu, these devotees of Shiva narrated the rise of their tradition in part as a process of rooting out Jains and Jainism from their cities. Unlike the debates between monks and Nayanmar poet-saints in the courts of Tamil kings, the Virashaivas saw the Jains in their cities and towns as intimate enemies. Their temples were subject to being burned or looted; Jain women needed to be married into Shaiva households (Ben-Herut 2018). By comparison, the violence Jains suffered during the conquest of India by Turkish Muslims in later centuries appears less pointed. That is, recent research has shown that Turkish armies plundered temples and destroyed images less out of a particular animus against Hindus or Jains, who worship images, and more to show that the local kings had been deposed by showing that a major symbol of their power—the royal temples—had been broken (e.g., Flood 2009; Eaton 2000). That Jain temples were also sometimes sacked shows that Jains had more political power than modern historians have thought. A great deal of wealth was also stored in temples, such as images made of gold, silver, and precious gems. To pay their massive armies, a great deal of looting occurred. While some stone images were defaced (literally), destroyed, or taken as treasure (they were considered objects of curiosity and fascination), only temples of major significance were subject to destruction and plunder, and not local neighborhood temples. This suggests that Muslim political powers were far savvier about displaying their iconoclasm to other South Asian elites than theses that suggest “fanaticism” or “iconoclasm” motivated Muslims to destroy images. Further, given the political nature of these destructions, it seems that the violence Jains suffered had less to do with their being Jain and more about being a politically significant community. For example, after the conquest of Delhi, some twenty-seven Hindu

Jainism: Introduction

and Jain temples were torn down, and the pieces used to build the first mosque in Delhi, the Quwwat-ul-Islam. The need to build a mosque meant that time was of the essence. Quarrying new stone would have taken too long for the new ruling power and their new population of Muslims in the city. In 1313, the temples atop the Jain pilgrimage site Shatrunjay (see above) were plundered and damaged by a Muslim army. In 1315, the Jain layman Samara Shah worked with the Muslim governor of Gujarat, Alp Khan, to restore the temples and images. Later, Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–1351) returned a statue of Mahavira that had been taken from a Jain temple by one of his generals to the Jain monk Jinaprabhasuri (jin-ah-prah-bhah-soo-ree), who became one of the sultan’s advisors. The sultan set aside a part of the city for the Jain community and even sponsored the construction of a new temple in that neighborhood to house the returned image (Vose forthcoming). During the Mughal Empire (1526–1707), Jain monks were part of the court of Emperor Akbar (1556–1605), who issued an order banning meat sales during the Jain holy week of Paryushan. His successor, Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), was tutored by a Jain monk. The Mughals provided general stability in western India, facilitating trade with the Portuguese and others. Shantidas Jhaveri, a Jain, was the jeweler to the Mughal court in the late seventeenth century. He became the de facto mayor of Ahmedabad and even lent several Mughal princes massive amounts of money, for which he received control of Shatrunjaya. More recently, Jains have been subject to religious violence at the hands of Hindus. The sacred mountain of Girnar in Gujarat had historically been shared by Hindus and Jains since the medieval period. In 2004, a group of Hindu sadhus, led by Swami Muktanand, installed an image of the Hindu god Dattatreya in a shrine that had previously held a pair of sculpted footprints, called a paduka (PAH-doo-kah). Prior to 2004, Jains had worshipped these footprints as the place where the twenty-second Jina, Neminatha, attained moksha, while Hindus worshipped the footprints as that of the god Dattatreya. After the 2004 installation of the image, Jains were turned away from the shrine; a Jain sadhu who tried to intervene was beaten. The Hindu sadhus argued that Jains had no legitimate claim to the site and took the Jains to court. With the Hindu nationalist BJP party in power in Gujarat, Jains complained that they were victims of opportunistic Hindu religious leaders, who operated knowing that the government would favor them (Mahurkar 2006). However, the same party was in power when they were able to get the sale of meat banned in Palitana in 2014. In Mumbai, in 2015, a local party known as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, an offshoot of the Shiv Sena, a “sons of the soil” party that uses violence to support ethnic Maratha Hindus, staged a chicken barbecue in front of a Jain temple in the city to taunt Jains for successfully lobbying the state government to

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ban the sale of meat during the Jain holy week of Paryushan. This protest might come as a surprise to many, given that many upper-caste Hindus are also vegetarian, which shows how complicated right-wing, Hindu nationalist politics are in India (DNA 2015).

Conclusion Jainism espouses ahimsa, nonharm, to all forms of life, great and small, as the key to avoiding new karma. This is the way that a person’s soul can begin to free itself of the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara). Modern Jains have also begun to see ahimsa as a social good, as they encourage efforts to make society as a whole less violent, though sometimes their efforts have been oppressive to others. Monks and nuns traditionally lead austere lives to shed their karma to attain liberation (moksha). Lay Jains try to minimize violence in their everyday lives, including in their livelihoods, though some of the industries in which many participate indirectly contribute to large-scale, global violence. However, Jains also have a rich devotional life in which ascetics and asceticism are praised as objects of veneration. While Jains historically have been merchants and only infrequently have held political power directly, in premodern India, their wealth helped them gain political power and influence, and they served as ministers, advisers, and even generals to Hindu and Muslim kings. Today, Jains comprise one of the wealthiest religious communities in the world and can be found in India, Europe, eastern Africa, and North America. Although Jains have largely coexisted peacefully with their Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and other neighbors in South Asia, they have competed with these traditions for followers and faced periods of persecution in certain parts of India. Steven M. Vose FURTHER READING Ben-Herut, Gil. 2018. Shivas Saints: The Origins of Devotion in Kannada According to Harihara’s Ragaḷegaḷu. New York: Oxford University Press. Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2011. Karma. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Buncombe, Andrew. 2014. “The Vegetarian Town: They Wouldn’t Hurt a Fly but the Jains Upset Palitana with Meat-Free Plea.” The Independent, July 6, 2014. h­ ttps://​­www​ .­independent​.­co​.­uk​/­news​/­world​/­asia​/­the​-­vegetarian​-­town​-­they​-­wouldn​-­t​-­hurt​-­a​-­fly​ -­but​-­the​-­jains​-­upset​-­palitana​-­with​-­meat​-­free​-­plea​-­9588087​.­html​.­ Cort, John E. 2001. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York: Oxford University Press. DeshGujarat. 2009. “Two Jain Monks Killed in a Road Accident Near Nakoda.” November 2009. ­http://​­deshgujarat​.­com​/­2009​/­11​/­12​/­two​-­jain​-­monks​-­killed​-­in​-­a​-­road​-­accident​ -­near​-­nakoda​/.

Jainism: Ahimsa DNA (Daily News and Analysis). 2015. “Meat Ban Protests: MNS Attempts to Cook Chicken Outside Jain Community Program Hall in Thane.” September 13, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­dnaindia​.­com​/­india​/­report​-­meat​-­ban​-­protests​-­mns​-­attempts​-­to​-­cook​ -­chicken​-­outside​-­jain​-­community​-­program​-­hall​-­in​-­thane​-­2124784. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Eaton, Richard B. 2000. “Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States.” In David Gilmartin and Bruce B. Lawrence, eds. Beyond Turk and Hindu: Shaping Indo-Muslim Identity in Premodern India, 246–281. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Flood, Finbarr B. 2009. Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “HinduMuslim” Encounter. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jacobi, Hermann, trans. 1884. Acharanga Sutra. Gaina Sutras: Part I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jacobi, Hermann, trans. 1895. Sutrakritanga. Gaina Sutras: Part II. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Jaini, Padmanabh S., ed. 2000. Collected Papers on Jainism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Johnson, W. J. 2006. “Are Jaina Ethics Really Universal?” International Journal of Jaina Studies (online) 2, no. 4: 1–18. Mahurkar, Uday. 2006. “Conflict between Hindus, Jains over Sacred Sites on Mount Girnar Mounts.” India Today, May 1, 2006. Updated February 28, 2012. ­https://​­www​ .­indiatoday​.­in​/­magazine​/­heritage​/­story​/­20060501​-­conflict​-­between​-­religious​-­heads​ -­over​-­sacred​-­sites​-­on​-­mount​-­girnar​-­mounts​-­785488​-­2006​-­05​-­01. Peterson, Indira Viswanathan. 1989. Poems to Shiva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Vose, Steven M. 2020 (forthcoming). Reimagining Jainism in Islamic India: Jain Intellectual Culture in the Delhi Sultanate. London: Routledge.

AHIMSA(NONHARM) Most Jains today consider ahimsa the central vow of the Jain tradition. The word ahimsa comes from the Sanskrit root hims, originally meaning “a desire to injure, harm, wound, kill, or destroy” (Chapple 1993, 10). The prefix a- signifies the absence of these violent inclinations. The concept of ahimsa is not unique to Jainism but arose in the wider world of ancient Indian religious thought, particularly in relation to debates about Vedic rituals that included animal sacrifice and eating meat (Dundas 2002, 16). However, the centrality of ahimsa as a comprehensive practice that emerges from the “right understanding” of the self, the “right knowledge” of the fundamental value of life in the wide multiplicity of forms living beings take on, and the desire to limit the karmic consequences inherent in everyday living, is uniquely Jain. Ahimsa is a logical response to Jain cosmology, which posits a universe teeming with living beings, each possessing a dynamic inner life force (jiva) and inhabiting bodies that have one to five senses. One who injures any of these life-forms accumulates damaging karma and continued entrapment in the cycle of rebirth, or samsara. Consequently, the Jain path consists of striving toward the “three

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jewels” of increasing one’s understanding of this dynamic reality, gaining knowledge of oneself and other life-forms, and improving one’s conduct toward self and others. The ultimate aim of the Jain way of life is to gradually cease injuring other life-forms altogether as one nears the goal of liberation (moksha) from the cycle of death and rebirth. Ahimsa was one of four restraints taught by Parshvanatha—who may have lived around 850 BCE and is considered the twenty-third tirthankara or Jina of this time cycle. Mahavira (fifth century BCE), the twenty-fourth and last tirthankara of this era, transformed his four restraints into five vows that were meant to distinguish a rigorous ethical community from the surrounding society. Ahimsa, or nonharm, is the first and primary vow, functioning as the basis for the other four: truthfulness (satya), non-stealing (asteya), celibacy (brahmacharya), and nonpossession of goods (aparigraha). The mendicant community aims to practice these five great vows (maha-vratas) as fully as possible, while lay Jains strive toward less-stringent versions of the vows (anu-vratas). The Jain vow of ahimsa has many layers, described in great detail within Jain texts. For example, the Tattvartha Sutra by Umasvati (second century CE) prohibits violence within the threefold restraint of mind, speech, and body (6.1–2). Further, as articulated in a common refrain within the oldest Jain text, the Acharanga Sutra (third to first century BCE), one can do direct harm, cause others to do harm, or approve of harm (1.1.1.5). In its most basic negative expression, ahimsa is the abstention from killing any living thing. “This is the quintessence of wisdom” according to the Sutrakritanga, “not to kill anything” (1.1.4.10). One abstains from killing for two reasons: first, because himsa (injury) ultimately binds one’s own jiva with damaging karma that keeps it hostage to repeated, lower rebirths. Second, as expressed in the Dashvaikalika Sutra, killing is egregious because “all beings in this world desire to live and none wants to die” (6.10). In this way, ahimsa has both a negative prohibition not to harm to protect the self, paired with compassion for others. This latter affirmation is confirmed by Umasvati’s assertion in the Tattvartha Sutra that “the observer of vows should cultivate friendliness (maitri) toward all living beings, delight in the distinction and honor (pramoda) of others, compassion (karuna) for miserable, lowly creatures, and equanimity toward the vainglorious” (TS 7.6; see also Wiley 2006, 444). The demands of ahimsa are different for mendicants and laypeople. The vows of the former are unconditional, while the latter must compromise the vows in their work and home lives. These two paths represent how mendicants completely sever ties of responsibility with family, occupational identity, and material gains so as to commit fully to the vows, while the lay community cannot exist without activities that result in some harm to life, even as they strive to avoid gross

Jainism: Ahimsa

violations. For mendicants this means foregoing even “subtle” (sūkṣma) himsa, the taking of life in any form at all. For laypersons, this means avoiding “gross” or “obvious” (sthūla) himsa—that is, killing beings with two or more senses (Williams 1991, 65–66). Jain vegetarianism is a good example of these different levels of practice. Observant lay Jain households cook foods that involve the least amount of violence, preferring to use the “fruits” of a plant, such as grains, legumes, and pulses (rice, beans, peas, lentils, etc.) so that the plant is not harmed. When mendicants eat, they beg for leftover food from lay households. Monks and nuns eat only once per day; they also frequently fast. Mendicants should not be interested in the taste of the food they gather, so Shvetambaras collect all the food in one bowl, mixed together; Digambaras eat the food one morsel at a time, as much as will fit it in their bare cupped hands while standing in the door of the house at which they are begging. Observant Jains—mendicants and laity—do not consume honey or eggs; many laypeople avoid root crops or certain vegetables with many seeds in them (such as tomatoes and peppers). The most observant eat only after sun-up and before sun-down without artificial light. While mendicants adhere to these restrictions fully, laypeople often do so only occasionally, such as during the holy week of Paryushan; they are generally more flexible with daily eating habits. The mendicant and lay communities also have additional supporting practices that enable them to maintain and deepen their respective vows. Monks and nuns, for example, observe five rules of conduct and six obligatory practices that structure their daily lives toward ahimsa. The five rules of conduct require additional care when walking, speaking, eating, moving objects, and daily bathroom habits. The six obligatory practices (avashyakas) involve (1) attaining a state of mental equanimity, (2) venerating the twenty-four ford makers, (3) honoring the mendicant community, (4) confessing one’s daily harms, (5) meditating without thought to the body, and (6) fasting from certain foods or activities for a determined time (Dundas 2002, 169–73). Lay Jains have seven additional, optional practices that can strengthen their observance of the five vows. The seven practices consist of three supplementary vows and four spiritual disciplines. The three supplementary vows (guna-vratas) include avoiding purposeless activities; refraining from sensory pleasures, especially related to food, work, and sensuality; and limiting the area in which one walks or travels to minimize injury to other beings. The medieval Shvetambara author Abhayadeva lists fifteen forbidden occupations, including those that destroy plants, enslave people or creatures, or trade in weapons (Williams 1991 [1963], 117–21). Lay Jains are permitted to defend themselves as a last resort, thus allowing for a mode of “just war,” likely related to medieval Jain kings or soldiers who had contradictory duties to self and kingdom (Jaini 2004, 53–61).

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The four spiritual disciplines represent tasks a lay person undertakes daily, weekly, or monthly, such as supporting the mendicants, undertaking more severe travel or speaking restrictions, fasting for certain periods, and practicing regular meditation. Beyond these seven supplementary vows, lay Jains have the opportunity, though not the requirement, to take the vow of sallekhana at the end of their lives. Brianne Donaldson and Steven M. Vose See also: Buddhism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Hinduism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); ­Jainism: Anekantavada; Sallekhana (Santhara); Svastika (Swastika); Vegetarianism FURTHER READING Bothara, Surendra, trans. 1997. Dashvaikalika Sūtra. Illustrated Dashvaikalika-sūtra: The Basic Compendium of Shraman Conduct. Delhi: Padma Prakashan. Chapple, Christopher Key. 1993. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. Jacobi, Hermann Georg, trans. 1884. Acaraṅga Sūtra. Jaina Sutras, Part I. Forgotten Books. Jacobi, Hermann Georg, trans. 1895. Sūtrakṛtanga. Jaina Sutras, Part II. Forgotten Books, pp. 408–529. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 2004. “Ahimsa and ‘Just War’ in Jainism.” In Tara Sethia, ed. Ahimsa, Anekanta and Jainism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 47–61. Koller, John M. 2002. “Jain Ecological Perspectives.” In Christopher Key Chapple, ed. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 19–34. Umasvati, Acharya. 2011. Tattvartha Sūtra. That Which Is: A Classic Jain Manual for Understanding the True Nature of Reality. Translated by Nathmal Tatia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wiley, Kristi. 2006. “Ahimsa and Compassion in Jainism.” In Peter Flügel, ed. Studies in Jaina History and Culture: Disputes and Dialogues. New York: Routledge, pp. 438–55. Williams, R. 1991 (1963). Jaina Yoga. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

ANEKANTAVADA Jains developed a doctrine of pluralism that asserts that any claim of truth is limited to the perspective of the speaker. Known as anekantavada (ahn-ayk-ahn-tah-VAHdah), which roughly means “the doctrine of many standpoints.” Jains assert that this philosophical principle urges them to consider the partial truth of other religious and philosophical views. While some Jains have recently called this “intellectual ahimsa,” historically, this was mainly used as a technique for emerging victorious in debates.

Jainism: Anekantavada

In medieval and ancient South Asia, debates were hosted in the royal court and consisted of practitioners of two or more religious or philosophical traditions squaring off before the king for royal favor. Although these debates rarely ended in overt violence for the vanquished opponent, it sometimes did. Moreover, it is not difficult to see that the claim that anekantavada is a principle meant to uphold nonviolence is problematic, if only for the reason that respecting the partial truth of others’ claims did not actually influence Jains to acknowledge that they had revised or refined their own views based on their opponents’ views. Rather, Jains advocated their doctrine, which is supported ultimately on the authority that the Jinas who taught the Jain path were omniscient. Although history reveals a checkered past for the ways in which anekantavada is used and employed, it has provided helpful advances toward collaboration and peaceful interactions. Perhaps the largest and most influential person to advance this trend is Mohandas Gandhi, who found the Jain principle of anekantavada indispensable in his civil disobedience: satyagraha (truth-force). In his weekly English journal Young India (January 21, 1926), he wrote: I am an Advaitist [the Hindu philosophy of nondualism] and yet I can support Dvaitism [dualism]. The world is changing every moment, and is therefore unreal, it has no permanent existence. But though it is constantly changing, it has something about it which persists and is therefore, to that extent, real. I have therefore no objection to calling it real and unreal, and thus being called an Anekantavadi [practitioner of anekantavada] . . . My anekantavada is the result of the twin doctrine of satygratha and ahimsa. (New World Encyclopedia)

Gandhi’s promotion of the Jain principle was both powerful and contagious. Activists who sought to advance nonviolent ways of living were quick to examine the Jain doctrine and the role of anekantavada. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr., was taken by many of Gandhi’s standpoints, including the Jain notion of anekantavada. The effects of this promotion—and the integrity of the principle—are present in contemporary times. At the annual Nasscom technology and leadership summit, Aamir Khan invoked the Jain principle of anekantavada to discuss how he deals with “hatred from people who often target him with an agenda” (Aggarwal and Ganesh 2019). At the twentieth biennial JAINA convention in Ontario, Canada, which attracts thousands of Jains, the principle of anekantavada was front and center. The theme was “Celebrating Jain Religion in the Twenty-First Century,” where people shared how values of this ancient religion work in today’s volatile society to promote values of ahimsa, anekantavada, and aparigraha, and have a positive impact in their lives (New India Times 2019).

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Sometimes explained as understanding that truth is multifaceted, anekantavada instructs people to broaden their world views to make space for other people’s perspectives. One of the famous examples of this is the story of blind men and an elephant, in which their summation of perspectives and experiences could yield a glimmer of what is. Yet, as history shows, followers can take and use this principle in either superficial or tokenistic ways. Steven M. Vose and Michael Jerryson See also: Hinduism: Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism); Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm) FURTHER READING Aggarwal, Varun, and Venkatesh Ganesh. 2019. “Give Love to Those Who Hate, Aamir Tells Tech Leaders.” The Hindu Business Line, February 22, 2019. h­ ttps://​­www​ .­thehindubusinessline​.­com​/­info​-­tech​/­give​-­love​-­to​-­those​-­who​-­hate​-­aamir​-­tells​-­tech​ -­leaders​/­article26344140​.­ece. Cort, John E. 2000. “‘Intellectual Ahimsa’ Revisited: Jain Tolerance and Intolerance of Others.” Philosophy East and West 50, no. 3: 324–47. Long, Jeffery. 2010. Jainism: An Introduction. London: I. B. Tauris (see especially chapters 5 and 6). New India Times. 2019. “20th JAINA Convention Attracts Thousands of Devotees, Others.” July 9, 2019. ­http://​­www​.­newsindiatimes​.­com​/­20th​-­jaina​-­convention​-­attracts​ -­thousands​-­of​-­devotees​-­others​/. New World Encyclopedia. “Anekantavada.” ­https://​­www​.­newworldencyclopedia​.­org​/­entry​ /­Anekantavada.

ANUP MANDAL The Anup Mandal is an anti-Jain organization. Founded in 1920 in northwestern India, the organization persists mostly in the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, but its influence has recently spread. At its most extreme characterization, the Anup Mandal openly encourages the killing of all Jains. Their Jain critique is twofold: (1) Jains are upper-class and -caste, politically and economically entrenched, and wealthy; (2) Jains supernaturally manipulate the falling rains, causing droughts and floods that harm crop yields belonging to non-Jains. Authorities, political and academic, describe the Anup Mandal as advocating for indigenous and low-caste Hindus by using a distorted view of Marxism to target Jains, whom they perceive to be exploitative. Recently, Anup Mandal adherents proposed that Jains are responsible for the carbon emissions that cause global warming. Since unveiling this argument at a 2009 conference in India, the group has experienced renewed popularity.

Jainism: Anup Mandal

The Anup Mandal was started in 1920 by Anoop Das, an Indian who had fought in Turkey in World War I, where he learned about Marxism. Resenting the high social and economic status of Jains, he attacked them, arguing that Jains were outsiders to Rajasthan; he also lionized lower-class Hindus, especially farmers. Anoop Das’s message in his book, Jagathitkarni—the title means “For the Welfare of the World”—is that Jains, whom he usually calls baniyas or traders, are the root cause of all worldly problems, and the world must unite against them: “The baniyas have engineered famine by practicing demoniac [sic] activity to take the entire wealth of India in their possession . . . Things have been getting from bad to worse. The sinful activities of these traders are responsible for this situation” (Pundir 2019). In particular, he argued that we must act to save our children from the droughts caused by Jains; water and weather anxiety throughout India has increased with global warming and its deadly heat waves. The Anup Mandal particularly targets Jain ascetics—monks and yogis—who are thought to control weather, using their ascetic powers to stop the rains. Religious figures controlling weather is a common belief in South Asia, especially in Rajasthan. Hindu holy men, be they wandering yogis or charismatic miracle workers, are believed to call forth and suppress rains and hail. Magical displays remain a powerful proselytizing tool among Hindus, though not among Jains. Jain and Hindu ascetics behave differently. Jain ascetics are readily observed wandering about and displaying signs of austerity and asceticism, like Hindus, but they make little contact with non-Jains and are not known to display public miracles nor enact demonstrations of ascetic power. They do not raise funds using marvels directed toward non-Jains, unlike Hindu figures who appeal to all and readily display magic for money. The Anup Mandal depicts Jains in a manner inconsistent with Jain ascetic behavior. The Anup Mandal’s insecurity is rooted in caste-based resentment of the minority Jains, long successful in trade. Furthermore, Jain ascetics, not unlike Buddhist monks, have long been associated with trade guilds. Ascetics and Jain laypersons are thought to work together against non-Jains. It is argued that when ascetics observe the chaumas (the four months period during the rainy season when ascetics do not travel outdoors), they perform prayers to control and hold back the rains, and this will supposedly benefit money lenders and traders, among whom Jains are prominent. During droughts, lenders and merchants are thought to prey upon and dupe farmers and laborers, who are forced to purchase foodstuffs at a higher cost when their neighbors’ crops fail. Jains supposedly perform private, secret black magic to provoke weather crises. Anup Mandal national President Amrut Prajapati has declared that organization members are dedicated to “saving all the living creatures on earth, identifying mother earth as a living creation, and spreading awareness among people

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about the secret black magic techniques used by Vanias (Jains).” The Jagathitkarni, Prajapati declares, “states that some of the Jains have crossed the sea boundaries and gone outside ‘Delhi Mandal.’ They are in consultation with the Jain Sadhus in India and are causing global warming, earthquakes, floods and droughts” (Jha 2009). In the mid-1980s, inspired by the Anup Mandal, a group of lower-caste men beat up several Jain holy men (sadhus). Upon these perpetrators being punished, the folk of the area implemented a strike, which failed, against the local Jain community, stopping sales of milk and vegetables. Jains imported needed foodstuffs, breaking the strike. Reacting to such tensions, against their ideologies of nonharm, Jains have even been known to train and display their prowess with lathi clubs to contradict popular notions of Jains as weak (Singhi 1991). In 2009, a number of Jain monks and nuns were killed in several road accidents, and Jains argued that these were staged by the Anup Mandal. Prominent Jain monk Acharya Dev Yogbhushan Surishvariji argued that a conspiracy to kill these monks cannot be ruled out. “Moreover, the state [Rajasthan] has failed to control the vicious propaganda against Jainism, because of which Jains have to suffer a lot,” Yogbhushan Surishvariji said. “As there is no direct evidence of anybody’s involvement in the accidents, we cannot name anybody. But we had similar experiences in the past where Jain monks were beaten up by ‘Anoop Mandal’ members” (Jha 2009). Anup Mandal Facebook groups are of two types: they advocate the organization’s anti-Jain agenda or advocate banning the Anup Mandal. The anti-Jain groups are consistent with Anup Mandal’s rhetoric, though some claim that they are not against Jains but against some Jains’ activities. Anti-Anup Mandal group express arguments about Jainism’s inherent peacefulness and nonviolence to refute the anti-Jain claims; these declarations about ideals cannot express or dispel anxieties regarding the magic might of ascetics and entrenched resentment about Jain economic and cultural power. Aaron Michael Ullrey See also: Jainism: Bahubali Hill Affair (1980s) FURTHER READING Jha, Paras K. 2009. “‘Black Magic’ by Jains behind Global Warming, Claims Book ‘Jagathitkarni.’” DNA, November 19, 2009. ­https://​­www​.­dnaindia​.­com​/­india​/­report​-­black​ -­magic​-­by​-­jains​-­behind​-­global​-­warming​-­claims​-­book​-­jagathitkarni​-­1313713. Pundir, Pallavi. 2019. “Indian ‘Cult’ Blames Climate Change on Capitalists, Gains Thousands of Followers.” Vice, July 25, 2019. ­https://​­www​.­vice​.­com​/­en​_asia​/­article​/­kzm5bm​ /­indian​-­cult​-­blames​-­climate​-­change​-­on​-­capitalists​-­gains​-­thousands​-­of​-­follower.

Jainism: Asceticism Sadh Anoop Das, trans. 2010. For the Welfare of the World (English Translation of Jagat Hitkarni). Shri Anoop Das Printing Press, Chhawani Aranpura. ­http://​­www​.­jagathitkarni​ .­org​/­index​.­html. Singhi, N. K. 1991. “A Study of Jains in a Rajasthan Town.” In Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey, eds. The Assembly of Listeners. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–81.

ASCETICISM Around the world and across time, ascetics retreat from the everyday world into solitude or in communion with other ascetics in small communities; their goal is to exercise meditation and prayer while engaging in self-discipline and self-denial, focused on study, fasting, celibacy, worship, and even body mortification. The Jain equivalent of this Western term is the Sanskrit word tapas, meaning “inner heat” and its generation, referring to pious practices—physical, mental, spiritual—that deny the body and material world; create positive intentions and mental states’; and remove karma, the metaphysical substance that obscures the soul, binding the soul in cyclical existence. A small minority of Jains, approximately fourteen thousand worldwide, become monks—called sadhus—and nuns—called sadhvis. They leave their families, homes, and possessions; renounce all violence, reduce karma, and take the five major vows (nonharm, nonpossession, non-stealing, truth in all communication, and celibacy). Despite these lofty vows, initiation rituals for monks and nuns are accompanied by tremendous displays of opulence in the form of extravagant donations of money and jewels by the initiates and their families, processions clad in fine clothing, and all manner of feasting, culminating with the initiates removing all their body hair and entering strict renunciation, possessionless, and sometimes clothing-less (if Digambaras), roaming on foot as mendicants, subsisting only on alms. The most extreme form of ascetic practice is sallekhana or santhara, in which a person fasts to death under the supervision of religious authorities; this practice in not considered self-violence, for it is undertaken to create a final separation of body and spirit, reducing all actions and their inherent violence. Asceticism is not limited to monks and nuns. Lay people, known as shravakas (men) and shravikas (women), meaning “listeners,” also engage in asceticism when they engage in karma-reducing and prosperity-generating practices. Ascetic ideals inform the world view of layfolk, some of whom maintain lesser versions of mendicant vows and penances, drawing inspiration from monks and nuns. Making donations, layfolk support mendicants, construct temples, build

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hospitals and animal shelters, and maintain Jain schools, but this is not asceticism per se. Lay ascetic practices, varying in intensity, confer not only spiritual benefits but worldly prosperity; practices include fasting, worship of holy figures, performing temple rituals, temporary vows, and pilgrimage. Prosperity-generating practices, especially fasting, are mostly performed by women. Jain ascetics do not consider nonascetic Jain layfolk or non-Jains to be lesser beings or less than human in the manner that other ascetic religious groups declare to justify violence; they advocate for the reduction of all violence/harm and that all souls and beings ought not be harmed. Ascetics can be found in all South Asian religious traditions, but Jain ascetics are often singled out—inaccurately and to the point of caricature—as the most extreme. Some South Asian ascetics belong to landed religious institutions, though many perpetually wander, never long under a single roof; Jain ascetics may do either. Jains reject the Buddhist Middle Path, modulating between world engagement and renunciation, and they also reject the Buddhist disconnection of action and intent. Jains reject the Hindu devotional path of emotional dedication toward God. Jain ascetics are committed to the reduction of karma by ceasing actions, regardless of intent or emotion, but Jain asceticism is characterized to be extreme, even self-harming. Jains conceive karma to be a material substance that cannot be removed by mere knowing; it can only be removed by intense, vigorous ascetic practices that deny the body its creature comforts. These actions are chiefly fasting, including unto death in the rite of sallekhana or santhara (see below), plucking head and body hair during initiation, and celibacy. Jain doctrines assert that these are, in fact, nonviolent acts. While plucking all body and head hair may be a painful and even bloody affair, the goal is not to harm the body but to lessen the connection to the body and world. Ritual fasting is not harmful but a means to reduce daily orientation toward worldly existence, which is itself inherently harmful; it is also a way to reduce accruing karma. Surprisingly, some Jains fast to acquire social prestige. Fasting unto death is a long process. Those who have committed to their intention eat fewer and fewer foods of lesser and lesser amounts until they subsist on only water. The intent is to halt karma generating, to reduce violence incurred through daily life, until all violence ceases. Celibacy is not world-denying or violent to future progeny (ascetic-minded couples take up celibacy after bearing children); it removes violence inherent to sexual activity, enflaming passions but also harming tiny creatures living on the body. Despite women’s bodies being considered violent from a doctrinal perspective, in practice, women are understood to be the center of religious piety and practice in most Jain households. Women do the vast majority of fasting in Jain households in observance of holidays that commemorate the key moments of the lives of the Jains

Jainism: Asceticism

and on days of certain astrological configurations. They are also primarily responsible for teaching the children how to be proper Jains, learning the stories, rituals, and observances of the tradition from mothers, aunts, sisters, and grandmothers. It is common for a woman to fast completely on one or two days a month, to fast for specific meals at other times, or to eat bland food with limited ingredients a few times in a two-week period. Some fasts can last a full week, with limited food fasts lasting a month. There is even a year-long fast, in which a person eats every other day. While men may do these fasts, it is much more common for women to do them. During the eight-day period of atonement called Paryushan, Jains may eat just bland food at one time each day or go on a full fast. These performative fasts are usually done with the full knowledge and consent of not only the family, but also the local Jain community. It is common for a Jain to declare a vow to fast at the local temple or hall and for the community to know about lengthier fasts. Upon the completion of a long fast, a laywoman brings a great deal of prestige to her family and community; other Jains from the neighborhood will be present at the moment she completes her fast to celebrate her achievement and to gain some residual merit for honoring a person who has undertaken an arduous ascetic act. Because of the issues of prestige surrounding Jain fasting practices, there have been incidents of ill-advised fasting ending in disaster. In 2016, Aradhana Samdhariya, a thirteen-year-old Jain girl from Hyderabad and daughter of a local jeweler, died of cardiac arrest two days after completing a sixty-eight-day fast. Aradhana’s funeral procession was attended by some six hundred people, who lauded her as a “bal tapasvi” (BAAL tup-AHS-vee; child ascetic). The tragedy sparked national outrage in India; her parents were investigated to determine whether they forced or coerced her into the lengthy fast. However, her grandfather claimed that the Jain community had taken part in her fast, stating, “We did not hide anything. Everyone knew Aradhana was fasting. They came and took selfies with her. Now some people are pointing fingers at us for allowing her to fast for 68 days” (Sudhir 2016). While police ultimately closed the case against her parents, unable to find any evidence that they coerced her to fast for such a long time, the prestige and notoriety that came along with such a lengthy fast clearly played a role in Aradhana’s decision to fast for as long as she did. The incident also sparked a conversation within the Jain community about curbing these lengthy fasts for minors. Jains are accused of rejecting the human natural state, but that natural state is violent, according to Jains. Jain asceticism reduces violence by turning away from the natural state, embracing essential nonviolence. Jainism is not neurotic. Self-denying exertions are not perverse self-harm. Fasting unto death is not suicide. These erroneous arguments are common in Asia and persist in Western discourse. For instance, the celebrated U.S. author Philip Roth, in his otherwise splendid

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American Pastoral, describes a protagonist’s antisocial, mentally ill daughter embracing perverse Jainism to justify violence. While some Hindu ascetics have a long tradition of acting violently, even serving as mercenaries, Jain ascetics engaging in violent activity is anomalous. That said, the term Jain comes from a Sanskrit term meaning “victor” or “conqueror.” The successfully liberated figure, such as the founder, Mahavir, whose very name means “great hero,” is considered a conqueror, a Jina. Jains embrace ideals of the violent warrior and conquering king, but these ideals serve to inspire intensity in the reduction of violence, ministering to the laity, and evolution of the individual ascetic toward liberation. Jains strive to be as extreme in nonviolence as an emperor is violent in conquest. Aaron Michael Ullrey and Steven M. Vose See also: Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Gender and Sexual Orientation (­Jainism); Sallekhana (Santhara) FURTHER READING Cort, John E. 2001. Jains in the World. New York: Oxford University Press. Dalrymple, William. 2011. “The Nun’s Tale.” In Nine Lives. New York: Vintage Departures. Dundas, Paul. 1991. “The Digambara Jain Warrior.” In Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey, eds. The Assembly of Listeners. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–­81​.­ Sudhir, Uma. 2016. “13-Year-Old Jain Girl Dies in Hyderabad After Fasting for 68 Days.” NDTV, October 9, 2016. ­https://​­www​.­ndtv​.­com​/­hyderabad​-­news​/­13​-­year​-­old​-­jain​ -­girl​-­dies​-­in​-­hyderabad​-­after​-­fasting​-­for​-­68​-­days​-­1471700.

BAHUBALI HILL AFFAIR(1980s) Contemporary descriptions of Bahubali Hill depict a peaceful Jain pilgrimage and tourism site, but during the early 1980s, the hilltop was a zone of conflict between Shvetambara and Digambara Jains that enlisted non-Jains and extended into local and regional politics. Shvetambara Jains aligned with local Hindus, namely the Marathas, against Digambaras, who aligned with the non-caste Hindu Dalits. Shvetambaras sought to construct and expand religious sites and structures to establish roots in the area and garner social prestige, a common practice in India that usually only causes short-lived tensions, but the Digambaras resisted, and tensions escalated. India witnessed public quarrelling among Jains. Ironically, Bahubali Hill is named after a Jain figure who renounced violence and became a monk after nearly killing his own brother in a duel. Bahubali Hill is a five-acre space near Kumbhoj, in the southern Maharashtra district of Kolhapur, approximately 230 miles south-southeast of Mumbai,

Jainism: Bahubali Hill Affair

near the Karnataka border. The Jain community is predominantly Digambara, but Shvetambaras migrated there—mostly from Gujarat in Northwest India—during the nineteenth century. Most Kolhapur Shvetambaras are moneylenders and traders; they are a prosperous minority among Jains. Most Digambaras in the region work in agriculture. Beginning in the late nineteenth and continuing into the twentieth century, Shvetambaras built a pilgrimage rest house that maintained Shvetambara affiliation but did not exclude Digambaras. Eventually, Shvetambaras constructed a temple that was larger than the long-established Digambara temple. The Digambaras installed a six-foot tall Bahubali statue in 1156 CE, but during the early twentieth century, they established a Digambara pilgrimage rest house, a Jain school, and a home for monks, and, in 1963, they built a twenty-eight-foot-high monolith of Bahubali. Competition over constructing larger and more expansive structures to garner prestige transformed a long-standing rivalry into outright hostility. The conflict unfolded as follows. In August 1981, some Digambara boys ­vandalized the Shvetambara shrine, casting much of the furniture into a well. ­Tensions simmered until February 1983, when a charismatic Digambara ascetic named Vidyananda attempted to march into the Shvetambara rest house. He met resistance, though reports varied as to the intensity, from verbal arguments to the ascetic being struck. In response, a prominent Shvetambara layman named Rasikbhai, having previously established connections to local Maratha political parties, advanced a rumor that Hindu Marathas wanted to place a shrine to the god Shiva and to the Maratha freedom fighter Shivaji on Bahubali Hill. To complicate matters, Marathas erroneously believed the Digambara temple had been built on a site affiliated with Shivaji. Maratha politicians had suffered recent election losses to Digambara and Dalit politicians. Rasikbhai conspicuously placed his rumor in newspapers, exploiting the Shvetambaras’ trade relationships with Marathas and stoking mutual resentment of Digambaras. In May 1983, Digambaras legally blocked construction of the Marathas’ Shivaji memorial statue; in June, the Digambaras began renovations to their original temple on the hill, enlarging it so that it was bigger than the Shvetambara one, and damaging the Shvetambara temple in the process. On September 16, Shvetambaras attained a legal injunction to stop Digambara construction, but the stop was brief. On October 10, the Marathas publicized their intent to build the Shivaji statue, and armed police, having Maratha ties, occupied the hill to guard the Shivaji statue site. At this point, the Digambara ascetic Vidyananda, who had previously marched to the Shvetambara pilgrimage rest house, began a fast unto death as protest. To complicate matters, a politically connected, Mumbai-based Digambar woman named Sharyu Daphtari backed the Dalits against the Marathas, with whom they

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had long quarreled. She and a number of Dalit women started a fast as a form of protest. Digambaras and Harijans were united against the affiliated Shvetambaras and Marathas. On October 12, 1983, the Digambaras declared a silent march and retail shutdown. Vidyananda publicly warned politicians about the emerging conflict. The building ban against Digambaras was dropped. The next day, prominent Digambara and Maratha politicians met with Vidyananda and promising not to build the Shivaji memorial and to investigate the police superintendent. All fasts halted. On October 18, Vidyananda declared success, arguing that the old ways of fasting could foster communal harmony in modern times. The next day, a prominent Maratha figure announced that the Marathas would not stop until the Shivaji statue was built. The conflict was not over. Some politicians abandoned the Maratha cause, and others took up the charge. Sushilabai Patil, a local politician who suffered a recent loss, sided with the Shivaji statue proponents; though after her election victory on November 13, she eventually withdrew support. Upon Sushilabai’s victory, local Marathas held a victory parade at Bahubali Hill, marching through the Bahubali school and throwing stones at the monks’ residence and the Bahubali statue. Vidyananda began another fast in reaction, starting November 16, and Digambaras demonstrated, joined by a number of Dalits. On December 4, roughly fifteen hundred Digambaras and supporters were arrested and briefly detained; in reaction, Digambaras immediately erected barriers to the school and hilltop. On December 11, a number of state politicians were caught between stone-throwing crowds on the hilltop; one politician, a number of Shvetambaras, and a few Digambaras were mildly injured. On December 17, local police shut down the entire area and tore down the barriers. National interest piqued. Marathas agitated, and the government was forced to intervene. Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, sent a delegation to Bahubali. The delegation arrived on December 21 and was able to cool matters. Vidyananda ended his fast on December 22. Published tracts and public pronouncements that had driven the conflict slowed. In the 1984 elections, the Marathas gained electoral power, severely limiting Jain local political power. Though the violence was minor, with no fatalities, Jains readily appealed to violent non-Jain groups. Long-standing tensions and escalating events resolved only with appeal to local and national politics. Jains demonstrated their capability to enter the swirl of Indian communalism in which solidarities based on religious or ethnic identities are weaponized for political benefit. Aaron Michael Ullrey See also: Jainism: Anup Mondal; Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict; Tirthankaras

Jainism: Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict FURTHER READING Carrithers, Michael. 1988. “Passion of Nation and Community in the Bahubali Affair.” Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 4: 815–44. Singh, Chander Uday. 1984. “Two Jain Sects Battle over Control of Bahubali Dongar Hilltop in Maharashtra.” India Today, January 15, 1984. ­https://​­www​.­indiatoday​.­in​ /­magazine​/­indiascope​/­story​/­19840115​-­two​-­jain​-­sects​-­battle​-­over​-­control​-­of​-­bahubali​ -­dongar​-­hilltop​-­in​-­maharashtra​-­803572​-­1984​-­01​-­15.

DIGAMBARA-SHVETAMBARA CONFLICT Jain followers are divided into two groups: the Shvetambaras (Shvay-tam-bara), whose mendicants, sadhus (saad-do) wear white clothing, and the Digambaras (dee-gam-bara), whose mendicants practice nudity. Shvetambara means “clad in white,” and Digambara means “clad [only] in the sky/directions”—that is, nude. Both groups reside throughout urban India, but the majority of Shvetambaras live in the Northwest and Digambaras in the South. Nuanced sectarian differences exist about Jain history and practice, but mendicant nudity is the most striking and most discussed. Other divisions were inspired by conflicts, such as proper dwelling places and acceptable possessions for mendicants, historical events and dates, types of worship offerings, and even whether or not to worship images. Disputes appear minor to the outsider but lead to heated debates and simmering tensions among Jains. Philosophy conflicts are not as intensely debated. Since it is so important, let us address mendicant nudity. Shvetambaras assert that clothing is not a possession but a support for religious life, and they maintain that Mahavira (ma-haa-veer-a), considered the founder of Jainism and most recent tirthankara (tier-ton-kara), wore a divine cloth during his early renunciation, justifying mendicants wearing white cloth; however, Mahavir soon abandoned that cloth and was nude for the rest of his life. Digambaras argue that nudity is the logical conclusion of nonpossession, and Mahavira’s example of nudity ought to be followed literally. Women mendicants (sadhvi, saad-dhwi) in both groups are always clad in white; this is said to prevent sexual assault. Shvetambaras emphasize the benefits of wearing white, such as protecting tiny creatures living on the body and not inspiring sexual excitement from seeing naked bodies. White clothing is akin to carrying a water vessel and a fan, accepted by both sects. Shvetambaras argue that twenty-two of the twenty-four tirthankaras, prior revealers of Jainism, wore clothing. There has been little change over time in this practice. Male Digambara mendicants (sadhu; saad-dhoo) practice nudity to follow the tirthankaras’ example and also for philosophical reasons. Wearing no clothing

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rejects the most fundamental possessions, not having “the clothes on his back.” Nudity prevents the violence that is inherent in manufacturing cloth (i.e., harvesting cotton plants and harming creatures during the processing, weaving, and transportation). Nudity forces the reduction of libido, because excitement—that is, erections—cannot be hidden. With no barrier between the body and the world, a mendicant faces the elements directly, enhancing ascetic practices by making exertions more difficult and, thereby, more productive. Finally, Digambaras argue that nudity is essential for liberation; therefore, women cannot attain liberation and must secure a male body in a subsequent life. The practice of nudity faced pressure historically. Muslim rulers and British colonizers targeted the Digambaras, and they began to wear clothing in public spaces but were naked in private. Nudity practices faded. In the twentieth century, the practice was renewed, and nude mendicants, while not common, are encountered among Digambaras today. Shvetambara monks renounce possessions but retain certain equipment to support their practice. This may include simple white garb, a cloth mask covering the mouth, a water vessel, a begging bowl, a fan or broom, and a book stand, and some bear a staff. Digambaras carry only a broom made from discarded peacock feathers and a water pot, though some wear a mouth covering and carry physical scriptures. Such “possessions” reduce violence: filtered or boiled water prevents consuming water-bound beings, mouth coverings prevent accidentally inhaling insects, and the broom or fan sweeps away tiny creatures. Digambaras and Shvetambaras disagree about details of Mahavira’s life and chronology, though maintain his seventy-two-year life-span. Shvetambaras argue that Mahavira was conceived in the womb of a Brahmin (bra-min) woman of the priestly caste, but his embryo was transferred to a Kshatriya (ksha-tree-ya) body of the ruling class; they also propose that Mahavira was married and sired a daughter before his renunciation. Digambaras deny the embryo transference, asserting that Mahavira was conceived in and born to a Kshatriya. Digambaras deny that Mahavira married, let alone fathered offspring. Shvetambaras and Digambaras also dispute Mahavira’s birth and death dates. The initial split between Shvetambaras and Digambaras occurred one thousand years after Mahavira’s death. Responding to the prophesy of a twelve-year famine, a group of Jains left Magadha, in the east of India, traveling to Karnataka, in the South; they became the Digambaras. The remaining Jains began wearing white cloth exclusively; they became the Shvetambaras. Prior mendicants had the option of nudity or wearing simple white cloth. This event accounts for the geographic divisions of Jains. Digambaras live in southern India, mostly in Karnataka but also in Maharashtra, and Shvetambaras live mostly in northwestern India, clustered in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Jainism: Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict

The two groups depict tirthankaras differently. Mallinatha (Maa-lii-noth-a), the nineteenth tirthankara, is female, according to Shvetambaras, though she was liberated before menstruation occurred. Digambaras argue that all tirthanakaras were male. Shvetambaras argue that only two tirthankaras, Mahavira and Rishabha (Ri-sha-bha), practiced nudity, but Digambaras argue that all were nude. This contributes to iconography disputes. Physical conflicts are largely unknown, though ideological debates may become heated, establishing seemingly endless grudges. Digambaras and Shvetambaras peacefully partner in business and mingle comfortably socially; conflicts may arise regarding ownership of specific monuments. These conflicts manifest in legal disputes, arguments about different sects’ access to monuments, and groups constructing rival structures surrounding monument sites. Conflicts become especially heated during the refurbishing of monuments. The Digambara rejection of women’s ability to attain moksha reflects their acceptance that men’s aggressiveness is irreparably part of their nature, and women cannot go about naked the way monks do without being subjected to sexual violence. However, we must be careful not to read the Shvetambara tradition as somehow more “progressive” than their Digambara counterparts. While the Shvetambaras maintain that women can attain moksha, they agree with Digambaras that women’s bodies are inherently violent: not only is menstruation a source of violence, but women’s bodies also harbor untold numbers of microscopic life-forms, to which the friction of their bodily folds causes near-constant harm. Jain doctrine considers sexual intercourse an act of violence toward these numerous beings and proffer that it should be limited to procreation; many Jain couples opt to remain celibate after they have children. Further, even though Shvetambaras hold that the nineteenth Jina, Mallinatha (mul-lee-NAHT-ah), was a girl, they maintain that she attained her female body because she was deceitful in her previous life; she also attained omniscience and liberation before menarche, avoiding the problems of how an omniscient being could have an inherently violent body. Still, there are between three and eight times as many nuns as there are monks in the Shvetambara tradition, depending on the subsect. Mendicancy is seen as a viable alternative to marriage. Aside from the austere ascetic world view that cautions people to avoid harming other beings, Jains also have rich devotional lives. Lay Jains regularly pay honor to living monks and nuns. Many Jains also worship images of the Jinas and other famous ascetics in temples. Shvetambaras bathe and adorn the images with sandalwood paste, a “cooling substance,” to symbolize the “cooling” of the passions; they also adorn the images with jewels and flowers to symbolize the victory of the Jinas and the “flowering” of liberation that comes from the defeat

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of karma. However, some Jains objected to the violence involved in bathing the images, grinding sandalwood into paste, picking flowers for selfish and unnecessary purposes, and adorning the image of an ascetic with kingly symbols. These Jains formed the Sthanakavasi (STAHN-ah-ka-vah-see) and Terapanthi (tehr-AH-pahnt-hee) sects. They do not make images but rather venerate only their living monks and nuns. In the Digambara tradition, Jains worship in temples and in front of images but do not touch or adorn the image itself to avoid some of the same violence to which the Sthanakavasis and Terapanthis object. Instead, Digambara image worship is done in front of the image without touching it, and offerings are transferred from one plate to the other to symbolically adorn the image. Several recent Digambara movements, focused on devotion to charismatic monks, have also eschewed image worship. Recent disputes include the Bahubali conflict in the 1980s; another example is the Keshariyanatha Temple, near Udaipur. After Indian independence, Shvetambaras claimed temple control, citing prior patronage, but Digambaras asserted control based on temple inscriptions, and the Rajasthan State declared it a Hindu temple. The Indian Supreme Court awarded administration to Shvetambaras in 1974, but this was only implemented in 2007. Disputed possession of the Antariksha image of the tirthankara Parshvanath in Maharashtra created a donation race, driving bitterness across India. Tensions persist regarding old Digambara temples that were “revived” as Shvetambara sites, such as Kesarwadi in Tamil Nadu. Rival temples often exist near one another, such as the Vimalanatha Temple in Uttar Pradesh that commemorates auspicious life moments for the thirteenth tirthankara; recently, the two groups competed at expanding grounds and structures on their respective sites. This pattern is common. Aaron Michael Ullrey and Steven M. Vose See also: Jainism: Bahubali Hill Affair (1980s); Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Mahavira (Fifth Century BCE); Svastika (Swastika) FURTHER READING Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India. Leiden: Brill. Dundas, Paul. 1992. The Jains. London: Routledge. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 1991. Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. Long, Jeffery D. 2009. Jainism: An Introduction. London: I. B. Tauris. Wiley, Kristi L. 2004. Historical Dictionary of Jainism. Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(JAINISM) While Jainism espouses the belief that all living beings can achieve salvation, one of the major sectarian differences between Digambara and Shvetambara Jains rests precisely on this issue in regard to gender and sexual orientation. The former argue that a woman cannot achieve moksha—liberation—in her female body, and as such, she must ultimately reincarnate as a male monk in a future life to attain it; the latter refutes such a view. Given this formative split, Jain scholars have produced a wide-ranging discourse that critically examines ideas of gender and touches topics, such as female salvation and monasticism, as well as the social roles of women as mothers, nuns, and temptresses. This debate is further complicated by Jain attempts to theorize about homosexuality and the “third sex,” which emerges as a byproduct from these conversations. Central to this conversation is the important issue of nudity. All Jain traditions agree that the spiritual teachers of Jainism—and especially the twenty-fourth and latest tirthankara Mahavira—practiced naked asceticism. Digambara scholars interpreted this to mean it is necessary for monks to conduct themselves without clothing. They argued that this represented the ideal practice of aparigraha, or the renunciation of property and possessions. Shvetambara Jains took a different view. They believed that renouncing clothing was an optional part of mendicancy, and, instead, they conducted themselves while wearing white robes. As the debate over nudity intensified over time, the Shvetambaras eventually claimed that nudity is not an advisable or appropriate practice for this current age at all. In fact, Shvetambara monks interpret the white robes as tools that enhanced religious life. The Digambara injunction of female monasticism is related to this issue of nudity. Women could not be naked because their bodies were viewed as literal sites of violence. The Digambara scholar Kundakunda (c. second century CE) famously wrote, “In the genital organs of women, in between their breasts, in their navels, and in their armpits, it is said [in the scriptures that] there are very subtle living beings. How can there be the mendicant ordination . . . for them [since they must violate the vow of ahimsa]?” (Suttapahua verse 7). The implication of the verse is that women’s bodies allowed innumerable insects and microbial creatures to proliferate and exist in a constant state of death and rebirth. Thus, women constantly break the cardinal principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, which was a strict requirement for monasticism. For this reason, Digambara scholars argued that women must wear clothing; however, this also signaled to them that women remained attached to material goods and possessions. Furthermore, they claimed that this attachment meant that women were possessed of some residual sexual desires—evidenced by their feeling ashamed when undressed. Women, then, were not able to be mendicants, which also meant that they lacked the possibility for liberation, which required complete

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renunciation of clothing and desire. Digambara “nuns” do exist, but their status is comparable to a highly elevated layperson than an equal to a male monastic. Shvetambara scholars responded to the “nudity debates” by first agreeing with the inappropriateness of nude nuns for the larger Jain community. However, because the Shvetambara tradition allows the wearing of clothing—which, again, they viewed as enhancing rather than detracting from religious life—there was no reason why women could not be nuns. In this way, nuns were equal to their male counterparts, as well as equally eligible for salvation. For the Shvetambara at least, salvation became less of a biological concern and more of an issue of spiritual development. However, despite Shvetambaras allowing female mendicants, these women were still under the control, supervision, and hierarchal subordination of male monks. The broader Jain literary tradition also voiced positive and negative representations of women. On the one hand, women were idealized as goddesses, virtuous mothers to tirthankaras, chaste and righteous wives, and (in the Shvetambaras’ case) as nuns and even the nineteenth tirthankara. At the same time, laywomen were often viewed as sexual agents with uncontrollable desires that would seduce Jain monks and prevent them from pursuing their spiritual goals. Women are described as catlike and predatory, tempting monks “to a comfortable couch or bed” (Sūtṛakrtaṅgasutra 1.4.2–10). Jain nuns were either absent altogether from these stories, or, when they were depicted (by Shvetambara sources), they were turned into sexual agents too. They were shown as needing to protect their chastity from both their own sexual desires and from male molesters. In this case, while the literary tradition does offer valorized depictions of women, it nonetheless leveled a textual violence against them by limiting the range of archetypes that women could embody. The debates regarding female mendicancy and salvation lead Jain scholars to also tackle the question of sexuality. Much like other Indic religions, Jainism accepted a pan-Indian concept of the “third sex.” However, they rejected the Brahmanical view of gender that focused on primary and secondary biological characteristics. Instead, Jainism split sexual orientation from biological gender; in the process, they revalorized the term veda, which referred both to physical sex and sexuality. What became important for the Jain community was less what gender markers people possessed but rather their sexual behavior. This behavior could be oriented toward men, women, or the third sex, but it was equally condemned—especially for monastics—because sexual behavior at large challenges the doctrine of brahmacharya or chastity. Several scholars (Jaini, Zwilling, and Sweet) have claimed that this premodern system of gender and sexuality is comparably modern in style. Yet, it is not clear how a particularly Jain view of sexual difference has survived to contemporary times. This is to say that Jain ideas of sexuality and the third sex have seemingly collapsed into the broader conversation about sexual identity—as in

Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

the case of the better-documented hijra—and legislation—as in the case of Indian Penal Code 377. Concern about gender-based violence remains present within a tradition such as Jainism despite the fact that it advocates nonviolence across the board, even to the most miniscule of creatures. A 2007 study (Das Dasgupta and Jain) examined reports of domestic abuse in Jain communities both in the United States and India. They found that many incidents of a husband’s harsh rebuke against his spouse worked alongside other, more subtle forms of control and violence that were enacted upon women through metaphysical, scriptural, or literary claims. Ninety-one percent of women commented that they were aware of gender-based abuse—typically as emotional violence in the form of insults—while only 58 percent of men were similarly aware. What this case revealed is that not only is violence toward women generally overlooked by men as appropriate conduct between spouses—much to the chagrin of women—but it also raises the discrepancy between the normative view of nonviolence within the tradition and the lived practice of it. In 2017, headlines broke with an unprecedented story about a young, wealthy Jain couple—Sumit and Anamika Rathore—pursuing lives as Shvetambara monastics. In doing so, they abdicated their large, personal fortune, as well as responsibility of their three-year old daughter. This did not come to a surprise to their families, who were aware of their intentions to undergo diksha—the preparatory ritual before undertaking religious vows—two years prior. Despite their families’ initial attempt at dissuading them, they both became monks in September: Sumit first, and Anamika soon after. The Gujarat State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR) and the Gujarat State Commission for Women (GSCW) temporarily halted Anamika’s diksha via legal injunction, preventing the parents from undergoing the preparatory rites simultaneously until their daughter’s adoption by other family members was further along. This pause on Anamika’s diksha offers a unique case study for critical questions about sexual difference in Jainism, especially as monasticism in Jainism is often tied to salvation. Jainism’s reckoning with sexual difference illuminates Anamika’s—and ­Sumit’s—decision to become a monastic in a significant way. The response of activists and the general public was largely of disapproval, which is why the GSCPCR and the GSCW intervened; people were concerned about the prospects of their daughter lacking familial love, especially before it became clear that Anamika’s father would take care of her. Both parents, but Anamika’s choice especially, buttressed up against a domestic ideal of a pious householder, which most Jain women favor. Scholarship on female renunciation (Sethi) indicates that women turn to monasticism for a variety of reasons. One is that renunciation offers an alternative to the traditional role of a married wife. In this sense, becoming a nun gives Anamika a certain level of independence and autonomy that would otherwise be

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fettered by her duties as a wife. This alternative is sanctioned by Jainism’s own discourse about all living creatures being able to achieve salvation. Thus, Anamika’s decision for self-determined religiosity challenges and absorbs the various representations of sexual difference that Jainism offers. Michael Anderson See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict; Sallekhana (Santhara); Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Das Dasgupta, Shamita, and Shashi Jain. 2007. “Ahimsa and the Contextual Realities of Woman Abuse in the Jain Community.” In Body Evidence: Intimate Violence against South Asian Women in America. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, pp. 152–63. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. London: Routledge. Jaini, Padmanabh. 1991. Gender & Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reddy, Gayatri. 2005. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sethi, Manisha. 2012. Escaping the World: Women Renouncers among Jains. London: Routledge. Zwilling, Leonard, and Michael J. Sweet. 1996. “‘Like a City Ablaze’: The Third Sex and the Creation of Sexuality in Jain Religious Literature.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 6, no. 3: 359–84. Zwilling, Leonard, and Michael J. Sweet. 2000. “The Evolution of Third-Sex Constructs in Ancient India: A Study in Ambiguity.” In Julia Leslie and Mary McGee, eds. Invented Identities: The Interplay of Gender, Religion and Politics in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, School of Oriental and African Studies, pp. 99–132.

MAHAVIRA(FIFTH CENTURY BCE) Mahavira seems to have been an older contemporary of the Buddha, as the latter makes mention of the “Son of the Jnatris” as another great living spiritual leader of his time, and so dates Mahavira to somewhere between 480 and 400 BCE. There is some evidence that the twenty-third Jina, Parshvanatha (PARSH-wah-naht-ah), was also a historical person, as Mahavira’s parents were said to be his devotees, but evidence of his life is very thin, and it is difficult to assess just when he might

Jainism: Mahavira

have lived. Jain sources claim he lived some 250 years before Mahavira, dating him to somewhere between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE. The other Jinas were said to have lived many tens of thousands, or even billions, of years before these final two. Mahavira (Ma-haa-veera), whose name means “great hero,” is considered the founder—or better yet, reestablisher—of Jainism in our current era. He advocated complete nonviolence, vegetarianism, and liberation through cessation of action. Mahavira is an honorific title; his childhood name was Vardhamana (Var-dha-mana), “the Increaser.” Jainism was not invented by Mahavira. It is discovered anew, the truths ever present throughout the universe, by each of the twenty-four tirthankaras (teir-taan-kara), “Makers of the Path,” of whom Mahavira is the most recent. He is a historical figure, appearing in rival religions’ scriptures. While Shvetambaras (Shve-tam-bara) and Digambaras (Dee-gam-bara) maintain different dates for his birth and death, they agree on his seventy-two-year life-span. We know Mahavira lived in the fourth to fifth century BCE, an elder contemporary of the Buddha. Mahavira lived in East India, in Greater Magadha, an area where early Buddhism emerged and where occurred philosophical revolutions in early Hinduism. He drew together early Jain communities established by Parshvanatha (Par-shva-na-ta), a prior semihistorical tirthankara. Mahavira preached that karmas or actions bind the soul (jiva; jee-va) in a cycle of rebirth, though ascetic practice can not only cease karma generation but can remove prior karma that was accumulated during infinite former lifetimes, thereby inducing liberation. Asceticism that liberates is his unique contribution to religious thought, and his own perfect asceticism proved it effective. No direct words of Mahavira survive, but his teachings inspired voluminous scriptures attributed to him. Rival religious groups describe him and his teachings in a way that is consistent with Jain sources (Bronkhurst 2007, 15–27). Mahavira’s birth details are controversial. Shvetambaras argue that Mahavira was conceived in the womb of a Brahmin (bra-min), but a god transferred his embryo to the womb of a Kshatriya (ksha-tree-ya). Digambaras deny Mahavira’s conception in a Brahmin womb. His parents were nonrenunciate devotees of Parsvanatha. Tirthankaras are only born into Kshatriya families, for they must be possible emperors or religious figures. The power of a king to deploy violence in service of rule is channeled into a tirthankara’s might to destroy karma and spread nonviolence (Dundas 1991). Mahavira fulfilled the duties of a Kshatriya; he, in fact, married a princess and had a daughter, though Digambaras deny that he married or sired a child. At the age of thirty, Mahavira considered his householder duties and debts to his parents complete; he became a mendicant, renouncing all possessions, including clothing. Shvetambaras argue that the gods gave him a celestial cloth (devaduushya; de-va do-shya), but later dropped it, and he abandoned clothing

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completely; Digambaras deny this celestial cloth. Mahavira plucked his hair and moved to the forest to perform extreme ascetic practices. For twelve years, he wandered, fasting for long periods, maintaining silence, avoiding most human contact, and performing great penances; all the while he forewent shelter and was exposed to the harsh elements. After twelve and a half years, Mahavira, aged forty-two, achieved omniscience (kevalajnana; ke-vala-gya-na). He began to preach, attracting Brahmins who formed the initial Jain mendicant communities. Mahavira taught the five vows (mahavrata; ma-haa-vra-ta) consisting of nonviolence (ahimsa; a-heem-sa), always truth-speaking (satya; sat-ya), celibacy (brahmacarya; bra-ma-char-ya), and nonpossession (aparigraha, a-paari-gra-ha). He wandered northern India, teaching, for thirty years, and he died/attained liberation at the age of seventy-two. He now exists actionless, in a permanent luminous state, in a perfected world; he does not interact with other beings, nor does he dispense grace or answer prayers, existing only as a beacon of goodness and an example of ascetic ideals. Mahavira’s life follows similar patterns as the life of the Buddha, as well as Jesus Christ, save martyrdom. A paragon of nonviolence, Mahavira engaged in an unexpected wizard battle with a former student that proved lethal. Makkhali Gosala (Mak-khalee Go-sala) traveled and practiced with Mahavira for six years during Mahavira’s ascetic period before his omniscience, but Gosala left, becoming the leader of another religious group. His group, the Ajivikas, argued for Jain-like asceticism that could cease karma from being generated, but, unlike Jain doctrine, prior karma cannot be eliminated, and the soul must persist until prior karmas run out (Bronkhorst 2000). During their time together, Mahavira taught Gosala a practice to generate powerful interior heat, harnessing yogic fire (tapas; ta-pas). Later, after Mahavira’s omniscience, the two met. Verbal tensions escalated, and Gosala used yogic fire to incinerate two of Mahavira’s disciples. Then Gosala deployed the fire against Mahavira, proclaiming that Mahavira would die in six months. Gosala died soon after as the result of his yogic fire. Mahavira was able to cure himself. This is a Shvetambara tale, following Indic tropes about magic turning against those who deploy it. Digambaras deny close contact between Mahavira and Gosala, arguing that Gosala was a disciple of Parshvanatha, whom Mahavira rejected and who then founded the perverse Ajivika doctrine (Wiley 2004, 136). Mahavira inspires Jains and non-Jains. Mahavira Jayanti (jai-yan-ti) celebrates his birth, and Jain Divali (dee-va-lee) celebrates his liberation. During Mahavira Jayanti, people recall Mahavira’s life, but they also parade his images in processions, make offerings to his images, and attend mendicant lectures, most often about nonviolence. Jain Divali coincides with Hindu Divali and is the Jain New Year, celebrated with gift giving, hanging lights, and ritual fasting. Because Jains

Jainism: Sallekhana

adhere to nonviolence, they do not participate with Hindus in exploding firecrackers (Cort 2011, 165–75; 181–82). Jains regularly tell Mahavira’s life story in religious services, open lectures, and informal storytelling. His perfect ascetic example is meditated upon daily, enlivening all Jain teachings and practices. His twenty-two painful “endurances” during renunciation are recounted to enrich his teaching, soothe ascetics, and inspire fasting and asceticism. Non-Jains, too, recount his life and teachings, mostly regarding nonviolence; Gandhi credited Mahavira with inspiring nonviolent resistance. Yet, Mahavira is separate from the world, unacting and unaffected; he is not worshipped like Buddhist or Hindu gods who dispense favors, grace, and even liberation. Offerings to him do not touch him, unlike transactional offerings in other religions. His temples are found throughout western India; the oldest in Rajasthan dates from the eighth century. His images are readily encountered, a beacon of goodness, and his inspiration indirectly delivers well-being and prosperity (Cort 2011, 117; 138–41). Aaron Michael Ullrey and Steven M. Vose See also: Jainism: Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict; Tirthankaras FURTHER READING Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2000. “The Riddle of the Jainas and Ājivakas in Early Buddhist Literature.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28, no. 5/6: 511–29. Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India. Leiden: ­Brill​.­ Cort, John E. 2001. Jains in the World Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dundas, Paul. 1991. “The Digambara Jain Warrior.” In Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey, eds. The Assembly of Listeners. Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–81. Dundas, Paul. 1992. The Jains. London: Routledge. Long, Jeffery D. 2009. Jainism: An Introduction. London: I. B. Tauris. Wiley, Kristi L. 2004. Historical Dictionary of Jainism. Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

SALLEKHANA (SANTHARA) One of the most controversial practices in Jainism is the rite of sallekhana (sal-LAYK-ha-na), also known as santhara (sant-HA-rah). When a person is no longer able to lead a proper Jain life due to a terminal disease, such as cancer, or the infirmities that come with aging, such as blindness, they may choose to undergo the rite of sallekhana, whereby they gradually wean themselves off of food and water to allow their bodies to pass away. A Jain, whether a mendicant or layperson, must get permission from the head of their monastic order to undertake the rite. Some Jains who are nearing death will

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take the vows to perform sallekhana mere hours before their deaths, while others may take weeks, months, or even years to complete the rite. In the lengthier cases, they gradually limit their range of foods, going to simpler and simpler foods in smaller and smaller quantities. Eventually, when they are ready, they give up solid food and subsist on milk and a mixture of rice and water, and then just water. At the very end, they give up even water, at which point, death is imminent. While the practice is mentioned in the Jain canon, there are differences among Jain sects about who may undertake this rite, if they allow it at all. Yet Jains have mounted a vigorous defense against the charge that it is a form of suicide. This practice is sanctioned in the Jain scriptures, and there is ample evidence that many Jains chose to die this way in ancient and medieval India. However, it is not recommended for everyone, and some Jain sects claim it is not to be done at all, while others say only the most accomplished ascetics have the wherewithal to end their lives this way. Others, however, allow it for anyone willing and serious enough to undertake it. Jains have answered to the charge that this is a form of suicide by pointing out that suicide is an act of passion, decided upon by desperate people and carried out in a hurried manner in a state of mind in which they are wrapped up in their passions. Even in “assisted suicide,” the person tries to make death as painless as possible. Jains see sallekhana, instead, as an ascetic practice meant to achieve the final goal of separating the mind from its investment in the passions, rendering the division between the body and the soul clear. One must not crave or long for death, nor must the practitioner fear it; rather, the person should cultivate an attitude of ascetic indifference to death. It is not generally taken in the heat of the moment but is, rather, a way to calm and focus the mind on dying a death with self-control and dignity. A person may also choose not to complete the rite once undertaken. However, as with the issue of public fasting, this rite is extremely prestigious for the family of one who passes away this way. There are, therefore, subtle, and even overt, forms of coercion that may influence a person’s decision to undertake and complete the rite of sallekhana. News reports have noted a decided uptick in the number of Jain laypeople dying by this method in the last decade. One Jain neighborhood in Mumbai had some four hundred people die by sallekhana in a span of seven years (Chhapia 2015). This neighborhood was largely comprised of Jains from a rural part of India; having so many people die by santhara granted this upwardly mobile community a great deal of prestige. Most of these deaths were regarded as sallekhanas in the final days or hours of a person’s life. Because of the prestige issues, and because elderly people and especially widows are particularly vulnerable to being coerced into undertaking the rite, a human rights group took up the issue in the Rajasthan High Court, alleging that sallekhana must be considered suicide and, therefore, outlawed. In 2015, the court agreed and deemed the practice illegal. Since the State of Rajasthan is

Jainism: Svastika

home to many Jains, this was an especially stunning blow to the Jain community across the country. Protests sprung up in Delhi, the capital of India and elsewhere, quickly prompting the Supreme Court of India to issue a stay on the ruling, as lawyers for the Jains argued that this violated their right of religious freedom. Suicide was decriminalized two years later, rendering the decision moot. Steven M. Vose See also: Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Asceticism FURTHER READING Chhapia, Hemali. 2015. “In 7 Years, Mumbai Suburb Sees 400 Santharas.” The Times of India, August 15, 2015. ­https://​­timesofindia​.­indiatimes​.­com​/­city​/­mumbai​/­In​-­7​-­years​ -­Mumbai​-­suburb​-­sees​-­400​-­Santharas​/­articleshow​/­48498345​.­cms. Hattangadi, Shekhar, director. 2015. Santhara: A Challenge to Indian Secularism? Tukol, T. K. 1975. Sallekhana Is Not Suicide. Ahmedabad: LD Institute of Indology.

SVASTIKA (SWASTIKA) The svastika is an ancient symbol with varied meanings across cultures. Depicted as two hooked lines crossed in the center, resulting in a four-armed wheel, the svastika is extremely auspicious within Jainism as well as in other Indian traditions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Although the svastika has become negatively associated with the Nazi Party in Germany and other twentieth-century and modern white supremacy movements, the symbol remains sacred in many parts of the world. Learning about the diverse and positive significance of the svastika in other cultures, including the Jain tradition, enriches our understanding of this symbol in modern society. The precise origins of the svastika are unknown. Svastika-like images were found in southern Russia, carved into ivory, dating back to the last Ice Age, over ten thousand years ago (Lowenstein 1941, 50). Distinctive svastika symbols, dating to 4000 BCE, can be found across agricultural regions, stretching from Eastern Europe and the Fertile Crescent of the Mediterranean through the Indus Valley and into China and Japan (52). Images have also been found in Greece and Nordic countries, suggesting a migration of the symbol between Asia and western Europe, although scholars debate which of these regions may have been an earlier origin point (54). The svastika has multiple meanings across cultures. Archaeologists have identified svastikas on female statues and alongside animal images that are potentially associated with fertility, as well as on funeral pottery, connecting the svastika to both life cycles and the possibility of rebirth (Lowenstein 1941, 51). The svastika

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may be associated with astronomical movements; for example, each of its four arms has been said to mark the position of the Ursa Major and Minor constellations throughout the year, reflecting an annual cycle (Seigfried 2001, 350). In Babylonia, the svastika appeared with other lunar symbols, though some scholars have asserted that it is a solar symbol of Indo-European origin, marking either the movement of the sun or moon across the sky (Lowenstein 1941, 54). The svastika has been connected to the earliest strata of the Vedas, the ancient ritual texts of India, dating to 1500 to 1200 BCE, where it may have been an actual tool composed of two crossed sticks, used to create fire during a ritual to Agni, a name ascribed both to the god of fire and one of the five elements constituting all material existence (Parker 1907, 540). The svastika has also been described as one of the earliest visual depictions of the Christian cross. Manly Hall, in his examination of shared global symbols, described the swastika as “perhaps the most nearly universal of religious emblems,” which, in its representation of the four corners of the world, was used, according to Hall, in Native American healing ceremonies (2003 [1928], 634). It has been argued that the ubiquitous use of the swastika across cultures may be traced to a fourth-century BCE comet, whose four-armed spiral appearance was drawn by ancient astronomers from China to Egypt (Coimbra 2011, 79–83). Because of its presence in multiple cultures, the swastika also has many names. Svastika derived from the Sanskrit su+asti+ka: su (meaning “good,” “well,” “virtuous,” etc.), asti (from the root “to be”) and the suffix “ka” (used with nouns to express diminution or “a little”) (Wiley 2009, 208). Thus, svastika can express “a little [sign of] well-being or goodness.” Across Europe, the swastika has multiple names. In Norse, it is called sólarhvel (“sun heel”); in Greek, the tetra-gammadion (the four-armed Gamma); it is the Roman crux hamus and German hakenkreuz (both meaning “hooked cross”), the English fylfot, and the French croix gammée. Across Asia, the svastika has been called sotthika in Pali and has taken names such as g.yung drung in Tibet (meaning “eternal or unchanging”), wan in China (meaning “myriad”), manji in Japan, and mancha in Korea (Buswell and Lopez 2014, 882). The swastika is an ancient and ubiquitous symbol in India. In popular culture, it is affiliated with the Hindu goddess Lakṣhmi and commonly denotes wealth and abundance (Long 2011, 291). It is an auspicious mark for Buddhists as well, beginning in India and transmitted across Southeast Asia with the movement of Buddhism to other countries. The svastika sometimes appears on the soles of the Buddha’s feet or on his chest and is frequently seen on Buddhist religious clothing, art, and temples (Buswell and Lopez 2014, 882). It has been argued that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (or Nazis) appropriated the svastika prior to World War II based, in part, on the mistaken belief that the Vedic traditions

Jainism: Svastika

commonly known as Hinduism had their roots in a pure, white race of “Aryans” who migrated to India from Central Asia or Eastern Europe (Long 2011, 291). The svastika offered the National Socialist Party with a visual connection to these ancient ancestors and a symbolic promise that Nazism could restore society to a state of racial purity. In the Jain tradition, the swastika signifies the wheel of life, death, and rebirth (samsara). Specifically, each arm of the symbol corresponds to the four birth states that one can inhabit in each existence. These four states (gati) include gods (deva), humans (manuṣya), hell beings (naraki), and animals and plants (tiryañca) (Jaini 2001, 108). The four arms also represent the fourfold Jain community of monks (sadhu), nuns (sadhvi), laymen (shravaka), and laywomen (shravika). Alternately, sometimes the four categories of the community are signified with a dot in each quadrant of the svastika. The svastika is a common image in Jain iconography. In fact, it is one of eight auspicious symbols (aṣṭamangala) in Jainism that were found etched into stone slabs from the Kuṣaṇa period at Mathura (second to third centuries CE) (Jaini 2001, 192). These sets of eight symbols were common throughout India, often associated with events such as a king’s coronation, though different traditions adopted symbols unique to their world views and goals. The eight objects for the Shvetambara sect include: (1) a svastika; (2) a mark on the chest of a Jina (shrivatsa); (3) a geometric whirlpool pattern (nandyavarta), containing an elaborate svastika within it; (4) a medicinal powder box (vardhamanaka); (5) a water pitcher (kalasha), often flanked by two eyes, representing right knowledge and perception; (6) a throne (bhadrasana); (7) a pair of fish (matsya-yugma); and (8) a mirror (darpana) (Titze 2001, 234). The Digambara tradition offers a slightly different list of eight that does not include the svastika. Statues of Suparshvanatha, the seventh Jina of this era, are identified by the mark (lanchana) of the svastika. The symbol commonly marks entrances to Jain temples; is integrated into initiation ceremonies (diksha) of monks and nuns; decorates book stands, song books, and clothing; and also adorns visual representations of the samavasaraṇa, or the great assembly of people, gods, and animals that occur when a Jina achieves omniscience. As an auspicious emblem, the svastika also plays a role in a temple ritual (caitya-vandana) in which lay Jains offer homage (puja) and personal reflection in front of (agra) the Jinas. This agra-puja often includes eight traditional substances—camphor, flowers, rice, incense, light, sweets, fruit, water—as well as additional offerings, such as waving a fan and flywhisk, holding a mirror up to the Jina image, and ringing a bell (Kelting 2001, 118). Many worshipers sit at a distance from the Jina images, behind a small table, upon which they make a svastika (or the more elaborate nandyavarta) from rice grains.

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A Jain may also use rice to create three dots atop the svastika, symbolizing the three jewels (ratnatraya) of right faith, understanding, and conduct needed to overcome the wheel of life and death to reach a state of unimpeded perception and liberation from rebirth (moksha), which is denoted by placing an additional rice crescent and dot over the image (Cort 2001, 17). Fruits, nuts, and coins may be placed on the svastika to signify the worshiper’s aim to give up food and material goods in pursuit of the Jain path (81). Rituals such as this have a “strongly improvisational character,” as there is no standardized formula (Dundas 2002, 207). Sitting behind this table with its svastika, fruit, and money, worshipers may then engage in any chosen mantra recitation, singing, or meditation that represents the inner, mental aspect of worship (bhava-puja) (Jaini 2001, 207). The svastika appears in a symbol of the Jain tradition that was accepted by all sects in 1975 (Jaini 2001, 316). The symbol consists of the keyhole shape of the universe (actually a stylized version of the universe, traditionally said to be in the shape of a man standing with his legs spread apart and his hands on his hips) filled, in the lower part, with a raised, open palm in the abhaya-mudra, signifying fearlessness. Inside the palm is a wheel containing the Sanskrit word “ahimsa,” nonharm, which Jains today equate with nonviolence. The svastika appears above the palm, signifying both the four possible birth states within samsara and the fourfold Jain community, topped with the “three jewel” dots—representing right faith, right knowledge, and right conduct—and the crescent shape and dot denoting the abode of liberated souls, signaling the possibility of liberation. Although the svastika is a visual reminder of the Nazis’ violent campaign of fascist nationalism during World War II, the meaning of this powerful symbol far exceeds this bleak association. In many cultures, include the Jain tradition, the svastika remains a dynamic symbol of seasons and cycles, the bond between life and death, and the auspicious efforts of individuals to seek a good and true life throughout their existence and beyond. Brianne Donaldson and Steven M. Vose See also: Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm); Digambara-Shvetambara Conflict FURTHER READING Buswell, Robert E., and Donald S. Lopez. 2014. “Swastika.” In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coimbra, Fernando. 2011. “The Astronomical Origins of the Swastika Motif.” In Proceedings of the International Colloquium organized in Valcamonica by the International Union of Prehistoric Sciences: The Intellectual and Spiritual Expressions of Non-Literate Peoples. Edited by Emmanuel Anati. Capo di Ponte: Ateliar, pp. 78–90. Cort, John. 2001. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jainism: Tirthankaras Dundas, Paul. The Jains. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Hall, Manly P. 2003 (1928). The Secret Teachings of All Ages. New York: Penguin Press. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 2001. The Jaina Path of Purification. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kelting, M. Whitney. 2001. Singing to the Jinas: Jain Laywomen, Mandal Singing, and the Negotiations of Jain Devotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loewenstein, John Prince. 1941. “The Swastika: Its History and Meaning.” Man 41: 49–55. Long, Jeffery. 2011. “Swastika.” In Historical Dictionary of Hinduism. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. Parker, William Thornton. 1907. “The Swastika: A Prophetic Symbol.” The Open Court 9, Article 4. ­http://​­opensiuc​.­lib​.­siu​.­edu​/­ocj​/­vol1907​/­iss9​/­4. Seigfried, Hans. 2001. “Good and Evil Under the Swastika.” Philosophy Today 45, no. 4: 349–56. Titze, Kurt. 2001. Jainism: A Pictorial Guide to the Religion of Non-Violence. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Wiley, Kristi. 2009. “Svastika.” In The A to Z of Jainism. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press.

TIRTHANKARAS Tirthankaras resemble prophets, teachers, and saints, but these religious functions are uniquely Jain. The twenty-four tirthankaras in the current era were born human after a succession of pious incarnations. They are great souls who achieved omniscience (kevalajnana; kay-vah-lah GYAH-nah), and then established Jain doctrine and found mendicant communities. At death, they are perfectly liberated, eternally existing in a luminescent state, inactive and unaffected by all action (karma). Tirthankaras should not be confused with unliberated gods. As prophets, they speak Jainism; as teachers, they elaborate truths; as saints, they are beacons of goodness. A few tirthankaras are individually highlighted in prayers, hymns, and dedicated temples, but most are invoked as the collective twenty-four. Mahavira is the most recent and final tirthankara of the current cycle of time, though infinite cycles precede and will come after the current one. The term tirthankara means “one who shows the way across” the ocean of life and suffering to the far shore of liberation, literally the “makers of the crossing.” The crossing (tirtha; tier-ta) has many meanings: a river ford; release from birth, death, and binding action; Jain temples, pilgrimages, and mendicant congregations; community of Jains; and site of teaching. Another translation is “congregation founders” (Cort 1995). They are not gods. They do not create a world; the world is self-created, persisting in eternal cycles. Gods are found in scriptures and mythologies, but they are flawed and violent, like humans with vast life-spans and powers. Nor are tirthankaras gods made flesh, for in Jainism only humans can be released; the human realm exists between intoxicating divine realms and the brutalities of hell realms.

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Tirthankaras’ lives bear a distinct pattern, containing the so-called five auspicious events (panca kalyanaka; pan-cha kal-yaa-naka). They are conceived (1) and born into Kshatriya (ksha-tree-ya) caste families, landowners and rulers, but they are destined, revealed in prophetic dreams, to become great spiritual teachers. (2) Their bodies display auspicious marks and powerful characteristics: great heights and life-spans support spiritual practices. When they are adults, they renounce their worldly lives to perform dreadful penances and austerities (3) until they inevitably gain omniscience (4), and then they preach, or, rather, they emit a divine sound (divyadhvani; div-ya dhva-nee) that humans interpret and record as teachings (agam; a-gam-a). Followers create communities and lineages of mendicants, who spread Jainism. The tirthankara eventually ends all activity and leaves the body (5) to persist in the Perfect World (siddhaloka; sid-dha lo-ka) as liberated beings, radiant, neither interacting with other perfected souls nor worldly entities; they have infinite potential to act, but complete dispassion prevents action. Tirthankaras are not reborn human or divine. These so-called five auspicious events—conception, birth, renunciation, attaining omniscience, and release/death—are commemorated in Jain festivals. Biographies are scant for most tirthankaras, but story collections contain dates and locations for the five events of each figure. Let us describe a few of these twenty-four figures and associates. Mahavira and Parshvanatha are historical figures; scholars argue that the other tirthankaras’ biographies are based on Mahavira’s but were enumerated with iconography and emblems in later phases of Jain scripture. Rishabha and Neminatha (nay-mee-NAHT-ha), along with Parshvanatha and Mahavira, inspire the most attention. Rishabha is the first. Before attaining omniscience, he imparted agriculture, crafts, and culture to humanity. He is depicted with long hair, and Indra requested that he not remove his head hair upon renunciation. His celebrated son Bahubali is not a tirthankara, but he attained omniscience, following renunciation that was prompted by nearly dealing a mortal blow to his brother in combat. Nemi, the twenty-second, is revered because he loved animals; seeing beasts that were to be slain for his wedding feast, he renounced the world. Nemi’s attendant, Ambika, is widely worshipped. Parshvanatha, the twenty-third, despite his liberated status, is worshipped to bestow grace, to remove obstacles, and even to bestow liberation. A common medieval story describes a prior incarnation of Parshvanatha saving a snake from burning in a Brahmin’s sacrificial fire, and in his tirthankara incarnation. That same Brahmin attacked him with falling rain and stones, but the snake, reborn as the snake king Dharanendra, shielded him with his mighty cobra hood. Dharanendra’s spouse is Padmavati, an unliberated spirit who is worshipped throughout India for pragmatic matters. Mahavira established Jainism in this era.

Jainism: Tirthankaras

One tirthankara, Mallinatha, has engendered conflict. Digambaras argue that tirthankaras are all male, but Shvetambaras describe this nineteenth tirthankara as female; no identifiable female depictions are found. According to some Jains, a long-living and exceptionally powerful tirthankara named Simandhar resides in another world but is devoted to freeing humans. Advanced souls may contact him to resolve doubts and contradictions. Because he is living, he may interact with other beings; his image is encountered in several North Indian temples. Tirthankaras are completely removed from the world, but Jains engage in devotional acts as if the tirthankaras were present. Prayers and material offerings–often, but not always, made to images—are meditative and aspirational, but these actions may avert danger and illness as well as attract prosperity (Cort 2001). Their life stories are reverently told, and their birthdays are commemorated in festivals. Furthermore, devotional practices to tirthankaras can destroy prior karmas (Cort 2002). Tirthankaras’ attendant deities (sasanadevata; Shah-sah-na-DAY-va-tah) and world-bound associates may accept transactional offerings and act on the worshippers’ behalf. Such deities incorporate local and pan-Indian deities into Jainism; their diminutive shrines are regularly worshipped at the periphery of Jain temples (Cort 2000). Some texts prescribe worship practices to tirthankaras and attendants that create worldly prosperity, and some even enable aggressive magic (Ullrey 2016). Jain mendicants renounce violence, and Jain layfolk limit violence, but Jains and tirthankaras are not pacifists. Tirthankaras are kings and warriors before their renunciation; Rshabhanatha revealed the art of swordsmanship. Martial conquest is the overarching imagery for tirthankaras and Jain ascetics; in one text, Jainism is described “as a weapon of war,” ascetic practices are like a conquering army, and a mendicant should abandon his body like the body of slain enemy (Dundas 1991). Aaron Michael Ullrey See also: Jainism: Bahubali Hill Affair (1980s); Mahavira (Fifth Century BCE) FURTHER READING Cort, John E. 1995. “The Rite of Veneration of Jina Images.” In Religions of India in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 326−332. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cort, John E. 2000. “Worship of Bell-Ears the Great Hero, a Jain Tantric Deity.” In David Gordon White ed. Religions of Tantra in Practice, 417–433. Princeton: Princeton ­University Press. Cort, John E. 2001. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cort, John E. 2002. “Bhakti in the Early Jain Tradition: Understanding Devotional Religion in South Asia.” History of Religions 42, no. 1: 59–86.

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Religious Violence Today Dundas, Paul. 1991. “The Digambara Jain Warrior.” In Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey, eds. The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 169–86. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Ullrey, Aaron Michael. 2016. “Grim Grimoires: Pragmatic Ritual in the Magic Tantras.” PhD Thesis, University of California.

VEGETARIANISM Vegetarianism is one of the distinguishing hallmarks of the Jain tradition, practiced by both the mendicant and lay communities. In many early Jain texts, meat is described as unfit for consumption (abhakshya) (Kapadia 2010 [1962], 163–66) and is uniquely prohibited as a medicinal food in a ninth-century Jain medical treatise (Rao 2005, 64). There remains debate, however, as to the origins of Jain vegetarianism and its link to the pan-Indian concept of ahimsa, or noninjury in thought, word, and deed (Chapple 1993, 4–5). Consuming animal flesh is frequently linked with physical and spiritual impurity across cultural texts in South Asia, though these injunctions do not mandate giving up meat entirely (Dundas 2000, 99–101; Doniger 2009, 316–19). It has been argued that the early indigenous Shramana ascetic communities—from which Jainism and Buddhism emerged—rejected Vedic animal sacrifice and all forms of slaughter were likely brought by Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent in the second millennium BCE (Alsdorf 2010 [1962], 2–15). Yet, there are also a few historical examples of Jains consuming animal flesh when it was provided as alms to ascetics or when a lay person was sick, or during famine (Dundas 2002, 177). Whatever latent disputes remain, vegetarianism is now virtually synonymous with the Jain tradition as a practice that (1) derives from the wider Jain world view, (2) reflects the vow of ahimsa, (3) demonstrates the spiritual and ethical import of food, and (4) remains a dynamic issue among Jains in India and abroad. Ahimsa is related to Jain vegetarianism because consuming food requires injury to other beings, whether plants or animals, and, thus, the accumulation of karma to the consumer. However, consuming animals has a much higher karmic consequence than consuming most plants. This calculation is based on a Jain taxonomy of life that divides living beings according to the number of senses they possess. Plants, as well as elemental earth, air, fire, water, and wind all share the single sense of touch. The most subtle of these one-sensed beings, called nigodas, do not even have individual bodies but live and die from moment to moment in clusters, often living on other host organisms (Wiley 2009, 156). The second sense, taste, is possessed by organisms such as leeches, worms, and mollusks. Smell is

Jainism: Vegetarianism

the third sense, attributed to most insects and spiders. Vision is the purview of four-sensed beings: bees, wasps, butterflies, and other flying insects. Five-sensed beings include reptiles; birds; and mammals, including humans (TS 2.21–24). Five-sensed beings are endowed with an additional cognitive capacity (manas) that is distinct from the consciousness inherent in all jivas (Donaldson 2015, 68). The Jain diet is comprised of only one-sensed organisms. Although this still constitutes a karmic violation, its impact is considerably less than the ingestion of higher-sensed insects or animals, whose deaths would exact a much higher karmic cost. Jain food ethics can be seen as a pragmatic spiritual and ethical response to the pressures of biological existence. The Jain tradition posits food as the first of four instincts that each living being possesses (Jaini 2010, 284). Food establishes basic competition, which leads to fear and the desire to accumulate resources for future use. Every bite taken requires life and, thus, accumulates karma to the eater. Thus, control of one’s appetite is an essential aspect of cultivating the mental equanimity required for ahimsa. To minimize their karmic influx, mendicants eat once a day—simple, non-spicy food prepared by lay people—and frequently fast. There are additional rules of not consuming root vegetables such as onions, garlic, carrots, and potatoes because they are understood to host innumerable nigodas (the clusters of one-sense organisms discussed above) and, thus, reap higher karmic consequences; Jains today also add that eating root vegetables kills the plant. High-seed vegetables such as eggplant are eschewed by mendicants. Orthodox lay Jains are to eat after sunup and before sundown; are never to store leftovers that draw bacteria or insects; are never to eat by light that would invite insects; and are to avoid honey, eggs, and all the same vegetables as the mendicants. Although many lay Jains are more flexible with some of these additional restrictions, it is not uncommon for Jains to practice certain optional fasts during the year to practice beneficial restraint and mindfulness and gain meritorious karma. As Jains have moved abroad to cultures where meat consumption is the norm, “the consumption and renunciation of food,” particularly of vegetarian food, is one of the most visible ways that Jains articulate their identities (Vallely 2003, 4). In the diaspora, food identity remains bound to Jain vegetarianism while also being reinterpreted by individual Jains in their new context (Shah 2014, 519–21). After encounters with secular animal rights activists, for example, many Jains are beginning to advocate a dairy-free diet, not only in relation to karmic consequences and the vow of ahimsa, but as an expression of positive compassion for animals in the industrial dairy industry. Organizations such as the U.K.-based Jain Vegans and U.S.-based Vegan Jains argue that veganism is a modern expression of ahimsa, a position that is increasingly common among Jain youth (Jain 2018). Many diaspora Jains have made a subtle shift from the orthodox Jain avoidance of behavior

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that negatively affects the jiva’s path toward liberation and the modern, diaspora willingness to express positive care for and attachment to animals and the environment (Vallely 2002, 213). Vegetarianism has also been a source of contemporary conflict in India, as Jains use political influence to spread their ethical ideals. For example, in 2014, Jain monks engaged in a public fast to demand that the city of Palitana—an important Jain pilgrimage site in western India—ban all animal slaughter and meat sales, leading to conflicts with the city’s Muslim inhabitants. In 2015, the government banned animal slaughter in India’s capital city, Mumbai, during the Jain festival of Paryushan, a conflict that is currently being adjudicated by the city’s high court. Despite its unclear origins, Jain vegetarianism remains a central aspect of the tradition’s history, textual interpretations, and dynamic world view. Vegetarianism is a dynamic practice being renegotiated by contemporary Jains in India and abroad. Brianne Donaldson See also: Buddhism: Vegetarianism; Jainism: Ahimsa (Nonharm) FURTHER READING Alsdorf, Ludwig, ed. 2010 (1962). The History of Vegetarianism and Cow-Veneration in India. New York: Routledge. Chapple, Christopher Key. 1993. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian ­Traditions. Albany: State University of New York Press. Donaldson, Brianne. 2015. Creaturely Cosmologies: Why Metaphysics Matters for ­Animals and Planetary Liberation. Lanham: Lexington. Doniger, Wendy. 2009. The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York: Penguin. Dundas, Paul. 2000. “The Meat at the Wedding Feast: Kṛṣṇa, Vegetarianism, and a Jain Dispute.” In Joseph T. O’Connell, ed. Jain Doctrine and Practice: Academic Perspectives. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 95–112. Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains, second edition. New York: Routledge. Jacobi, Hermann Georg, trans. AS Acaraṅga Sūtra. 2008 (1884). Jaina Sutras, Part I. London, UK: Forgotten Books. Jain, Ashna. 2018. “Changing Your Perspective: A Journey to Veganism.” Young Minds, March 22, 2018. ­https://​­youngminds​.­yja​.­org​/­changing​-­your​-­perspective​-­a​-­journey​-­to​ -­veganism​-­e3de5ef87068​.­ Jaini, Padmanabh S. 2001. The Jaina Path of Purification. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 2010. “Fear of Food: Jaina Attitudes on Eating.” In Collected Papers on Jaina Studies. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 281–96. Kapadia, H. R. 2010 (1962). “Prohibition of Flesh-Eating in Jainism.” In Ludwig Alsdorf, ed. The History of Vegetarianism and Cow Veneration in India. New York: Routledge, pp. 163–71. Rao, Ramachandra S. K. 2005. “Kalyaṇa-karaka.” In Encyclopedia of Indian Medicine. Vol. 1. Mumbai: Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd.

Jainism: Vegetarianism Shah, Bindi V. 2014. “Religion in the Everyday Lives of Second-Generation Jains in ­Britain and the USA: Resources Offered by a Dharma-Based South Asian Religion for the Construction of Religious Biographies, and Negotiating Risk and Uncertainty in Late Modern Societies.” The Sociological Review 62: 512–29. Umasvati. 2011. Tattvartha Sūtra. That Which Is: A Classic Jain Manual for Understanding the True Nature of Reality. Translated by Nathmal Tatia. New Haven: Yale ­University Press. Vallely, Anne. 2002. “From Liberation to Ecology: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains.” In Christopher Key Chapple, ed. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 193–216. Vallely, Anne. 2003. “The Jain Plate: The Semiotics of the Diaspora Diet.” In Knut A. Jacobsen and P. Pratap Kumar, eds. South Asians in the Diaspora: Histories and Religious Traditions. Leiden: Brill, pp. 3–22. Wiley, Kristi. 2009. “Nigoda.” In The A to Z of Jainism. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press.

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INTRODUCTION Throughout history, the dominant myth of the Jewish religious tradition, as well as the perceived historical experience of the Jewish people, has been that generations of Jews have characterized their existence as one of abstaining from violence. Although a continuing emphasis is placed on shalom (herein defined more generically as “peace,” rather than its other operative meanings of “wholeness” or “wellness”), violence exists within the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in biblical, postbiblical, and rabbinic literature, as does self-inflicted or other-inflicted violence throughout the postbiblical period and into the modern era. The religion of Judaism cannot be divorced from the historical journey of the Jewish people. Thus, one must examine both the violence perpetrated by Jews and the violence perpetrated by others against Jews. Summarily, then, in keeping with this introduction, based on both biblical and postbiblical historical sources and rabbinic interpretations and understandings, we may best understand “violence in Judaism” and/or “Jewish violence” as the infliction of pain and/or physical and/or psychic harm on other persons, including humiliation, degradation and death (i.e., murder), and usually inflicted upon those with diminished and/or non-existent power, authority, and/or resources (political, economic, military or religious), and both by those within the Jewish community and those outside the Jewish community.

Violence in the Torah The Torah (Hebrew: “teaching,” “path,” “guide,” “way”) is divided into three unequal sections. The first five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—are traditionally attributed to Mosaic authorship and are thus understood to be “most holy,” not only by the early Israelites/Hebrews but also by subsequent generations of Jews. The second section is Nevi’im/Prophets and consists of the preliterary or preclassical texts—Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel,

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and I and II Kings; the “major prophets” (by the length of their texts)—Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel; and the twelve “minor prophets (shorter texts)—Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. The third section is the Ketuvim/Writings. This is a literary collection consisting of Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and I and II Chronicles. The last four texts are more history than literature, and important questions still arise regarding the historicity of these and other stories told in these texts. Throughout these texts, however, violence remains near at hand and far off—both individually and collectively, and both internally and externally. The texts reflect not only the worlds of the subjects of these stories but also those of their writers, worlds where life’s struggles were framed by violence, and premature violent death was often the norm. •

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Genesis: expulsion from Eden; Cain’s murder of Abel; flooding of life; Ham’s sexual perversion of Noah; Abraham’s and Sarah’s expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael; destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; near death of Isaac; Jacob’s wrestling with the ish (Hebrew: “man”); rape of Dinah; Joseph’s expulsion and enslavement. Exodus: Israel’s enslavement in Egypt; Moses’s murder of the taskmaster; Zipporah’s circumcision of her son Gershom (Hebrew: “I was a stranger there”) and her castigation of Moses as her “bridegroom of blood” (4:25); ten plagues (7–11), especially the death of the first-born Egyptians; near-extermination of the Israelites and deaths by drowning of the Egyptian military following the divinely-mandated genocides of the Amalekites, Amorites, and so forth. Leviticus: sacrificial slaughtering of the olah (burnt offering), zevah shelamim (well-being offering), chatat (sin offering); and asham (guilt offering); various categories of defilement requiring repurification; expulsion of the Azazel (scapegoat); enslavement of other human beings. Numbers: ordeal of the suspected adulteress (5:11–31); rebellion and deaths of Dothan and Abiram; warfare and reconquests in the desert during wandering; slaying of the Midianite prisoners (31–32); Leviticus refugee and other cities in response to blood vengeance. Deuteronomy: destruction of idolatrous peoples; blessings and cursing (27–28).

However, collectively, these violence-oriented stories are counterbalanced throughout the Torah by positive stories that reflected the nobility and the high morality of various characters, as well as an evolving religious tradition (e.g., concerns with

Judaism: Introduction

justice, love between family members and friends, proper moral conduct, and covenantal worship toward a loving God). After reconquest and resettlement under Joshua (Moses’s nonbiological and nonfamilial successor and heir-apparent), but particularly after Joshua’s death, the story becomes filled with violence during the period of the Judges; the tempestuous and somewhat bloodied monarchial reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon; and the times of the prophets, whose own doomsaying was the result of not only external threats by powerful military nation-states but, equally, the corruption of the powerful against the widow, the orphan, and the poor. Indeed, among the many rulers who succeeded Solomon, kingly death in old age was rare; most were assassinated after relatively brief reigns. It is the “Exodus event,” however, that looms largest in the Torah and provides the foundation for much of the subsequent rabbinical moral-ethical system. But this event cannot be divorced form the approximately four-hundred-year enslavement by the Egyptians, which caused the Israelites to cry out in anguish and pain to their God who was understood to have responded through their human liberator Moses (Hebrew: Moshe; “one drawn from out of the water,” a direct allusion to his birth narrative). Paralleling this violence and refracted through numerous prophetic texts was the later destruction of the First Temple, that of Solomon, by the Babylonians in 586 BCE; the subsequent exile of the Israelites’ religious, political, economic, military, and governmental leaderships; and the beginnings of a diasporic journey of wandering and vulnerability for Jews. Thus, violence—here more externally imposed than self-inflicted—legitimately frames this cursory overview of the Torah. It was up to the rabbis of the postbiblical period to reread and retell these stories through the prism of their own midrashic, or interpretive, frameworks, as they responded to a continuingly violent world toward Jews. In so doing, however, they constructed a moral-ethical system that significantly devalued violence as a problem-solving solution and shifted the emphasis from that of the military warrior of the biblical period to that of the “scholarly warrior” in the postbiblical period, whose tools now became prayer, study, and right conduct. Thus, violence was part and parcel not only of the historical journey of the Jews but also of the early, biblical traditions of religious Judaism.

Violence in the Postbiblical Period The second epoch or eon in Judaic history may be said to have begun with the utter destruction and devastation of the Second Temple by the Roman oppressors in 70 CE and the canonization of the Torah in 90 CE in the Palestinian city of Yavneh,

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under the presumed leadership of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, who died shortly thereafter. This second period—the longest thus far—concludes with the modern period of Jewish history, inaugurated in 1791, when France became the first nation in Europe to grant its Jewish residents citizenship as free and equal members of the French Republic in the initial aftermath of the French Revolution (1789–1799). Thus, the second period also commences with a violent act that will, in some ways, take its place beside the Exodus event in the development of the Jewish religious tradition—negatively rather than positively. It is still manifested, even today; for example, in the refusal of Orthodox Jewish communities to permit the use of musical instrumentation in Sabbath worship (arguing that Jews remain mourners over the fateful destruction of the Second Temple). After the canonization of the Torah, coupled with the loss of political hegemony—and except for the rise and religious development of Babylonian Jewry (the growing remnant of the original exiles) until approximately 700  CE—the Jewish journey has been essentially toward Western Europe and Western (that is, “Christian”) civilization and Jewish communal status as a pariah people. As Roman Catholic Christianity allied itself with various nation-states and became the official state religion by the fourth century, under Emperor Constantine (280– 337 CE), Jews came under religious abuse (i.e., having to endure aggressive missionizing, evangelizing, and proselytizing, as well as sermonic denigrations of their own sacred traditions); increasingly ghettoized; ever more vulnerable to physical attacks, economic and social deprivations, and the mercies of various rulers in whose kingdoms and dukedoms they resided and under whose protections they survived with limited autonomy to govern themselves; and possessors of almost no policing powers for internal communal cohesion. At the same time, beginning in Babylonia and Palestine, Jews developed a vast literature of texts and commentaries, derived initially from the set of laws permitted them in post-destruction Roman Palestine and codified by Rabbi Yehuda, the leader, in 220 CE. The Talmud (Hebrew: “Teaching”), as that literature came to be called, addressed every aspect of Jewish individual and communal existence in its expanding discussions. In addition to concerns with proper religious observances and validations of holy days, festivals, and fast days, the Talmuds of Palestine and Babylonia (the Babylonian is more expansive and complete than the Palestinian) would further codify and clarify moral and ethical norms of personal and group behaviors in civil and criminal arenas, including punishments of the guilty (even where implementation of such punishments was in the hands of the state rather than the Jews themselves). Two examples of such lengthy discussions were the expansion of the possibilities of capital punishment from their originally limited terms in the Torah, and the fate of the malshinim (Hebrew: “informers”) who turned against their own people and who were often converted to Christianity.

Judaism: Introduction

While discussions regarding the punishment of criminals was more academic, the consequences of informers were far direr during the Middle Ages. Numerous cases of violence against Jews; burning of Jewish texts, including the Talmud; payment of bribes to those in power; and forced public disputations, resulting in the denigration of Judaism. are all recorded in numerous texts and manuscript that survived. Stories of Jews attempting to defend their communities by force of arms are rare and sporadic through the Middle Ages, and the few texts that have survived—for example Nathan of Hanover’s (d. 1663 CE) account of the pogrom during the years of Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s (1593–1657) Polish revolution in the 1600s—reveal the futility of such endeavors against overwhelming odds. During the six centuries of the Spanish period of Jewish residence (c. 900– 1500 CE), but especially during the Catholic Inquisition of the fourteenth century (which ended with the Jews’ expulsion from Spain in 1492 CE and their three-month respite in Portugal), converted Jews were more vulnerable to accusations of insincere conversions by former Jews (the Spanish term conversos, but often the more pejorative marranos, or pigs, was used to describe them), resulting in their deaths, as well as public burnings of Talmuds and siddurim (Hebrew: prayer books). In the earlier centuries, however, Jewish-Christian relations were relatively more harmonious; thus, Jewish communities were able to exercise limited autonomy, and death sentences were carried out by state authorities upon payment of substantial sums. In Central and Eastern Europe, where Jewish communities and their leaderships were able to exercise more autonomy and policing powers, informers were subject to severe physical punishments, including amputation of ears, tongues, hands, and feet. In Russia, under the various czars during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, the situation of the Jews was far more critically endangered. They were restricted to the Pale of Settlement, limited areas of settlement and residence; severely economically disadvantaged; and subject to the anti-Semitic machinations of an illiterate peasantry, as well as governmental decrees that included the kidnapping of their young male children for twenty-five-year service in the army, during which all connections to home, family, and religious identification were consciously erased. The severe stresses forced upon Jews to eke out their livelihoods, coupled with the dangers of the anti-Semites “waiting at the gates,” found some informing on others for both real and imagined infractions (e.g., hoarding or smuggling goods; illegal sales of alcohol; or evading military service by self-inflicting wounds, such as shooting themselves in the foot or slicing off toes), as well as instances of blackmail in exchange for refusing to report such persons to the authorities. Internally, the rise of the Orthodox denominational movement known as Hasidism (Hebrew: “pietism”) in the eighteenth century as a counterpoint to a perceived non-Hasidic Orthodox rigidity, carried its own violent vulnerability. In

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1799, for example, the leaders of the Hasidic community were denounced to the local authorities for disrupting communal harmony, and, in 1800, the rabbi of the Chabad sect of Hasidism, Shneur Zalman (1745–1812) of Liadi, Lithuania, was imprisoned after being denounced by the local non-Hasidic rabbinic leadership. Not above reproach, Hasidim caused the imprisonment of the modern secular poet Judah Leib Gordon (1831–1892) in 1870. Thus, prior to the twentieth century and the tragedy of the Holocaust or Shoah, Jewish communities were externally physically threatened on a continuing basis by populations and governments, both of which viewed the Jews in their midst as inferiors, tainted by the supposed responsibility for the death of the Christ, and followers of an inferior religious tradition—despite the internal development of a vast religious literature, including the mystical traditions of the kabbalah and its seminal text, the Zohar (Hebrew; “Book of Splendor”). Jews in this period were socially, economically, and politically disadvantaged and trying to survive in a hostile environment, in whatever nation-state in Europe they found themselves. Internally, even with limited autonomy and policing powers, Jewish attempted to maintain communal harmony; religiously educate their constituencies—especially their children—into their responsibilities; and, when they were able to do so, exact punishments varying in severity against those who committed crimes, informed on, and/or slandered them.

The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries and Beyond The twentieth century witnessed incidents of violence both among and against Jews. The topic of violent divisiveness among Jews was addressed by Professor Nachman Ben-Yehuda of Hebrew University Jerusalem in his (1993) book Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice, in which he documented ninety-one cases of violence in three specific periods in pre-state Palestine and in the State of Israel: (1) the Turkish period, 1882–1918; (2) the British period, 1919–1948; and (3) the Israeli period, 1948–1988. In all three periods, assassinations by Jews were directed against perceived non-Jewish enemies, as well as against fellow Jews. Although acts of violence have occurred at the hands of Jews, the genocide against the Jews—the Holocaust or Shoah (Hebrew: “Destruction” or “Devastation”) remains the supreme example of violence against this vulnerable minority. The horrific nature of those murders and the brutalization inflicted upon those who survived are well-known throughout the West. Two additional comments, however, are relevant here. First, the psychic damage on the collective Jewish people worldwide is also a form of violence, one that is transmitted to the second generation (their children) and the third generation (their grandchildren). Second, as Jews

Judaism: Introduction

collectively understand and now realize, the Holocaust or Shoah was not only a full attack against the Jewish people, it was also a full attack against Jewish religious traditions and the ritual-ceremonial and moral-ethical values they embody.

Middle Eastern Manifestations of Violence On May 14. 1948, the Third Jewish Commonwealth, M’dinat Yisrael—the State of Israel—declared its independence. Internally, it was a cause of celebration for Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust or Shoah (almost three years to the day of the end of the Second World War), a dream long dreamed but now realized. Yet it has been accompanied by wars and terror strikes in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1981, and 2006. Israel’s continuing inability to find a peaceful resolution with its neighbors has not, however, prevented it from developing a Jewish democratic state, a high standard of living, significant technological advances, and an advanced educational system. That inability has also caused enormous social ruptures between Jewish Israelis and Arab and Muslim Israelis; vast budgetary expenditures for defense training and armaments; the longest-surviving occupation, which some critics have labeled as apartheid; and a hardness in dealing with Palestinian, too often resulting in violence. Thus, these realities, too, have produced a conflicted state where internal and external relations are strained, and ongoing examples of violent behaviors are too frequent. Uprisings of Arab Israeli and Palestinian youth in two intifadas (1987–1993; 2000–2005) has also shown an increase in violent responses to Israeli subjugation and control and, often, violent Israeli responses as well, though they are muted and restrained. Further, among the Jews of Israel—primarily between those labeled dati’im (religious) and haredim (fundamentalists) versus liberal religionists and secularists— violence (including rock-throwing by religious young men against soldiers traveling on the Saturday Sabbath and regular disruptions of women praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem) is ongoing. Additionally, the settler movement of the late 1990s and beyond, in which housing-settlement outposts in predominantly Arab areas by right-wing religious Israelis has resulted in clashes not only with Arabs and Palestinians but with the Israeli Army itself, when soldiers have attempted to remove them from those locations. Thus, this divide that has pitted Jew against Jew, framed by both political and religious rifts, has resulted in physical confrontations and death—most noticeably the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995) on November 4, 1995 by a right-wing Jewish religious zealot and the attack by Baruch Goldstein (1956–1994) at the Hebron Mosque on February 25, 1994, which resulted in the deaths of twenty-nine Muslims and the wounding of 150 others. The “Zionist enterprise,” as it has come to be called, must be further understood in the context of a religious-cultural clash with those who were already residents

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on the land itself—the Palestinians—whose own retelling of the founding days of the new state remains that of usurpers and invaders. While benefitting from Israel’s democratic institutions and other advances, most Palestinians perceive themselves as a subject-victim people who are governed by an oppressive other whose legal systems discriminate against them; whose welfare, social service, and educational systems continue to disadvantage them; and who remind them daily of their second-class or lesser status in society. The construction of the Security Fence, begun in 2003, in partial response to the spate of suicide bombings that occurred in Israeli cities in the early part of the twenty-first century, while decreasing the loss of life, has done little, if anything, to ameliorate the tension and division. Early in this twenty-first century, anti-Semitic violence is increasing worldwide, partly fueled by the continuing Middle East conflict and the perceived partisanship of U.S. support for Israel, thus linking it with anti-Americanism. On the European continent—primarily but not exclusively in France, but in Germany, Belgium, and Great Britain as well—Jews and Jewish-Israelis, including rabbis and parochial students, recognizable by their skullcaps, have been violently attacked and murdered (e.g., Ilan Halmi in France in 2006), and synagogues have been regularly vandalized and desecrated. On at least two occasions since 2001, academic faculty unions in Great Britain have called for boycotts of their Israeli counterparts as punishments for the perceived injustices directed toward Palestinians by the state of Israel, while failing to address the lack of freedoms encountered by their colleagues in other nation-states in those same regions. Then, too, there are those scholars and journalists who have argued that neither the March 11, 2004 train bombings in Madrid, Spain, nor the July 7, 2005 public transport system bombings in London, England, should be fully understood solely as punishments for those nations’ involvement with the United States in Iraq. Instead, they maintain, the events themselves should be viewed in the wider context of Islamic radicalism extending its reach to punish any and all perceived support for Israel and world Jewry. Within the Arab states themselves, manifestations of antisemitism continue to surface. Throughout the Arab world, for examples, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion (which purports to be the secret transcript of a rabbinic meeting, at which plans are presented for world takeover) is continually republished and sold regularly, and, even more frighteningly and disastrously, brought to the television screen in both Egypt and Syria in 2002. Anti-Semitic cartoons depicting Israelis as bloodthirsty killers—including some garbed in Nazi uniforms—regularly appear throughout the Arab world, as do books and articles condemning Judaism and Jews and Zionism and Israel. Radio and television interviews, including some with recognized and prominent academics and well-known journalists and religious leaders, are presented condemnatorily on a regular basis. Suicide bombers in Israel are hailed as martyrs and heroes

Judaism: Introduction

for the murders of innocent nonmilitary Jewish Israelis. Verbal violence inciting people to commit physical violence against Jews is not uncommon among Arab nation-states in the Middle East.

Conclusion Many analysts maintain that the scourge of antisemitism—Arab-Islamic, EuropeanChristian, and secularist—will only be potentially defeated by increasing education about Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism at all levels of society. Such a massive countering of “the world’s oldest prejudice and hatred” will require an investment of time, energy, and creativity on the part of governments and religious and educational institutions, as well as the necessary financial support to successfully implement educational and community programs. While Jews and their institutions, as well as the State of Israel, continue to engage in such efforts, their numbers are small, and their collective impact can reach only a small part of the necessary target audiences, almost none in the Arab world. Thus, one focus of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is directly addressing antisemitism in both Europe and the Middle East. Resolving the ongoing crises of the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict is but one part of the solution, but one that will rob Israel’s enemies and the enemies of Jews worldwide of one of the most lethal and enduring recruiting tactics for violence against both communities of Jews. Internally, Jewish infighting among the different religious groups, including the secularists, which has far-too-often resulted in its own manifestations of physical violence must be ended, whereby those in positions of acknowledged leadership and authority in all Jewish communities, wherever they are located, must use their tools of condemnation and support for the betterment and advancement of their fellow Jews. The Middle East conflict remains a component of the world stage, and even nations with no history of involvement have come to realize the far-reaching military, political, and economic implications and spillover effects of the conflict. Despite the almost day-to-day changing realities of the Middle East, a peaceful resolution would necessitate, by extension, at the very minimum, a regional educational program about each other among all the aggrieved nations, as they continue to seek ways to live side by side in peace. Under the stresses of the contemporary moment, internally, Jews may be far less inclined to bridge their own divides and work together for the greater collective good, despite whatever religious differences continue to divide them. The challenge for a peaceful Middle East includes raising and educating a new generation of Jewish leaders of the various denominational factions, as well as the various institutional and organizational groupings, who would then set as their highest

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priority concrete strategies for working together for the greater collectivity of the Jewish people despite their differences. Steven Leonard Jacobs

NOTE Much of this material appeared originally in Jeffrey Ian Ross, ed., Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present, Volume 2. Armonk and London: M. E. Sharpe, 2011, pp. 405–14, but has been substantially updated and revised. Grateful appreciation is hereby extended to Taylor and Francis Group LLC Books for reprint permission. FURTHER READING Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. 1993. Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. Albany: SUNY Press. Horowitz, Elliott. 2006. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jacobs, Steven Leonard, and Mark Weitzman. 2003. Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing House. Laqueur, Walter. 2008. The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. New York: Oxford University Press. Perri, Yoram, ed. 2000. The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

AMALEKITES Twice in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament—Exodus 17:14–16 and Deuteronomy 25:17–19—God commanded the ancient Israelites to “blot out” the memory of Amalek, their enemy, for all time. The God of Israel, in his wrath, intended to do so as well because of the Amalekites unmitigated attack against Israel’s rear guard of women and children, after the Israelites left Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. Over the course of Jewish history, Amalek served as the symbolic enemy of the Jewish people (e.g., Armenians, Nazis, Palestinians, and Hamas). Indeed, all the historical and contemporary enemies of the Jewish people are said to be, if not literally—with the exception of Agagite Haman, prime minister of Persia and a supposed descendant of King Agag in the Book of Esther—metaphorical descendants of the original Amalekites and, thus, worthy of not only enmity but of destruction as well (e.g., Antiochus, Titus, Hadrian, Torquemada, Khmelnitsky,

Judaism: Amalekites

and Hitler). Today, many of those in Israel who are allied with the so-called “settler movement” that is associated with right-of-center Orthodox Judaism and located among populations primarily of Palestinian Muslims and Arabs view them as descendants of Amalek as well and, thus, sanction and legitimate their own, at times, violent actions and behaviors. For them and those who both support and find themselves in sympathy with them, in Israel and elsewhere, at its most transparent level, responding to the perceived threat of Amalek is responding to antisemitism, both historical and contemporary. For a small minority of these radical Jews, secular Zionists, liberal non-Orthodox Jewish religionists, and even non-Jews have merited the epithet Amalek. For these same Jews, this command to utterly destroy the Amalekites, however they present themselves, is but one necessary factor to bring on the coming of the Messiah as they understand him. Somewhat ironically, however, a different school of thought regarding contemporary Amalekut (“Amalekism”) has suggested that it is impossible to determine with any degree of historical accuracy who, in fact, are the lineal descendants of the ancient Amalekites. This view is much more in accordance with actual history, for, outside of the biblical texts (and there are others as well, such as I Samuel 15:3; 30:1–2; II Samuel 1:5–10; 30:1), little to nothing is known of this ancient people, who resides somewhere in the Land of Canaan. Archaeological evidence is nonexistent, though some scholars have suggested that they were a subtribe of Edomites and, thus, related to Israel as successors to Esau. Some scholars have even gone so far as to suggest that, even in ancient times, this people-group was a linguistic archetype for evildoers, understood by ancient Israel, rather than a specific reference. Some modern rabbis and Christian scholars have gone so far as to reinterpret these same biblical texts and argued that Amalek is that evil that exists inside all of us; for example, cynicism and/or disparaging one’s neighbors or family members through biting and brutal sarcasm, and the divine command to “blot it out” is, thus, to stem those pernicious inclinations that exist within all of us and that must be excised if we are to move forward and create more positive societies. Liturgically Jewishly, the “story of Amalek” is told on the Sabbath prior to the Festival of Purim in the spring, celebrating the victory of the Jews over the genocidal intent of the aforementioned Haman, whose own death and that of his sons on the gallows that he and they had prepared for the Jew Mordecai is evidence of divine displeasure. Additionally, when the Scroll of Esther is read in the synagogue on Purim, every time Haman’s name is read, it is drowned out either through the use of loud noisemakers (groggerim) or the stamping of feet, when his name had been written on the soles of one’s shoes—or both. (Such activities in the post-biblical or Rabbinic period may have developed as a psychologically invaluable response to Jewish powerlessness throughout much of this people’s history in both Europe and

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the Middle East.) Furthermore, in the Jewish religious tradition, when one hears the name of one’s enemies, one responds, “Y’mach sh’mo v’zikro/” (May his name and his memory be blotted out!”). Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Zealots FURTHER READING Bekkenkamp, Jonneke, and Yvonne Sherwood, eds. 2003. Sanctified Aggression: Legacies of Biblical and Post-Biblical Vocabularies of Violence. London and New York: T. & T. Clark International. Eisen, Robert. 2011. The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Feldman, Louis H. 2004. “Remember Amalek!” Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible According to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Horowitz, Elliot. 2006. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kaminsky, Joel S. 2007. Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Mittleman, Alan L. 2018. Does Judaism Condone Violence? Holiness and Ethics in the Jewish Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Schiffman, Lawrence, and Joel B. Wolowelsky, eds. 2007. War and Peace in the Jewish Tradition. New York: Yeshiva University.

ANTISEMITISM Antisemitism, simply put, is the ongoing hatred of the Jewish people and the religion and culture of the Jews. It may be the world’s oldest and longest hatred, already manifesting itself in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, making its appearance during the enslavement period in Egypt more than two thousand years ago. During its long and corrosive journey, it has presented itself in a variety of iterations, morphing from one to another but never completely ending its previous expression. Thus, we may characterize these different forms of antisemitism as (1) social-cultural, (2) political-economic, (3) religious-theological, (4) racial-biological, and (5) anti-Zionist/anti-Israel. The term itself is derived from the German, Antisemitismus, and is largely attributed to the disgruntled journalist Wilhelm Marr (1819–1904) and taken from

Judaism: Antisemitism

his 1879 publication The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism. Marr’s concern was a more “academic” or “scientific” term than that of Judenhass (“Jew hatred”); however, this animus against the Jews and their expressions of Judaism is of much longer standing. Already in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, in the Book of Exodus, chapter one, we find the Pharaoh of Egypt verbalizing his antipathy to the Jews: 8 Then a new Pharaoh, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous, and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.” 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

Social-cultural and political-economic forms of antisemitism are also in evidence in the Scroll of Esther, chapter three, where we find an uncanny parallel in the words of the Prime Minister, Haman, to the Persian king Achashverosh. Taken to its logical conclusion, this passage leads to genocide: 8 Then Haman said to King Achashverosh, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. 9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administration for the royal treasury.” . . . 11 “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”

Enter nascent Christianity and the New Testament two thousand years ago. When it allied itself with the various Western power structures and found the Jews primarily culpable for the death of the Christ—the pernicious and false charge of deicide—resulting in religious-theological antisemitism coupled with social-cultural and economic-political forms of discriminatory legislation, ghettoization, and restrictive economic opportunities. Such would prove the normative way of the West for approximately twenty centuries, from the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in the year 90 CE until the rise of Nazism in the twentieth century. (The European Enlightenment in the eighteenth century diminished the religious-theological but offered different forms of political-economic antisemitism, even after France granted its Jews citizenship in 1791, epitomized in the phrase, “To the Jew as an individual everything; to the Jews as a people nothing,” and translated into the strong desire of those in power and intellectuals

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agreeing with them for the Jews to surrender their particularity as the price of full civic equality.) The Nazi “contribution” to antisemitism in the twentieth century was the injection of a racial-biological component—that is, that the Jew was a lesser, albeit savvy, form of human being, responsible for the totality of the ills of Western civilization; thus, the only or final solution to this menace was total extermination/ annihilation. The murder of more than six million Jewish men, women, and children is an event we now know as the Holocaust (English) or Shoah (Hebrew), and it takes antisemitism to its logical, if not inevitable, conclusion. Even before the re-founding of the Third Jewish Commonwealth, the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948, Arab/Muslim hatred of Jews and Judaism was already in evidence, primarily as an unwelcome presence in Dar al-Islam (the world of Muslim/Islamic hegemony) and now no longer subjugated to the majority in the various Arab-dominated nation-states. With Israel’s successive victories in its wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1981, and beyond, and its military, technological, economic, educational, and political successes, has come the importation of a European antisemitism—for example, the employment of former Nazis into Egypt, Syria, and so forth, as anti-Jewish propagandists fueling an already negative environment, and the publication of the most notorious antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion into Arabic in the aftermath of World War II and available in bookstores throughout the Middle East, already beginning in the 1950s. Finally, the emigration of large, disaffected Arab populations onto the European continent, primarily in France and Great Britain, has brought with it increasing vulnerability, antisemitism, and violence to formerly safe and stable Jewish communities. Beginning in the early 2000s, with the increase of these populations has come an increase in violent anti-Semitic incidents against Jews as perceived full representatives of the State of Israel and its military and governmental policies. For example. in February 2006, in Paris, Ilan Halimi was murdered by a Muslim group calling itself the Gang of Barbarians after having been kidnapped the month before. In May 2014, in Brussels, Belgium, the Jewish Museum was attacked; four persons were murdered. In January 2015, the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket was attacked; four people were murdered, and nine were wounded. In November 2015, the Bataclan concert venue was attacked in Paris; nearly one hundred persons were murdered. Last, in the United States, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in its annual audit, reported 1,986 acts of antisemitism in 2017, more than double that of 2015 and a 57 percent increase from 2016. Conversations among those residents in France and elsewhere continue to raise the tragic question of whether this signals the full and total end of Jewish life in Europe and whether it is time to leave—for Israel, the United States, and so forth, and whether the United States itself is no longer the haven for Jews it once was.

Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World

The jury is still out, but the evidence is clear. This longest hatred has not died, but only reenergizes itself in different iterations. How to successfully combat it through stricter laws and punishments; innovative educational programs directed at young people, primarily economically disadvantaged youth; tightening Jewish security of its institutions; and so forth continues to be addressed. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Blood Libel; Crusades; Holocaust and World War II; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; State Violence: Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict; Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Beller, Steven. 2015. Antisemitism: A Very Short Introduction. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldstein, Phyllis. 2011. A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism. Brookline: Facing History and Ourselves. Laqueur, Walter. 2008. The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lindemann, Albert S., and Richard S. Levy. 2010. Antisemitism: A History. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schweitzer, Frederick, and Marvin Perry. 2002. Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

ANTISEMITISM IN THE ARAB WORLD Classically defined, antisemitism is simply demarcated as hatred of the Jewish people and Judaism. Moving into the middle of the twentieth century, however, with the restoration of the Third Jewish Commonwealth—the nation-state of Israel on May 14, 1948—it has morphed to now include hatred of Zionists (both Jews and non-Jews, including the United States, continuously viewed as Israel’s most powerful supporter) and Zionism (the national liberation movement of the Jewish people), Israel, and Jewish-Israelis. Historically, however, antipathy toward Jews was already in evidence during Muhammed’s (570–632 CE) drive to unify the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, when the Jewish tribes therein rejected his Qur’anic and religious overtures, and has remained so ever since. Furthermore, once Jews found themselves under the Muslim/Arab hegemony throughout the Middle East, they were regarded as “second class” or lesser (Arabic: dhimmis), though Muhammed originally respected them as “peoples of the [Sacred] Book,” along with Christians.

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Israel, having successfully fought wars with its neighbors in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1981, and 2002, remains an anathema within the larger geographic region encompassed by the term Dar al Islam (Arabic: “the world of Islam”) as a foreign element and worse. Violence directed toward Israel and Israelis in the form of suicide bombings against civilian targets, including women and children, in the state became a regular occurrence at the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century. Anti-Semitic publications, including the notorious forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and former Syrian minister of defense Mustafa Tlass’s (1932–2017) The Matzah of Zion (addressing the so-called “blood libel,” wherein Jews use the blood of Christians, especially children, in the making of the matzot, unleavened cakes associated with the celebration of Passover) are staples within the Arab world, as were the serialization of the TV series Horseman without a Horse in Egypt in 2002 and again in 2012. In 2006, then-Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad (b. 1956, president 2005–2013), already a well-publicized foe of Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people in general—including calls to “wipe Israel off the map,” as reported by the Islamic Republic News Agency in 2005 (and following)—hosted a conference in 2006 entitled “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust and Surrounding Controversies” in Teheran in line with his consistent Holocaust denialism. The year before, 2005, he had hosted a conference entitled “The World Without Zionism.” (Amadinejad was also among the students who took over the United States Embassy in Teheran and held fifty-two U.S. citizens hostage for 444 days, 1979–1981.) Finally, as more Arabs, both those committed to Islam, especially radical youth, and heavily politicized secularists, emigrate to Western Europe, the continent, including Great Britain, has experienced an increase in anti-Semitic incidents as well. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Blood Libel; Crusades; Holocaust and World War II; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; State Violence: Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict; Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Anidjar, Gil. 2005. The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bensoussan, Georges. 2017. Jews in Arab Countries: The Great Uprooting. Translated by Andrew Halper. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Pollack, Eunice G., ed. 2017. From Antisemitism to Anti-Zionism: The Past & Present of a Lethal Ideology. Brighton: Academic Studies Press.

Judaism: BDS Movement

ANTI-ZIONISM. See ANTISEMITISM; ZIONISM AND ANTI-ZIONISM BDS(BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS) MOVEMENT The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is an international and global movement, originally begun by Palestinians, to exert continuing pressure, ostracism, marginalization, and isolation upon the State of Israel to end what it perceives as an apartheid state, comparable to South Africa, and a colonialist regime that continually disenfranchises the Palestinian people, and thus Israel is to be isolated from the family of nations. Some have argued that the BDS Movement arose in response to or in conjunction with the Second Intifada of 2000, while others have argued that its true origins were with the Arab League boycotts of the 1940s, with its own goal of frustrating “further Jewish development in Palestine by means of boycott against Zionist products.” Such efforts are understood by Israel and its supporters as transparent attempts to demonize and delegitimize the state. Furthermore, it regards the “occupation” of the West Bank, now more than six decades on, and formerly that of Gaza, as consistent with what it perceives to be Israel’s expansionist agenda and its continuing violations of international law. A third stated goal of BDS is to dismantle the Israeli Security Fence, which divides the Palestinian people and their families, communities, and lands from economic success, but the group denies its effectiveness in decreasing the number of suicide bombings of Israelis and their families throughout Israel since its inception. It has also called for a democracy of total equality between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs/Palestinians, knowing that by doing so, Israel would lose its “Jewish character.” It has, in addition, vehemently called for the right of Arabs of all those Arab/Palestinian families (and their descendants, if the previous generation is no longer living) to return to their former places of residence after their relocation in 1948 because of the Israeli War of Independence, and, if the residents no longer exist, to be appropriately compensated. From its original goals, it has expanded to call for the rejection all Israeli-made products and companies, as well as those companies outside of Israel that do business with them; the rejection of all academic cooperation with Israeli universities and their faculties; and a decline of all invitations to Israeli cultural contributions throughout the world (e.g., participation in music, film festivals, and athletic contests). A recent U.S. response has been the creation of the Academic Engagement Network of faculty, whose stated goal is “to counteract the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses and to affirm the key values of academic freedom and free speech,” and “seeking to facilitate intelligent, constructive

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and civilized discourse about Israel, including criticism” (Academic Engagement Network, n.d.). Actors, artists, and writers, like others, have come down both in support of the BDS Movement and in opposition to it. The BDS Movement has also publicly asked nation-states throughout the world to place both sanctions and embargoes on Israel and its productive capacities and capabilities. In line with is divestment efforts, it has continually demanded that companies, businesses, churches, and governments that divest both Israeli stocks and bonds and companies continuing to do business with Israel (e.g., Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola, Microsoft, and Volvo in Sweden) from their investment portfolios. Its proponents deny any link whatsoever with any forms of antisemitism, though avowed anti-Semites are found within its ranks, and, instead argue that its anti-Zionist agenda is solely politically motivated. Some of its more radical voices have called for the total dismantling of the State of Israel itself. It has attracted adherents from both the political Left and the political Right on both the European (East and West) and North American continents. Throughout the Arab Middle East and elsewhere, it has found numerous supporters, including Arab governments, United Nations NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and rabbis in the United States. The BDS Movement, can, however, be legitimately critiqued for its highly one-sided and biased approach to the complexity of issues involved in the ongoing Arab/Palestinian-Israeli/Middle East conflict. Churches with Middle Eastern constituencies—such as Presbyterian, Methodist, United Church of Christ, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—have been specifically targeted. Some have passed resolutions that are detrimental to Israel and divested part of their economic portfolios; others have not. In 2017, the Israeli government published a “BDS Blacklist” of those organizations whose activist members would be barred from entering the country, not without both internal and external controversy. The twenty included: (1) European—France Association Palestinian Solidarity; BDS France; BDS Italy; European Coordination Committee and Associations for Palestine; Friends of al-Aqsa; Ireland Palestinian Solidarity Campaign; Palestine Committee of Norway; Palestine Solidarity Association of Sweden; BDS Kampagne; (2) American—American Friends Service Committee, which, ironically helped Jews during the Holocaust/Shoah; American Muslims for Palestine; Code Pink; Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP); National Students for Justice in Palestine; U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights; (3) Others—BDS Chile; BDS South Africa; and BDS National Committee. To date (2018), twenty-four U.S. states have passed anti-BDS legislation (in order of passage): Tennessee, South Carolina, Illinois, Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, Nevada, Kansas, North Carolina, Maryland, and Wisconsin.

Judaism: Blood Libel

On balance, in the areas where BDS activists have placed their ongoing energies, their successes have been overwhelmingly limited and momentary: Israel has not been politically isolated, having relationships with more than one hundred countries; its gross domestic product has showed annual growth; and its exports continue, seemingly unabated, throughout the world. Warning signs of concern, however, continue to present themselves. For example, should the nation-state of Palestine be recognized and accepted into the family of nations, it could then bring its case for criminal liability to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands (though Israel has not signed the ICC Statutes for precisely this reason). The specific charge would be violation of the 1976 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Then, too, Israelis—present and former government officials, academics, active and retired military, and so forth—have, at times, curtailed their overseas trips in response to pressures on their hosts to disinvite them or face the public consequence of disruptive demonstrations. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Academic Engagement Network. ­https://​­academicengagement​.­org. Babbin, Jed, and Herbert London. 2014. The BDS War against Israel: The Orwellian Campaign to Destroy Israel through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement. Scotts Valley: CreateSpace. Dereshowitz, Alan. 2018. The Case against BDS: Why Singling out Israel for Boycott Is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace. Scotts Valley: CreateSpace. Nelson, Cary R., ed. 2016. Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nelson, Cary R., Gabriel Noah Brahm, and Russell Berman, eds. 2014. The Case against Academic Boycotts of Israel. New York: Modern Language Association.

BLOOD LIBEL The Blood Libel—also sometimes referred to as the Blood Accusation—is among the most notorious of anti-Semitic charges against both the Jewish people and Judaism (however interpreted and understood), the religion of the Jewish people. It falsely accuses both of requiring the blood of a religious Christian, usually a naïve, young, and innocent child (male more so than female), to be drained and used in

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the preparation of the matzot—the flat, unleavened squares associated with the festival of Passover (Hebrew: Pesach). It is also associated with the Easter celebration of the resurrection of the Christ, further perpetuating the notion of the Jews as a deicide people, mocking the death of Jesus and symbolically desecrating his memory. Its veracity is called into question not only by the Torah/Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament and its strong avoidance of blood (for example, Leviticus 3:17, 7:26, 17:10–14; Deuteronomy 12:15–16 and 20–24), but also later postbiblical rabbinic literature, both of which strongly advise against contact with human and animal blood, ritually and ceremonially. Most historians date the beginnings of this vile charge to the murder of William of Norwich in England in 1144. In the early twentieth century, scholars revisited such texts as Josephus’s (37–100) Contra Apionem (though the original text to which he responded has been lost); earlier Greek writer Democritus (460–370 BCE); Socrates’s (469–399 BCE) Ecclesiastical History; and, later, the writings of bishops Agobard (779–840) of Lyon and Bernard (1090–1153) of Clairvaux, among others, all of which contain references, however false, to Jews wantonly murdering Christians for either ritual purposes or simply out of contempt and disrespect for Christians and Christianity. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia lists more than 120 such reported accusations between the years 1144 and 1900 (and more since!), in every country on the European continent, Russia included, and often resulting in mass violence against vulnerable Jewish communities. Sadly, and tragically, Jewish converts to Roman Catholic Christianity throughout the Middle Dark Ages aided in the perpetuation of the lie and added to it a hateful litany of sorcery and sexual licentiousness. However, some secular rulers and some princes of the Church often decried and rejected these accusations and attempted to protect “their Jews” from the mobs, often with little power or ability to do so. In the first part of the twentieth century, the Nazis made propagandistic use of the Blood Libel, most notoriously in Julius Streicher’s (1885–1946) newspaper Der Sturmer, replete with graphic portrayals of Jews executing German young males and virginal young females and draining their blood. After the end of World War II, in Kielce, Poland, forty-two Jews were murdered and forty injured when an eight-year-old boy went missing and these Holocaust survivors were accused of the crime. Even the United States was not spared from this libel. In 1928, in Massena, New York, a four-year old girl went for a walk and seemingly disappeared, only to return a day late, having fallen asleep, although a rumor persisted that she had been rescued by an anonymous benefactor. The rabbi of the small synagogue was interrogated by the police and questioned as to whether Jews had used human blood for ritual purposes in the past. Though the mayor of the town ultimately apologized, there were those citizens who remained convinced that the “rescue”

Judaism: Blood Libel

thwarted an attempt at ritual murder. In January 2005, twenty members of the Russian Duma (lower house of the Russian Federation Parliament) publicly accused Jews of blood libels against the Russian people. The Blood Libel remains a staple of not only Western anti-Semites but Middle Eastern, primarily Arab, foes of Israel even today. On a regular, ongoing basis, political cartoons appear in Arab nation-state newspapers depicting Israelis, replete with Stars of David on military uniforms, dripping with the blood of innocent Palestinians, especially children. According to Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), supposed reputable scholars and imams continue to perpetuate the lie of the Blood Libel. In 1983, for example, Mustafa Tlass (1932–2017), the former Syrian minister of defense (1972–2004), published his libelous The Matzah of Zion, replete with all the previously held anti-Semitic tropes, including this one, and attempted to address the notorious Damascus Affair of 1840, when thirteen leaders of that Jewish community were arrested, tortured, indicted, and imprisoned, charged with the murder of French Franciscan monk Father Thomas. International pressure and negotiations secured the release and exoneration of nine of the leaders; four had already died as a result of their wounds. In sum, the very longevity of this libel in the minds of far too many attests to the enduring anti-Semitic hatred of Jews and Judaism, regardless of locale, education, political leaning, economic standing, or religious affiliation. Its many virulent expressions testify to its crudity, its graphic appeal to violence, and the willingness of some—although not all—to both believe and accept the most outrageous of accusations against this minority people and their religious faith. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Crusades; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion FURTHER READING Dundes, Alan. 1991. The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore. ­Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. The Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. www,­jewishencyclopedia​ .­com. Johnson, Hannah. 2012. Blood Libel: The Ritual Murder Accusation at the Limit of Jewish History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). ­https://​­www​.­memri​.­org. O’Brien, Darren. 2011. The Pinnacle of Hatred: The Blood Libel and the Jews. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press. Rose, E. M. 2015. The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

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CRUSADES The Crusades remain a source of both historical and religious fascination for people today, especially Christians, Jews, and Muslims, who view the events through radically different religious and theological lenses. As such, the events themselves remain on the table, so to speak, in any honest, open, and continuing dialogue/trialogue among these three constituencies. The Crusades were a series of religious-military journeys, inspired by papal pronouncements, during the eleventh century and later, whose announced goal was to retake the holy city of Jerusalem from its Muslim overseers (“infidels”) and, thus, ensure continued access to all sites holy to Christianity. Prior to the onset of the Crusades, however, reports were sent back to European cities that access was obstructed and/or denied by both Muslims and Jews, further setting the scene for the violence to come. While many who chose to join this pilgrimage of faith did so for the best of intentions, convictions, and commitments, others included peasants and criminals with little or nothing to lose, various European nobles who saw opportunities for increasing their economic coffers, and religionists who were intent on vanquishing an enemy to their faith. Less well-known, however, was the destruction caused to Jewish communities throughout Europe and the concomitant losses of Jewish life, particularly during the First Crusade of 1096, the Second Crusade of 1145–1147, and the Third Crusade of 1189–1190. During these periods of intense violence, the Judaic idea of martyrdom—al K’dushat Ha-Shem (those who die for the sanctification of the Holy Name of God)—came to the fore, as rabbis and laity, together with their families, chose to die by their own hands rather than permit themselves to be slaughtered by the soldiers and peasants who, stirred up by their priests, were mercilessly prepared to cut down these “enemies of God,” who were falsely perceived as responsible for the death of their Lord (i.e., Jesus Christ). In addition, the relative social cohesion and relative tranquility of relationships between Jews and Christians throughout Europe prior to the Crusades—not without periods of disruption and violence—were disrupted to the point of far-reaching consequences for much subsequent history.

FIRST CRUSADE (1096–1099) In 1095, Pope Urban II (1042–1099) called for a retaking of the Holy Land at a conciliar meeting in France. Those who responded affixed crosses to their garments (croises, crociati, hence “crusaders”). Arriving first in the Rhenish area of Germany, where the Jewish communities were economically successful, the Crusaders were incensed that these “murderers of Christ” thrived and sought to put

Judaism: Crusades

an end to their status before moving eastward. Thousands of Jews lost their lives before the Crusaders departed; their communities were devastated, some never recovering. Prior to the Crusaders’ departure, however, some Jews were given the option of forced conversion or death and chose conversion, only to later return to their ancestral faith.

SECOND CRUSADE (1145–1147) Inspired by Pope Eugene III (1080–1153), the scenario of the First Crusade repeated itself in the Second Crusade. Again, like in the First Crusade, the Jews of Germany suffered a far worse fate than the Jews of France and England. When Saladin (1137–1193) retook Jerusalem in 1187, Jews throughout Europe suffered the tragic consequences of the Crusader defeats, as Jews were again murdered, and their villages destroyed.

THIRD CRUSADE (1189–1190) Ironically, it was in England where Jewish communities suffered the most tragic of events, in part the direct result of the participation of Richard the Lion-Hearted (1157–1199) in the Crusade and his need to fund and sustain his journey east. Jewish communities were, again, destroyed, and Jews murdered and/or forcibly converted. Due to all three of these ventures, Jews remained vulnerable, and their continued ability to survive was now placed in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church and various kingdoms and dukedoms, which regularly sought financial recompense from the Jews either prior to an attack or in the aftermath of an attack. Legal restrictions against Jews also increased during and after the Crusades, culminating, perhaps, in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which merged Roman Catholic religious restrictions with (secular) Roman law. Some historians, however, have suggested that, ultimately, this sense of vulnerability is not fully borne out by the facts themselves, as Jews rebuilt their communities; their numbers increased, as did their economic viability; and Jewish learning flourished throughout Europe. Yet, the unease of Jews never fully left them and remains reflected in various liturgical poems (Hebrew: piyyutim) that were incorporated into siddurim (Sabbath and festival prayer books), makhzorim (High Holy Day prayer books), and Haggadot (Passover prayer books). Discrimination in various forms (political, economic, and social) against Jews became the order of the day throughout the Continent, and while there were subsequent Crusades (1202–1204; 1208; 1212; 1218–1221;

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1228–1229; 1248–1254; and 1270), it was during the first three that the major damage was done to Jews and Jewish communities. Also, both tragically and perniciously, during this same period, relationships between Jews and Christians took a decidedly overtly anti-Semitic turn, with the charge of the “Blood Libel” appearing, first in England (1144) and then throughout Europe, and both individual Jews and Jewish communities were false accused of kidnapping Christian children, murdering them, and draining their blood to be used in the preparation of the matzot (Hebrew: unleavened cakes) associated with the festival of Passover. Finally, it is important to note that several important Jewish sources detail the horrific events that befell their communities during this period. Among the most important are the following: • • • •

The Chronicle of Simon bar Simpson (1140), detailing the destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz, Germany, in 1096. The Chronicle of Rabbi Eliezer bar Nathan (mid-twelfth century), further elaborating on the events in Germany. The Narrative of the Old Persecutions (fourteenth century), author unknown, and adding even more details. Sefer Zekhirah of Rabbi Ephraim (Hebrew: “Book/Scroll of Remembrance,” twelfth century), an eyewitness to the Second Crusade. Steven Leonard Jacobs

See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Blood Libel; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah FURTHER READING Chazan, Robert. 1996a. European Jewry and the First Crusade. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chazan, Robert. 1996b. In the Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Chazan, Robert. 2000. God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chazan, Robert. 2016. From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism: Ancient and Medieval Christian Constructions of Jewish Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cohen, Jeremy. 2004. Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Eidelberg, Shlomo. 1996. The Jews and the Crusades: The Hebrew Chronicle of the First and Second Crusades. Hoboken: KTAV Publishing House. Maalouf, Amin. 1984. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. Translated by Jon Rothschild. New York: Schocken Books.

Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation Nirenberg, David. 2015. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(JUDAISM) In Judaism, issues of gender and sexual orientation revolve around condemnations of male homosexuality (and bestiality). This is based on three verses in the Torah/ Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, subsequent rabbinic literary affirmations, and a long tradition of further negative pronouncements by distinguished rabbis and scholars throughout Jewish history. Further, at the outset, women’s sexuality was not given credence historically in a patriarchal Middle Eastern society and context, Unclarified references to k’deishot and k’deishim (Temple prostitutes, female and male) were left deliberately vague but were denounced nonetheless, and there was an equally strong condemnation of non-Israelite religious practices. Modern religious and secular concerns with lesbianism, positive male gayness, bisexuality, transgenderism, queer identity, and so forth (LGBTQ+) do not find serious discussion in the historical literature of Judaism. The three Torahitic verses alluded to above are: Leviticus 18:22–23: Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is abominable. Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion. Leviticus 20:13: If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both have done what is abominable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. The use of the Hebrew word to’eivah—abomination—in these contexts is among the strongest language found throughout the entirety of the Torah/Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament. That such illicit behaviors would merit the death penalty speaks for itself. However, postbiblically, the rabbis of Judaism were reluctant to condemn to death those who violated these communal norms and erected what is called a siyag laTorah (“a fence around the Torah”) to make the implementation of the death penalty even more problematic. To make it even more so, the following is found in the Mishnah, the second-century compilation of Jewish law: A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called a murderous one. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says “Or even once in 70 years.” Rabbi Tarfon and

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Thus, according to the Oral Law of Judaism, two men so engaged in homosexual activity would have to have done so in the presence of two witnesses, who would warn them of the violation they were committing. The partners, in turn, would acknowledge but disregard the warning and return to their act of physical intimacy. Such an impossible scenario was proffered by design. Skipping ahead to the modern moment, the various denominational iterations of Judaism diverge in their interpretations and understandings, as we would expect. Such negative views, especially in the more traditional and traditionally observant Jewish communities, may be the result of both a primary understanding of human sexuality, as directly related to conception and birth, and post-Holocaust, the strong need and desire of these same Jews to reproduce a vulnerable minority of Jewish people. The main denominational views of homosexuality are as follows: Orthodox Judaism continues to condemn both male homosexuality and female lesbianism and broadens its understanding to include restrictions on the B’nai Noah (those who observe certain aspects of Jewish law and Jewish religious practice). Some Orthodox rabbis, although a decided minority, out of their own compassionate rethinking, have suggested that homosexual Jews are still to be included within the community, reject so-called therapeutic programs, and call for sensitivity and acceptance of such persons. (In 2001, filmmaker Sandi Dubowksi released Trembling Before G-d, and, in 2004, Orthodox rabbi Steven Greenberg published Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, both of which provoked something of a minor firestorm within the Orthodox community regarding the realities of those persons who wished to affirm both their sexual orientations and their commitment to this aspect of religious Judaism. Greenberg himself openly acknowledged his own homosexuality.) Conservative Judaism, while remaining committed both to the principles of halakha (Jewish law) and contemporary realities, has admitted gay persons into both its rabbinical and cantorial programs, and, in 2012, formally approved same-sex marriage ceremonies. Reform Judaism, a non-Halakhic interpretation and understanding of Jewish religious tradition, continues to reject traditional views of both homosexuality (and lesbianism) and bisexuality, ordaining its first openly gay rabbi in 1974 and continuing to admit persons with wider understandings of gender and sexual orientations into its rabbinical and cantorial programs. Congregations

Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

whose primary memberships and foci are the LGBTQ+ community have regularly been welcomed into the Union for Reform Judaism, its congregational umbrella organization. (The first such congregation, Beth Chayim Chadashim (“Place of New Lives”), was established in Los Angeles, California, in 1972, followed by such groups in New York; Washington, DC; and Chicago, Illinois.) In 2000, its seminary—the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion—established the Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, the first and only such institution in the Jewish world. Reconstructionist Judaism continues to fully welcome all manner of Jews, regardless of gender and/or sexual orientation concerns, into its communities. Gays, bisexuals, and lesbians have continually assumed leadership positions through their movement. Jewish Renewal, which understand itself to be “trans-denominational” community, and Humanistic Judaism, the two newest expressions of religious Judaism, continue to be open to all manner of Jews, however they choose to express their gender and sexual orientation. Finally, Rabbi Elliott Kukla, the first openly transgender person to be ordained by the Reform Jewish seminary in 2006, further complicates our understanding and suggests that such awareness of differences are part of the Jewish religious tradition. In a blog post entitled “More than Just Male and Female: The Six Genders in Classical Judaism,” he noted the following: • • • •

•

•

zachar = male neikeivah = female androgynous = persons with both male and female characteristics (149 references in Mishnah and Talmud; 350 references in Midrash and Codes) tumtum = persons whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscure (181 references in Mishnah and Talmud; 335 references in Midrash and Codes) ay’lonit = persons identified as female at birth who develops male characteristics (80 references in Mishnah and Talmud; 40 references in Midrash and Codes) saris = persons identified as male at birth who develops female characteristics (156 references in Mishnah and Talmud; 379 references in Midrash and Codes)

Thus, we find, both within the historical and scripturally-based Jewish religious traditions and the denominational differences within contemporary Judaism, a

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variety of positions on the issue of gender and sexual orientation, from strong condemnation to positive acceptance. Equally, human sexual expressions continue to be a source of ongoing conversations within all streams of religious Judaism. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: African Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (African Religion); Buddhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Buddhism); Chinese Religion: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Chinese Religion); Christianity: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Christianity); Hinduism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hinduism); Islam: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Islam); Jainism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Jainism); Judaism: Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Holocaust and World War II; Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism) FURTHER READING Dubowski, Sandi Simcha. 2003. “Trembling before God.” New York: New Yorker Video. Fonrobert, Elisheva. n.d. “Gender Identity in Halakhic Discourse.” Jewish Women’s Archive. ­www​.­jwa​.­org. Greenberg, Blu. 1994. On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Greenberg, Steven. 2004. Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality and the Jewish Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hoffman, Lawrence A. 1996. Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Institute for Judaism, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity. n.d. Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, OH. ­www​.­ijso​.­huc​.­edu. Kukla, Elliott. n.d. “More than Just Male or Female: The Six Genders of Classical Judaism.” ­https://​­www​.­sojourngsd​.­org > blog > tag > Elliott+Kukla. Lefkovitz, Lori Hope. 2011. In Scripture: The First Stories of Jewish Sexual Identities. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Rudavsky, Tamar. 1995. Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition. New York: New York University Press.

GOG AND MAGOG The apocalyptic End-Times scenario and battle, which, in the Torah/Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament begin in the Book of Ezekiel, resonate and expand in both Christianity and Islam. At center are chapters 38 and 39, where the following verses depict a final battle between two opposing enemy forces: 38:1The word of the Lord came to me [Ezekiel]: 2“Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophecy

Judaism: Gog and Magog against him, and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord say: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal.’” . . . 14“Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: . . . 18This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, my hot anger will be aroused, declares the Sovereign Lord . . . 21I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Sovereign Lord.’ 39:1 “Son of man, prophesy against Gog and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshek and Tubal . . . 6I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in safety in the coastlands, and they will know that I am the Lord . . . 11“On that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, in the valley of those who travel east of the sea . . . So it will be called the Valley of Hamon Gog . . . 15As they go through the land, anyone who sees a human bone will leave a marker besides it until the gravediggers bury it in the Valley of Hamon Gog.’” (RSV)

Afterward, the God of Israel will, again, restore the people of Israel to their land, build a new Temple in Jerusalem, and usher in a period of lasting peace, according to chapters 40 to 48. Further understood as a final war of conflict, according to some interpretations, after this battle, the Messiah of Israel will make his appearance. Thus, in Christianity as well, in addition to his (i.e., the Christ’s) appearance, the first resurrection of the righteous will come. Taking this understanding even further, Gog and Magog are equally understood as allies of Satan, as found in the final book of the New Testament, Revelation, specifically in chapters 19 to 21: 7When

the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (RSV)

Additionally, in the Septuaginal (Greek) version of the Hebrew text, “Gog” is mentioned in both Numbers 24:7 and Amos 7:1, and is thus understood differently by the writer(s) than the original Hebrew. References are also found in the apocryphal text known as the Book of Jubilees, which scholars believe was written at approximately the same time. In Islamic tradition, Gog and Magog are found in the Qur’an and the Hadith. According to the website ­IqraSense​.­com, “The story of Yajuj [Gog] and Majuj

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[Magog] is stated both in the Quran and hadith. Their appearance will be one of the signs of the end times. These events will transpire after the arrival of Dajjal, Mehdi and Eesaa [Jesus] (alaihi salam). Both Quran and the hadith have clearly mentioned their existence, arrival and the aftermath of their arrival.” In the twentieth century, at least among evangelical and conservative Christians in the United States, particularly during the Cold War (1947–1991), Gog was identified with Soviet Russia and the “End Times” began with the return of the Jews to their historic homeland of Israel in 1948, with the final battle yet to come. The fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 has forced millenarians to revise their theological thinking and understanding. Thus, such events as the increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons (e.g., Iran) and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have retriggered these beliefs among those who continue to affirm that the descriptions in the Book of Revelation will yet come to pass, though the dates, times and locations remain unspecified. In Judaism, and especially in modern contemporary Israel, the apocalyptic scenario, as espoused primarily by the right-wing, intensely nationalist settler movement, has provoked violence in its confrontation with Arab-Palestinian settlers. The murders committed by Baruch Goldstein against Palestinians in prayer in 1994 at the Cave of the Patriarchs remains among the most egregious of examples, but not the only one. For such believers, these confrontations are designed to hasten the ultimate confrontation in which the God of Israel will intervene, and the Jews will emerge victorious, the messiah of Israel will appear, and an era of universal and worldwide peace will present itself. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; Goldstein, Baruch (1956– 1994); Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Holocaust and World War II; Messianism/ Messiah; Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Collins, John J. (2016). The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans. Hirschhorn, Sara Yael. 2017. City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rowland, Christopher. 1982. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. New York: Crossroad. “The Story of Yajuj and Majuj (God and Magog).” n.d. ­ https://​­ www​ .­ iqrasense​ .­ com​ /­death​-­and​-­after​-­life​/­the​-­story​-­of​-­yajuj​-­and​-­majuj​-­gog​-­and​-­magog​.­html. Taub, Gadi. 2011. The Settlers and the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Judaism: Goldstein, Baruch

GOLDSTEIN, BARUCH(1956–1994) Baruch Koppel Goldstein (nicknamed “Benji”) was an American Israeli physician and disciple of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932–1990), the American Israeli ultranationalist Orthodox rabbi who founded the American Jewish Defense League and the Israeli Kach (“Strength”) Party. Kahane was assassinated by an Arab gunman in New York City in 1990. In 1994, Goldstein murdered twenty-nine Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs and wounded 125 others before being beaten to death by the survivors. (No criminal charges were filed against them.) His grave remains something of a shrine to his fellow right-wing religionists, who both venerate his memory and applaud his act. On a plaque near his grave are the words: “He gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land.” Rejected for burial in a consecrated Jewish cemetery, he is buried across from the Meir Kahane Memorial Park. More than ten thousand people have visited his site. Certain ultra-Orthodox rabbis (e.g., Yaacov Perrin, Samuel HaCohen, and Dov Lior) praised both him and his act at his funeral. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Goldstein was educated at the Yeshiva of Flatbush and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, emigrating to Israel in 1983. After military service, he lived in Kiryat Arba near Hebron and worked as an emergency physician. However, he refused to treat Arab patients, even those serving in the Israel Defense Force (IDF)—including the Druze, arguing (falsely) that it was contrary to Jewish law, and he compared Israel’s democracy to Germany under Nazism, often wearing a yellow star with the word “Jude” (“Jew”) on it. Some have debated whether these latter claims were untrue. The murders themselves took place on February 25, 1994, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque inside the Cave. Among those murdered where six boys who were fourteen years old or younger. The question remains whether Goldstein’s act was revenge for Kahane’s murder, as he had often spoken of seeking revenge. The year before, the police had identified Goldstein as having engaged in acts of desecration by pouring acid and damaging the prayer rugs inside the mosque. Additionally, Goldstein was already known years earlier to Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, as someone with potential for significant violence. It is important that Goldstein’s act of murder took place during the holiday of Purim, celebrating the victory of the Jews against the genocidal intent of the Persian Prime Minister Haman, according to the biblical Book of Esther. Goldstein saw the Arab people as having that same mind-set—wanting to murder any and all Jews—and his action, from his perspective, prevented genocide. After the massacres, riots broke out; forty-one Palestinians were killed and more than 120 injured. Suicide bombings took place inside Israel, with fourteen

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Israelis murdered and eighty-five injured. In the United States in 1994, a Lebanese immigrant attacked a van carrying Chabad Orthodox Jewish students, killing one and injuring three. Goldstein’s act was condemned by the majority of Israelis, including its then-Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995; himself assassinated by a right-wing yeshiva student); Jewa in the United Kingdom and United States; and the United Nations, which also expressed strong condemnation for his act. Mark Juergensmeyer, in his book Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, offers the following assessment: Those defenders of the acts of Baruch Goldstein want to portray him as a kind of Jewish patriot defending his community’s rights, but they cannot escape the implications of his and other Jews militants’ acts in precipitating Muslim violence on the other side, both in imitation and revenge . . . On the Jewish side, the death of their leader radically changed Kahane’s movement: some followers sought revenge for his assassination, and this motive, along with Kahane’s anti-Arab ideology, compelled his disciple, Goldstein, to attack Muslim worshippers in the shrine of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. (Juergensmeyer 2017, 65–66)

Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Blood Libel; Crusades; Holocaust and World War II; Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Horowitz, Elliott. 2008. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton and London: Princeton University Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2017. Terror in the Mind of God: The Rise of Global Religious Violence. 4th ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lustick, Ian S. 1988. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations. Sprinzak, Ehud. 1999. Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from the Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: Free Press.

GUSH EMUNIM Gush Emunim (Hebrew for “Block of the Faithful”), founded in 1974, was a rightwing, ultranationalist, at times militant, fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish religious

Judaism: Gush Emunim

movement. Its primary goal was establishing Jewish settlements throughout Israel, which it understood as the stewardship property solely of the Jewish people, and the Arab/Muslim (and Christian) inhabitants as interlopers. Active in the 1970s and 1980s, it also had its own activist wing, the Gush Emunim Underground, committed to necessary and legitimated violence in pursuit of its objectives, which included rebuilding the Holy Temple, displacing non-Jews, and returning to the biblical kingdom of ancient Israel. The slogan of the movement was “The Land of Israel for the people of Israel, according to the Torah,” which included the West Bank (for them Judea and Samaria), the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. For them, as well, the Jewish right to settle anywhere in the land of Israel was divinely mandated and trumped any notion of governmental interference, including from outsiders, such as the United Nations. After the essential demise of its organizational apparatus in the early 1980s, its work was taken over by its settlement arm Amana and the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The person most-associated with the movement after the death of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982) was Rabbi Moshe Levinger (1935–2015), who, along with Hanan Porat (1943–2011) founded the movement itself. Others associated with the movement included Daniela Weiss (b. 1942), Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun (b. 1946), Professor Harold Fisch (1923–2001), Benny Katzover, Uri Elitzur (1946– 2014), Yizhak Armoni (b. 1995), Rabbi Yaacov Ariel (b. 1937), Rabbi Eliezer Waldman (b. 1937), Rabbi Haim Drukman (b. 1932), Rabbi Shlomo Aviner (b. 1943), and Rabbi Menahem Froman (1945–2013). Rabbi Froman later broke with the movement and become a peace activist. Among its most well-known violent activities was its unsuccessful attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a plot that was discovered, and its operatives arrested and prosecuted. Basing itself, at least initially, upon the writings of the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), who saw the combined work of religionists and secularists as mystically linked in bringing about the messianic redemption of the Holy Land of Israel, these latter-day followers were more in tune with the thinking of his son and successor Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook (1891–1982), who, cabalistically, saw the return and building up of the nation-state of Israel as precursors to both redemption and the messianic era. Following the euphoria of the 1967 Six-Day War (June 4–10) and the depressive trauma of the 1973 Yom Kippur War (October 6–26), these religionists set the idea of the spiritual re-awakening of the Jewish people through concrete acts their mission. Acts of politico-religious violence and settler violence, where some members of the Israeli-Jewish settlements in areas that were largely populated by Arab farmers and agriculturalists saw their lands salted and their olive trees chopped down

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and uprooted, were intimately connected with the Gush Emunim movement. The cycle of violence has continued to escalate: a settler family experiences a violent attack, resulting in death and/or serious physical harm or injury; in turn, Arab families and their settlements experience the same; and on and on. Professor Ian S. Lustick, in his 1988 book, For the Land the and Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, has argued that, paralleling the rise of Gush Emunim, was the rise of Kach (Hebrew: “strength” or “power”), the political party led by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932–1990), who virulently advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from the land of Israel and was not opposed to violent measures to accomplish that goal. Thus, connections with his own movement and followers and other small terrorist-related organizations remained consistent with the overall goals of Gush Emunim. Finally, the late Israel scholar of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel Ehud Sprinzak (1940–2002), argued in many of his writings that the fundamental ideology of Gush Emunim was (1) redemption, (2) sanctity of the land of Israel, (3) revival of Zionism and settlement, (4) contra the Arab presence and claims to the land, and (5) democracy and the rule of law according to its own strict and narrow interpretations. In and of themselves, none of these ideological foundations should have led directly to violent activities; that responsibility was the result of a limited circle of leaders with strongly negative attitudes toward Arabs, who used sacred Jewish texts (Torah and Talmud) to legitimate their activities. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots FURTHER READING Inbari, Motti. 2014. Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lustick, Ian S. 1988. For the Land the and Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Morrison, David. 2003. The Gush: Center of Modern Religious Zionism. New York and Jerusalem: Gefen Books. Newman, David, ed. 1985. Impact of Gush Emunim: Politics and Settlement in the West Bank. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sprinzak, Ehud. 1999. Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: Free Press. Weisburd, David. 2004. Jewish Settler Violence: Deviance as Social Reaction. University Park: Penn State University Press.

Judaism: Hebrew Bible

HEBREW BIBLE(TORAH, TANAKH) The Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament of the Jews—like the New Testament of the Christians and the Qur’an of the Muslims—is a complicated set of texts; a mixture of historical events and persons framed by a religious-theological reading of such events; and, all too often, is shrouded in mystery. That mystery is of two types: (1) our inability to further identify persons, places, and events as written, and (2) the lack of other corroborative sources from outside the texts themselves. Further, collectively, in the main, these texts do not identify either the original authors, additionally providing good historical contexts, or the editor or editors who further “massaged” the texts, with an overall eye toward making the work something of a unified whole. Adding to all this is the realization that, in toto, while the Torah contains the loftiest of religious and spiritual ideals and the noblest of ethical presentations, it also includes dramatic and, at times, overly graphic depictions of wars and their devastating physical and psychological impacts, individual and collective betrayals, instances of genocidal agendas and implementations, and the like. The world of the Torah was not a world that was neither all good nor all positive. It was a world where life and death, including unwarranted murders and violent behaviors, were all-too-real, everyday realities. That we, in both the Jewish and Christian (and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic) religious traditions, continue to “play up” only the very best of the Torah is to present only an incomplete picture of its contents and, thus, further removes us from its historical settings. As the bibliographic sources at the end of this entry suggest, there is a vast literature that attempts to both explicate and understand the very violence contained with the Torah, the historical contexts in which the texts were originally written and later edited, and their consequences and implications for us today. The Hebrew Bible of the Jews/the Old Testament of the Christians is also known as the Torah (Hebrew: “Guide,” “Path,” “Way”) or its acronym TaNaKh (Hebrew: Ta=Torah/Five Books of Moses; Na=Nevi’im/Prophets; Kh=Ketuvim/ Writings). It is the central sacred text of the Jewish people and the religion of Judaism. At the same time, it is the first set of texts of the Protestant Christian Bible, which also includes the New Testament, and the Roman Catholic Bible, which also includes the Apocrypha (Jewish books that were saved from destruction but were rejected for inclusion in the Jewish canon). After its initial reception, several centuries later, the Masoretes (“Traditionalists”) standardized the written texts as we have them today. Objective scholars prefer the term “Hebrew Bible” to “Old Testament,” which they argue privileges a religious Christian perspective rather than an unbiased examination of those same texts.

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Originally a set of oral texts, the thirty-six separate books that comprise the Hebrew Bible were later written down for inclusion in the Jewish canon in the year 90 CE, twenty years after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Though Jewish religion tradition and some allied Christian traditions accord authorship to Moses, King David, King Solomon, and the various named prophets (see below), the texts themselves do not definitively state their authors and/ or editors, and objective scholars are largely in the dark as to who wrote the texts, where they were written, the social-historical contexts that engendered their preservation, and related concerns. In the main, the texts were composed in Hebrew, with some evidence of linguistic borrowings from Egyptian and Greek, and the Book of Daniel in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the ancient Mediterranean world. In their Judaic order, the books of the Hebrew Bible are as follows:

THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES • • • • •

Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy

THE PRE-LITERARY “PROPHETS” More accurately, these texts deal with historical events rather than prophetic discourses. We do not fully know why the rabbinic canonizers chose to include them in this section rather than in a separate division. •

• • •

Joshua (Significantly, some scholars have suggested that this text completes the journey back to the Holy Land, and, thus, may have been originally part of Deuteronomy, or that, rather than a Pentateuch (Five-Book text), it was initially a Hexateuch (Six-Book text) Judges Samuel, I and II Kings, I and II

THE MAJOR PROPHETS The division into “major” prophets and “minor” prophets is based on the number of texts associated with the individual prophets and not a judgment of their content.

Judaism: Hebrew Bible

• • •

Jeremiah Isaiah Ezekiel

THE MINOR PROPHETS • • • • • • • • • • • •

Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

THE WRITINGS—“WISDOM BOOKS” • • • • •

Psalms Proverbs Song of Songs Job Ecclesiastes

THE WRITINGS—“NON-WISDOM BOOKS” • • • • • • •

Ruth Lamentations Esther Daniel Ezra Nehemiah Chronicles, I and II

In totality, these books tell the story of the Israelites from their earliest beginnings through their initial settlement in the land, their enslavement in Egypt (c. 2100 BCE),

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their return to the land of their origins (c. 1750 BCE), the exilic journey of the southern kingdom into Babylon (586 BCE) after the destruction of the northern kingdom (721 BCE), and their final return and settlement to the land, prior to the Roman debacle again in the year 70 CE, and a two-thousand-year postbiblical history of exile and wandering largely throughout Western Europe. Through the various texts, it is the relationship between the God of Israel and the people of Israel, as manifested in the B’rith or Covenant that maintained that relationship. In addition, the Hebrew Bible contains poetry; laws, both secular and religious; holy day celebrations; and the like, effectively structuring a constitution for a theocratic state. In regard to its legal materials, postbiblically, the rabbis of the Jewish religious tradition mined the texts of the Five Books of Moses and concluded that there were 613 commanded obligations (Hebrew: mitzvot; singular mitzvah) which remain central to Jewish religious practice today. From its initial rendering, primarily in Hebrew, the first full translation into Greek became known as the Septuagint, then into the Latin of the Vulgate, then the English of the King James Version, and into the modern period with a variety of translations (e.g., New International, New Living, New King James, New Revised Standard, and New American). It should also be noted that, in the ancient world, translations of the Hebrew Bible existed, specifically, Targum Onkelos and Targum Yerushalmi or Pseudo-Jonathan, as well as translations into Samaritan, Syriac Aramaic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic. Today, the Hebrew Bible (including the New Testament) remains the most translated text worldwide. From its earliest written beginnings, parallel Jewish and later Christian writers began adding commentaries—sometimes brief notes and other times extensive discourses—further attempting to clarify the meaning of individual passages; further identifying persons, places, and events; and ruminating about theological, philosophical, and/or other understandings of the interrelationship between the God of Israel and the people of Israel. This commentarial tradition continues into the present, and insights from intellectual disciplines (anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology) continue to shed additional light on various passages. One central point of difference between religious Jews and religious Christians remains that the latter “see” in certain passages (e.g., Isaiah 52–53) the person of the Christ, where the former reject any such readings. Further enlarging our understanding of the Hebrew Bible was the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 and when researchers found fragments, some lengthier and some smaller, of every book except that of Esther, as well as other manuscripts depicting the life of the communal male residents of the Dead Sea area known as Qumran. Scholars remain divided, however, about whether those residents were Essenes and/or persons with whom John the Baptist and Jesus may have interacted. Some texts of individual books were the same, while others

Judaism: Holocaust and World War II

revealed both word and phrase changes, as well as spelling variants, all indicating that our present understanding of the Bible as commonly agreed-upon texts needs to take these variants into consideration. Finally, it should also be realized that the Hebrew Bible remains foundational, as its stories continue to inspire artists in all venues, from music to painting, sculptures, graphic novels, computer-generated art, and so forth. Such artistic renderings may be further understood as contemporary expressions of an art form that found its heyday in the Middle Ages with the production of illuminated manuscripts of individual books of the Hebrew Bible, most prominently in Spain and Italy. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Judaism); Gog and Magog; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah; Temple Mount; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING McEntire, Mark. 1999. The Blood of Abel. Macon: Mercer University Press. Niditch, Susan. 1995. War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Olyan, Saul M., ed. 2015. Ritual Violence in the Hebrew Bible: New Perspectives. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Schwartz, Regina M. 1998. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

HOLOCAUST AND WORLD WAR II THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION No one single word can define the scope and horror of the murders of noncombatants perpetrated by the Nazis and their allied minions during World War II. These deaths largely resulted from the implementation of a Hitlerian ideology that blamed the Jews not only for Germany’s loss in World War I but also for all the supposed ills that afflicted primarily Western civilization. Our English word “Holocaust” derived from the Greek word holocaustos—the totally consumable by fire of animal offerings by the priests of Ancient Israel to the God of Israel—indirectly suggests the religious aspects or dynamics of what transpired and, perversely, might even play into those who argue that the Nazis were doing the “will of God” as priestly agents of the Divine. The Hebrew word Shoah (“Destruction” or “Devastation”) refers only to Jews, as does the Yiddish word khurbn. The Sini/Roma word

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Porajmos (“Devouring”) refers only to their tragedy. None of these words, however, addresses the fate of innocent civilians through Europe who were subjected to Nazi tyranny, hegemony, or worse, nor homosexual persons, nor Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor political dissidents, nor so-called asocials. The following two definitions—one recently posited by a recognized scholar of the Holocaust that was only recently posited, and the second by the contributor of this entry—focus on different aspects of the event. The first is that of Michael Marrus, retired, of the University of Toronto: The brutalization of men, women, and children across Europe, in a sinister racially inspired scheme of wiping millions of Jews off the face of the earth; rounding them up everywhere they could be found, often after murderous attacks; exposing them to disease, cold, hunger, and other degrading conditions, robbing, torturing them, beating them, shooting them, and in some cases murdering them by gassings in trucks or in specially constructed gas chambers, and by the killing of many hundreds of thousands, amounting to close to six million in all. (Marrus 2016, 4)

The following definition is used in the undergraduate course the Holocaust in historical perspective” and has evolved over this contributor’s years of teaching: The Shoah/Holocaust is the historically validated, legalized, bureaucratic marriage of technology and death, directed primarily against the Jewish People and Judaism by the Nazis of Germany and their non-German allies on the European continent between the years 1939 and 1945, and which resulted in the murderous deaths of more than six million Jewish persons, children, women and men.

Thus, the keys to understanding the various important elements of this latter definition are as follows:

Historically Validated Despite the claims of so-called Holocaust revisionists (more accurately described as “Holocaust denialists”), the overwhelming abundance of documents (official governmental materials), memoirs, and eyewitness accounts of both victims and perpetrators, media, filmic materials, and so forth situates the events themselves within a historical context.

Legalized With the passage of an institution of a whole host of discriminatory legislations and laws by the Nazi government of Germany, their allies, and those formerly

Judaism: Holocaust and World War II

independent and sovereign states that fell to the power and might of their enemies, laws were put in place that disadvantaged (and worse!) the Jews within their ever-expanded orbit.

Bureaucratic Marriage of Technology and Death To murder such large populations on so vast a scale required an organizational apparatus second to none, beginning in Germany itself, and integrating into its various structures (political military, economic, academic, etc.) the scientific communities (medical, biological, physiological, genetic, etc.) that “bought into” the goal of the extermination/annihilation of the Jews. Those organizations included the Sturmabteilung (SA, Storm Troopers), Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police), Schutzstaffel (SS, Protection Squad), the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichführers SS (SD Security Service), and the various departments and branches of the German government and its ministries. In addition, one must also include German society as either complicit in these crimes or indifferent to the fate of their Jewish friends and neighbors and, sometimes, even family, as numerous works indicate. Today, significantly, German governmental acceptance of the reality of the Holocaust is officially acknowledged, and education about the Holocaust is a mandated part of the national curricula.

By the Nazis of Germany and Their Non-German Allies The Holocaust/Shoah could not have been accomplished solely by the Nazis themselves, and it relied upon the willing complicity of populations found in those nation-states that came into the Nazi orbit—Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Baltic States, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and so forth. Those already predisposed to implementing their anti-Semitic agendas now had the power to do so, and those others—whether for personal or professional goals—were all-too-easily co-opted and complicit in the murders of their friends, neighbors, family members, and those they did not know.

On the European Continent The current scholarly consensus is that if the Nazis had been successful in Europe, they would have pursued their two goals—military conquest and implementation of the Holocaust/Shoah, on a worldwide basis. They would have sought to conquer other continents and extend implementation of the “Final Solution” to those continents, thus exterminating all Jews worldwide.

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Directed Primarily against the Jewish People and Judaism The ultimate goal of die Endlösung der Judenfrage (“The Final Solution to the Jewish Question”) was not only the obliteration of the Jewish people physically but the evisceration of its centuries-old religious tradition known as Judaism as well, including its physical institutions (synagogues) and its plethora of communal organizations.

Between the Years 1939 and 1945 Except for the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9/10 November 1938, the Nazis and their allies commenced their journey to death and destruction with the beginning of World War II on September 1, 1939. Their operations continued until the end of the war on May 8, 1945—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) having apparently committed suicide on April 30/May 1. Others have argued, however, for a beginning date of January 30, 1933, with the assumption of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany, and encompassing the entire twelve-year period of Das Dritte Reich (“The Third Reich”). Others have argued for an even earlier date, suggesting that with the end of World War I (November 11, 1918), the formation of the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP, January 5, 1919) which subsequently became the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP, acronym “Nazi”) once Hitler claimed its leadership, and the signing of the Versailles Treaty (June 28, 1919), the march to the Holocaust had begun.

More than Six Million Jewish People: Children, Women, and Men Conclusively accurate figures remain difficult to come by, and ranges of deaths appear more appropriate, as noted below. With the opening of the archives after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it now appears that the understanding and figures were previously agreed upon will have to be revised upward rather than downward. This much is certain: More than one million of those murdered Jews were children up to the age of twelve, and five hundred thousand were children between the ages of twelve and eighteen. In total, whatever the number, the losses themselves represent more than one-third of all Jews alive at the beginning of the twentieth century (sixteen to eighteen million), two-thirds in Europe alone, and represent a net loss from which the Jewish people will never recover. Today there are about six to seven million Jews in Israel, about six million in the United States, about three million in the former Soviet Union, and about three million in the rest of the world. Given these present demographic realities, the potential future

Judaism: Holocaust and World War II

growth and loss amounts to approximately 50 percent of Jewry. This is because some Holocaust victims were girls who never reached the age of maturity; girls, and women who never married; and women who married but were murdered prior to giving birth or were murdered with their children. There were also families that never achieved their desired number of children or who were murdered with their children, or their surviving children were less than the total number birthed. And yet, while this contributor’s own definition addresses many salient concerns, it does not include the overall historical context(s), the locales of death and destruction, and/or the manner of those murders.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT, LOCALES, AND THE MANNER OF THE MURDERS Historical Context(s) Since the fall and destruction of the Second Temple two thousand years ago, in the year 70 CE by the Romans, the Jewish people have been a vulnerable wandering minority throughout primarily Western Europe, a population whose safety, security, and survival were dependent on those holding the reins of political, economic, religious, and social power. The early rise of Christianity, which saw the destruction as “payback” for the failure of the Jews to recognize and accept their long-sought-for Messiah in the person of Jesus Christ, coupled with their alliance of Roman and later Protestant Christianity with the nation-state, up until the Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation—both of which severed the church-state marriage—only increased that vulnerability. With the power to restrict the Jews came the implementation to do so. Thus, a fertile ground was prepared for the active antisemitism upon which the Nazis were able to draw, given the reality of a Western negative assessment of the Jewish people and Judaism. That “journey of antisemitism” may, thus. be described as follows: (1) social-cultural dislike; (2) religious-theological dislike; (3) the merging of the two; and (4) the Nazi contribution, racial-biological dislike. In every historical period, Jews were subjected to discrimination, repression, and violence, while the religion of Judaism itself was subjected to various forms of discrimination.

Locales Though places of Jewish internment began in Germany, with Dachau being the site of incarceration of more than ten thousand Jewish men after Kristallnacht (November 9 and 10,1938), the primary locale for the construction and location of

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the Konzentrationslagers (concentration camps), Arbeitslagers (work camps), and Vernichtungslagers (extermination camps) was Poland; other Eastern European countries were also home to such sites. In Poland itself, six primary killing centers were established: Chelmno (Kulmhof), Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Maidanek, and Auschwitz. Additionally, the major concentration camps were Ravensbruck, Neuengamme, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Flossenburg, Natzweiler-Struthof, Dachau, Mauthausen, Stutthof, and Dora/Nordhausen. More than 3.5 million Jews met their end in these “factories of death.” All told, the actual number of these sites have been estimated to have been more than forty thousand, including thirty thousand slave labor camps in the occupied countries, one thousand concentration camps (with numerous subcamps), and one thousand prisoner-of-war camps.

Manner of Murders The systemic murder of the Jews of Europe was an evolving process that included the Einsatgruppen (mobile killing squads), consisting of four units of approximately up to fifteen hundred men. Following the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa, beginning June 22, 1941), they entered Eastern villages, corralling and slaughtering more than 1.3 million Jews; removing Jews from civil society through restrictive legislation (e.g., Nuremberg Racial Laws of September 1935) and ghettoization; killing them from carbon monoxide poisoning in large vans with capacities of up to one hundred persons (perhaps as many as five hundred thousand persons were murdered this way); and, finally, the various camps and subcamps that led to all manner of brutalities, starvation, disease, beatings, and, ultimately death due to Zyklon B gas in gas chambers and body disposal in oven crematoria. Additionally, horrific pseudoscientific medical experiments were performed on any number of unwilling prisoners (disease injections, high altitude and sea water immersions, amputations, drug testing, sterilizations, and infliction of simulated battle wounds), which regularly resulted in death. In terms of the number of murdered, the following gives some indication of the horrific scale of these crimes (80 to 90 percent of these victims were Jews): 1. Auschwitz-Birkenau 2. Treblinka 3. Belzec 4. Chelmno 5. Sobibr 6. Majdanek

1,000,000 870,000–925,000 434,000–600,000 152,000–320,000 170,000–250,000 79,000–255,000

Judaism: Holocaust and World War II

Once the war itself ended, some—but not all, including the Nazi leadership—were brought to various trials (e.g., International Military, 1945–1946; Doctors’ Trials, 1946–1947; Dachau Trials, 1945–1947; Auschwitz Trial, 1947; Buchenwald Trial, 1945–1948). Ultimately, only a relatively small number of perpetrators out of a total of perhaps two hundred thousand were prosecuted and punished, up to and including death for their crimes. Many escaped punishment, hiding in Germany itself; the Middle East, especially Egypt; and South America (e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay); others returned home to be reintegrated into their respective societies. For the Jewish survivors, however, including those who survived the so-called death marches (estimated at more than two hundred and fifty thousand), the trauma of the Holocaust/Shoah remains to this day. Many shared their stories of survival, not only with their immediate families but, later, with the public at large. Unable to return to their countries of origin—no longer in possession of their homes or assets—they left the graveyards of Europe to build new lives in Israel, the United States, Australia, and Canada, leaving behind much smaller and devastated populations in France, England, and Eastern Europe. The great myth/lie of the Holocaust/Shoah remains that the Jews, willingly or unwillingly, went to their deaths “like lambs to the slaughter,” when the reality was that various forms of resistance broke out in many of their places of incarceration, including the ghettos. Examples include the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April 1943, Sobibor uprising of October 1943, and the active participation of between twenty and thirty thousand Jews in partisan anti-Nazi insurgencies (e.g., the Bielski brothers and partisans in Poland, beginning in 1941). Finally, with the passing of the survivors themselves, the aging of the so-called Second Generation (their children) and the coming-of-age of the Third-Generation (their grandchildren), issues of memory and historically accurate retelling of the events themselves appear to gain increasing prominence, as do questions of uniqueness versus unprecedentedness and the place of the Holocaust within the larger discussion of genocide. Thus, there is no indication whatsoever that Holocaust-related issues will themselves disappear from the world stage anytime soon. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Christianity: Eugenics; Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Blood Libel; Crusades; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah; The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Black, Jeremy. 2016. The Holocaust: History & Memory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cesarani, David. 2016. Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933–49. New York: Macmillan. Dwork, Debórah, and Robert Jan van Pelt. 2012. Holocaust: A History. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company. Gerlach, Christian. 2016. The Extermination of the European Jews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, Peter, ed. 2015. How Was It Possible? A Holocaust Reader. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Hayes, Peter. 2017. Why? Explaining the Holocaust. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Longerich, Peter. 2010. Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Marrus, Michael. 2016. Lessons of the Holocaust. Toronto and London: The University of Toronto Press. Rees, Laurence. 2017. The Holocaust: A New History. New York: Public Affairs.

LEHAVA Lehava (Hebrew for “Flame” as well as the acronym for the “Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land”) is a religious rightist political organization in Israel, founded in 2009 in the aftermath of the Kahanist Movement of the late American Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932–1990). It sets as its goals (1) militant opposition to Jewish assimilation (i.e., surrendering to a strictly Orthodox Jewish religious commitment); (2) opposition of interpersonal relationships with Palestinians, other Arabs, and Christians, especially marriages of Jewish women and Arab men; (3) public shaming of Jews who rent properties to Arabs; (4) contempt for homosexuality; and (5) opposition to the presence of Christianity and Christians in Israel, including churches. Were it to have its way, all non-Jews would be expelled from Israel. While its original founder was Mosis Zion, the organization’s leaders include Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein (1969–), former Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari (1963–), American Israeli Baruch Marzel (1959–), and attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir (1976–). On January 3, 2015, Liat Bar-Stav, an undercover journalist, published a report on the organization on the Ynetnews website. She reported the following comments, made by the organization’s current chairperson Bentzi Gopstein, at a rally in November 2014: Some 45 years ago, Rabbi Kahane said, shouted and cried out that the enemies within us are a cancer and that if we don’t take care of this cancer and get rid of

Judaism: Lehava it, it won’t continue to exist. Unfortunately, this dangerous cancer of coexistence has metastasized everywhere. There are various ministers in the government who are encouraging coexistence, who are giving them jobs, allowing them into the hi-tech world, allowing them to become doctors . . . Everyone knows today that Rabbi Kahane was right, but knowing is not enough. The rabbi wanted action and, so we have gathered here not only to remember Rabbi Kahane; we are here to continue Rabbi Kahane’s way . . . The cancer we spoke about in the beginning has offshoots in the Knesset [Parliament] of Israel too. Thirty years ago, Rabbi Kahane stood up in the Knesset and took out a hangman’s noose for traitors, a noose for the Arab MK [Member of Knesset] who was there. It’s not a threat, it’s a promise, the rabbi said when attacked for doing so. So, this is what I wish (former MK Azmi) Bishara on behalf of all of you: Your day will come, Azmi! We are waiting for the Israeli government to come and hang you from the tallest tree! Azmi, only thanks to Rabbi Kahane will we make sure you are hanged one day.

Liat Bar-Stav goes on to state that while the group publicly says it’s not violent, its members are trained to not avoid physical confrontations, which they themselves egg on through their vituperative language and incendiary protest behaviors. For example, they used arson and graffiti spray-paint at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand Center for Jewish Arab Education in the Israel Bilingual School in Jerusalem in 2014. Lehava remains on the radar of Israel’s police agencies, which continue to monitor its activities. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Bar-Stav, Liat. January 03, 2015. “Inside Radical Right-Wing Group Lehava.” https:­www​ .­ynetnews​.­com > News > Magazine. Friedman, Robert I. 1990. The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane—From FBI Informant to Knesset Member. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. Kahane, Libby. 2008. Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought. Vol. 1. New York: Kahane Institute. Kahane, Libby. 2015. Rabbi Meir Kahane: His Life and Thought. Vol. 2. New York: Kahane Institute. Lustick, Ian S. 1988. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations. Sprinzak, Ehud. 1999. Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Abraham to the Rabin Assassination. New York: Free Press.

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MAIMONIDES (1135–1204) Maimonides, Moshe ben Maimon (Moses, the son of Maimon) remains perhaps the most towering figure of the Jewish intellectual, philosophical, and religious tradition in the post-Talmudic era, up to and including the present moment. More popularly known by the Greek appellation Maimonides, within Jewish circles, he is referred to by his acronym RaMbaM. (Additionally, he was also referred to as Ha-Nesher Ha-Gadol, the “Great Eagle,” and known in Arabic as Abu Imran Musa bin Maimun bin Ubaidallah al-Qurtabi or, shortened, Musa bin Maymun.) Born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1135, he died in Fostat (Old Cairo), Egypt, in 1204. His burial site in Tiberias, Israel, remains a place of both pilgrimage and veneration. The son of a renowned scholar, once the Almohads conquered Spain, he and his family were forced to flee, first to France, then to Morocco, then to Israel, and finally to Egypt. After the tragic death of his brother David, the primary supporter of the family, who drowned in the Indian Ocean on a business trip, Maimonides was responsible for the support of his family and turned to medicine. He quickly established himself as both a committed physician and an astute diagnostician, whose knowledge of herbal medicines remains most insightful even today. Once settled in Fostat, with the support of his Arab/Muslim colleagues, he became a physician to the royal court. His Jewish communal commitments also found him the acknowledged leader of the community, and those commitments translated into his major publications, the multi-volume Mishneh Torah (“Second Torah/Second Law”), a systematization of Jewish laws culled primarily from the Babylonian Talmud (while also incorporating the Palestinian Talmud, though less so), and designed for those whose responsibilities could not afford them the luxury of sustained Talmudic study, and the Moreh Nevukhim (“Guide for the Perplexed”), a sophisticated rationalist discussion of the relationship between neo-Aristotelian Platonic philosophy and Judaism, as well as Mishnaic and biblical commentaries. His philosophical writings were not without opposition, including the burning of his texts in France by the Dominicans (after the leading rabbinic figures at the time brought them to their attention). There were those leaders who also opposed the publication and wide dissemination of the Mishneh Torah, fearing its popularity and accessibility would, ultimately, lead to a lessening interest in and commitment to Talmud study. However, so important and recognized for its profundity, the Moreh Nebukhim was available (in translation from its original Arabic and later Hebrew into Latin and Greek) to leading Roman Catholic thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) and Duns Scotus (1266–1308). Among his other important texts were his Sefer Ha-Mitzvot (“Book of the Commandments”), a systematization and categorization of the 613 commandments found through the Hebrew Bible/Torah/Old Testament, which was, again, very

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much a “handbook” for those who could not devote their lives to study. He also maintained an extensive correspondence throughout the Jewish world, and many of his letters—including his longer epistles—have survived to this day, including those discovered in the Cairo Genizah (storehouse) in the Old Synagogue in Egypt. Among the more well-known is his Iggeret Temen (“Epistle to Yemen”) on the issue of forced conversion. The so-called Oath of Maimonides (sometimes called the Prayer of Maimonides)—said to be comparable to the Hippocratic Oath—has been attributed to him, but there is no documented evidence to that effect. Maimonides’s voluminous writings have been classified in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia as follows: (1) works on philosophy and theology; (2) works on halakha (Jewish Law)—commentaries and codes; and (3) scientific works—astronomy and medicine. The topics addressed in the Moreh Nevukhim include the following: (1) God (attributes, existence, incorporeality); (2) creation; (3) prophecy; (4) evil; (5) divine providence; (6) morals; (7) law; and (8) eschatology. Last, he is also popularly well-known for two collections of sayings—the “13 Principles of Faith” (included in many traditional Jewish prayer books) and the “Ladder of Tzedakah” (principles of righteous obligations) (Jacobs, Broydé, and Lauterbach 1906). For contemporary Orthodox Jewish religionists, Maimonides remains an important figure, not as much for his philosophical thinking but for his Mishneh Torah, his recodification of Jewish laws and the commentaries over time that have surrounded them. Thus, this text remains part of the advanced curricula in many yeshivot (parochial schools) and kollels (advanced study schools). However, for those with a philosophical and theological interest, not only in the West but in Israel as well, Maimonides remains an important figure in the evolution of Jewish thought, and his relevance remains important. His intellectual reconciliation between those attracted to other thought systems (not Jewish) and Judaism remains a baseline for those who argue that differing ways of reading and understanding Judaism serve as touchstones and do not necessitate an egress from Jewish commitments. His address of such issues as God, prophecy, miracles, revelation, good and evil, politics, messianism, reason, and doubt serve for many as starting points for many Judaic thinkers today. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh) FURTHER READING Goodman, Micah. 2015. Maimonides and the Book That Changed Judaism: Secrets of “the Guide for the Perplexed.” Translated by Yedidya Sinclair. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society. Halbertal, Moshe. 2015. Maimonides: Life and Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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MARTYRDOM(SANCTIFYING THE NAME OF GOD) Martyrdom is a highly complex topic within the religious tradition of the Jewish people, especially regarding those who willingly surrender their lives rather than become apostates versus those who are forced to do so by their enemies. Martyrdom in the Jewish religious and historical tradition is best expressed by the Hebrew term al Kiddushat Ha-Shem, those who die “for the Sanctification of the [Holy] Name of God” rather than subject themselves to forced conversions or violations of Judaic holidays, holy days, festivals and/or fast days, and/or bodily desecrations (e.g., violations of sexual norms). This includes the disregarding of the dietary system or the moral-ethical value system of Jewish law (Hebrew: Halakha), all of which encompass the “Jewish way of life.” Thus, its opposite, Hillul Ha-Shem, may be best translated as “Desecration of the [Holy] Name of God” and equates with those acts that denigrate or worse both Judaism and the Jewish people and are practiced by rebellious Jews themselves (e.g., turncoats, informers, and self-haters). While the terms themselves do not appear in the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the concepts are there, at least in their initial configurations. They become increasingly apparent in postbiblical rabbinic literature and are even more central in the modern period, with the murder of more than six million Jewish women, children, and men in the aftermath of the Holocaust/Shoah, when the label kedoshim (Hebrew: “Holy Ones”—i.e., martyrs) was, and remains, applied to them. However, one may legitimately argue that, conceptually, Leviticus 22:32 (“Neither shall you profane My Holy Name, but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel. I am the Lord which hallows you”) makes this an obligation. Though initially applied to the priests of ancient Israel, it was quickly applied to the entire Israelite community. Postbiblically, however, the rabbis place enormous restrictions on mandating martyrdom so as not to encourage it but, instead, continually affirm that the purpose of the laws of Judaism (Hebrew: halakhot) is to “live by them,” following Leviticus 18:5. Additionally, since the founding of the modern state of Israel in May 1948; the subsequent wars of 1956, 1967, 1973, 1981, and 2001; and the regularity of terrorist incursions, which have resulted in the deaths of innocent children, women, and men, some religiously devout Jews would label all such victims as martyred holy

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ones. Also, there are those among the devout who would go so far as to label those Jews who die in the process of their violent responses to both Palestinians and Muslims, resulting in their deaths, Baruch Goldstein (1956–1994) being among the primary examples.

IN THE BIBLICAL PERIOD AND INITIALLY BEYOND There are rather dramatic stories in the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the ancillary literature of what we, today, would understand as martyrdom. For example, the story of Hannah and her sons in II Maccabees, chapter 7. Then, too, one manner of possibly understanding Genesis 22 and the Akedat Yitzhak (Hebrew: “the Binding of Isaac,” rather than “the Sacrifice of Isaac,” as understood by Christian commentators as a prefiguration of the Christ event) was Isaac’s silence and willingness to surrender his life in obedience to the Divine command communicated to Abraham. Subsequently, the story of the surviving zealots who took their last refuge in Masada, Herod’s summer palace in the Judean desert, and chose suicide rather than enslavement to the Romans may be read as an example of collective martyrdom, despite its historical contestations by later scholars. The case of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in Daniel, chapter 3, is but a further example. The rebellious example of Bar Kokhba and his revolt, also against the Romans, in 132–135 CE, which resulted in his death rather than subjugation adds to this history. (Rabbi Akiba, the acknowledged religious leader of Jewry at the time, who labeled Bar Kokhba as the “messiah,” also died at Roman hands.) As Professor Shira L. Lander wrote: To summarize the general development of ideas about martyrdom from second temple to tanaitic to amoraic sources, both Palestinian and Babylonian, is to travel a great theological distance. The theology of martyrdom is increasingly domesticated, finally brought under rabbinic control as it is expressed through the halakhic framework of the three situations in which one is obligated to choose martyrdom (Palestinian Talmud, Sheviith 4.2, 35a). The traditions move from notions of vicariously redemptive suffering and triumph over death through individual resurrection; to joyful death and end-time harbingers; to tzidduk ha-din (prayer of righteous judgment) and exegesis of love; to the miraculous power of the martyr-rabbis and exegesis beit-midrash style as the fulfilment of Scripture. Martyrs have been transformed from models of courage to objects of veneration to guardians of heaven. As the era of rabbinic literature concludes, the martyrs’ function on this earth, in this world, has been deferred to the next world. (Lander 2003)

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Lander concluded this essay on a personal level: “I am uneasy with a tradition that valorizes death without demanding critical scrutiny of the social structures that allowed it to happen in the first place. I am uncomfortable with theological assertions about death as redemptive or atoning . . . The God to whom I pray does not demand human sacrifice.”

RABBINIC RESTRICTIONS Rabbis became increasingly concerned that, due to the vulnerability of their Jewish communities, Jews would continue to opt for martyrdom, increasing their deaths and lessening the survival of their communities. Thus, we find increasing legislation that proscribed martyrdom except in cases of murder, incest and other forms of gross sexual immorality, and public idolatry. It also permitted accepting forced conversion (both to Christianity and Islam rather than death) but did not sanction choosing death for oneself or one’s children except when facing the immediacy of their own deaths; surrendering someone whose name was already known and requested by the authorities or even the mob outside to avoid the deaths of the entire group; misleading and/or deceiving non-Jews as to one’s true identity to save one’s life or the lives of others; and/or seeking protection among willing non-Jews. (These latter two scenarios became obviously applicable in the case of the Holocaust/Shoah.) The process of this rabbinic restrictive legislation already began in the second century in the town of Lydda, in post-Roman Palestine, when leading rabbis met to discuss and legislate this and other issues of importance to Jewish communal survival. During the Middle Ages, when the Jewish communities of Europe were increasingly vulnerable, Jews were slaughtered all too frequently, and, thus, the terminology of kedoshim/holy ones entered Jewish religious vocabulary, where it has remained ever since.

A LITURGICAL SANCTIFICATION In addition to these somewhat obvious scenarios, the rabbis quite profoundly suggested that the repetition of two liturgical expressions were themselves acts of holy commitment to honoring the Holy Name of God: (1) the Kedushah of Isaiah 6:3—“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of God’s glory,” which is now a major affirmation in Jewish worship, and (2) the kaddish, now more associated with the prayer that is said at funerals and memorials, but which bears no mention of death and is a series of recognitions of God’s holiness.

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THE PROBLEMATICS OF THE HOLOCAUST/SHOAH Jews of all ages were murdered simply because they were Jews, falsely perceived by the Nazis and other anti-Semitic organizations hostile to Jews as being of a different racial and genetic structure, with no possibilities whatsoever of changing their identities. Thus, conversion to Christianity either in Germany or elsewhere was not an option; Jews whose parents and/or grandparents had long ago converted—even with vetted documentation—and/or Jews who were thoroughly assimilated into larger European cultures or who had consciously rejected any identification with Jews communally or individually were still understood to be fully Jewish and subject to all the discriminations and brutalities of which their enemies were capable. However, honest evaluation compels the observation that not all who were murdered proved themselves worthy of the label of kedoshim/Holy Ones, no matter that the intention remains to somehow ennoble their deaths by attributing to them saintly manners or Jewish commitments they may or may not have possessed. Their murders were not matters of their own choosing, even if some went unwillingly to their deaths, refusing to debase themselves in the presence of their persecutors. What of those who did everything they could to survive or attempt to save their loved ones, even at the expense of others (family and/or friends), even in a minor way? Those who betrayed family and/or friends to the Nazis or their allies in exchange for momentary protection, initial financial gain, and/or escape opportunities are easier to judge; such acts and these and others were most assuredly acts of Hillul Ha-Shem, desecration of the Holy Name of God. Forgers, bribers, and false identifiers (including those who donned Nazi uniforms) are to be judged on an individual basis rather than blanket condemnations and the impossibility of later assessment by others. Equally problematic in this context is to label those who survived, through their own devices or with the help of others, as “heroes,” thus attributing a less appropriate title in all contexts. Some survivors were, indeed, heroes whose great acts of courage resulted in their own survival as well as that of others. Others survived simply due to luck or circumstance or being in the right location at the right time but due to no direct or even indirect action on their own part(s) and certainly were not heroic no matter their good fortune. Thus, while honoring or desecrating the Holy Name of God is most definitely part of the historical Jewish religious and historical traditions, since the Holocaust/ Shoah, the discussion of martyrdom has receded into the background of public Jewish discussion—despite the murders of innocent civilian Jewish children, women, and men in the state of Israel since 1948 (and before), which have resulted from terror attacks, suicide bombers, and so forth. Among the less religiously devout,

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the use of such heavily laden theological vocabulary remains uncomfortable and difficult. While they, too, share the sense of tragedy and loss associated with this victimhood, they do not see these murderous acts of innocent victims as part of a larger divine-human context. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Blood Libel; Crusades; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1194); Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Holocaust and World War II; Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Cohen, S. 2008. The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom. Turnhout: Brepolis Publishing. Droge, Arthur J., and James D. Tabor. 1992. A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity. New York: HarperCollins. Lander, Shira L. 2003. “Martyrdom in Jewish Traditions.” ­https://​­www​.­bc​.­edu > files > texts > cjrelations > resources > articles. Wiesenthal, Simon. 1987. Every Day Remembrance Day: A Chronicle of Jewish Martyrdom. New York: Henry Holt & Company.

MESSIANISM/MESSIAH Messianism, m’shikhut (Hebrew: “the process of anointing”—that is, the pouring over of the holy and purest of olive oils) in the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has evolved postbiblically into a relevant discussion of the personhood of the messiah and the “flash point” where Jews, regardless of denominational orientation differ most strikingly from Christians or all denominational orientations. The noun mashiach/messiah as a person appears for the first time in the apocryphal literature (extra-biblical texts not considered sacred by Jews or Protestants but sacred by Roman Catholics). After the canonization of the Torah in the year 90 CE, long discussions regarding the messiah are found in the Babylonian Talmud, especially in the Tractate Sanhedrin. As applicable in this context, discussions of messianism carry with them the understanding that such thinking and actions were, all too often, the result of violence against the Jewish people and Jewish communities, primarily throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and, subsequently, during the Holocaust of World War II. Some religious Jews—but not all—derived whatever comfort they could by turning to such classical understandings and coupled them with their prayers for deliverance.

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In the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the kings of Ancient Israel (e.g., Saul, David, and Solomon), as well as the Levitical priests (Aaron and his sons, Samuel, etc.) were equally anointed, and thus the status of those so consecrated was above that of the rest of the Israelite community—holier. Also, the klai kodesh, the “holy instruments/utensils” used in the Ancient Temple in Jerusalem were equally sacralized/consecrated. Biblically-speaking, messianic thinking evolved through three stages: (1) the Davidic monarchy, (2) the decline of both the Davidic and Solomonic kingdoms, and (4) rethinking and redirecting toward a future royal leader. Among the prophets of Ancient Israel, Isaiah (eighth century BCE), most prominent in chapters 50 to 53, may best be described as the “messianic prophet” par excellence, without using the word mashiach itself. Such concerns would also surface in both Jeremiah (seventh century BCE) and Ezekiel (seventh to sixth centuries BCE)—the other two major prophets—but, again, the linguistic specifics are absent. Already in the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia (Hirsch, McCurdy, and Jacobs 1906), scholars Joseph Jacobs (1854–1916) and Moses Buttenwieser (1862–1939) summarized those texts: The ideal king to whom Isaiah looks forward will be a scion of the stock of Jesse, on whom will rest the spirit of god as a spirit of wisdom, valor, and religion, and who will rule in the fear of God, his loins girt with righteousness and faithfulness. He will not engage in war or in the conquest of nations; the paraphernalia of war will be destroyed; his sole concern will be to establish justice among his people. The fruit of his righteous government will be peace and order throughout the land . . . tyranny and violence will no longer be practiced on God’s holy mountain, for the land will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. The people will not aspire to political greatness but will lead a pastoral life . . . The newly risen scion of Jesse will stand forth as a beacon to other nations, and they will come to him for guidance and arbitration. He will rightly be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Godlike hero,” “Constant Father,” “Prince of Peace.”

With the third tragedy to befall Ancient Israel—the first being the vanquishing of the ten northern tribes by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, the second the exile into Babylonia in 586 BCE—that of the Roman oppressors and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, a dissenting minority of Jews reread their sacred texts and concluded (1) that Jesus was, in fact, the long-sought-for messiah of those texts, and (2) the Roman debacle was the result of the failure of Jews to recognize him as such. Thus began a two-thousand-year religious-theological dispute made all the more tragic, beginning in the fourth century CE, when nascent Christianity allied itself with Constantine (272–337 CE), ushering in the Holy Roman Empire and the Jews as a wandering vulnerable minority throughout.

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The great Jewish sage Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1135–1204) regarded the hope/belief in a personal messiah among his thirteen principles of Faith: “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he tarries in waiting, despite that, I will still wait expectantly for him each day that he will come.” Importantly, he, also summarized the characteristics of one who would present himself to the Jewish people as such: And if a king shall arise from the House of David, studying Torah and indulging in commandments like his father David, according to the written and oral Torah, and he will impel all of Israel to follow it and to strengthen its breaches in its observances, and will fight the Lord’s wars, this one is to be treated as if he were the anointed one. If he succeeded and built a Holy Temple in its proper place and gathered the dispersed ones of Israel together, this is indeed the anointed one for certain, and he will mend the entire world to worship the Lord together, as it is stated, “For then shall I turn for the nations a clear tongue, to call all in the Name of the Lord and to worship him with one shoulder.” (Zephaniah 3:9. Mishneh Torah [Second Torah], Section Hilkhot Melakhim Umilchamoteichem [Laws of Kings and Their Wars] chapters 11 and 12)

No one before Maimonides or since has met these criteria for the Jewish messiah— Jesus included. The last gasp of the Jewish community of Palestine under the Romans included the revolt of Simon Bar Kokhba (132–135 CE), whom Rabbi Akiba (50– 135 CE), the leading scholar of the day, called the messiah. After Maimonides, two claimants for the title proved false. Shabbtai Zevi (1626–1676), a Sephardic mystic in the Ottoman Empire, who chose conversion to Islam rather than death and whose followers founded the Sabbatean movement. Jacob Frank (1726–1791), a Polish Jew, claimed to be Zevi’s reincarnation and promoted himself as divine to his followers and sought purification through sexual excesses, which, ultimately led to his excommunication. Beginning in the nineteenth century, and even a little earlier, some European Jews saw themselves as devotees of Jesus as the long-awaited messiah of the Jews and chose the sobriquet “Messianic Jews.” Some emigrated to the United States, and their U.S. variation in the 1950s and, later, under the founding of converted Jew and Baptist minister Morris (Moishe) Rosen (1932–2010), he labeled “Jews for Jesus.” Their aggressive missionizing and evangelizing tactics toward Jews continue to evoke the ire of all denominational Jewish communities and some mainline Protestant communities as well. Jews continue to argue that, once a person—even one of formerly Jewish birth, upbringing, and/or heritage—accepts Jesus as his/her messiah, that person is a Christian. Within the Jewish community itself, however, some among the Hasidic enclave known as Chabad Hasidism (the acronym Chabad=chokhma/wisdom,

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bina/understanding, da’at/knowledge) have maintained that their late rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902–1994), who urged his followers to prepare for the advent of the messiah, did not die but is in hiding as the messiah and will reemerge when the time is right. Rejected by other Orthodox Jews, including other Hasidic Jews, it is still a current belief among some but not all in the Chabad Hasidism community, despite their belief in a messianic person. Reform/Liberal/ Progressive Judaism, Conservative/Centrist Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism have all rejected any commitment to a messiah as a person, arguing, instead, that the spark of messianism exists within all humanity, and that the task or goal of the community is to release that spark for the benefit of all. Kabbalistic or mystical Jews, along with the aforementioned Chabad Lubavitch Hasidism, however, continue to affirm a belief in a personal messiah, through their study of their own texts, such as the Zohar (“Book of Splendor”). Despite Jacob Frank’s false claim of divinity, there is nothing in Judaic religious tradition that would argue for a divine messiah, unlike in Christianity, whose messiah is both fully human and fully divine. The Jewish messiah, charismatic though he may be (and he will always be male), for those who continue to await his arrival, is fully human. From the beginning of the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, and possibly even earlier, two very different strains remain on the question of whether the re-creation of Israel is, in fact, evidence of a divine hand—or its very antithesis. Both are evident in the iterations of religious Zionism, not only in Israel but throughout the Jewish world as well, as the title of Aviezer Ravitsky’s book so aptly expresses it—Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. For some among the devoutly religious, Israel is indeed the fulfilment of biblical prophecy, and they count themselves among its most faithful supporters, up to and including service in the IDF. Others—most notably the Neturei Karta (“Keepers of the Gates”)—are militantly opposed to the state and see its government and military as thwarting divine purposes, understanding that the God of Israel, through his messiah, will bring about the renewed nation of Israel when and only when he decides it is appropriate. (On something of a side note, there are also those equally religious, both Jews and Christians, who are drawing up plans for the day when the Third Temple will be rebuilt, the sacrificial priestly system will return, and, at least for Christians, Jesus will return.) Finally, as has been humorously expressed in those circles where Jews and Christian attempt a meaningful dialogue on this topic, “When the messiah comes, we Jews and we Christians will ask him: ‘Is this your first visit or a return visit?’ Then we will know. Until then, the best we can hope is to respectfully disagree.” Steven Leonard Jacobs

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See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Crusades; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Holocaust and World War II; Lehava; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Berger, David. 2001. The Rebbe, the Messiah and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference. London and Portland: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. Gorenberg, Gershon. 2002. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hirsch, Emil, G. J. Frederic McCurdy, and Joseph Jacobs. 1906. “Prophets and Prophecy.” The Jewish Encyclopedia. ­www​.­jewishencyclopedia​.­com. Ohana, David. 2009. Political Theologies in the Holy Land: Israeli Messianism and Its Critics. London and New York: Routledge. Ravitsky, Aviezer. 1996. Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. Translated by Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wolfson, Elliot R. 2009. Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. New York: Columbia University Press.

OPERATION DEFENSIVE SHIELD(2002) Operation Defensive Shield (Hebrew: Homat Magen; “Defensive Wall”) was an Israeli military operation against six Palestinian West Bank cities (but not Gaza) from March 29 to May 10, 2002. This took place during the Second Intifada (2000– 2005), with the avowed purpose of curbing and destroying the terrorist infrastructure inside the State of Israel—said to be the largest Israeli military operation since the 1967 Six-Day War. (The “spark” that is said to have begun this Second Intifada—also known as the “al-Aqsa Intifada”—was Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, prior to his election as prime minister.) Sharon (1928–2014), then prime minister, in a speech to the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) on April 8 of that year, stated the following (Greenberg 2000): • • •

To catch and arrest terrorists, and, primarily, their dispatchers and those who finance and support them; To confiscate weapons intended to be used against Israeli citizens; To expose and destroy facilities and explosives, laboratories, weapons production factories and secret installations;

Judaism: Operation Defensive Shield

• •

To target and paralyze anyone who would take up weapons and tries to oppose our troops, resist them or endangers them; To avoid harming the civilian population.

What led to the decision of the Israeli government to implement this operation—but not without some political and military disagreement and opposition—were: (1) a decided increase in terrorist attacks; (2) the failure of U.S. Marine Corps general (ret.) Anthony Zinni (b. 1943) to broker a peace deal; (3) Fatah’s increasing involvement in terrorist attacks, including their financing, under then-leader Yasir Arafat (1929–2004); and (4) Israel’s own conviction and determination that it now needed to take full responsibility for its own security and not rely on the United States or other assistance. At its conclusion, thirty IDF soldiers were killed and 127 wounded, and more than 497 Palestinians were killed (possibly including fifty-five children), 1,447 wounded, and 4,200 arrested. Economic losses to institutions, including homes (2,800 damaged; 878 destroyed) and the Palestinian infrastructure, according to estimates supplied by the World Bank were $361 million. Estimated also included more than seventeen thousand Palestinians left homeless. During the operation, leading Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti (b. 1959) was found and arrested. Barghouti was a primary instigator of the First Intifada (1987–1991) and was later sentenced to five consecutive life prison terms for the murders of Israelis. Israel, however, publicly acknowledged that some excesses were made by its soldiers—specifically cases of looting and vandalism, including computer files and printed data—though it categorically rejected any assertions that these constituted war crimes. (Among the casualties were several unarmed civilians who were killed by mistake.) Amnesty International, however, did hold Israel responsible for unlawful killings, failure to properly provide medical and humanitarian assistance, property demolitions, cutting off water and electrical supplies, possible tortures and degrading and/or inhuman treatment of prisoners, and the use of so-called human shields to enter buildings. Human Rights Watch further stated that “Israeli forces committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting prima facie to war crimes” (Human Rights Watch 2002). However, both HRW and AI ignored the testimonies of Israeli medical personnel who treated the wounded on both sides and ignored the Palestinians’ use of ambulances to transport weapons and fighters. (More the sixty-five hundred weapons of all types were captured.) Additionally, both the European Union and the European Parliament were highly critical of Operation Defensive Shield, as was the United Nations. Jewish organizations, institutions, and agencies were of a divided mind-set: critical of the admitted and acknowledged mistakes but supportive of the necessity of this military

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strike, in light of increased terrorist threats, and defensive where they perceived Israel’s survival was at stake. The six cities that came under attack were Ramallah (March 29), Tulkarm (April 1), Qalqilya (April 1), Bethlehem (April 2), Jenin (April 3), and Nablus (April 3). Although later proved false, Israelis were accused of a mega-massacre of more than five hundred Palestinians in Jenin and its nearby refugee camp (known to Palestinians as the “martyrs’ capital” for its militancy and as the home of numerous terrorists) and burying their bodies in mass graves. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, as well as the BBC and Time magazine, all disavowed it as political propaganda without evidence. The UN General Assembly did, however, condemn the attack on Jenin by a vote of seventy-four to four, with fifty-four abstentions. In Ramallah, which was Arafat’s compound, IDF troops surrounded his buildings and restricted him and his advisors to a few rooms. (Though a widely circulated pictured showed them attempting to work by candlelight that, too, was false, as the Israelis never fully cut the electricity or restricted food deliveries.) In Bethlehem, armed Palestinian fighters took refuge in the Church of the Nativity, in clear violation of a long tradition of respecting the holy sites, an accord that was worked out between the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority, as well as earlier under the Ottoman sultanate/caliphate. Arafat did, however, see a rise in popularity among the Palestinians because of the operation, while Israel did not escape condemnation by its enemies and failed to realize the adverse effects of negative publicity. (For example, it initially prevented journalists from entering the six cities, but later reevaluated its decision and allowed them entry, but only after severe criticism and recognition that it had made the wrong determination.) Among the lessons of Operation Defensive Shield were: (1) a decided decrease in the number of suicide bombings by almost half and executed attacks by almost three-quarters during the remainder of 2002; (2) a real weakening of the whole terrorist infrastructure within Israel itself; (3) putting the Palestinian Authority (PA) on notice that it would be held responsible for its continued involvement in terrorism; and (4) the growing realization on the part of the Palestinians that they would collectively be held responsible for terrorism. Tragically, however, it has not resulted in a long-term decrease in terrorism, as Hamas has stepped up its terrorist campaigns against Israel, and many of those Israel had hoped to capture remained at large. Then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan (1938–2018) initially had Israel’s agreement to send in a fact-finding mission but later withdrew it when Israel (and others) argued that the team was made of political appointees without technical, forensic, and/or military expertise. In June 2002, Israel further launched Operation Determined Path (Hebrew: Mivtza Derekh Nehosha) to follow up on its unfinished business. In July, the

Judaism: Price-Tag Policy

government reported that it had arrested 150 wanted persons, including the potential suicide bombers, and exposed and destroyed fourteen explosive labs. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922– 1995); Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Bar-On, Mordecai. 2006. Never-Ending Conflict: Israeli Military History. Lanham: Stackpole Books. Falk, Ophir, and Henry Morgenstern, eds. 2009. Suicide Terror: Understanding and Confronting the Threat. New York: Wiley and Sons. Goldenberg, Doron. 2003. State of Siege: User’s Manual. Jerusalem and New York: Gefen Books. Greenberg, Joel. September 29, 2000. “Sharon Touches a Nerve and Jerusalem Explodes.” ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2000​/­09​/­29​/­world​/­sharon​-­touches​-­a​-­nerve​-­and​-­jerusalem​ -­explodes​.­html. Hamzeh, Muna, and Todd May, eds. 2003. Operation Defensive Shield: Witness to War Crimes. London: Pluto Press. Rubenberg, Cheryl A. 2003. The Palestinians: In Search of a Just Peace. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

PRICE-TAG POLICY Price-tag policy is a term used by radical right-wing religious youth, primarily from the West Bank Jewish settlement of Yitzhar close to the city of Nablus and seemingly encouraged by their rabbis, to inflict damage via vandalism on Palestinians, Christians, left-wing Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, as well as Israeli security forces and soldiers with whom they disagree. The settlement itself has a reputation as the home of the most extreme elements of settler society. Their radicality is framed by their reading of Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament texts and narrow postbiblical rabbinic interpretations and brought up to date—“modernized”—as they have learned them primarily in the Od Yosef Chai (“Joseph still lives”) Yeshiva, also located in Yitzhar. Vandalism includes rock throwing against individuals, families, and cars; torching Palestinian fields and orchards; uprooting of trees; writing hateful graffiti on and burning mosques, homes, churches and monasteries, military installations; and so forth. Demonstrations and road blockings have also occurred. Their acts of destruction, they maintain, are in response/retaliation— “payback”—for Arab attacks on Jews, as well as the Israeli government’s ongoing attempts to dismantle settlements and outposts, which it regards as illegal and

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obstacles to furthering peace efforts, and which the international community, including the United Nations, also regards as illegal. They also regard as “legitimate” attacks on those with whom they disagree either religiously and/or politically, though even within their own extended settlement community, the acts themselves are often condemned, as most of the settlers are not in favor of such violence but prefer peaceful resolutions of differences. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949) has also condemned the attacks, as had settlement leader and former member of the Knesset (Parliament) Hanan Porat (1943–2011). Perhaps the strongest condemnation, however, was that of leading Israeli author and intellectual Amos Oz (b. 1939), who labeled them “Hebrew Neo-Nazis” in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on May 10, 2014. Historically, such acts may be traced to the August 2005 dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza (e.g., Amona in 2006) by the government, and the Israeli withdrawal and disengagement, which the settler movement regarded as a betrayal of Judaic values and traditions. All too often, the government has failed to indict and failed to prosecute those engaged in these violent acts, citing insufficient evidence and lack of credible witnesses to the events. A list of such publicly acknowledged “major” attacks between the years 2008 and 2015, for example, would reveal the following: • • • • • • • • •

2008 3 2009 6 2010 10 2011 24 2012 15 2013 33 2014 30 2015 7 TOTAL 128

In 2006, Israel’s Supreme Court decided that the government was obligated to protect the property of Palestinians, respond to reports of harassment, and send out security patrols when contacted. While, historically, the government has financially compensated Israeli Jews in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, in recent years, it has begun financially compensating Palestinian families for their losses as well. Yesh Din (Hebrew: “There is a Law”), an Israeli human rights organization, in its report covering the years 2005–2015 stated the following: •

The police have an 84.9% failure rate in the investigation of ideologically motivated crimes perpetrated by Israeli citizens against Palestinians in the

Judaism: Price-Tag Policy

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West Bank. Over the past ten years, only 75 indictments have been served against Israelis for harming Palestinians or their property. Of 260 complaints regarding vandalism of Palestinian owned trees filed in the past ten years, only six indictments have been served, with a zero-conviction rate. Since August 2014, incidents of ideologically motivated crime perpetrated inside the built-up areas of Palestinian communities have doubled.

In 2011, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory, in Jerusalem, after first supplying its latest statistics, noted the following (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory 2018): 1. Violence by Israeli settlers undermines the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians living under Israel’s prolonged military occupation. 2. In recent years, many attacks have been carried out by settlers in settlement “outposts,” small satellite settlements built without official authorization, many on privately-owned Palestinian land. 3. The root cause of the settler phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory  .  .  . Recent official efforts to legalize settler takeover of privately-owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence. 4. The Israeli authorities repeatedly fail to enforce the rules of law in response to Israeli settlers acts of violence against Palestinians. 5. The risk of displacement of vulnerable families as a result of settler violence is an issue of increasing concern. 6. Israel is obligated to prevent attacks against civilians or their property and ensure that all incidents of settler violence are investigated in a thorough, impartial and independent manner. Finally, among the rabbis most associated with the “price taggers,” though publicly denying their involvement, are the following: •

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg (1944–) is the U.S.-born president of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Yitzhar. Politically and religiously, he advocates for a return to the monarchy and the rebuilding of the Temple, believes non-Jews should not live in the land of Israel, and defended the actions of Baruch Goldstein (1956–1994), who murdered twenty-nine Muslims

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and wounded 125 at prayer in the Mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, based on a lecture he gave that was later edited and published. According to Ginsburg, he does not advocate violence. Rabbi Eliezer Melamed (1961–) remains a staunch opponent of the disengagement in Gaza in 2005 and has publicly defended those in the IDF who have contended that certain actions, military and other, conflict with their religious beliefs. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira (unknown birth date) is coauthor of the book The King’s Torah (Hebrew: Torah ha-Melekh), which argues that it is permissible to kill non-Jews, including children, if they are perceived to threaten Jewish lives, and has also argued that it is permissible for the IDF to use Palestinians as “human shields” to prevent the loss of Jewish lives. Rabbi Ya’akov Yosef (1926–2013) argued that East Jerusalem should be “re-Judaized” and publicly endorsed Shapira’s book The King’s Torah. Steven Leonard Jacobs

See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Lehava; Messianism/Messiah; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Byman, Daniel. 2011. A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Guiora, Amos N. 2014. Tolerating Intolerance: The Price of Protecting Extremism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Human Rights Watch. 2002. “Israeli, the Occupied West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority Territories Jenin: IDF Military Operations.” May 2002. Vol. 14. No 3 (E). ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­reports​/­2002​/­israel3​/­israel0502​.­pdf. Karpin, Michael. 2013. Imperfect Compromise: A New Consensus among Israelis and Palestinians. Lincoln: Potomac Books. Marteu, Elizabeth, ed. 2009. Civil Organizations and Protest Movements in Israel: Mobilization around the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Spruit, Hendrik, Mairiam Fendius Elman, and Oded Haktal, eds. 2014. Democracy and Conflict Resolution: The Dilemmas of Israel’s Peacemaking. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Occupied Palestinian Territory. August 31, 2018. “Protection of Civilian Report/14–27 August 2018.” ­https://​­www​.­ochaopt​.­org​/­content​/­protection​-­civilians​-­report​-­14​-­27​-­august​-­2018. Yesh Din. “2015 in Numbers.” February 02, 2016. ­https://​­www​.­yesh​-­din​.­org​/­en​/­2015​-­in​ -­numbers​/.

Judaism: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

THE PROTOCOLS OF THE LEARNED ELDERS OF ZION Perhaps the world’s most “successful” and notorious forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion supposedly tells of a secret midnight cabal in an undisclosed Jewish cemetery somewhere in Europe. At this alleged undisclosed location, the chief rabbi informs his fellow rabbis of the “master plan” to subjugate the gentile world under Jewish monarchical hegemony and the twenty-four protocols that will enable them to do so (e.g., subverting the morals of gentiles, exercising economic and journalistic controls, destroying the religious basis of civilization, and destroying the political and constitutional foundations of the various nation-states). Scholars have long concluded that the original text upon which it was based was that of French lawyer Maurice Joly’s (1829–1878) 1864 satiric book Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu ou la politique de Machiavel au XIXe siècle (“Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu”) about the French government under Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–1873). Additionally, a chapter of the 1868 novel Biarritz by German novelist Hermann Goedsche (1815–1878) is said to have contributed as well, providing the geographic locale for this supposed meeting. Both texts were translated into Russian and used by the Okrana, the Russian Secret Police, in an adaptation The Great within the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth by the dissident and later disgraced Russian Orthodox priest Sergei Nilus (1862–1929) in 1905. Translated into any number of languages, including English and Arabic, The Protocols were already discredited in 1921 by reporter Phillip Graves in The Times of London and were put on trial as a hate-text in Berne, Switzerland, in 1934–1935. Its most notorious English-language publication was that in the Henry Ford owned newspaper The Dearborn Independent, originally serialized from 1920 to 1922 and later published separately as The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, with a press run of five hundred thousand copies (for which Ford, under coercion, later apologized and withdrew its publication). Despite its obvious forgery, The Protocols remains a staple of the modern anti-Semitic world and is still available in a variety of languages and on the internet as well. Most perniciously, it is still easily available throughout the Arab world and is referenced, for example, in the 1988 Hamas Charter as “the Zionist blueprint for a world takeover.” Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Blood Libel, Crusades, Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Holocaust and World War II; Zionism and Anti-Zionism

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Ben-Itto. 2005. The Lie That Wouldn’t Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. London: Vallentine Mitchell. Bronner, Stephen Eric. 2003. A Rumor about the Jews: Antisemitism, Conspiracy, and the Protocols of Zion. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eisner, Will. 2006. The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Jacobs, Steven L., and Mark Weitzman. 2003. Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing House. Segal, Benjamin W. 1996. A Lie and a Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

RABIN, YITZHAK (1922–1995) Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli politician, statesman, and general, was born to two Ukrainian Jewish parents (Nehemiah Rubitzov, 1886–1971, and Rosa née Cohen, 1890–1937), who emigrated to pre-state Palestine. He was born in Jerusalem but grew up in Tel Aviv. His long career prior to his assassination was marked by leading positions in both the military and the government. Through originally a hard-liner militarily, in his later years, he realized that continuous war was not the solution to the Arab/Palestinian-Israeli conflict and led him to sign many agreements, including the Oslo Accords in 1993, which may have, ultimately led to his death at the hands of a right-wing religious zealot, who compared his actions to a rodef (Hebrew: “pursuer”)—that is, one whose course of action was detrimental to the survival of the Jewish people. As Dexter Filkins wrote, “in the weeks leading up to Rabin’s murder, three extremist rabbis from the West Bank issued a written opinion suggesting that it would be acceptable to kill Rabin on the grounds that he had betrayed the Jewish people” (Filkins 2015). Ironically and tragically, it was his ongoing attempt to make peace with the Palestinians that led to his sharing the Noble Peace Prize in 1994 with Israel’s then foreign minister, Shimon Peres (1923–2016) and Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat (1929–2004). During his career, Rabin served as IDF chief of staff, prime minister twice (1974–1977 and 1992–1994), ambassador to the United States (1968–1973), and minister of defense (1984–1990). After graduating from the Kadoorie High School in 1940, he quickly joined the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish paramilitary organization during the British Mandate period (1921–1948), where he was tutored by Yigal Allon (1918–1960), who would later become an IDF general. During the 1948 War for Independence, Rabin directed military operations in Jerusalem, and, under his leadership, Israel was successful in the Six-Day War of 1967. During his

Judaism: Rabin, Yitzhak

ambassadorship to the United States, Rabin was successful in negotiating a closer relationship with the United States, which resulted in increased arms sales and weaponry to Israel, including the lifting of an embargo against the purchase of F-4 Phantom fighter jets. During his first term as prime minister, Rabin signed the 1975 Interim Sinai Agreement with Egypt, which, ultimately, led to a “cold peace” between the two nation-states and the exchange of diplomats, which remains in effect today and led to the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the Peace Treaty of 1979. However, during this same period, he authorized the raid on Entebbe, Uganda, on July 4, 1976, after an Air France jet with 248 passengers (including 94 Israelis) was hijacked by members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The successful raid resulted in only one Israeli casualty, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu (1946–1976), brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949). Rabin was forced to resign in 1977 because of “financial irregularities” during his time as ambassador to the United States. (He and his wife, Leah, née Schlossberg, 1928–2000, had two private U.S. checking accounts totaling more than $10,000, for which he/they were fined IL $150,000.) From 1984 until 1990, he served as minister of defense and held to a hard-line during the First Intifada (1987–1991/1993) but realized by its conclusion that dialogue and negotiation could, possibly, produce better results than sustained violence between the two communities of Israeli Jews and Palestinians in Israel. During his second term as prime minister, Rabin was largely responsible for reforming Israel’s economy—moving toward privatization and increasing foreign investment, especially in high-tech, educational, and health care systems, with the last moving toward universal health care. During both his terms as prime minister, strengthening the IDF remained among his highest priorities. On November 4, 1995, at 9:30 p.m., after attending a peace rally in support of the Oslo Accords in Tel Aviv, right-wing religious extremist and zealot Yigal Amir (b. 1970) fired three shots with an automatic pistol directly at Rabin, as he was coming down the steps and preparing to get into his car. Two hit him in the back, one puncturing a lung and the other causing massive blood loss. The third bullet slightly injured his bodyguard Yoram Rubin. Rushed to Ichilov Hospital/Sourasky Medical Center, Rabin died forty minutes later. Shimon Peres was appointed interim prime minister. Amir, who expressed no regrets for his actions, arguing that he was acting on orders from God—which both the prosecutors and the judges rejected—was sentenced to life in prison plus five to eight years for the bodyguard’s wounding and for conspiring with others, including his brother Haggai, to commit murder. The square where Rabin was assassinated has since been renamed Rabin Square, and the date of his death, 12 Heshvan according to the Hebrew calendar, is his official memorial day. Since that day, which horrified many Israelis, and a

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funeral on November 6, attended by many world leaders, including then-President Bill Clinton (b. 1946), Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (b. 1928), and Jordan’s King Hussein (1935–1999), Rabin has come to symbolize Israeli peace efforts, even if they were continually unsuccessful. As Dexter Filkins, in his October 15, 2016 piece in The New Yorker, “Shot in the Heart: When Yitzhak Rabin was Killed, Did the Prospects for Peace Perish, Too?” wrote, “The opportunity that Rabin was trying to seize—however small—was there for a moment; and it may never come again” (Filkins 2015). Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Crusades; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Lehava; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/ Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and AntiZionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Chamish, Barry. 2000. Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin? Northhampton: Brookline Books. Ephron, Dan. 2015. Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Filkins, Dexter. October 19, 2015. “Shot in the Heart: When Yitzhak Rabin Was Killed, Did the Prospects for Peace Perish Too?” The New Yorker. ­https://​­www​.­newyorker​.­com​ /­magazine​/­2015​/­10​/­26​/­shot​-­in​-­the​-­heart. Karpin, Michael, and Ina Friedman. 1998. Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin. New York: Metropolitan Books. Rabin, Yitzhak. 1996. The Rabin Memoirs. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rabinovitch, Itamar. 2018. Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sprinzak, Ehud. 1999. Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from the Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: Free Press.

SIKRIKIM Sikrikim (Hebrew: “dagger-men”) is a contemporary radical and, at times, disruptive and violent group housed mostly in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish quarter of Meah Shearim (Hebrew: “One Hundred Gates”) enclave in Jerusalem. Its name is taken from the Sicarii (Latin: Sicarius, “those who carry the sica or dagger”) and is a reference to those who opposed not only the Romans in their oppression in the years prior to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE but also those Jews who were perceived as assimilated into Roman-Hellenistic culture and allied

Judaism: Sikrikim

themselves with the Romans. Both groups were targeted by these “over the top” radicals for assassination. Today, this group of haredim (Hebrew: “pietists”), believed to be founded in 2005, is said to number no more than approximately one hundred zealots and activists, who see themselves as countering the dissolution of a purist Judaism by secularist Jews who violate Judaic laws (Hebrew: halakha); the state and government of Israel itself; and non-Orthodox streams and interpretations of Judaism, which they renounce as not Jewish at all. To a greater or lesser degree, they show some affinity with Neturei Karta (Hebrew: “Guardians of the City”), also centered in Meah Shearim—founded in British Mandate Palestine in 1938—whose motto is “Jews United Against Zionism” and who have called for the end of the state of Israel as interfering with the future work of the mashiach (Hebrew, “messiah”). Meah Shearim, the area where they predominantly reside, is an enclave composed mostly of Hasidic families and other devoutly Orthodox Jews, where the language of the street is Yiddish (Hebrew being reserved only for prayer and sacred texts), and modest clothing for both men and women is mandated. (Signs and posters in both Hebrew and English explicitly detailing what is appropriate— and inappropriate—clothing are displayed everywhere.) Upon entering its closed and insular neighborhood, one cannot help but think that one has revisited a nineteenth-century Eastern European enclave. Several Hasidic sects live there, distinguishable by variations in their styles of clothing: Breslover, Satmars, Toldos Avraham, Toldos Yitzhak, and Pinsker-Karliner. Also located within is the organization that certifies kosher establishments throughout Israel. Among the more well-known Sikrikim activists is Shmuel Weissfish, who was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and fined IS $50,000 in 2012 for assaulting other Jews, rioting, extortion, causing bodily harm, and causing damage to a computer store in Jerusalem and assaulting its employees; and Yosef Meir Hazan, arrested in 2011 for public disturbance, damaging property, and assault. Specific locales of Sikrikim violence have included the Orot Banot Girls’ School in 2011 in Ramat Bet Shemesh, the Zisalek Ice Cream Parlor in Jerusalem in 2011, and the Or Hachaim Bookstore in Jerusalem the same year. In their public protests, members of the group, along with their spouses and children, have also taken to wearing yellow badges and concentration camp uniforms, thus generating the desired publicity. Members of the Sikrikim have been denounced not only by government officials but also by leaders within several of the Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994);

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Lehava; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah; PriceTag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Temple Mount; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Horowitz, Elliott. 2008. Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lustick, Ian S. 1988. For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Washington, DC: Council on Foreign Relations. Ravitsky, Aviezer. 1996. Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism. Translated by Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Sprinzak, Ehud. 1999. Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from the Altalena to the Rabin Assassination. New York: Free Press.

TEMPLE MOUNT Sacred to the three monotheistic religious traditions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity (though more so the first two than the last), the Temple Mount is among the most-contested sites in the world, and one that has evoked continuous violence up to and including the present day. Historically, Judaically understood, the Temple Mount (Hebrew: Har Habayit) was the site of the First Temple (Hebrew: Bayt Ha-Mikdash), built by King Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in the year 586 BCE under King Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE), and the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE under General Titus (39–81 CE), who later become emperor of Rome. Some Jews and Christians also believe that the biblical references to Har Tziyon (Hebrew: “Mount Zion”) are references to the Temple Mount. After the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem, the site was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were forbidden entry upon pain of death. Jews regained access only under Emperor Julian (331–363 CE) in the year 363 CE, one of his last acts prior to his death. From the fourth century until the sixteenth century, Jews continually visited the site, until the Ottoman takeover in 1516, when they were, again, denied access, only to have it reopened in the early nineteenth century, Religiously devout Orthodox Jews also believe that the Temple Mount was the location where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac (Hebrew: Akedat Yitzhak; “Binding of Isaac”), thus equating it with Mount Moriah. (Some religious Jews have also argued that this was where Israel’s God gathered the dust to create Adam and

Judaism: Temple Mount

Eve, according to the Book of Genesis, and the location of the so-called Foundation Stone, the very spot from which the world was created.) While literary descriptions exist in the Torah/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, and, later, Flavius Josephus (37–100 CE) and elsewhere, no graphic portrayals—paintings or sculptures—exist. Some fundamentalist Jews and some fundamentalist Christians are actively engaged in drawing up plans and other activities (minting coins, fashioning garments, etc.) in preparation for the rebuilding and reconstruction of a Third Temple, though they do so for somewhat different reasons—the former for the visit of the Messiah; the latter for the return of the Messiah. Some Jews have also provoked violent confrontations with Muslims and Arabs in their thwarted attempts to pray on the Temple Mount, in violation of Israeli policy and an agreement with the Waqf, the Muslim religious council and trust responsible for the maintenance of the Temple Mount, and first agreed to by the late Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol (1895–1969). Historically, however, the Waqf has managed the Temple Mount continually since the Arabs retook Jerusalem in 1187. The Waqf has also forbidden any archaeological investigations, fearing both an Israeli political and destructive agenda. As stated, the Temple Mount has long been a site of confrontations, some more violent than others. For example, on October 8, 1990, an event that later came to be called “Black Monday” as well as the “al-Aqsa Massacre,” Muslims at prayer began rioting during the third year of the First Intifada (Arabic: “Awakening”) in response to a fundamentalist Jewish group attempting to lay a cornerstone at the site. More than 150 people on both sides were injured; twenty Palestinians died. In May 2007, right-wing Jewish religionists attempted to ascend the Temple Mount and initiate a prayer service. In October 2009, Palestinians protested in response to a false and denied rumor that Jewish fundamentalists were going to do physical damage there. On July 14, 2014, three Arabs shot two Druze police officers at the Lion’s Gate and caused the entire Temple Mount to be shut down for two days, thus preventing Arab-Muslim worshippers from gathering for prayer. Incidents such as these and others continue. Additionally, because of the lack of agreed-upon “blueprints,” the exact location of the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctuary that is only visited by the high priest (Hebrew: Cohain Gadol) on Yom Kippur (Hebrew: “Day of Atonement) annually, most traditional rabbis have argued that Jews are forbidden to trod upon the Temple Mount. That understanding was reaffirmed in a January 2005 rabbinic declaration. Furthermore, the exact location of the sacrificial altar is also unknown, further problematizing Jewish visits. In recent years, some rabbinical authorities have begun revisiting these decisions and have concluded that there are grounds for visiting certain areas of the Temple Mount; they are, however, decidedly in the minority.

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For Sunni Muslims, the Temple Mount (Arabic: Haram al-Sharif; “the Noble Sanctuary”) is the site of both the Dome of the Rock (completed in 692 CE and later covered in gold in 1920) and the al-Masjid al-Aqsa (Arabic: “the Farthermost Mosque”), and, together with Jerusalem itself, remains the third holiest site in its religious tradition, after Mecca (site of the Ka’aba) and Medina (site of al-Masjid al-Nabawi, the Prophet’s Mosque). Some religious Jewish authorities have even gone so far as to argue that the Dome of the Rock was the actual site of the Holy of Holies, though this remains much a matter of dispute and conjecture. The Temple Mount is believed by the faithful to be the site from which Muhammed (570–632 CE) made his Night Journey to Heaven, accompanied by the angel Gabriel in 621 CE. Any threat, perceived or real, on the part of Israeli and world Jewry to wrest control of the Temple Mount away from Muslims is viewed as a frontal assault on Islam itself; its defense has thus exacerbated tensions between the two faith traditions. (Attempts have also been made by Arab and Muslim activists, including at the United Nations, to publicly repudiate any Jewish historical claims to the site itself, going so far as to deny the existence of the two Temples, though historical acknowledgement has grudgingly come within the last few years.) The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has, however, twice condemned Israel vis-à-vis the Temple Mount, on October 20, 2015 and April 15, 2016. Prior to Israel’s success in the 1967 Six-Day War, the Temple Mount was under Jordanian control, with Jews denied access. After the reunification of Jerusalem, it fell to Israeli control, though it has remained under Muslim control as the result of a carefully worked-out and continuously affirmed agreement between the two groups. There have been, however, occasions when Jews have been permitted access to the Temple Mount area through the Mugrabi Gate, the only one available to non-Muslims, whereas Muslims themselves have access through many gates. The Mugrabi Gate is located near the Western Wall (Hebrew: Ha-Kotel Ha-Ma’aravi), the southwest retaining wall built by King Herod (74–4 CE) during his reconstruction of the Second Temple and remains, for praying Jews, the holiest site in all of Israel. For Christians, the Second Temple was where many believe Jesus was circumcised, prayed and preached, and drove the money changers out of the outer courtyard, only to be crucified on Golgotha, a few hundred yards away. Its significance, however, is far less than that for Jews and Muslims. For all three religious traditions, however, the Temple Mount was also the place where the prophets (Hebrew: nevi’im) preached their sermons of both condemnation and consolation. In September 2000, the late Israeli general and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) visited the Temple Mount with a delegation to further establish Israel’s sovereignty, an event that many believe led to the Second Intifada (Arabic:

Judaism: Zealots

“Uprising” or “Awakening”) and which claimed both Palestinian and Jewish lives. In May 2007, a group of right-wing religious rabbis attempted to visit and pray at the Temple Mount, requiring their removal by Israeli police. In October 2009, Palestinian rock throwers used the Temple Mount to rain down their stones upon Israeli police, resulting in injuries to both sides. In July 2017, two Israeli Druze police officers were shot by Israeli Arabs at one of the entrance gates. These examples are but a few of the more well-known and publicized incidents at the Temple Mount. Other, somewhat lesser clashes occur on an all-too-frequent basis between Palestinians and Jews, the former denying the Jews the right to pray and the latter insisting on their right to do so. No fully agreed-upon resolution appears in sight. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Lehava; Messianism/ Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Zealots; Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Gonen, Rivka. 2003. Contested Holiness: Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Perspectives on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing House. Gorenberg, Gershon. 2002. The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Hassner, Ron E. 2013. War on Sacred Grounds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Inbari, Motti. 2009. Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Rebuild the Third Temple? Albany: State University of New York Press. Lundquist, John M. 2007. The Temple of Jerusalem: Past, Present, and Future. Westport: Praeger.

TORAH, TANAKH. See HEBREW BIBLE (TORAH, TANAKH) WORLD WAR II. See HOLOCAUST AND WORLD WAR II ZEALOTS Generically speaking, a zealot may be defined as someone who is fanatically committed to a partisan understanding of reality, and is, perhaps, best illustrated with the cliché “my way or the highway,” which is, governed by his/her understanding of “truth,” while contrary understandings are viewed as “false.”

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Judaically historically, however, the term zealots (Hebrew: Kana’im) referred to a fanatically committed group of rebellious Jews under Roman oppression in the Palestine of the early first century. The term sicarii (Latin: “daggermen”) refers to an even more militant subgroup within the zealots, who earned their distinction through their wanton and random acts of terror and their use of the curved dagger sicae, often hidden within their garments, and their quick ability to murder their foes (fellow Jews whom they deemed collaborators, as well as Romans) and blend into the crowds gathered in Jerusalem and elsewhere during holy day festivals and other occasions. The zealots were both religiously and strictly committed to their understanding of God as the sole ruler of the Jewish people, strict adherence to the religious and civil laws of Judaism (Hebrew: halakhot) and politically committed to alleviating Roman rule in Judea, which they deemed not only oppressive but idolatrous as well, most particularly as the Romans accorded their emperors divine status. Their primary period of existence was during the reign of King Herod the Great (74 BCE–1 CE; reigned 40 BCE–1 CE) until the fall of Jerusalem and Masada (70  CE). The primary locale for their activity was Jerusalem, but other sites throughout Roman-controlled Palestine were subject to their violent activities as well. While the zealots were often supported by their larger population, which chafed under Roman domination, the Sicarii lost popular support due to their continuous violence against their own people. Most of our information about both groups comes primarily from Flavius Josephus (37–100 CE), the former Jewish general who turned against his fellow Jews in the battles against Rome, sensing that all would be lost, relocated himself to Rome, and spent the remaining years of his life writing important volumes on Judaism—the three-volume The Jewish War (78 CE), the twenty-one volume Antiquities of the Jews (94 CE), the two-volume Against Apion (after 94 CE)—all attempting to present to Rome both the Jewish people and Judaism in a positive light. His transparent prejudices and biases against the zealots and the sicarii and their leaders are evident throughout his writings. Thus, one must read his “historical reporting” with a keen awareness of his orientation and his continued downplays of the messianic-eschatological aspects of their rebellion. The primary leaders of the zealots were Simon bar Giora, who was executed by the Romans as a traitor in 70 CE, and John of Giscala, who, captured during the downfall of Jerusalem, was led away in chains to life imprisonment. The primary leaders of the sicarii were Menahem ben Judah, assassinated by his own men because of his arrogance and assumption of the title “Messiah-King of Israel,” and Eleazar ben Ya’ir, who, along, with other defenders, committed suicide at Masada, after rallying his forces and their families to do so rather than become Roman slaves.

Judaism: Zealots

The Christian theologian Hippolytus of Rome (170–235 CE) in his Refutation of All Heresies, however, says of the two groups, conflating them as one: Some of these observe a still more rigid practice in not handling or looking at a coin bearing an image, saying that one should neither carry nor look at nor fashion an image; nor will they enter into a city at the gate of which stand statues are erected, since they consider it unlawful to walk under an image. Others threaten to slay an uncircumcised Gentile who listens to a discourse on God and His laws, unless he undergoes the rite of circumcision; should he refuse to do so, they kill him instantly. From this practice they have received the name of ‘Zealots’ or ‘Sicarii’. Others again call no one Lord except God, even though one should torture or kill them. (Kohler 1906)

Many years later, the Jewish theologian and scholar Kaufmann Kohler (1843– 1926) wrote: Originally the name ‘Kanna’im’ or ‘Zealots’ signified religious fanatics; and as the Talmudic traditions ascribe the rigorous laws concerning marriage with a non-Jewess to the Hasidaean bet din of the Hasmoneans, so probably to the Zealots of the Maccabean time are due the rabbinical laws governing the relations of Jews to idolaters, as well as those concerning idols, such as the prohibition of all kinds of images and even the mere looking upon them, or the use of the shadow of an idol, or of the imitation of heathen customs . . . ‘Kanna’im’ was the name for those zealous for the honor and sanctity of the Law as well as of the sanctuary, and for this reason they at first met with the support and encouragement of the people and of the Pharisaic leaders, particularly those of the rigid school of Shammai. It was only after they had been so carried away by their fanatic zeal as to become wanton destroyers of life and property throughout the land that they were denounced as heretic Galileans and murderers and that their principles were repudiated by the peace-loving Pharisees. It was a desperate and mad spirit of defiance which animated them all and made them prefer horrible torture and death to Roman servitude. History has declared itself in favor of the Pharisees, who deemed the schoolhouse of more vital importance to the Jews than state and Temple; but the Zealot, too, deserve due recognition for his sublime type of steadfastness. (Kohler 1906)

THE PRESENT MOMENT A more contemporary summary assessment of the zealots is that of the late Menachem Stern (1925–1989), the outstanding Israeli scholar of the Second Temple:

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Religious Violence Today To sum up: it was the outlook of Judah of Gaulanitis and his successors which constituted the most extreme expression of opposition to Roman rule and of Jewish independence. The yearning for redemption of Israel was the heritage of virtually all sections and classes of the people, but among the adherents of the Fourth Philosophy it led them to immediate action and an activism which knew no compromise, as well as to the recognition that divine aid would come to the energetic and the bold. Acknowledgment of Roman rule was tantamount in their eyes to an affront to divine rule and constituted Hillul ha-Shem [“Desecration of the Holy Name of God”]. Consequently, they maintained adamantly that it was essential to come out openly in war against Roman rule and also to compel those who disagreed with them to join the struggle. The Hasmoneans in their time had taken up arms when the situation became impossible and the danger of extermination threatened the Jewish faith, but only when the opportune moment came did they act to realize the ancient aspirations of the people for political freedom. The freedom fighters of the school of Judah of Gaulanitis, on the other hand, raised the banner of freedom and opposition to mortal rule without taking account of the realities of the situation. Their ideas fell on fertile ground as a result of the developments which had taken place in the province of Judea and in Jewish society during the last years of the Second Temple period. The eschatological tension which was characteristic of that generation fitted in exactly with the Fourth Philosophy. Nevertheless, only a small number of the fighters for the freedom of Judea during the Great Revolt accepted the specific ideology of the Sicarii of the school of Judah or of the Zealot priests of Jerusalem, between whom and the Sicarii one can posit only a hypothetical connection . . . It can also be assumed that, among other groups, the question of leadership and the realization of the eschatological hopes of Menahem [one of the early rebel leaders] constituted from the outset an obstacle to complete identification with the ideology of the Sicarii. (Stern and Price 479–480, 2007)

Finally, and importantly, the distinction drawn between the larger group of rebellious zealots committed to the political overthrow of their Roman oppressors and guided by their religious zeal for both God and Judaism and that of the subgroup of sicarii remains contemporarily relevant. As Brigham Young University professors Daniel C. Peterson (b. 1953) and William J. Hamblin (b. 1954) wrote in the online Mormon periodical “Ideas and Society”: From the perspective of the history of religions, the Sicarii provide a classic example of the unfortunate tendency for some religious movements to become radicalized, violently rejecting the legal, political, and social consensus of the wider society. Especially volatile is the mixture of eschatological fervor with a willingness to advance a radical religious and political agenda by violence. Such

Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism movements, although usually quite small, can be found in all major religions and in most periods of history. (Peterson and William 2004)

Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Judaism: Antisemitism in the Arab World; Gog and Magog; Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994); Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Lehava; Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God); Messianism/Messiah; Price-Tag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Sikrikim; Temple Mount; Zionism and Anti-Zionism FURTHER READING Bohrmann, Monette. 1994. Flavius Josephus, the Zealots, and Yavne; Towards a Rereading of the War of the Jews. Bern: Peter Lang International Publishers. Horsley, Richard A. 1988. Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus. Minneapolis: Winston Press. Kohler, Kaufmann. 1906. “Zealots (Hebrew Kanna’im).” The Jewish Encyclopedia. ­www.­jewishencyclopedia​.­com. Peterson, Daniel C. and William J. Hamblin. June 7, 2004. “Who Were the Sicarii?” Meridian Magazine. ­https://​­latterdaysaintmag​.­com​/­article​-­1​-­4364​/. Sorek, Susan. 2008. The Jews against Rome: War in Palestine AD 66–73. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Stern, Menahem, and Jonathan Price. 2007. “Zealots and Sicarii.” In Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, eds. Encyclopedia Judaica. 2nd ed., Vol. 21. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, pp. 467–80. Whiston, William, trans. 2003. Josephus: The Complete Works. Reprint ed. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

ZIONISM AND ANTI-ZIONISM Zionism, the self-proclaimed national liberation movement of the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland and live at peace with their neighbors and other nation-states, is not an inherently violent movement. Zionism (Hebrew: Tziyoniut) has its roots in the ancient religious history of three exilic crises (the Assyrian invasion, 721 BCE; the Babylonian exile, 586 BCE; and the Roman oppression, 70 CE) and the Jewish people’s responses to them, as well as the modern national ethnic movements that swept Western Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Before the proclamation of the modern state of Israel—the Third Jewish Commonwealth—on May 14, 1948, Zionism saw itself as akin to the attempts of other peoples to meet their collective needs through their own initiative and with the support of those in positions of political, economic, and military power. The modern Zionist movement (the “return to Zion”), both for those who participated in its beginnings (Jews)

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and for those who supported them (non-Jews), was a response to the endemic antisemitism of the previous two thousand years and the Jews’ fear of assimilation and subsequent disappearance. However, the Jewish longing to fulfill the dream of a modern homeland continues to meet violent responses by those who oppose that development, sometimes including fellow Jews, coupled with opposition to the dream and to the notion that the Jewish people would acquire any political power or a nation-state of their own. At the same time, within the Jewish community worldwide, the use of violent means to achieve Zionist nation-state ends continues to spark debate, not only in Israel but also in the diasporic communities that remain partners with Israel, primarily Jews in the United States (the largest Jewish community in the world outside Israel).

PAST CRISES AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE’S RESPONSES In 721 BCE, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was defeated by the Assyrians, and its population was ultimately assimilated to the point of disappearance. In 586 BCE, the Southern Kingdom of Judah (by then, comprising only two of the original Twelve Tribes of Israel, Judah and Benjamin) was defeated by the Babylonians. The vanquished political, military, economic, and religious leaderships and many of its people were taken into exile in Babylon, where defeat was reconceived as part of a divine plan, and religious practice was redefined as scriptural study, intense prayer life, and heightened ethical behavior, disconnected from the traditional priestly-sacrificial-cultic system of their homeland. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and forbade Jews to even enter its precincts, initiating the scattering of the Jewish people that would continue for two thousand years—the Diaspora (dispersion) but, for some, the Galut (exile). The primarily Western and European trek as a vulnerable minority people would be subject to the whims and caprices of the dominant, and later Christian, majority. The Jews were an exiled people forever dreaming of a return to their homeland. For the second and third of these devastated communities (Judea and Jerusalem), now without power or even a home, all that remained was prayer and a retelling of the glories of the ancient monarchy and its religiopolitical King David (reigned ca. 1000 BCE), along with the messianic hope that a new leader mashiach-melekh (Hebrew, “anointed ruler”) would arise who would militarily defeat the enemies of the Jewish people; lead the various exiled Jewish communities back to their ancient homeland, where they would live in peace with their neighbors; and reinvigorate the religious life and practice of those communities by the force of his own charismatic presence and personality.

Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism

For the next two thousand years, however, the dreams of the return manifested themselves only in words, especially after the Passover holiday meal with the phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem.” That yearning was also expressed in the various prayer books of the Jewish religious tradition—siddurim (Sabbath and festivals), makhzorim (Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur), and Haggadot (Passover). Jews never stopped dreaming, planning, or speculating about a return to Zion. Throughout Jewish history, a decided minority continued to leave the places of their birth and residence to live in Palestine; they tended to be the most religiously devout. However, after the breakup of the Holy Roman Empire, the loss of Roman Catholic collusion, the Protestant Reformation, and the Enlightenment, the marriage of church and state finally dissolved, enabling Zionism to emerge.

THE MODERN PERIOD Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) remains the “father of modern political Zionism” and whose 1896 text Der Judenstaat (A Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question) galvanized and energized those who joined him in this endeavor. His approach and that of his followers was primarily a political and economic solution to the problem of European Antisemitism. The new state would literally be purchased from those who held title to the land but not directly from those who had worked the land for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The displacement of those already on the land held little if any importance in those discussions. Others, perhaps more presciently, foresaw the reality of armed conflict with those who already resided in Palestine. Primary among them was the revisionist thinker and soldier Vladimir Zev Jabotinsky (1880–1940), who opposed both Arabs and the British, but, at the same time, believed in Arab-Jewish coexistence. In 1917, the British via a letter to the second lord (Walter) Rothschild (1868– 1937), the leader of the British Jewish community, from British foreign secretary Arthur James Lord Balfour (1848–1930), the British committed themselves to support “a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The letter came to be known as the “Balfour Declaration.” Though never realistically intended to have legal ramifications, it was misread by Jews—who saw it as support for statehood—and Arabs—who saw it as encouraging unlimited Western Jewish immigration—and it became an additional reason for violence between the two communities. The British, in turn, hung on to their League of Nations’ mandated territory, incurring violent attacks by both Jews

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and Arabs, until, realizing the futility of their efforts in 1948, they surrendered both to the United Nations resolutions for division of the land and Jewish demands for statehood.

THE PRESENT AND BEYOND Zionist Jews outside the Land/State of Israel, as well as non-Jews and avowedly Christian supporters, fall into several camps, ranging from those who advocate political solutions (two independent states) to those who advocate one state of complete democratic equality, to those who advocate massive population transfers of any Palestinian and other Arabs who do not wish to live under Jewish or Israeli governance. Within this mix are those from both the political Right and the political Left, who support a strong military as the surest guarantee of Jewish survival, a lesson supposedly learned from the Holocaust/Shoah. Indeed, the Holocaust/Shoah has colored much of contemporary thinking about Zionism, the State of Israel, and Israel’s very survival, including that of its current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (b. 1949; in office 2009 to present). The horrific deaths of more than six million Jewish children, women, and men throughout Europe under Nazi hegemony solidified the thinking of many who continue to maintain that the only solution to the seemingly intractable Arab/ Palestinian-Israeli conflict is for the State of Israel to be always militarily prepared with the latest defensive technologies, including nuclear weapons, no matter the economic, social, or political costs. At present, Christian supporters of Israel tend to both religiously and politically conservative and primarily in the evangelical camp. They also tend to disagree, sometimes quite strongly, with Israel’s willingness in favor of “land for peace” and support further settlements in Arab/ Palestinian-dominated areas. Such views derive from an interpretation of biblical texts that regard the entire land of Israel as the God-given inheritance of the Jewish people and that it may not be surrendered. Such views tend to be further supported by Jewish Israelis who were, themselves, recipients of antisemitism: Jews who emigrated from the Soviet Union and Jews who emigrated from the Levant—that is, the Middle East itself, including Syria. Thus, in the opinion of many, the only valid response includes military preparedness for all perceived and real external threats and an iron fist to confront all perceived and real internal threats. Violence thus becomes defensible by Zionists, both inside and outside Israel, for whom the safety, security, and survival of the State of Israel and its Jews are paramount. Within Israel, the gap between the successful integration and assimilation of Arab citizens and Jewish citizens continues to widen. Discrimination in the job

Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism

market, places of residence, schools, and the political process remain commonplace. Palestinian suicide bombers, who perceive themselves as having nothing to lose and encouraged by those whose hatred of Israel and its Jewish citizens appears boundless, continue to feed a seemingly endless cycle of violence and response—such as the Israeli destruction of homes, not only of the bombers and their immediate families but sometimes their extended families as well, or the construction of the “Security Fence,” which further separates Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis. The construction of the Security Fence of Wall has resulted in a dramatic decrease in suicide bombings and Jewish Israeli vulnerability, while it has heightened resentments among the native Arab/Palestinian population. The Fence/Wall has intensified the latter’s economic plight by making travel more difficult, preventing farmers from planting, harvesting, and marketing their produce, and further humiliating the Palestinians with roadblocks and security checkpoints that make daily living even more difficult. Despite the ongoing condemnations of Israel by those who falsely paint Zionism as a colonialist and aggressive political strategy, leading to world domination, the “Zionist solution” to Jewish survival does not mandate violence, nor is it a necessary or sufficient condition for such. Bridging the divide between Jews and Arabs/ Palestinians under a democratically elected government in Israel that is truly representative of the population, with equal access to housing, education, the military, government, and jobs seems a reasonable and achievable goal. So does establishing diplomatic, cultural, technological, and economic relationships with surrounding nations (as has been the case with Egypt since the 1970s). At the heart of this divide, however, are three factors, all of which are associated with an element of violence: (1) claims to the land by two peoples, couched in the religio-theological languages of the Bible and Qur’an; (2) Qur’anic and Muslim understandings of Dar al-Islam (the holy sovereignty of all lands under Islamic hegemony), and thus of non-Muslims as outsiders, enemies, and infidels who must be expelled; and (3) debates and concerns inside and outside Israel, by Jews and non-Jews, that strong efforts must be maintained to enforce a Jewish majority presence and identity in the state and, thus, a haven for all Jews worldwide and a unique place based on Jewish thinking, Jewish values, and Jewish religious and cultural production. To maintain the above, some Jewish Israelis have engaged in violent behavior toward their Arab/Palestinian neighbors, using justifications drawn from religious and messianic understandings, rather than seeking just and equitable political solutions. Establishing settlements in areas of majority Arab/Palestinian populations, often doing damage to their neighbors’ lands (e.g., destroying thousand-year-old

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olive trees), has also inspired violent responses by Arab/Palestinians and increasingly violent responses by Jews as well. Continuing human rights abuses by the Israeli government and armed forces have also caused physical and psychic harm to Arab/Palestinians and psychological harm to Jews forced into negative interactions and confrontations. Such abuses have been fully reported by various organizations including B’tzelem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Women for Human Rights, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights. The First Intifada (Arabic: “Shaking” or “Awakening”), from 1987 to 1993, resulted in 160 Jewish Israeli deaths and more than two thousand Arab/Palestinian deaths. The Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005, saw the deaths of eleven hundred Jewish Israelis and fifty-three hundred Arab/Palestinians. Such events in tandem have done little to reduce the violence within Israel and have hardened mind-sets on both sides. The ongoing tensions between Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) and Fatah (Palestine National Liberation Movement) in both Gaza and the West Bank have only exacerbated the always-explosive situation.

CONCLUSION The relationship between Zionism and violence may be summarized by four general propositions: (1) As an ideological position and activist undertaking, pre-state Zionism, which sought to realize the ancient Jewish dream of a return to its homeland, was not inherently violent; (2) after the creation of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, both inside and outside the state (and following its wars with in Arab neighbors in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1981, and 2002), violence has been a constant presence in the life of the nation, its peoples, and the region; (3) although many of Israel’s defenders eschew violence as a solution to competing territorial claims and other differences, they affirm the necessity of a strong military to ensure the safety, security, and survival of the country’s Jewish population; and (4) the country’s political detractors and enemies committed to the destruction of the “Jewish state” have refused to foreswear violence to achieve their anti-Semitic ends and continue to characterize Israel as colonialist, racist, and bent on ethnic cleansing of its non-Jewish population. To fully round out this picture, however, it should also be noted that there are Jewish religiously right-wing conservative groups, which have long stated their public opposition to the Zionist enterprise, most famously that of the religiously Orthodox Hasidic group known as the Neturei Karta (Hebrew: “Guardians of the City”) as interfering with the future activities of the Messiah of Israel, among

Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism

whose primary tasks it would be to establish the reborn Jewish state. Satmar Hasidism has also publicly expressed its opposition to the State of Israel, as have both, historically, the Agudath Yisrael founded in Eastern Europe in Poland in the early twentieth century and Reform Judaism founded in Germany in the early nineteenth century. The last two, however, after the Holocaust/Shoah reversed their previous stances and now fully embrace and support the Jewish state. Finally, emphasizing this last point, the term most applicable here is that of anti-Zionism, which finds its expressions not only among Israel’s neighbors but those on both the political Left and political Right, who regard Israel’s continuing existence as an anathema to their own views of the way in which the world is supposed to be and to function. Support for the anti-Zionist position is further supported by the United Nations Human Rights Council, which has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than any other member nation-state, and thoroughly disregarding the human rights violations of others (e.g., China, Syria, and Saudi Arabia). Most infamously, in 1975, the General Assembly of the UN passed Resolution 3370, determining that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” by a vote of seventy-two to thirty-five, with thirty-two abstentions. It was revoked on December 16, 1991—sixteen years later—by a vote of 111 to 25, with 13 abstentions and 15 absentees. Steven Leonard Jacobs See also: Christianity: Armageddon; Judaism: Antisemitism; Antisemitism in the Arab World; Blood Libel; Crusades; Gog and Magog; Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh); Holocaust and World War II; Lehava; Sikrikim; Temple Mount, Zealots; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict

NOTE Much of this material was originally published in Jeffrey Ian Ross, ed. Religion and Violence: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict from Antiquity to the Present. Volume 3. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2011, pp. 814–18 but has been substantially updated and revised. Grateful appreciation is hereby extended to Taylor and Francis Group LLC Books for reprint permission. FURTHER READING Avineri, Shlomo. 2017. The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State. New York: Basic Books. Hertzberg, Arthur. 1997. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

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Religious Violence Today Laqueur, Walter. 2003. A History of Zionism from the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel. New York: Schocken Books. Stanislawski, Michael. 2016. Zionism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Troy, Gil. 2018. The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.

NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

INTRODUCTION Although they have few members and frequently exist on the margins of society, New Religious Movements (NRMs) nevertheless serve as the barometer for a nation’s commitment to freedom of religion. Societies frequently view these minority religions with fear and suspicion. Members of the groups may wear unusual clothes or live out of the mainstream, and their beliefs may challenge those of the dominant culture or appear bizarre and weird to outsiders. In addition, historical cases of violence may color the opinions of the majority, although outbreaks of violence have been rare and unexpected. As a result, members of minority religions may experience discrimination, persecution, and even suppression of their religions and ejection from their homelands. Yet the reality is that NRMs and their followers are no more, and no less, violent than other religions and their adherents. Thus, if a country and its people are willing to embrace religious diversity despite widespread prejudice, it signals a guarantee of freedom of conscience and the free exercise of religion. NRMs constantly test the limits of these freedoms, however, especially because of perceptions that they are inherently prone to violence. Popular culture contributes to the idea that NRMs are violent. Television series and individual programs frequently portray a mad messiah directing robot-like followers to commit murder and mayhem. Movies capitalize on anxieties about religious fanaticism and child endangerment in sensationalistic depictions of both fictional and historical religious groups. Documentaries highlight the most lurid and prurient aspects of NRMs, neglecting the ordinary and the mundane. Even video games utilize the dangerous religion trope and build elaborate escape systems into their scenarios. Although the reality is much less exciting, stereotypes persist because of their power in defining the boundaries of acceptable religious practice. 547

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Definitions and Considerations Precisely defining religious violence, especially for NRMs, is difficult. What mainstream society considers “extreme” may be a required religious rite. We probably all agree that murder is an unacceptable form of behavior, but then it gets a bit murky: Is altruistic suicide—such as self-immolation designed to protest an injustice—violence? Or, shall we say, acceptable violence? What about the sun dance among Lakota Native Americans, or animal sacrifice in the Cuban religion Santería? One group may believe that corporal punishment of children is godly parenting, while a government may criminalize spanking and remove children from their parents. It appears, then, that violence exists in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to religion. The sociologist Mary Jackman provides some helpful ways to consider violence (Jackman 2001). She states that violence encompasses actions that inflict, threaten, or cause injury; further, these violent actions may be corporal, written, or verbal, and the injuries generated may be corporal, psychological, material, or social. Thus, bullying would be a type of violence in Jackson’s scheme, but so, too, would be religious practices that caused harm, such as fasting and self-flagellation. Jackman’s categories remain useful, however, for discussing a variety of groups that may engage in direct, physical violent confrontations, along with those that practice “paper warfare”—making written threats that may inconvenience, but not physically hurt, their targets, since injury might take other forms. I am therefore using “violence” as a broad, comprehensive concept that includes an array of antagonistic and aggressive actions. Violent rhetoric need not inevitably lead to violent actions, but violent actions are usually preceded by a rhetoric or theology that justifies harming others in order to achieve the greater, or religious, good. Another term that requires an explanation is the word “cult,” which is not a neutral expression. The historian Catherine Wessinger describes the ways in which the cult label is used to stigmatize unpopular religions, thereby making it more likely for a minority religious group to be deemed illegitimate and dangerous (Wessinger 2018). Cult is used only to refer to religions that are disliked in the wider culture. In the United States, for example, Baptists and Catholics are not generally considered to be cultists, while Scientologists and Moonies (members of the Unification Church) are. Because the word “cult” bears such negative connotations, scholars of religion have tried to find a less-biased expression. One replacement that has come to dominate is the identifier New Religious Movement, and its acronym NRM. The three elements of NRM endeavor to capture the essence of these groups: they are new, they are religious, and they are movements, rather than churches or larger institutions. These tidy categories break down when closely

New Religious Movements: Introduction

examined, however. The worship of Lord Krishna is an ancient practice in India, but it was new when Swami Prabhupada brought Krishna Consciousness to the United States in the 1960s. Sovereign Citizen groups may have some religious underpinnings but appear to be political, rather than religious, movements. And it would be difficult to call the Church of Scientology a movement, when it is a highly organized institution, with hundreds of branches around the world. To avoid some of these problems, scholars have sought other euphemisms: alternative, emergent, marginalized, or minority religions have been proposed. “Minority religion” has the advantage of defining a group within a larger societal context: Islam is a minority religion in the United States, while in Saudi Arabia, Christianity is a minority religion. If a religion comprises a fraction of the population, it may well face intimidation and ostracism. “Marginalized religion” has the same implication. The religion itself is not marginal, but it has been marginalized by mainstream society, or members may choose to live on the fringe. Substitutions such as alternative, emergent, or unconventional religion, all share the problem of comparison: alternative to what? emerging from where? unconventional for whom? For the most part, this article will use the scholarly term NRM to discuss groups that many would simply call “cults,” though for convenience I will use these expressions somewhat interchangeably. Language matters in this regard, because what a religion is called reflects the outlook and subsequent actions that members of society may take against a stigmatized group. While the general public tends to think of cults and cultists as violent, it is important to remember that this viewpoint influences opinion- and policy-makers, who may dictate or direct violence against an unpopular group in the name of protecting the public. Marginalization of a religion may lead to increasing its isolation and creating a climate of general disapproval, making its members vulnerable to physical attacks. Therefore, we find outbreaks of violence against NRMs alongside violent eruptions by NRMs. Sociologist of religion Eileen Barker has observed that our own social location vis-à-vis NRMs dictates our understanding of them. She identifies six different ways we might approach a group: as scholars of religion; as NRM members; as part of an anticult organization; as journalists; as representatives of the law, such as police officers, lawyers, social workers, and the courts; and as counselors and therapists engaged in helping former members of NRMs (Barker 1995). Individuals in each of these roles would perceive NRMs and their members rather differently. Group followers would be staunch advocates, defending their beliefs with passion and conviction, while anticultists would be sharply critical, accusing NRM members of being brainwashed victims of manipulative techniques. Barker further refines this classification scheme in her creation of a typology of what she calls cult-watching groups, whose intention is to prevent cult violence. She distinguishes

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five types: cult-awareness groups (what has frequently been called the Anticult Movement, or ACM), countercult groups, research-oriented groups, human rights groups, and cult-defender groups (Barker 2002). Again, the affinity with a particular purpose—preservation of Christianity, the aim of countercult groups, or protection of religious liberty, the ambition of cult-defender groups—would usually shape the understanding of new religions. These perspectives are important guideposts for considering questions about violence and NRMs because they influence public policies, particularly law enforcement activities, which address the treatment of members of minority religions. Although research-oriented groups have struggled to allay fears about the so-called menace of cults, apprehension remains, in large part because a few spectacular instances of violence occurred in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Benchmark Cases Although the ACM had warned parents throughout the 1970s about the vulnerability of their children to the charms of new religions, it failed to predict the mass murders and suicides that occurred in Jonestown, Guyana, in November 1978. After members of Peoples Temple assassinated a member of the U.S. Congress and killed three reporters, more than nine hundred other group members died through forcible injections or by drinking cyanide-laced punch. This was the first of a half dozen high-profile instances in which NRM adherents resorted to violence against outsiders, insiders, or both. They are benchmark cases in the sense that they loom large in the mind of the general public and have been used by scholars in comparative studies of violent episodes. While Peoples Temple members inaugurated the violence against unarmed visitors whom they perceived as a threat to their continued existence, the Branch Davidians at Mount Carmel, near Waco, Texas, responded with force to an armed attempt by government officials to serve a search warrant upon their leader, David Koresh (1959–1993). The ensuing shoot-out on February 28, 1993 left four federal agents and six Branch Davidians dead. After a fifty-one-day standoff, during which negotiators from both sides ventured to reach a settlement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched a tear-gas attack on April 19, using tanks to knock down walls of the compound and shoot CS gas into the buildings where eighty-five Branch Davidians remained. A fire broke out in the structures, and seventy-six perished as a result. Although most scholars believe that the Branch Davidians set the fires themselves, they also assert that federal government mishandling of the situation led to the tragic conclusion.

New Religious Movements: Introduction

In contrast, members of the Order of the Solar Temple (Ordre du Temple Solaire, or OTS) seemed to have killed themselves—and murdered those unwilling or unable—without any apparent external provocation. In October 1994, police found the bodies of fifty-three people in several locations in Switzerland and Quebec; in a number of cases, the choice for death was unclear because arson had destroyed evidence. In 1995, sixteen more people died in an apparent group suicide in France, their bodies set on fire by two remaining members, who then killed themselves. An additional five members died by suicide in Quebec in March 1997. These deaths were merely transits to another planet, according to OTS theology; the fires that consumed their bodies were a ritual of purification. The ostensible stimulus for the suicides committed by thirty-nine members of Heaven’s Gate, also in March 1997, was the arrival of the Hale-Bopp comet. Participants in the unidentified flying object (UFO) group sought The Level Above Human and saw their deaths as the passage to a higher state of being on another planet. Earth and humankind were to be “spaded over,” and students in the class—which is how members saw themselves—lived in anticipation of graduation day. They abided by strict community rules, striving to pacify physical passions to be ready to discard their human “containers.” If members of OTS sought to purify themselves by fire, and those in the Heaven’s Gate class sought purification through suppression of the body, adherents of Aum Shinrikyo sought to purify the entire world by fire. In destroying an evil and corrupt society, which they believed to be riddled with materialism and perversion, the exceptionally ascetic followers of Aum would save it. Although the first death that occurred within Aum was an accident—the result of severe self-denial—the cover-up of the death compromised believers and paved the way for subsequent murders of defectors and opponents. Ultimately, Aum followers released deadly sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system during rush hour in March 1995. Thirteen people died, and thousands more were injured. The last of the benchmark cases occurred in Uganda, with the murders and suicides in 2000 of members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG). An explosion inside a building with boarded-up windows killed three hundred members, so it was unclear whether the deaths were murder or suicide. Further complicating matters, six bodies had been buried near the church prior to the fire. Finally, 444 corpses were exhumed from mass graves at four different locations, suggesting that murder, rather than suicide, was in play. Reporters and cult experts instantly drew comparisons with Jonestown, even noting that the total number of deaths approached that of the 1978 tragedy. Although these six events are linked conceptually as examples of cult violence, the specific circumstances of each occasion varied widely. Peoples Temple

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attracted members from the working classes, although a number of young social activists joined as well. In contrast, those involved in the Order of the Solar Temple and in Aum Shinrikyo came from the educated and upper classes. Members of the Branch Davidians were drawn from Seventh-day Adventists, while the MRTCG emerged from the African context of Marian apparitional groups. Messages and appearances of the Virgin Mary and Jesus to the twelve apostles who led the MRTCG denounced the sinfulness of the world and called for immediate repentance and a life to be lived in strict adherence to the Ten Commandments. Despite the disparate demographics, beliefs, practices, and ultimate fates of these groups, they continue to inform attitudes about NRMs. The conviction that cults are fundamentally violent remains prevalent among representatives of law enforcement, the therapeutic community, the news and entertainment media, and the ACM, notwithstanding the existence of thousands of nonviolent NRMs around the world. How, then, can those dealing with public safety and security, as well as those directing public policy regarding religious freedom, differentiate between benign and potentially harmful movements? This has become a crucial question in the twenty-first century, where a number of religious movements have employed lethal means to achieve their religious ends.

Predictors of Violence Sociologists and historians of religion have categorized the indicators of violent predispositions in order to predict when a NRM might turn to violence. On the one hand, internal pressures—the illness of the leader, factionalism within the group, economic failure of the commune, fulfillment (or failure) of the prophecy—may precipitate a crisis in which the group directs violence toward its own members. This explanation might account for the actions of members of Heaven’s Gate. On the other hand, external forces may cause a group to lash out at its enemies. This seems to be what happened with the Branch Davidians in their violent confrontation with federal agents. Or, there may be a combination of internal and external factors that trigger violent episodes, as in the examples of Peoples Temple and Aum Shinrikyo. Another possible signpost is group encapsulation—that is, physical isolation or distance from the wider society. The fewer contacts that members of NRMs have with outsiders, the more likely they are to become ideologically entrenched and to be able to imagine what previously might have been inconceivable. When Peoples Temple members emigrated from California to Jonestown in the 1970s, they grew increasingly insular, adopting the rhetoric, and paranoia, of their leader, Jim Jones (1931–1978). The most devoted members of Aum Shinrikyo lived apart from Japanese society in communes and homes dedicated to strict austerities and

New Religious Movements: Introduction

ritual observances. Many NRMs today seeking to build a new or improved consciousness separate themselves from the mainstream, but this does not mean that they necessarily become violent. Other influences must also be in play. One such element seems to be the existence of oppositional groups arrayed specifically against a new religion. The sociologist John R. Hall has identified three such groups: “cultural opponents,” comprising relatives and former members of the NRM; the news media; and government agencies (Hall 1987). If families successfully persuade reporters and officials that the NRM is a threat, the group itself may respond in kind, perceiving the opposition as threatening and as requiring a vigorous response. The ACM seems to have played a role in at least one outburst of violence; anticultists persuaded law enforcement officials that the Branch Davidians planned to commit mass suicide. Paradoxically, Attorney General Janet Reno (1938–2016) authorized the final attack in order to prevent just this occurrence. In addition, the theology of a group may justify the use of coercion in the anticipation of a violent upheaval directed by a god or gods. Members of some NRMs are convinced that the present evil age must come to a violent end before a new age of righteousness dawns. This belief, called apocalypticism, emerged within a Jewish and Christian milieu at the turn of the Common Era (200 BCE to 200 CE). Even today, a number of different NRMs espouse apocalyptic views that anticipate cataclysmic and earth-shattering changes, with members rationalizing their own violence as belonging to divine will. The Racial Holy War, or RaHoWa, promulgated by white nationalist groups, is an example of such an apocalyptic perspective: only a war exterminating Jews and African Americans will realize the plan that was originally designed by the Creator. The Fourth Turning also exemplifies the sentiment that an apocalyptic battle may have to be fought in order to restore civic life in the United States. Some groups may try to kindle historical forces, following an apocalyptic “script” that guides them, through blood and guts, to eventual vindication. These NRMs tend to embrace a pessimistic worldview: things are bad but they are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Related to apocalypticism is the concept of millennialism (or millenarianism): the belief that a new era will bring about collective and terrestrial salvation for the faithful. Based on the Christian belief in the return of Jesus Christ (Revelation 20), millennialism once referred strictly to the thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth before the last battle between the righteous and the unrighteous. Today it connotes almost any belief in shared deliverance, whether secular or religious, from the evils plaguing the world. Millennialists and apocalypticists share a dualistic ideology, dividing the world into two camps: good and evil; the righteous and the unrighteous; heroes and villains. This radical, or exemplary, dualism pits “the good guys” (members of the NRM) against “the bad guys” (everyone else) and, therefore, can rationalize

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violent or illegal behavior. But not all dualistic groups are millennialist or apocalyptic. The Church of Scientology, for example, has a principle called “Fair Game,” in which supposed enemies of the church can be targeted with lawsuits, stalking, and other harassment. Those who do not agree with church practices or policies or who criticize them are deemed “suppressives,” or antisocial personalities, because they are believed to be denigrating or destroying what Scientologists are trying to construct. As a consequence, they may be shunned or denied access to family members who remain in the church. Thus, a dualistic ideology excuses behavior that outsiders would consider destructive rather than constructive. Furthermore, exemplary dualism does not allow for compromise or dialogue: how can one consider bargaining with the devil? A final possible predictor of violence is a culture of conspiracy, in which individuals and groups are convinced that “reality” is not what it appears to be. Isolation, persecution (real or imagined), and a dualistic worldview all contribute to the belief that malevolent external powers are in control. Thanks to the internet, conspiracy theories—ranging from the idea that U.S. operatives were responsible for the demolition of the World Trade Center in 2001 to a belief that Jewish bankers control international finance today—have moved from the fringes of society into the mainstream. Nativists, neo-Nazis, sovereign citizens, and separatist groups all subscribe to conspiratorial thinking, which is legitimated through repetition and sharing on social, and now, mainstream media.

Violence Is Relational There are a few NRMs for whom violence is integral to their ideology. These tend to be groups that hold racist and antisemitic attitudes, whose members blame minorities for the problems in the world. Followers of these NRMs believe that with the eradication of these troublesome ethnic groups, they can regain the prosperity and dominion they once had. Gynephobic (woman-fearing) and homophobic (homosexual-fearing) feelings frequently accompany ethnic animosity, with NRM members striving to reestablish a heterosexual, patriarchal hierarchy, in which each person has an assigned role and accepts his or her place. Even NRMs promulgating hate-filled theologies, however, will not inevitably resort to violence. It is only through escalating encounters with oppositional forces, especially law enforcement, that violence seems to occur. According to sociologist David Bromley and historian J. Gordon Melton, religious violence follows a mounting progression, based on the relationship between two or more antagonists (Bromley and Melton 2002). Because violence is interactive, and because the primary impetus for it may come either from the movement itself or from outside control agents, it may be better to think of dangerous situations rather than dangerous

New Religious Movements: Introduction

organizations. As each side in a potential conflict asserts itself, a moment of final reckoning arrives, in which neither side can politically, physically, or psychologically back down. What Bromley calls a “dramatic denouement”—that is, a sensational ending—then becomes unavoidable. Moreover, violence perpetrated against new religions is on the rise. Governments around the world have sanctioned expulsion, persecution, and execution; religious buildings have been destroyed and religious observances outlawed. The Chinese government has targeted practitioners of the qi gong NRM Falun Gong for oppression since the 1990s, with adherents being arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and even killed to harvest their organs for transplants. In the twenty-first century, other minorities in China have experienced similar maltreatment. These include ethnic Muslim Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists, and members of Christian house churches that are not part of the officially recognized Protestant Christian Church in China. In a number of former Soviet-bloc countries, police officers have raided church services, stormed buildings, and arrested members of minority religious groups under the guise of preventing terrorism. In 2017, the Russian government banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses; by the end of 2019, forty-three Witnesses were in pretrial detention, twenty-four were under house arrest, and almost three hundred faced criminal charges. In Eurasia and North America, the Church of Scientology seems to head the list of most-hated groups, with The Family International (TFI, formerly the Children of God) and the Twelve Tribes running closely behind. Sociologists Stuart Wright and Susan Palmer have documented historical and contemporary occasions of government incursions on these and other groups (Wright and Palmer 2016). Raids against the Church of Scientology in the United States (1963, 1977), Australia (1965–1969), Canada (1983), and France (21 police raids in the 1990s alone) sought to find evidence of fraud relating to taxes, medical claims, and proselytizing. Police forays against TFI and the Twelve Tribes were justified with claims of child abuse. In 2013, for example, German authorities forcibly removed forty-one children from Twelve Tribes communities in Nördlingen-Klosterzimmern and Wörnitz on charges that parents spanked their children. Members of the Twelve Tribes filed a protest with the European Court of Human Rights. The ACM seemed to play an influential role in the actions taken against these NRMs, especially in Europe. An internationalized cohort of anticult groups and law enforcement officials, along with social workers and counselors, worked with journalists to organize opposition. They persuaded government officials and entities to take strong measures against what the public believed to be dangerous religions. On the one hand, attempting to restrict deviant beliefs would be seen as a violation of principles of religious freedom, but, on the other hand, controlling crime by protecting people from deceptive practices and mind control is considered justifiable.

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In addition, deprogramming—the sometimes violent and always coercive process of turning a person away from their belief system—is defended as an acceptable way to combat NRMs. Concern over child abuse is also raised to validate state intervention in religious practices. Unfounded fears of child endangerment have existed throughout history, but became especially problematic in the 1980s with a “satanic panic” generating irrational anxiety about child care providers (Frankfurter 2006). Perhaps the most spectacular effort to rescue children was the 2008 raid on Fundamentalist Mormons in Eldorado, Texas, where law enforcement and state welfare agents seized 439 children living at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. The courts dismissed 424 cases and allowed the children to return home within two months of their removal; fifteen cases from five mothers remained under supervision; and all but one child was eventually returned to her parents. While this seemed to be a victory for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the cost in the loss of religious rights and personal privacy was high. To regain custody of their children, all of the families had to sign agreements allowing the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services access to their homes on unannounced visits and had to submit to medical, physical, and psychological examinations. It appears, then, that violence involving new religions is both interactive and instigated by a variety of actors: religious groups, law enforcement officials, the news media, and cultural opponents. Predicting the outbreak of violence is, therefore, notoriously difficult. No one foresaw the violence that erupted in the benchmark cases, although the telltale signs were present—at least after the fact. Nor did the public anticipate government raids, many of which were conducted in secret. But more important, members of the vast majority of new religions are peaceful, law-abiding practitioners, who merely wish to be left alone to maintain their faith. Some groups may live in isolation and adopt a theology of pacifism—that is, opposition to any form of violence. Indeed, they have fled society to escape its contamination. Others may adopt an apocalyptic or millennial stance based on biblical teachings, leaving it to God to act in history when the time is right. Still others—a tiny fraction of the thousands of groups that exist worldwide—may believe that the end justifies the means and will do whatever it takes, by any means necessary, to achieve their religious goals. Rebecca Moore FURTHER READING Barker, Eileen. 1995. “The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34:287–310.

New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement Barker, Eileen. 2002. “Watching for Violence: A Comparative Analysis of the Roles of Five Types of Cult-Watching Groups.” In David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 123–48. Bromley, David G., and J. Gordon Melton. 2002. “Violence and Religion in Perspective.” In David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–10. Frankfurter, David. 2006. Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hall, John R. 2004 (1987). Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Jackman, Mary R. 2001. “License to Kill: Violence and Legitimacy in Expropriative Social Relations.” In John T. Jost and Brenda Major, eds. The Psychology of Legitimacy: Emerging Perspectives on Ideology, Justice, and Intergroup Relations. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 437–67. Lewis, James R., ed. 2011. Violence and New Religious Movements. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, Rebecca. 2018. Beyond Brainwashing: Theories of Cultic Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wessinger, Catherine. 2000. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Wessinger, Catherine. 2018. “The Deaths of 76 Branch Davidians in April 1993 Could Have Been Avoided—So Why Didn’t Anyone Care?” The Conversation, April 13. ­https://​­theconversation​.­com​/­the​-­deaths​-­of​-­76​-­branch​-­davidians​-­in​-­april​-­1993​-­could​ -­have​-­been​-­avoided​-­so​-­why​-­didnt​-­anyone​-­care​-­90816​.­ Wright, Stuart A., and Susan J. Palmer. 2016. Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities. New York: Oxford University Press.

ANTICULT MOVEMENT(ACM) The Anticult Movement (ACM) comprises a diffuse number of individuals, groups, and professions that are united in their belief that most NRMs, or cults, as they refer to them, are inherently dangerous and destructive to their members. Psychologists and counselors, former group members and their relatives, law enforcement officials, scholars, and others make up the ranks of the ACM. Unlike academics working from a research-oriented perspective—in which groups and their adherents are considered in aggregate and are examined using social scientific methods—those in the ACM work directly with people who have experienced harm in their affiliations with NRMs. Consequently, their views tend to be quite critical. They see most cults as sinister cabals run by charlatans whose only aim is financial gain or self-aggrandizement. Key to the success of these scams—as the ACM perceives them—is the use of brainwashing or thought reform to pressure helpless individuals into accepting alien beliefs.

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The counterculture of the 1960s introduced young adults to a variety of new religions. Social protest movements for civil rights and free speech, and against the U.S. war in Vietnam, created a youth culture of doubt and suspicion that encouraged the rejection of parental values. In addition, the 1965 repeal of the Asian Exclusion Act allowed gurus and roshis from Asia to immigrate to the United States, bringing with them religions with venerable traditions from their home countries. These factors combined to generate great interest in alternatives to the status quo, especially among those enrolled in colleges and universities. Even prior to the rise of the ACM, however, a Christian countercult movement (CCM) existed that viewed any religion other than Evangelical or Fundamentalist Protestantism to be a cult. Originating in opposition to the Christian denominations of Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the CCM sought to maintain what its proponents considered the purity of biblical Christianity, as they understood it. Expressing CCM convictions, Ron Enroth observed, “From the perspective of biblical Christianity, the new religious movements that have emerged during the past dozen years or so must be viewed as spiritual counterfeits” (Enroth 1979, 14). Non-Christian traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, or Scientology lie far outside the pale, promoting false beliefs—that is, non-Christian doctrines. Though seen as dangerous and satanically inspired, they are not as treacherous as the real enemies of Christ—insincere Christians—that is, Christians with whom the CCM disagrees. The secular ACM started in the 1970s, when parents became concerned that their college-age children who had joined NRMs manifested changes in personality, ranging from cutting off family ties and becoming uncommunicative, to dropping out of school or selling flowers on street corners. They communicated with each other, calling public attention to their plight, and organized together to rescue their children from the cults. One of the first such groups was FREECOG (Free the Children of God), organized by deprogrammer Ted Patrick (b. 1930). Out of an assortment of loosely knit regional groups, two national organizations emerged. Patrick founded the Citizens Freedom Foundation (CFF) in 1974, headquartered in California, which was the country’s most populous state and the one with the most NRMs. CFF eventually evolved into the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) in 1984, and the Cult Project in Montreal—renamed Info-Cult/Info-Secte in 1990 (Giambalvo, et al., n.d.). CAN not only provided free information on cults but also referred parents to deprogrammers. Another group, the American Family Foundation (AFF), was a think tank organized in 1979 that distributed information packets to families. It also published a journal with scholarly articles and advocated for legislative controls. Included among the groups identified as cults are various Christian denominations, Asian religions, Spiritualism, Japanese mystical traditions, UFO religions,

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psychotherapeutic groups, political organizations, and self-help or self-improvement systems (Singer and Lalich 2003, 13–14). Despite this wide diversity of groups, they all share only two purposes, according to Margaret Singer, the pre-eminent spokeswoman for the ACM, “recruiting new members and fund-raising” (Singer and Lalich 2003, 11). In the opinion of ACM writers, it is obvious that new members are needed to raise money for the authoritarian megalomaniacs who require regimentation and obedience in order to live luxurious lifestyles. The most salient characteristic of the ACM is its supporters’ confidence in the idea that brainwashing, or coercive persuasion, explains why people join cults. ACM theorists claim that cults are able to alter people’s personalities through a number of manipulative techniques, such as sleep or food deprivation, self-criticism sessions, love-bombing (in which a recruit is overwhelmed with praise and affection), meditation and chanting, and even by hypnosis. In short, all members become zombies or robots, lacking personal willpower; as such, they must be deprogrammed to reverse the destructive effects of their programming. ACM apologists employ research that emerged from studies of prisoners of war, though critics argue that they are misinterpreting those studies. Singer identified three tactics of thought reform, beginning with undermining a person’s sense of self, continuing with having the person review and rewrite his or her life story, and finally developing a dependence upon the organization (Singer and Lalich 2003, 62). Incorporating ideas presented by the psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton and organizational theorist Edgar Schein, she argued that all cults deliberately and systematically utilize techniques that attack the very self, driving some individuals into madness. Research-oriented cult watchers have vigorously challenged brainwashing claims over the years, calling it a pseudoscience that attempts to justify nullification of First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion. Critics of brainwashing theories assert that those in the ACM have misread the scholarly literature on thought reform, ignoring the fact that coercive techniques utilized in prison camps only changed prisoners’ behavior, not their minds. The element of torture and the threat of death present in those camps are also lacking in NRMs. Sociologist James T. Richardson listed additional problems with the brainwashing hypothesis, including the ideological biases of brainwashing theorists, the lack of scientific data to support claims, and the neglect of predisposing characteristics of cult members (Richardson 2003, 160–66). Given the fact that most participants in new religions remain for only a short time, brainwashing does not seem to be as effective as its boosters allege. An extensive study of the Unification Church in England conducted by sociologist Eileen Barker revealed that the retention rate of new recruits was extremely low. Coupled with high rates of defections, the likelihood of a new convert remaining a Moonie longer than two years was no more than

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0.5 percent (Barker 1984, 144–48). Finally, brainwashing backers ignore ordinary explanations for conversion to new religions, disregarding a large body of research into how and why people change religious affiliation. Yet brainwashing remains an acceptable way to describe the radical departures some individuals make in their religious choices. It also provides a rationale, or excuse, for why disaffected former cult members once adopted beliefs and lifestyles they later deny. In particular, ex-members who undergo deprogramming may see themselves as victims, as opposed to those who voluntarily leave groups and can recall positive experiences (Galanter 1989, 116). They may typically relate a captivity narrative that pits enormous forces against a lone and helpless individual. Throughout its history, the ACM has sought to mobilize the news media in order to energize public opinion and thereby encourage the enactment of government legislation regulating cults. CAN spokespersons in particular found a sympathetic hearing among journalists, who preferred sensationalized stories of dramatic rescues to dry statistics in sociological studies. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, state legislative bodies considered laws that would limit individual religious choices in the name of protecting people from harm, and congressional hearings conducted by U.S. Senator Robert Dole in 1976 and 1979 provided a platform for ACM perspectives. A countermovement of defenders of religious liberty—called “cult apologists” or “cult defenders” by the ACM—arose to challenge various initiatives and to provide an alternative account to that presented by the ACM. Most legislative actions, as well as lawsuits based on claims of brainwashing, have failed, due, in part, to the strong tradition of separation of church and state in the United States. The North American ACM has changed dramatically since its origins in the 1970s. CAN declared bankruptcy in 1996, following a number of lawsuits filed by cult members who had been deprogrammed involuntarily. Never directly involved in deprogramming, the AFF continued its path toward professionalization, focusing on generating more empirical data regarding NRM membership, offering workshops and conferences for former NRM members and those who counsel them, and repudiating deprogramming, while retaining a commitment to exit counseling from “high-pressure groups.” In 2004, the AFF changed its name to the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), reflecting its effort to move beyond cult and anticult analysis. In the twenty-first century, ICSA finds that more than half its membership comprises ex-cult members, although most people, historically and today, enter the ACM to solve a short-term dilemma: getting relatives out of cults or recovering from a bad cult experience. Once the dilemma is resolved, they tend to move on, although some become apostates—that is, professional anticult spokespersons. While the North American ACM could be said to have mellowed—with advocates preferring the identifier Cult Awareness Movement to Anticult

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Movement—this is not the case abroad. The ACM has effectively missionized groups and governments in Western Europe, South America, Canada, Australia, Israel, and elsewhere, providing their international counterparts with language and literature for anticult initiatives. For example, the Fédération Européenne des Centres de Recherche et d’Information sur le Sectarisme (FECRIS), a transnational coalition of anticult groups founded in 1994, boasts members from almost thirty countries, eight of them outside Europe. These private, nonprofit organizations have capitalized on popular fears and suspicions of new religions: they help generate news stories about the cult menace and, thereby, spur into action control agents such as law enforcement or social welfare agencies. France remains the leading anticult nation in Europe, with different state ministries created to combat cults, “sectarian danger,” and “deviance.” The National Assembly passed legislation that created the misdemeanor of abus de faiblesse, literally “abuse of weakness” or, more idiomatically, taking advantage of vulnerability; in effect, the law criminalized “mental manipulation,” a euphemism for brainwashing. ACM organizations and actors are integrated into state machinery as insiders. A number of considerations unique to French culture illuminate the ferocity of anticult, or anti-secte, sentiment there, including the legacy of anticlericalism from the French Revolution; a whole-hearted adoption of a secular society that the Catholic Church monitors; a fear that French culture will be diluted or perverted from within; and a strong dose of anti-American sentiment. Other nations have passed laws against particular religious groups. In 2017, Russia banned, or “liquidated,” the Jehovah’s Witnesses, claiming they were unpatriotic and posed a peril to society and to the family. Other countries in the former Soviet bloc have followed Russia’s lead. The Chinese government has revived the term xiejiao, or evil cult, to portray the qi gong group Falun Gong, which it has persecuted. More recently, it has focused its ire on the Church of Almighty God, a Christian new religion founded in China in 1991 that preaches that Jesus is incarnate in a living woman today. The group claims that more than four hundred thousand members were arrested between 2011 and 2017, with an estimated 15,000 arrested in 2019. The Israeli Knesset, prompted by North American cult awareness experts, introduced legislation in 2016 against “harmful cults,” which it defined as groups that used mind control over thought processes and behavior. The proposed law would not only have prosecuted cult leaders but would also have created conservatorships for parents to gain control over adult children belonging to religions of which they do not approve. Thus far, the law has not passed. Undoubtedly, harmful and dangerous new religions have existed and may continue to emerge. Female members of the Children of God were prostituted through “flirty fishing” to attract converts to the movement. Young men in the Buddhafield group were repeatedly raped by their leader. Leaders of NXIVM, a multilevel

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marketing group that functioned like a cult, according to former members, were charged in 2018 with federal offenses, including sex trafficking. And more than nine hundred Peoples Temple members died in a mass murder-suicide ritual in Jonestown. Yet these examples are noteworthy primarily because they are so extreme, rather than typifying the average cult member’s experience. As long as the religion marketplace remains diverse, new religions will attract spiritual seekers. Therefore, it seems likely that an anticult movement organized in opposition to NRMs for either religious or secular reasons will remain viable, particularly in countries that lack a strong commitment to religious freedom. Rebecca Moore See also: Chinese Religion: Falun Gong; New Religious Movements: Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph and Hikari no Wa); Deprogramming; Order of the Solar Temple FURTHER READING Barker, Eileen. 1984. The Making of a Moonie: Choice or Brainwashing? London: Blackwell. Enroth, Ronald. 1979. The Lure of the Cults. Chappaqua: Christian Herald Books. Galanter, Marc. 1989. Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion. New York: Oxford University Press. Giambalvo, Carol, Michael Langone, and Michael Kropfeld. n.d. “Changes in the North American Cult Awareness Movement.” International Cultic Studies Association. ­ ­http://​­www​.­icsahome​.­com​/­articles​/­changes​-­in​-­the​-­north​-­american​-­cult​-­awareness​ -­movement. Lifton, Robert Jay. 1961. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing. London: Gollancz. Moore, Rebecca. 2018. “The Brainwashing Myth.” The Conversation, July 18. h­ ttps://​ ­theconversation​.­com​/­the​-­brainwashing​-­myth​-­99272. Richardson, James T. 2003. “A Critique of ‘Brainwashing’ Claims about New Religious Movements.” In Lorne L. Dawson, ed. Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader. Malden: Blackwell, pp. 160–66. Schein, Edgar H. 1961. Coercive Persuasion: A Socio-Psychological Analysis of “Brainwashing” of American Civilian Prisoners by the Chinese Communists. New York: W. W. Norton. Shupe, Anson, and Susan E. Darnell. 2006. Agents of Discord: Deprogramming, PseudoScience, and the American Anticult Movement. New Brunswick: Transaction. Singer, Margaret Thaler, with Janja Lalich. 2003. Cults in Our Midst. Revised ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

ATHEISTS, PERSECUTION BY Atheists—who hold the philosophy that supernatural beings, such as a god or gods, do not exist—have at various times repressed or persecuted religious believers. The

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most notable historical cases include the widespread killing of priests and nuns during the French Revolution and the systematic elimination of all religious institutions in the former Soviet Union. Today, the government of China seems to have taken the lead in oppressing the followers of several different religions—Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Chinese Christians. In Europe and the United States, an informal cohort of pugnacious and vocal critics of religion currently form what is called the “New Atheism.” Their support for military initiatives taken against Muslim nations suggests that New Atheists advocate violence when they believe religions pose threats to world peace. Unlike the American Revolution (1775–1783), the French Revolution (1789– 1799) was strongly anticlerical—that is, antireligious. Between 1793 and 1794, the revolutionary government of France instituted a reign of terror that targeted the nobility, the clergy, and the petite bourgeoisie (the merchant class). More than three hundred thousand were arrested; seventeen thousand were executed, and ten thousand more may have died in prison. A century and a half later, the Soviet Union (1922–1991) did not formally outlaw religion but deemed it a backward superstition; at times, churches, mosques, and temples were destroyed, and religious leaders and followers were arrested, imprisoned, or executed. A policy of “scientific atheism” was promoted to replace Orthodox Christianity. Jews were particularly targeted for harassment. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, however, limited religious freedom has developed, though it privileges the Russian Orthodox Church. Members of minority Christian groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, have experienced detention, torture, and execution in the new environment. The People’s Republic of China remains committed to a forceful policy of upholding atheism. In 2018, officials of the Chinese Community Party tightened restrictions against all religions, even those legally sanctioned—Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholic Christianity, and Protestant Christianity. More than fourteen hundred prisoners of conscience, including 145 monks, priests, and religious leaders, were held in Chinese prisons as of October 2018; this figure does not include the estimated eight hundred thousand to two million Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims detained in internment camps on charges such as wearing a veil or having an “abnormal” beard (USCIRF 2019). The extent of the persecution was revealed in 2019, when satellite images of enormous detention camps—which are dubbed “re-education” centers by authorities—graphically confirmed evidence found in secret Chinese government documents that had been obtained by journalists. Tibetan Buddhists are victimized as well in China’s policy of forced assimilation and suppression. The government banned programs that teach Tibetan language and culture and prohibited children from attending Buddhist festivals. Monks and nuns living in the Tibetan Autonomous Region who refuse to renounce loyalty to the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, face expulsion from their

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monasteries, imprisonment, and torture. Elsewhere in China, thousands of monks, nuns, and laypersons living in monastic communities were evicted and forced to attend re-education camps for up to six months. As a result of deteriorating conditions, at least 156 Tibetans have immolated themselves in Tibet or China since 2009 to protest the crackdown, while still more immolations occurred elsewhere. A number of Christian groups also continue to experience persecution. At least half the practicing Catholics in the nation worship underground, rejecting the state-sponsored Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (USCIRF 2019). In 2016, Chinese officials removed crosses and demolished churches at more than fifteen hundred locations in Zhejiang Province alone. Ding Cuimei, the wife of church leader Li Jiangong, suffocated to death trying to protect their house church—which the government does not recognize—as bulldozers razed the building (USCIRF 2017). In 2018, thousands of members of the Church of Almighty God were reportedly arrested, tortured, or died in custody. Some simply disappeared. According to Human Rights Without Frontiers, 3,434 of the 4,184 church members incarcerated in 2019 were women (HRWF Prisoners Database 2019). Finally, Chinese officials have not abandoned their efforts to eradicate Falun Gong, a qi gong group it began persecuting in 1999. Membership in the group is punishable by a three- to seven-year prison term, or more. In 2018, practitioners suffered “physical violence, psychiatric abuse, sexual assault, forced drug administration, and sleep deprivation” (USCIRF 2019). More than nine hundred were imprisoned that same year. As a result of the ongoing repression of open religious expression in China, Mike Pompeo, the U.S. secretary of state, declared China a “country of particular concern” regarding religious freedom in December 2018. It has received this ranking from the United States every year since 1999. It wasn’t until the twenty-first century that well-organized and confrontational opposition by non-state actors to religious belief arose. A number of vocal atheists had spoken out in the United States during the twentieth century—including the lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857–1938)—but Madelyn Murray O’Hair (1919–1995) was undoubtedly the most famous. An opinionated critic of religion, her aggressive style alienated friends as well as enemies, and she was dubbed “the Most Hated Woman in America.” She founded American Atheists in 1963, just as the U.S. Supreme Court was upholding her claim in Murray v. Curlett that conducting devotional Bible readings in public school was unconstitutional. In the twenty-fist century, however, a militant New Atheism arose, in which a number of individuals sought to mobilize nonbelievers to resist perceived attacks on the scientific worldview. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens published best-selling books that mocked religious pretensions, challenged the rationality of theological claims, and condemned violence perpetrated in the name of God. Three of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism are scientists: Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist; Harris is a neuroscientist; and Dennett is a

New Religious Movements: Atheists, Persecution by

cognitive scientist specializing in the philosophy of mind. (The epithet “Four Horsemen” comes from the four horses of the Apocalypse in the New Testament book of Revelation 6:1–8; in addition, a book titled “The Four Horsemen,” published in 2019, presented a conversation between the four men that occurred in 2007.) Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) was a journalist and social critic who adopted the most provocative tone of all in his polemical work, God Is Not Great (2007). He cataloged what he saw were a great many wrongs perpetrated in the name of religion—from denying children in India polio vaccinations, to blocking the distribution of condoms in Africa to prevent the spread of AIDS. “Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience” (Hitchens 2007, 56). Comedian Bill Maher disseminated still another atheistic critique in his hit documentary Religulous (2008), in which he mocked some of the more absurd elements of pious fanaticism. As Dawkins points out, nonbelievers limit their hostility to words and do not take violent action against their opponents. “I am not going to bomb anybody, behead them, stone them, burn them at the stake, crucify them, or fly planes into their skyscrapers, just because of a theological disagreement” (Dawkins 2006, 318). Yet some of the New Atheists seem to see violent global conflict between the West and Islam as not only inevitable but necessary. The immediate impetus for the rise of New Atheism was the 2001 suicide strikes on major U.S. targets by Muslim extremists. Sam Harris’s The End of Faith begins with a suicide bombing on the very first page; by the third page he claims that “intolerance is . . . intrinsic to every creed”; and shortly thereafter, he decries the view that “religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse” (Harris 2004, 13). Later in his book, Harris justifies killing intolerant people in the name of tolerance (Harris 2004, 53). Like Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens supported the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and of Iraq in 2003 (Megoran and Foster 2018). More directly, the 2015 murders of three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were committed by Craig Hicks, an advocate for Atheists for Equality and a fan of Richard Dawkins. Because atheists in the United States are “overwhelmingly young and male . . . New Atheism tends to simply baptize the opinions of young, educated white men as the obviously rational approach to complicated socio-political problems” (Breunig 2015). Whether the New Atheism is a credible intellectual challenge to religious fanaticism or an Islamophobic reaction to current events remains to be seen. Rebecca Moore See also: Chinese Religion: Chinese Atheism; New Religious Movements: Atheists, Persecution of

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ATHEISTS, PERSECUTION OF Persecution of atheists—who hold the philosophy that God, or gods, do not exist— is growing worldwide due to the ascent of religious conservatives to positions of political power. Also called nonbelievers, unbelievers, or freethinkers, atheists comprise a small minority of the population of any given country, although secularists, for whom religion is unimportant but not necessarily untrue, may actually dominate. Historically, atheists have been denied public office and were verbally or physically abused, ostracized, or exiled. Today, however, they face arrest, detention, and death in a number of Muslim-dominated countries. In the United States, they have been vilified and harassed throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. Despite the protection given to freedom of thought spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), atheists must still fight in the courts and in the media for their rights. Historically, a tradition of free thought developed in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and flourished throughout the nineteenth century in Europe and

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the United States. Freethinkers—who encompass rationalists, skeptics, humanists, and agnostics, as well as atheists—reject dogma and creed, and argue that truth claims must be empirically demonstrated and subject to evaluation by reason and logic. In the United States, the freethinker Robert Ingersoll (1833–1899) mesmerized audiences with his keen wit and powers of oration, and his critics found him a formidable opponent. In England, Charles Bradlaugh (1833–1891) founded the National Secular Society. Despite his avowal of atheism, he was elected five times to the House of Commons by his working-class constituency—although he was not allowed to be seated until parliamentary rules were changed to allow him to take office by affirmation rather than by invoking God in a religious oath. Although the United States has a long and venerable tradition of freethinkers, its lack of an established religion has paradoxically contributed to the strength and dynamism of religious belief. The influence of believers and unbelievers has seesawed back and forth in the twentieth century. Christian Fundamentalists were dealt a blow in the Scopes Trial of 1925, in which a high school biology teacher was tried for teaching the theory of evolution: the teacher was convicted, but religion was ridiculed in the process. The tide turned at the beginning of the Cold War in the 1950s, which saw an emphasis on religion in response to the threat of “godless Communism.” In 1954, the U.S. Congress added the words “under God” to the pledge of allegiance—“one nation, under God”—and, in 1956, adopted “In God We Trust” as the nation’s motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of Many, One”). A number of significant Supreme Court cases adjudicated in the 1960s swung the pendulum back to the rights of nonbelievers. Engel v. Vitale (1962) struck down prayer in public schools, while Abington v. Schempp (1963) abolished the daily reading of the Ten Commandments. The religious right in the 1980s, and the creation of conservative law firms dedicated to promoting the rights of Christians, developed an energetic religiosity to fight back. They challenged the inclusion of evolution in science textbooks, seeking to replace or supplement the theory, first with creationism, and then with a counter-theory called intelligent design. Both attributed the origin of species to a creator or a designer, and both were struck down as explicitly religious notions by federal judge John E. Jones in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District decision. Meanwhile, those who contested the public imposition of religious beliefs became the focus of violence in the United States. When Vashti McCollum filed a lawsuit in 1945 against a religion-based program that stigmatized her son by making him sit apart from other students, she lost her job, had trash piled on her porch, and received hate mail from around the country. McCollum’s son faced such intense bullying, that he was sent to live with his grandparents; her husband almost lost his job at the University of Illinois. When Madelyn Murray O’Hair

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(1919–1995) filed a lawsuit in 1969 against Bible devotions in her son’s public school, her tires were slashed, her windows broken, her cat poisoned, and her son ostracized from school and pushed in front of a speeding bus. In 2011, Jessica Ahlquist received death threats and cyberbullying when she protested a religious banner posted at her high school that proclaimed “Our Heavenly Father.” The terror attacks of 2001 raised the specter of religious discrimination against nonbelievers abroad. A number of Muslim nations have become “countries of particular concern” with regard to the treatment of atheists, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Saudi Arabia, for example, now classifies blasphemy (speaking offensively about God) and atheism as forms of terrorism (USCIRF 2017b). In 2015, Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death for spreading atheistic views in his poetry, although the sentence was commuted to eight years in prison and eight hundred lashes. Egypt’s anti-blasphemy law also targets atheists. In 2016, Mustafa Abdel-Nabi was convicted in absentia to three years in prison for posting discussions of atheism to his Facebook account. The Ministry of Religious Endowments and the Ministry of Sports and Youth have cosponsored a national campaign to counter the spread of atheism among Egypt’s young people. Bangladesh has gained a particularly grim reputation for posting hit lists on the internet, aimed at identifying atheists and secularists. Four such individuals were assassinated in 2015, including Bangladeshi-American Avijit Roy. Another secular blogger, Nazimuddin Samad, was murdered in 2017. Although more than thirty people were arrested in connection with the attacks, no one has yet been convicted. Western nations, which are highly secularized, seem to be the object of some assaults upon atheists. Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) boasted that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were “blessed strikes against world atheism and its leader, America” (Stephens 2017, 267). Other onslaughts, such as the 2015 Islamic State raid on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, stemmed from perceived insults to the Prophet Muhammad and to the religion of Islam. Despite the rise in the United States of religious “nones”—those people who may have religious beliefs but declare that they have no religious affiliation—the nation’s citizenry remains very pious, in contrast to the countries of Europe. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court declared “religious tests” for holding public office unconstitutional in the Torcaso v Watkins case in 1961, the state of South Carolina rejected an application from a professed atheist to become a notary public in 1991—the only application denied out of 33,471 submitted. Seven states still officially ban atheists from holding public office, and “the civic status of nonbelievers very much remains an unresolved question in the nation’s public life” (Schmidt 2016, xvi). Time and again, international declarations have upheld the right of individuals to reject religious beliefs, as well as to accept religious beliefs. Current events,

New Religious Movements: Aum Shinrikyo

however, demonstrate that the principle of freedom of thought does not yet fully embrace nonbelievers. Rebecca Moore See also: Chinese Religion: Chinese Atheism; Islam: Blasphemy; New Religious Movements: Atheists, Persecution by FURTHER READING George, Robert P., and Hannah Rosenthal. 2016. “Rampant Religious Persecution against Atheists.” USA Today, May 3. ­http://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­news​-­room​/­op​-­eds​/­usa​-­today​ -­rampant​-­religious​-­persecution​-­against​-­atheists. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. 2016. Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stephens, Mitchell. 2014. Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 2017a. Annual Report. ­http://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­2017​.­USCIRFAnnualReport​.­pdf. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 2017b. Selected Blasphemy Cases. ­https://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­reports​-­briefs​/­special​-­reports​/­selected​ -­blasphemy​-­cases. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). n.d. “International Human Rights Standards: Selected Provisions on Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion or Belief.” ­http://​­www​.­uscirf​.­gov​/­reports​-­briefs​/­human​-­rights​ -­documents​/­international​-­human​-­rights​-­standards​-­selected​-­provisions.

AUM SHINRIKYO(ALEPH AND HIKARI NO WA) Aum Shinrikyo is a Japanese new religion that came to worldwide attention in 1995, when its members launched a deadly sarin gas attack in the heart of Tokyo, killing thirteen people and injuring more than six thousand others. Founded in 1984 by a nearly blind guru named Shoko Asahara as a yoga and meditation group, it was renamed Aum Shinrikyo, which means “Supreme Truth,” in 1987. Devotees adopted a life of asceticism in order to save the world from coming destruction. As the leader grew more apocalyptic in his outlook, the group turned inward, with the belief that only followers of Aum would be saved. As many as thirty-three accidental deaths of members and murders of critics occurred between October 1988 and the March 1995 attack. Beginning in 1991, the group developed biological and chemical weapons in its well-equipped laboratories. As a trial run, the group released sarin gas in the city of Matsumoto in 1994, killing seven and injuring at least five hundred others. The 1995 assault in Tokyo

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led to the arrest and conviction of more than one hundred disciples. Thirteen individuals, including Asahara, were tried, convicted, and eventually executed in July 2018 for their roles in the gas attacks in Tokyo and Matsumoto, and the murder of a lawyer and his family in 1989. In 2000, some Aum followers regrouped despite public disapprobation and close police scrutiny, changing the name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in an attempt to distance itself from Aum. Internal schism led to the formation of a second group in 2007, Hikari no Wa, which literally means Circle of Light, though its official name is the Circle of Rainbow Light. A 2019 report issued by Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency indicated that state surveillance of both groups is ongoing because they represent potential terror threats (Kanunnikova 2019). While Aum Shinrikyo had a syncretistic blend of Hindu, Buddhist, and even Christian beliefs, it is clear that millennial expectations dominated the theology of the group. At first, Shoko Asahara (born Matsumoto Chizuo in 1955) preached that Aum Shinrikyo could save the world from the impending cosmic war between good and evil by persuading people to abandon their hedonistic and materialistic lifestyles in favor of self-purification through renunciation and austerities. But as his prophecies failed to be fulfilled, and, when a political party dedicated to Aum principles not only flopped at the polls but was ridiculed in the media, Asahara claimed that only mass destruction would purify the world. The key to Aum’s theology of violence was the concept of poa, which “justified training procedures sufficiently harsh as to become forms of torture and even murder” in the name of removing negative karma (Lifton 1999, 65). Poa originally described the rituals that Tibetan Buddhists perform for someone who dies; Asahara reframed the concept to indicate a ritualized “altruistic murder” that would prevent someone from accumulating bad karma. Thus, poa could be invoked to rationalize, or even bless, the murders of critics—that is, the enemies of the Truth—who might incur bad karma by harming Aum. Ultimately, however, a belief that only total annihilation would redeem the world dictated Aum’s activities in the last few years of its existence. The scientific acumen of well-educated young adults, coupled with the technological means to develop weapons of mass destruction, created the very real possibility of “destroying the world to save it” (Lifton 1999). As early as 1990, members released botulism spores in Tokyo as punishment for the Aum political party’s loss of the elections; in 1991, Aum scientists traveled to Congo in an effort to acquire the Ebola virus; and, in 1993, members made more attempts to release botulism in Tokyo (Reader 2013). That year, they also began singing religious songs in praise of sarin gas as a sacred object. Although internal factors propelled the group down the road to violence, a number of external factors played a role as well. News media provided one-sided

New Religious Movements: Aum Shinrikyo

coverage, law enforcement officials ignored many warning signals, and politicians mocked the group. The few people who took the group seriously were murdered. By early March 1995, however, the police had grown suspicious and planned a raid. The Tokyo nerve-gas outbreak occurred that same month, undoubtedly to stave off the impending search. A number of changes occurred in Japanese regulation of religion in the aftermath, but because of its principle of religious freedom, the Japanese government did not ban Aum Shinrikyo outright, though its status as a religious organization was revoked. Some Aum believers renounced violence, including the practice of poa, and, in 2000, renamed the group Aleph, though they continued to revere Asahara and celebrate his birthday. In 2007, another group, Hikari no Wa, split from Aleph, describing itself as a “religious philosophy.” Its threefold path includes a rejection of blind faith, overcoming the struggle between good and evil, and erasing the separation between religion and society (Baffelli 2014). Hikari no Wa also abandoned the extreme asceticism and supernaturalism that were part of Aum Shinrikyo, although it too retained many of Asahara’s doctrines. A third group, Yamadura no Shudan, broke from Aleph in 2013, and appears more devoted to the guru. All groups are extremely small, with 1,450 adherents of Aleph, one hundred fifty of Hikari no Wa, and fifty of Yamadura no Shudan, but membership seems to be growing (Grice 2019). Devotees of the groups have been recruiting in states of the former Soviet Union and in Russia, where they have been outlawed. In 2016 Russian officials conducted raids on twenty-five properties, where Aleph has about four hundred sixty members. That same year, fifty-eight foreigners suspected of having connections to Aum Shinrikyo were expelled from Montenegro. The United States and other countries have designated Aum Shinrikyo a terrorist organization. “Aum should be seen not as an end point but as a threatening beginning, an expression of a new dimension of global danger” (Lifton 1999, 272). The fear of Aum Shinrikyo’s technological prowess and ideological commitment to violence remains. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Millennialism FURTHER READING Baffelli, Erica. 2014. “Hikari no Wa.” World Religions and Spirituality Project. h­ ttps://​ ­wrldrels​.­org​/­2016​/­10​/­08​/­hikari​-­no​-­wa​/. Grice, Francis. 2019. “The Ghosts of Aum Shinrikyo.” Policy Forum, January 7. h­ ttps://​ ­www​.­policyforum​.­net​/­the​-­ghosts​-­of​-­aum​-­shinrikyo​/.

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BLACK SEPARATISM Black separatism is a subgroup of the larger black nationalist movement, whose adherents believe in political, economic, and cultural autonomy for African Americans. The vast majority of black nationalists use nonviolent means to achieve their goals. They support working within both the black community and the democratic system to advance the condition and status of African Americans. Others, however, favor racial separation as the only way by which the black race will survive; they advocate the establishment of black business enclaves, an all-black region in the U.S. South, and/or a return to Africa. Black separatists believe that white supremacy is so ingrained in the United States that the system can neither be reformed nor overcome. They, therefore, push for complete separation of the races, opposing both integration and interracial marriage. Some go so far as to demonize Jews, gays and lesbians, and people of European descent, and assert that whites are inferior, degenerate, and deserving of elimination. While some black separatist groups advocate violence, only a handful have taken to violent action. The increase in violence perpetrated by individual “lone wolves,” rather than organized by any particular movement, is a recent development and departure from historical group activity. Black nationalist (as opposed to separatist) movements began in the midnineteenth century, when enslaved Africans sought personal freedom and political equality in the United States. In the early twentieth century, Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) created the Universal Negro Improvement Association and encouraged people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere to return to Africa. From the 1930s to 1960s, Elijah Muhammad (1897–1975) and his protégé Malcolm X (1925–1965) evangelized for the Nation of Islam, a black separatist group that taught that whites—who were created by an evil scientist—would dominate and enslave the black race for six thousand years but would be overthrown in the near future. During the Civil Rights movement, several black nationalist organizations, such as the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, materialized. These groups

New Religious Movements: Black Separatism

saw themselves as protecting the black community from police-instigated violence, although a few engaged in illegal activities. The FBI reports that between 1970 and 1984, a group called the Black Liberation Army (not associated with the Black Panthers) was responsible for at least thirty-eight criminal incidents, including three assassinations (Winter and Weinberger 2017, FBI report embedded in article). With the rise of white nationalist groups in the twenty-first century, a concomitant growth in black separatist groups occurred, some of which espoused violence against whites. The fact that law enforcement officials were targeted by radicals, especially after police killings of unarmed black men, has generated great concern. In 2017, the FBI identified a new domestic terror threat—what the bureau called “black identity extremists” (BIE), which encompasses those who commit criminal activity because they perceive or experience injustice against an oppressed minority. This designation was widely criticized, however, as being too broad, since it included nonviolent groups. It also failed to define a BIE ideology and essentially criminalized all African American activists, including Black Lives Matter protesters. Initially, the FBI defended its classification system by pointing to the deliberate murder of police officers, identifying six targeted attacks since the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. These included an ambush on eleven Dallas police officers in 2016 (with five fatalities); an ambush on six law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, also in 2016 (four fatalities including the shooter); and an assault on four New York City police officers by a man wielding a hatchet in 2014 (the perpetrator was fatally shot by two of the victims). But FBI officials revealed in a June 2019 congressional hearing that the agency no longer uses the BIE designation (Allam 2019). In several attacks made on law enforcement officers, perpetrators were affiliated with Moorish religious groups, offshoots of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), founded by Noble Drew Ali (1886–1929) in 1913. A conglomeration of traditions from Freemasonry, Egyptian religion, Christianity, and Islam, MSTA claims that African Americans are descended from the civilizations of Asia, through Africa. Drew Ali proposed establishing a “free National Republic of the United States of America” for African Americans that would be based on love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice (Moorish Science Temple of America 2017). Some Moorish groups today interpret Ali’s vision as being a present reality and see themselves as sovereign citizens above U.S. law. In 2016, MSTA officially distanced itself from these organizations, denouncing their use of the word “Moorish.” The Nation of Islam (NOI) shares a number of beliefs with Moorish Science, such as the superiority of African Americans, the inferiority of Europeans, and the need for separation between the races in order for blacks to recover their dignity and self-worth. Internal schism throughout the years has led to violence against

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some within the NOI, including the murder of Malcolm X in 1965. Although Warith Deen Mohammed (1932–2008), son of Elijah Muhammad, took NOI in the direction of Sunni Islam, Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933) revived the radical rhetoric of black supremacy and antisemitism. Farrakhan’s personal assistant, Khallid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001), was so inflammatory that he was ejected from NOI. He subsequently joined the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) in 1994, a group more radical than NOI and that favors setting aside a state solely for African Americans. (Members of the original Black Panther Party from the 1960s have repudiated the NBPP.) NBPP has had white supremacist Tom Metzger of the White Aryan Nations speak at its gatherings, since both groups agree on racial separation. NBPP activists have shown up with weapons at numerous public events, wearing black uniforms, black boots, and black berets, and have adopted militaristic language and postures. A final set of black separatists that appear violently inclined are members of several—but definitely not all—Black Hebrew or Black Israelite religions. Claiming to be the true Israelites of the Bible and denouncing contemporary Jews as imposters, groups like the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ and the Israelite School of Practical Knowledge aggressively proselytize in black communities. Much like their white counterparts, they anticipate and hope to provoke a race war. Indeed, many of the arguments made by black separatists mirror those proposed by white nationalists: only the race has been changed. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis; Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM); White Nationalist Groups FURTHER READING Allam, Hannah. 2019. “5 Takeaways about the Trump Administration’s Response to FarRight Extremism.” National Public Radio, June 7. ­https://​­www​.­npr​.­org​/­2019​/­06​/­07​ /­730346019​/­5​-­takeaways​-­about​-­the​-­trump​-­administrations​ -­response​-­to​-­far​-­right​ -­extremism. Bjelopera, Jerome. 2017. Domestic Terrorism: An Overview. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service. ­https://​­fas​.­org​/­sgp​/­crs​/­terror​/­R44921​.­pdf. Gardell, Mattias. 1996. In the Name of Elijah Muhammad. Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham: Duke University Press. Moorish Science Temple of America. 2017. “Moorish Leader’s Historical Message to America.” ­http://​­msta1913​.­org​/. Mulloy, D. J. 2013. “The New Black Panther Party, Black Nationalism, and the Tangled Legacy of COINTELPRO.” In George Michael, ed. Extremism in America. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, pp. 70–113. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2016. “Black Nationalist.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­fighting​ -­hate​/­extremist​-­files​/­ideology​/­black​-­separatist.

New Religious Movements: Branch Davidians Winter, Jana and Sharon Weinberger. 2017. “The FBI’s New U.S. Terrorist Threat: ‘Black Identity Extremists.’” Foreign Policy, October 6. ­http://​­foreignpolicy​.­com​/­2017​/­10​ /­06​/­the​-­fbi​-­has​-­identified​-­a​-­new​-­domestic​-­terrorist​-­threat​-­and​-­its​-­black​-­identity​ -­extremists​/.

BRANCH DAVIDIANS The Branch Davidians are best known for a fifty-one-day standoff that took place between the group and federal agents near Waco, Texas, in 1993. The conflict began on February 28, 1993 with an exchange of gunfire between group members and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agents that left ten people dead. This was followed by a lengthy siege, overseen by FBI officials, that concluded on April 19, 1993 with a final assault by tanks, combat engineering vehicles (CEVs), and CS gas resulting in the deaths of seventy-six men, women, and children. An offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Branch Davidians, under the leadership of David Koresh (1959–1993), read the New Testament book of Revelation as a description of current events and those events that will occur in the near future. Seeing himself as a messiah (but not the Messiah), Koresh proclaimed a “New Light” doctrine that allowed him to take members’ wives and daughters—including teenage girls—to fulfill his messianic destiny. A number of these girls were underage when he had sex with them. This led to disaffected members calling upon the news media and law enforcement agencies to intervene. Although these cultural opponents shaped public understanding of what happened during the assaults and siege, subsequent investigations conducted by government agencies, as well as by scholars and journalists, revealed the highly contested nature of initial reports about the Branch Davidians. Sovereign Citizen and Patriot groups include the tragedy in their arsenal of arguments against the power of the federal government, and the consensus view of the measures taken against the group seems to be that “it was arguably the single most significant breach of American religious freedom in the twentieth century” (Cowan and Bromley 2008, 143). The Davidian movement broke off from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1930s, moving from California to Texas, because its leaders believed that the denomination was insufficiently prepared for the coming End Times. A carpenter and aspiring rock musician named Vernon Howell was groomed to become the prophet of the group in the early 1980s. In 1990, Howell changed his name to David Koresh after a transformative trip to Israel. He and other followers recruited members to the Branch Davidians, primarily from the ranks of Seventh-day Adventists who were inspired by Koresh’s ability to interpret biblical prophecy. He taught

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that he was the Christ for the End Times and the Lamb identified in Revelation 5 who could unlock the mysteries of the Seven Seals. The group lived outside Waco, Texas, on the Mount Carmel property, and members supported the group by working in town and in other locations in Texas, California, and Hawaii. They began dealing in weapons at gun shows as a way to make money. They trained in the use of arms so that they could defend themselves when attacked by agents of the “lamblike beast” (Revelation 13:11–18), identified as being the United States, which claims to be Christian but they say is actually aligned with the devil. They believed that this attack was predicted in the Fifth Seal in the book of Revelation. In 1992, ATF agents took an interest in the Branch Davidians and their purchases of weapons, gun powder, and grenade casings. They thought that the Branch Davidians might be making hand grenades and converting semiautomatic weapons to automatic without obtaining the required permit. On February 28, 1993, the ATF attempted to serve an arrest warrant against Koresh and a search warrant for the property by staging a dynamic entry, in which armed ATF agents stormed the complex of buildings at Mount Carmel. It is unclear who fired shots first, but at the end of the day, four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians lay dead; twenty-four agents and Branch Davidians—including David Koresh—were injured. FBI agents took over management of the dangerous situation, and the siege stretched out to fifty-one days. Competing interests within the FBI, however, complicated matters. FBI negotiators sought to bring about a solution in which church members, especially their children, could come out safely and peacefully. In contrast, the Hostage Rescue Team commander and several special agents in charge, including the on-scene commander, viewed Koresh as a con artist who held people against their will. Their goal was to end the standoff as quickly as possible. The Branch Davidians repeatedly tried to communicate with members of the press to tell their side of the story, but the FBI denied media access to the barricaded group members. Two biblical studies scholars, J. Phillip Arnold and James D. Tabor, communicated with Koresh via talk radio, taking seriously his exegesis of the Bible, which FBI officials dismissed as “Bible babble.” Arnold and Tabor apparently persuaded him that a peaceful resolution was possible, and Koresh promised to come out after Passover—which the Branch Davidians observed—when his written commentary of the Seven Seals of Revelation had been placed in their hands. The FBI was unwilling to wait. Being led to believe that Koresh was abusing children, Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the use of CS gas on the group on April 19, 1993. (After the fire, Reno had to admit that there was no evidence that Koresh was abusing the children during the siege.) In a highly militarized assault, CEVs crashed through the walls of the wooden buildings, into which they inserted

New Religious Movements: Branch Davidians

flammable CS gas. A fire broke out and raced through the crumbling structures. While most, though not all, scholars and analysts believe that the Branch Davidians set the fire themselves, all agree that the tragedy could have been avoided at many points along the way. On the second anniversary of the FBI assault against the Branch Davidians, Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) blew up a federal office building in Oklahoma City. The April 19, 1995 blast killed 168 individuals and injured more than six hundred. McVeigh and his coconspirators hoped the blast would ignite a revolution against the federal government and the forces that killed U.S. citizens. Apparently heeding the lessons of Waco and Oklahoma City, in 1996, FBI negotiators peacefully concluded an armed standoff that lasted almost three months with people identifying themselves as “Freemen” on a farm in Montana. Two decades later, the FBI also peacefully ended the forty-one-day illegal occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge; a single individual was shot and killed attempting to evade arrest at a roadblock. Those in the Sovereign Citizen Movement used all these events to promote their conviction that the federal government is “the enemy.” Today, a new church—The Branch: The Lord (YVHV) Our Righteousness— stands at the site of the former Branch Davidian community, along with a museum of memorabilia dedicated to David Koresh, a memorial to those who died during the siege, and a souvenir shop. Charles Pace, a Branch Davidian who had left the group in the mid-1980s, returned in 1997 and now runs a cyber-ministry from Mount Carmel, where he lives with his wife and two adult children. While Pace believes that the final inferno was God’s judgment upon Koresh for claiming to be God, he also believes that Koresh initiated war against the New World Order. (Many sovereign citizens believe that an international conspiracy exists that intends to impose authoritarian rule around the world.) Surviving Branch Davidians, however, continue to see Koresh as possessing the Christ Spirit. They meet on Saturdays in a small Bible study group in Waco, apart from Mount Carmel, in anticipation of the resurrection of Koresh and their family members who died on April 19, 1993. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Occupation of (2016); Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) FURTHER READING Cowan, Douglas E., and David G. Bromley. 2008. Cults and New Religions: A Brief History. Malden: Blackwell. Pace, Charles. n.d. The Branch, the LORD our Righteousness. ­http://​­www​.­2branches​.­info​/. Tabor, James D., and Eugene V. Gallagher. 1997. Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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DEPROGRAMMING Deprogramming is the controversial method of attempting to overturn or reverse the effects of indoctrination inculcated by high-demand groups, such as NRMs. Sociologist David Bromley described it as the “practice of forcibly separating individuals from religious groups for the purpose of inducing them to remove their memberships” (Bromley 1988, 203). The term was coined in the 1970s by Ted Patrick, one of the earliest deprogrammers, who believed that cult members had been programmed and had lost their free will and ability to make rational choices. Thus, they required the opposite approach—or deprogramming—to return to normal. Coercive deprogramming involved forcible abduction, confinement, and restraint, which at times amounted to assault and battery, in order to ensure the unwilling subject would undergo an involuntary deconversion. Noncoercive deprogramming, in contrast, utilized moral suasion in a therapeutic setting. Advocates of First Amendment rights criticized both practices as an infringement on religious liberty and freedom of conscience. A number of high-profile lawsuits led to the delegitimization of the process in the 1980s and 1990s, and an alternative method—called exit counseling—arose in its place. Although professionally trained counselors now oversee a voluntary reorientation process, which proponents liken to a family intervention, the practice remains contested because it is based on the premise that people are manipulated into joining new or alternative groups through deceptive techniques rather than undergoing a genuine change of heart. Members of new religions were aggressively proselytizing on college campuses in the 1970s and 1980s, and many young adults joined, at least for a short time. Conversion to a cult was problematic for many parents, however, who saw it as a rejection not only of their religions but also of their values and lifestyles. They attributed the behavioral changes they observed to a process of brainwashing rather than critical thinking and, consequently, did not view the conversion as authentic but, rather, as forced. They turned to a burgeoning cadre of self-appointed experts in deprogramming to undo the effects of what they saw as mind control. Deprogrammers worked with parents to kidnap and imprison their adult children for periods lasting from three days to two weeks in order for them to spend

New Religious Movements: Deprogramming

uninterrupted time apart from the cult. Techniques of deprogramming ranged from intensive dialogue with the detainee and tearful expostulations from family members, to harangues against the beliefs and believers and, on occasion, food and sleep deprivation, enforced nudity to induce shame, physical and verbal abuse, and mockery of scriptures and holy artifacts. Ted Patrick, perhaps the most famous deprogrammer, justified the utilization of violence to gain access to group members on the grounds that he used it for benign purposes, whereas cults used it for destructive ends. A backlash against deprogramming arose from two quarters: scholars of new religions and the recipients of abusive deprogramming attempts. As early as 1978, academics called deprogramming the “new exorcism,” since parents seemed persuaded that their children were “possessed”—that is, under the control of a different personality. Only an exorcism (i.e., deprogramming) would restore the individual’s original identity. Moreover, in response to constituent pressure, several state legislatures had introduced anticult bills, which worried mainline religious groups, such as the National Council of Churches, as well as religious studies scholars. They viewed the proposed legislation, as well as the kidnappings, as an assault on religious liberty. NRMs and their members were also concerned, since no one could be considered safe, even in the company of relatives, especially since deprogrammers were usually hired by parents. Individuals filed both criminal complaints and civil suits in pursuit of damages against deprogrammers. Charges included kidnapping, imprisonment, assault, battery, and attempted murder. At times, even parents were sued and counter-sued when they sought conservatorships, which placed decision-making power for adult children in the hands of a court-appointed conservator, namely the parents. A lawsuit filed against CAN brought about the end of coercive deprogramming in 1996. Jason Scott, the target of a violent deprogramming, successfully sued the organization; the discovery proceedings revealed that CAN referred inquirers to deprogrammers who, in turn, provided kickbacks to CAN. This suit and others bankrupted CAN and, in effect, halted the national referral system, since deprogramming could not exist apart from an organized anticult movement or institution. Deprogramming and deprogrammers had already developed a bad reputation, not only about tactics but about costs. On average, most charged $1,000 per day, plus expenses, though some charged $5,000 per day, or $500 per hour (Kent and Szimhart 2002, 16). The turn toward noncoercive interventions—exit counseling—brought about a professionalization of the field. Early deprogrammers tended to lack therapeutic training, and many were assisted by former cult members. Most counselors today have clinical and academic degrees and have developed a code of ethics by which

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to operate. Yet the medicalization of religious commitment—that is, pathologizing membership in some religions but not others—remains a concern for advocates of religious liberty. Throughout the two decades of coercive deprogramming, there was little more than anecdotal evidence to determine the success or failure of the practice on an estimated three to four thousand individuals. Dawson (1998) reports on studies that showed a striking difference between those who voluntarily left a new religion and those who had been deprogrammed. Ex-members who had been deprogrammed had far more psychological problems than those who left on their own. “In place of gradually forging new grounds of self-worth and purpose in life, those who are deprogrammed are assigned, and often assume, the identity of a victim” (Dawson 1998, 122). The threat of deprogramming and exit counseling had a paradoxical effect on the behavior of new religions. Abductions encouraged groups to become more secretive, defensive, and exclusionary. Moreover, the loss of trust in family members outside the group had the opposite outcome of what relatives wanted, which was a return to family norms. Nevertheless, supporters of deprogramming assert that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement (ACM) FURTHER READING Bromley, David G. 1988. “Deprogramming as a Mode of Exit from New Religious Movements.” In David G. Bromley, ed. Falling from the Faith: Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy. Beverly Hills: Sage, pp. 185–204. Dawson, Lorne L. 1998. Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements. Don Mills: Oxford University Press. Kent, Stephen A., and Joseph Szimhart. 2002. “Exit Counseling and the Decline of Deprogramming.” Cultic Studies Review 1, no. 3: 5–32. Patrick, Ted, with Tom Dulack. 1976. Let Our Children Go! New York: E. P. Dutton. Shupe, Anson, and Susan E. Darnell. 2006. Agents of Discord: Deprogramming, PseudoScience, and the American Anticult Movement. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

THE FOURTH TURNING: AN AMERICAN PROPHECY (STRAUSS AND HOWE, 1997) The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, by William Strauss and Neil Howe, is an influential book that examines the past with the purpose of foretelling the

New Religious Movements: The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy

future. Arguing against the linear view of time typically employed by modern historians, the authors claim that historical events occur in repeatable and predictable cycles. They calculate a cycle, or saeculum, to be eighty years, the lifespan of a human. Within each saeculum are four “turnings,” or twenty-year periods, the time frame for a new generation to be born. Every turning has its own characteristics: an upbeat and optimistic First Turning; a passionate era of upheaval in a Second Turning; an era of disappointment and decay in a Third Turning; and a time of momentous upheaval in the Fourth Turning. The book met with a skeptical response when it first came out in 1997, with reviewers seeing it as part of the spate of millennial prophecies and products emerging at the end of the twentieth century. Its deterministic view of history repeating itself also received criticism. It has since gained popularity and notoriety, however, because of its influence on Steve Bannon, former White House advisor to President Donald Trump. Its apocalyptic forecasts for the Fourth Turning, set to begin early in the twenty-first century, raised alarms about the policy approaches that the president and his cabinet intended to take. A graduate of Harvard Law School, William Strauss (1947–2007) worked in Washington, D.C., in various planning roles in the Executive Branch and in Congress, eventually specializing in energy policy. Neil Howe (b. 1951) earned a master’s in history and one in philosophy from Yale University and also worked in Washington, D.C., as a public policy consultant. The two began their authorial partnership in 1991, with the publication of Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584–2069, a book that retold U.S. history through the lenses of spiritual awakenings and secular crises. In Generations, they argued that each new generation comprised one of four archetypal personalities: Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. They identified a “Millennial” generation to come that would personify the Hero—civic-minded, orderly, and intent on building up the social good. The Fourth Turning developed the ideas that appeared in Generations. Just as there are phases of life—childhood, young adulthood, middle age, elderhood—there are recurring eras in history, according to Strauss and Howe. Within an eighty-year saeculum are four eras that turn with the same regularity as the seasons. The first era, or First Turning, is a High season, in which a generation of prophets is born. The authors date the most recent occurrence of the First Turning—the High—to 1946–1964, in the burst of optimism that followed victory in World War II. The Second Turning marks the Awakening, in which a nomad generation dominates. They date a consciousness revolution to 1964–1984, in which the truths of the past were questioned by an emergent counterculture. Strauss and Howe call the Third Turning the Unraveling, during which things seem to fall apart; they point to the so-called culture wars that began in 1984 and that they predicted to conclude in 2005. Heroes arise during the Unraveling.

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The Fourth Turning, scheduled to begin in 2005 and to last until 2025, inaugurates a time of crisis that encompasses great peril but also great promise. The authors envision catastrophe, civil violence, authoritarian rule, and worse, but they also see the era of disaster, in which an Artist generation arises, as presenting opportunities to achieve new greatness. “Thus might the next Fourth Turning end in apocalypse—or glory,” they write. “The nation could be ruined, its democracy destroyed, and millions of people scattered or killed. Or America could enter a new golden age, triumphantly applying shared values to improve the human condition” (Strauss and Howe 1997, 7). While the old order will certainly be destroyed and a new one will replace it, it is not clear what form the new order will take. Shortly after the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016, historian David Kaiser evaluated the accuracy of the predictions made by Strauss and Howe in light of their importance to Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon. He found that a number had been borne out: intense partisan division in the United States, the Great Recession of 2008–2010, and the disconnect between political establishments and voters. Kaiser observed that the Trump campaign overwhelmed traditional Republican candidates and voters and won the election despite losing the popular vote. Now the party of revolutionary change, Republicans rather than Democrats, seem intent upon dismantling the programs established not just by Democratic presidents, such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, but also those created by Republican presidents, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan (Kaiser 2016). Key ingredients to the Fourth Turning may include economic, social, cultural, and/or ecological distress, predict Strauss and Howe, and political and military actions that could include secessionism, altered national borders in the United States, and war against opponents armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). “Eventually, all of America’s lesser problems will combine into one giant problem,” they write. “The very survival of the society will feel at stake, as leaders lead and people follow” (Strauss and Howe 1997, 277). Such secular apocalypticism can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with policy-makers who believe war is unavoidable preparing for battle rather than working for peace. Unlike religious apocalypticists who, until recently, did not have access to WMDs, secular apocalypticists have the means to engage in holy wars of good against evil on a global scale. Strauss and Howe foresee the possibility of total war in the Fourth Turning, as the United States confronts enemies who also possess WMDs. “Apocalyptic rhetoric and apocalyptic thinking flourish during crisis periods,” according to David Kaiser (Kaiser 2016). This is what makes belief in the inevitability of a Fourth Turning so dangerous. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Atheists, Persecution by; Millennialism

New Religious Movements: International Raëlian Movement FURTHER READING Hoover, Eric. 2009. “The Millennial Muddle.” Chronicle of Higher Education 56, no. 8 (October 16): A1–A34. Kaiser, David. 2016. “Donald Trump, Stephen Bannon, and the Coming Crisis in American National Life.” Time, November 18. ­http://​­time​.­com​/­4575780​/­stephen​-­bannon​ -­fourth​-­turning​/. Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. 1991. Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584–2069. New York: Morrow. Strauss, William, and Neil Howe. 1997. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. New York: Broadway Books. Williams, Grant. 2019. “Interview with Neil Howe.” On the Road: Washington, D.C. 3 episodes. May 2019. ­https://​­www​.­realvision​.­com​/­tv​/­shows​/­on​-­the​-­road​/­videos​/­on​-­the​ -­road​-­washington​-­d​-­c​-­episode​-­1.

INTERNATIONAL RAËLIAN MOVEMENT The International Raëlian Movement, also known as Raëlianism or the Raëlians, is a UFO religion that credits an ancient astronaut theory of human origins. Claude Vorilhon, a Frenchman who was an aspiring musician and editor of a racing magazine in the 1970s, reported contact with space aliens in 1973. Called the Elohim, these aliens told Vorilhon that they had created human beings from their own DNA. They also informed Vorilhon that he was the prophet Raël, appointed to spread the word about human origins in order to bring about a new age of constructive, rather than destructive, science and technology. Generally considered to be nonviolent, the Raëlians have nevertheless generated controversy by their use of the swastika as a symbol of the religion and by their efforts to clone human beings. They have also produced amusement and consternation by distributing free condoms to high school students, endorsing open sexuality among consenting adults, and establishing a hospital in Africa to repair the clitorises of women who underwent genital mutilation. Claude Vorilhon (b. 1946) was hiking in France when he encountered his first Eloha (the singular of Elohim), whose name was YAHWEH. They talked for five days, during which time the being interpreted the Bible that Vorilhon had felt compelled to bring on the hike. Rather than offering a theocentric reading of scripture, the being showed how the Elohim created human life, modeled after their own, in scientific laboratories. Noah’s Ark was, in fact, a spaceship designed to save humans from Satan’s attempt to destroy the cells of living beings. The Elohim had sent various emissaries, such as Jesus and Muhammad, throughout the centuries to develop the world’s religions; after the dropping of atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Elohim determined that a new prophet was required to announce

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the present Age of Aquarius. They selected Vorilhon, whom they named Raël, to spread a message of peace and nonviolence in order to prepare the way for the return of the Elohim. Raël published The Book that Tells the Truth in 1974 to describe his experience and, in 1975, declared that he had been transported to the planet of the Elohim for in-depth study and training. He founded the Raëlian movement in 1976 and published the book Extraterrestrials Took Me to their Planet that same year. In 2003, Raël announced that he was Maitreya, the Buddha expected to come in the future to bring enlightenment to all. In addition to spreading the truth about human genesis, the Raëlians are tasked with constructing an embassy to welcome the Elohim when they arrive. Although the site was supposed to be Jerusalem, conflict with Israelis over the logo for the Raëlians—a swastika superimposed over a star of David—has made that unlikely. For a time, the Raëlians abandoned the offensive symbol, but reintroduced it in 2007. Since then, the group has sponsored “Swastika Rehabilitation Week” and, in 2018, Swastika Rehabilitation Day. Members argue that the ancient symbol—widespread throughout Asia in both Buddhism (left-facing) and Hinduism (right-facing)— denotes peace, love, and good fortune. Jews, however, found extremely troubling the group’s announcement in 2015 that Raëlians were the “true Jews,” and that they wanted to construct a third temple in the Holy Land. Perhaps the most controversial assertion made by the group is that it cloned a human being through Clonaid, the company Raël founded in 1997. Announced in 2002, Baby Eve was never presented to the public, nor were other supposed cloned humans. Publicity about the alleged cloning, however, boosted Raëlian membership by the thousands. In the Raëlian view, cloning will be the primary means of procreation because that is how humanity was first formed. Reflecting that belief is the initiation ceremony known as “DNA Transmission,” in which a new member’s DNA is transmitted to the Elohim for future reproduction. This guarantees a type of immortality to the devotee. According to the Raëlians, since sexual intercourse is not needed for procreation, sex is intended for pleasure. This has led to an emphasis on sex and sexual freedom as a natural and normal part of the paradise promised by the Elohim. The Raëlians have arranged highly visible media events to foster this outlook. In 1992, they launched Operation Condom to protest the ban on condom machines at Catholic high schools in Montreal, Canada. They parked a pink “condom-mobile” outside of schools in Quebec and Ontario during recess and distributed free condoms. A Masturbation Conference in 1993, coupled with anticult activism in Canada and France targeting Raël and his movement, however, led to charges that the group was promoting pedophilia. In response, the Raëlians founded NOPEDO, a group intended to alert parents to the dangers of pedophilia. In 2001, NOPEDO went on the attack by distributing flyers in Italy and Switzerland, warning families about

New Religious Movements: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

pedophile priests. Despite this publicity stunt and the clear repudiation of pedophilia on their website, Raëlians have come to be known in Europe as cultists who advocate sex with minors. Unlike other UFO groups, the Raëlians have an upbeat and optimistic outlook. They promise a world without war that offers universal abundance, prosperity, and enjoyment. They attract believers in science and its power for good, as well as those who reject traditional religious dogma. (In 2011 the Raëlians bought billboard space in Nevada and California to announce, “God is a Myth.”) They also appeal to those who report that they have seen UFOs or experienced contact with space aliens. Although the group itself claims to have between eighty and ninety thousand members in more than ninety countries, an apostate group reports that the Raëlians have only 18,111 active members, and almost 125,000 “prospects”— people who have downloaded Raël’s book or registered on the Raëlian website (Mellul 2017). It is difficult to predict what will happen when Raël dies; despite the group’s hierarchical structure, no clear leader appears to be waiting in the wings. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Millennialism FURTHER READING Mellul, Leon. 2017. “Raelian Membership (Sep 2017) Email Report from Leon Mellul.” September. ­https://​­web​.­archive​.­org​/­web​/­20171008030845​/­raelianleaks​.­org​/­raelian​ -­membership​-­sep​-­2017​-­email​-­report​-­from​-­leon​-­mellul​/. Östling, Erik A. W. 2014. “‘Those Who Came from the Sky’: Ancient Astronauts and Creationism in the Raëlian Religion.” In James R. Lewis and Jesper Aa. Petersen, eds. Controversial New Religions, 2nd. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 368–82. Palmer, Susan J. 2004. Aliens Adored: Raël’s UFO Religion. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Palmer, Susan J. 2012. “International Raelian Movement.” World Religions and Spirituality. ­https://​­wrldrels​.­org​/­2016​/­10​/­08​/­international​-­raelian​-­movement​/. Raelian Movement. 2005–2018. “Message from the Designers.” ­https://​­www​.­rael​.­org​/­home.

MALHEUR NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, OCCUPATION OF(2016) Armed militants coming from Sovereign Citizen and Patriot groups seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR) in 2016, claiming that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had no right to own or supervise public lands. Superficially a protest against the incarceration of two individuals

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convicted of committing arson on public property, the forty-one-day occupation represented a forceful attempt to turn over the 187,757-acre wildlife habitat to citizens of Harney County, Oregon, site of the refuge. The takeover, which began on January 2, attracted militia members from across the country, who either joined the protestors, criticized the protesters, or threatened an armed response if law enforcement officials attempted to move against the protesters. At its height, there were probably no more than two dozen people who actually occupied the administrative headquarters of the refuge. The occupiers trickled out of the refuge over the course of six weeks in a generally peaceable manner, although one was fatally shot when he attempted to draw a gun during a routine stop at a checkpoint. The stalemate ended on February 11, when the last four people emerged. Three factors coalesced to bring about the occupation of the MNWR: the Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM); disputes over land management in Western states; and the feud one family had with the BLM. The occupiers came from the SCM and announced their intention to make Harney County the first “constitutional county” in the United States (Robbins 2016). For the SCM, this meant a county that functioned separate and apart from the federal government, which it does not recognize as a legitimate governing authority. After visiting the protestors at MNWR, one sovereign citizen who claimed to be a judge said he planned to convene a citizens’ grand jury to charge government officials with various crimes. (Drawing up bogus indictments against government employees is a tactic frequently used by those in the SCM.) The takeover was also part of a larger struggle that had been brewing for decades in the West, where the federal government owns or manages large swaths of land. In Nevada, for example, 85 percent of the land is under federal jurisdiction, the highest amount in the nation, with Utah second at 65 percent; Oregon ranks fifth, with 53 percent (Robbins 2016, 579). Individuals who want to regain private control of land have clashed, sometimes violently, with federal efforts to administer land use in an environmentally and economically sound manner. Two of the principal organizers of the MNWR occupation—Ammon Bundy (b. 1975) and his brother Ryan Bundy (b. 1972)—had already skirmished with federal agents in 2014 on the Nevada ranch of their father, Cliven Bundy (b. 1946). In 1993, Cliven declined to renew his grazing license for use of public lands, arguing that the federal government had no authority to impose such charges. After issuing multiple judgments against Cliven, a federal court charged him in 2013 with trespassing when he continued to allow his cattle to graze on public land. Footage of the BLM’s aggressive attempts to remove the Bundys’ cattle from federal land—including aiming weapons at protestors and setting German Shepherds upon some—went viral on the internet. In subsequent protests, more than one hundred armed militia men surrounded BLM employees and sheriff’s officers, pointing

New Religious Movements: Malheur National Wildlife Refuge

guns directly at them and threatening to shoot to kill. Clark County, Nevada officials defused the situation, and the BLM agreed to stop the roundup and return Cliven’s cattle, although the agency also continued to seek payment for $1 million Cliven owed in grazing fees. In 2015, the SCM, land use quarrels, and the Bundy family dangerously converged again. The incarceration of Dwight Lincoln Hammond Jr. and Steven Dwight Hammond on charges of arson on public land in Oregon energized Ammon Bundy and Ryan Payne, another militia member involved in the 2014 Bundy confrontation. They posted information about the Hammonds on social media and eventually moved to Burns, Oregon, where they organized rallies at the Harney County Fairgrounds and attracted militia members from around the country. They also created a Committee of Public Safety, a vigilante-style paramilitary organization, which harassed and intimidated employees of the MNWR. On January 2, 2016, after an impromptu march through the streets of Burns past the sheriff’s office and the county courthouse, Ammon Bundy declared his intention to enter the MNWR; he was joined by between one and two dozen people. (The extent to which the Bundy family’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints played a role in all of these events is unclear. Like most in the Sovereign Citizen Movement, they believed their God-given right to property ownership had been abrogated by the federal government.) The vast majority of the residents of Harney County opposed the protesters and held counter-demonstrations in Burns and outside the perimeter of the refuge. Members of bird-watching groups—who bring $8 million annually into the Harney County economy—expressed concern about the safety of the wildlife that the refuge was created to protect. (President Theodore Roosevelt established the refuge in 1908 as a preserve and breeding ground for birds.) Native American groups also decried the occupation, and members of the Burns Paiute tribe—whose documents and artifacts are housed at MNWR—were distressed to learn that the occupiers had disturbed ancient burial grounds and other sacred sites. The FBI and Oregon State Police maintained a low profile throughout the occupation. They resisted calls by residents and the Oregon governor to act swiftly to end the confrontation. They gave friends and relatives of the protestors, along with mediators trying to end the standoff, access to those occupying the site. At the same time, they arrested dissidents when they left the refuge. By January 28, only four remained on site. The FBI moved in on these final four on February 10, the same day that Cliven Bundy was arrested at the Portland airport on charges stemming from the 2014 standoff in Nevada. The occupation ended when the last four holdouts peacefully surrendered. Twenty-six individuals were charged with conspiracy to impede federal employees through intimidation, threats, or force: eleven pleaded guilty, and seven

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were acquitted by a jury, including the Bundy brothers and Ryan Payne. In December 2017, a federal judge declared a mistrial in the Nevada case against all of the Bundys, including Cliven, charging prosecutorial misconduct. Ryan Bundy went on to run as an Independent in the Nevada governor’s race in 2018 and lost in the November election, while his father Cliven has become a familiar speaker at sovereign citizen events throughout the West. In July 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Dwight and Steven Hammond, the individuals around whom sovereign citizens had rallied in Harney County. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Branch Davidians; Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) FURTHER READING Fish and Wildlife Service. “Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.” National Forest Service. ­https://​­www​.­fws​.­gov​/­refuge​/­malheur​/. The Oregonian/Oregon Live. 2017. “Oregon Standoff Timeline.” ­http://​­www​.­oregonlive​ .­com​/­portland​/­index​.­ssf​/­2017​/­02​/­oregon​_standoff​_timeline​_41​_da​.­html. Robbins, William G. 2016. “The Malheur Occupation and the Problem with History.” ­Oregon Historical Quarterly 117, no. 4 (Winter): 574–603.

MILLENNIALISM Millennialism is the belief in an imminent and radical transformation of life here on Earth, in which a new and flawless world order replaces the old systems of injustice and inequity. Millennial thinking, also called millenarianism, has prompted numerous religious, political, and social movements throughout time and space: from Europe and Asia to Oceania and Africa. Many millennialists are, and have been, peaceful, hoping to achieve their goals through human faithfulness to God’s will or through divine activity itself; at other times, the followers of millennial prophets, especially secular prophets, have employed violence to speed up the process. It cannot be said, therefore, that all millennial movements are violent, but it can be asserted that all violent new religions exhibit millennialist hopes and desires. The term “millennialism” comes from Christian scripture, in which the book of Revelation announces the thousand-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20). (Mille in Latin means one thousand. Chília in Greek also means one thousand, and “chiliasm” is another expression for millennialism.) Jewish anticipation of the “Day of the Lord” and the coming of a messiah—a divinely anointed leader—helped shape later Christian interpretations of a Judgment Day and the role of Jesus of Nazareth.

New Religious Movements: Millennialism

Eschatology, the study or doctrine of last things, encompasses explications of millennialism, chiliasm, and a related concept, apocalypticism. An apocalypse is simply a revelation, but because the Apocalypse of John, also known as Revelation in the New Testament, describes a gruesome and calamitous termination of life on Earth, the adjective “apocalyptic” has come to signify destruction and death. Thus, apocalypticism is a type of millennial thinking, one that anticipates a bloody prelude to ultimate peace and prosperity. It can be secular—as in the neo-Nazi struggle for an all-white future—or it can be religious—as in the Branch Davidian expectation of the Battle of Armageddon. The historian Norman Cohn outlined the components of millennialism in his analysis of apocalyptic thinking in the European Middle Ages. The new millennial era must be collective-—that is, all of the faithful will benefit, rather than single individuals. It is terrestrial, realized on Earth rather than in heaven. It is imminent, coming very soon and quite suddenly. It is also total, utterly perfect life on Earth. Finally, the millennium is miraculous, coming only with the help of supernatural powers (Cohn 1970). Michael Barkun (1974) added the element of disaster to the catalog, although Cohn noted the role that social dislocation played in the rise of millennial movements. Starvation, disease, natural disasters, and other cataclysms that upset the routine are necessary to move people “to abandon the values of the past and place their faith in prophecies of imminent and total transformation” (Barkun 1974, 6). True millenarianism is characterized by the unreserved commitment of members to the movement. They have cast their lot for change and cannot go back to the old ways. This totalistic obligation, as much as anything else, can set the stage for violent confrontations. One final attribute these groups have in common is a charismatic leader who is able to inspire and mobilize—or even coerce—followers to work for the millennial goal. At its most vigorous, charisma is a quality that seems almost supernatural; it is not the authority of the bureaucrat or the priest but rather that of the gods, channeled through the personality of an individual. Charismatic leaders are energetic, optimistic, visionary, self-sacrificing, and rhetorically gifted. They seem to have extraordinary skills of persuasion. Their charisma exists primarily in the minds of supporters, however; outsiders may not recognize the gifts of the leader. Moreover, if the followers become disenchanted with the leader or believe that the leader has lost his or her ability to mediate divine blessings and dominion, they may scuttle their own hopes and plans or lash out at others who have conspired to destroy the leader and the movement. The archetype of a millennial leader is the messiah, or savior, of early Judaism and Christianity. While millennialism emerged from this religious context, it is no longer considered an exclusively religious phenomenon. Scholars have identified millenarian aspects to Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism, whose nonreligious

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goals nonetheless anticipate a complete and earthly transformation. The revolutionary eras envisioned by the authors of The Fourth Turning are also secular and totalistic. Millennial manifestations are not limited to the West, since similar aspirations were present in the Taiping Rebellion in China (1843–1864); the Xhosa cattle-killing cult of Africa (1856–1857); the Ghost Dance of the Lakota Native Americans (1888–1896); and the cargo cults of Melanesia at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Certainly, the instances of cult violence in the late twentieth century—such as the murders and suicides committed by members of the Order of the Solar Temple (1994, 1995, and 1997)—reflect a background in millennial beliefs. In an effort to depict the varieties of millennialism using broader, non-Christian, terminology, Catherine Wessinger developed a typology that divided groups into two camps: optimistic and pessimistic (Wessinger 2000). Those who are optimistic about human nature and our potential to effect change adopted what she calls a program of progressive millennialism. They believe that humans, working in harmony with a divine or superhuman agent, can improve society and bring about the millennial kingdom. An example of this kind of millennialism can be found in the 1960s counterculture, in which thousands of young adults sought to create alternatives to mainstream culture by moving to hippie communes in rural, as well as urban, areas. Those who subscribe to New Age thinking today might also be considered progressive millennialists, although some endorse individual rather than collective salvation. The Raëlians, who believe that extraterrestrials are coming to bestow life-giving knowledge and power to humanity, are certainly progressive millennialists. Progressive millennialism is not necessarily peaceful, however. When progressive millennialists resort to violent revolution, they can cause an enormous number of deaths, as seen in Nazism (National Socialism) in Germany, the Maoist revolution that led to the creation of the People’s Republic of China, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Even when progressive millennialists are “secular,” they are still likely to claim that their actions are guided by some sort of higher power. If they have a strong belief in progress, the revolutionary progressive millennialists resort to killing anyone they perceive as standing in the way of the accomplishment of collective salvation on Earth. In contrast, those who are pessimistic about human nature tend toward Wessinger’s category of catastrophic millennialism. They are convinced that humans are irredeemable in their current condition and that the old order—which is evil and corrupt—must be utterly demolished before the millennial kingdom can arrive. Those Christian Fundamentalists and Evangelicals who accept a literal interpretation of the Bible are generally catastrophic millennialists, believing in an inescapable battle of Armageddon and a violent struggle between good and evil at the end

New Religious Movements: Millennialism

of days. The Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye (1926–2016) and Jerry B. Jenkins (b. 1949) also paints a devastating picture of life on earth before the millennial kingdom can arrive. It is clear, however, that very few catastrophic millennialists engage in concrete acts of violence, given the billions of Christians and Muslims alike who believe that a “Day of Doom” or “Day of the Lord” will precede the reign of God/ Allah on Earth. At the same time, some progressive millennialists have pursued and provoked violent clashes to accelerate the advent of the new order. Marxists, for example, assume that armed conflict between the working class and the ruling class is inevitable prior to the establishment of a classless society. To refine her typology further, then, Wessinger (2000) created a three-part typology of catastrophic and progressive millennial groups involved in violence: fragile, assaulted, and revolutionary. Members of a fragile new religion may turn to violence as a way out of a dilemma if they are experiencing internal problems and external opposition. These issues might include the mental or physical health of the leader, economic insecurity, dissent or criticism of or by the leadership cadre, or other problems exacerbated by external pressures on the group. These pressures might be unflattering news stories, government investigations, or harassing lawsuits. The mass deaths in Jonestown in 1978 may have occurred due to the fragility of Peoples Temple, which manifested both catastrophic and progressive themes throughout its history. Assaulted groups face external pressure in the form of an armed attack by law enforcement agents or by civilians. Adherents may, in turn, resort to violence to defend themselves. The violent showdown occurs when the millennial group is misunderstood, feared, or despised by the wider community. Although both sides in the contest utilize violent means, it is clear that the NRM does not initiate the encounter. The Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, exemplify an assaulted group in its 1993 conflict with federal forces from the U.S. government. At the same time, the Branch Davidians held clear catastrophic views about the End Times. Revolutionary millennialists share a theology or world view that requires the use of violence to achieve their millennial goals. The Japanese new religion Aum Shinrikyo justified the murder of its critics on the grounds that it was preventing the victims from accruing negative karma. In 1995, Aum members introduced sarin gas into the Tokyo subway to precipitate a final battle between good and evil on the assumption that good—that is, the practitioners of Aum—would eventually triumph over evil. Sometimes, however, Armageddon can be avoided. Avertive or conditional apocalypticism “describes a wide range of beliefs that predict imminent worldly destruction, but also maintain that apocalypse may be averted or forestalled if believers engage in specific spiritual or ritual actions” (Wojcik 2011, 66). In other

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words, disaster is not inescapable but, rather, is preventable and conditioned upon human responses to the situation. If believers behave properly, perform the rituals correctly, or conduct others to the truth, the looming annihilation can be prevented. Contemporary Earth-healing movements, which frequently incorporate Native American traditions, or pagan nature veneration can be considered types of avertive apocalypticism, in which humans are urged to return to environmentally sustainable lifestyles in order to preclude planetary obliteration. The United States witnessed an intense and prolonged period of millennialist agitation, beginning in the 1970s (Barkun 2000). Culture wars, conflict over moral issues, and increasing polarization between conservatives and progressives served to transform political debate into a conflict between good and evil. In addition, the turn of the millennium—from 1999 to 2000—also sparked anticipation of great changes, for good or ill. Yet the calendar changed without a major catastrophe, and even the computers that were supposed to fail continued to function. Millennial movements have influenced the course of human history for at least two thousand years. Early Jews challenged the power of the Roman Empire in the expectation that a messiah would restore the Davidic Kingdom of the Bible. Militant Christians disrupted the social order of Christendom in the era of the Middle Ages and the Reformation, claiming that the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ had arrived. The millennial expectations of seventeenth-century Puritans fueled the establishment of colonies in North America, while apocalyptic dreams of an end to slavery powered slave revolts and violent uprisings prior to the U.S. Civil War. In the twentieth century, National Socialists believed that Adolf Hitler would usher in a thousand-year reich of Aryan supremacy. A number of intense and ideologically violent millennialist movements have developed in the twenty-first century, in the United States and around the globe. Neo-Nazis are agitating for a world cleansed of degenerate races. The apocalyptic schemes of Muslim jihadists seeking to reinstitute a caliphate have already altered the world’s geopolitical landscape. Sovereign Citizen groups and white nationalists also share a revolutionary ideology that rationalizes armed struggle: race mixing and the loss of white privilege violate God’s intended order, and those responsible for this must be destroyed in order to bring about God’s kingdom. Thus, millennialism remains a dynamic global force, with the potential for either saving the planet or demolishing it. Rebecca Moore See also: Islam: Jihad; Judaism: Messianism/Messiah; New Religious Movements: Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph and Hikari no Wa); Branch Davidians; The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (Strauss and Howe, 1997); International Raëlian

New Religious Movements: Nativist Extremism

Movement; Neo-Nazis; Order of the Solar Temple; Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM); White Nationalist Groups FURTHER READING Barkun, Michael. 1974. Disaster and the Millennium. New Haven: Yale University Press. Barkun, Michael. 2000. “Afterword: Millennial Violence in Contemporary America.” In Catherine Wessinger, ed. Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, pp. 352–63. Cohn, Norman. 1970. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press. LaHaye, Tim and Jerry B. Jenkins. 1982–2007. Left Behind Series. Wheaton: Tyndale House. Wessinger, Catherine. 2000. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Wessinger, Catherine, ed. 2011. The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Wojcik, Daniel. 2011. “Avertive Apocalypticism.” In Catherine Wessinger, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Millennialism. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 66–88.

NATIVIST EXTREMISM Nativism is “a collective attempt by self-identified natives to secure or retain prior or exclusive rights to valued resources against the challenges reputedly posed by resident or prospective populations on the basis of their perceived foreignness” (Fry 2006, 5). Self-described natives believe that their countries—something that is theirs by primacy of birth—are endangered by outsiders or aliens. They feel that immigrants or foreign-born citizens threaten their health, well-being, culture, values, and economic security. Most nativists work through lobbying groups to control and restrict immigration by the legislative process. However, caravans of several thousand refugees fleeing poverty and violence in Central America spurred the creation of armed vigilante patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border to halt those entering the country illegally in fall 2018. Nativist activists have also turned their attention to Muslim immigrants, fearing the importation of terrorism to U.S. shores. In Europe, extremists have attacked and killed those escaping war-torn areas of Africa and the Middle East. Nativist movements in the United States date back to the Know-Nothing Party of the mid-nineteenth century, in which native-born Americans believed that Roman Catholic immigrants were conspiring to undermine democracy and bring the country under papal rule. When Chinese, and then Japanese, immigrants arrived at the end of the nineteenth century, nativists persuaded Congress to enact strict limits

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upon their entry and their movements within the country. The Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 effectively halted most immigration from Asia (with the exception of the Philippines) and remained the law of the land until 1965, when it was repealed. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, as the U.S. economy was unraveling during the Great Depression, more than one million people of Mexican descent were deported from the United States to Mexico: more than 60 percent were U.S. citizens. Police raids were conducted upon homes and families throughout the West, and people with Spanish-sounding surnames lost their jobs. Before the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, nativist fears focused on immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico. As early as 1977, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke (b. 1950) set up the Klan Border Watch to oversee the border from California to Texas. Though he enlisted the help of U.S. Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California, the effort was primarily a publicity stunt. A more serious effort to curtail illegal immigration came in 1994, however, when California voters backed Proposition 187, which would have denied social services and public education to undocumented immigrants and their children. Though the measure passed with 59 percent of a statewide vote, it never went into effect and was subsequently declared unconstitutional. Proponents argued that Mexicans were sexually immoral, coming merely to give birth to “anchor babies” in order to achieve citizenship; they were accused of stealing jobs and ruining the economy; and perhaps the greatest fear in California was that they would soon outnumber whites. (This did in fact occur in 2014, when the number of Latinos exceeded the number of whites in the state.) According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, nativists circulate a number of unfounded rumors to stoke fear of Latin American immigrants. Supposedly, Mexicans have brought epidemics of leprosy and blood diseases to the United States; Mexican pedophiles are flooding into the country; Mexicans are planning to reconquer “Atzlan,” the portion of the United States ceded by Mexico during the Mexican War of 1848; and Mexicans are gang members, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers. Although no evidence supports these claims, nativists believe that constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border will keep out these undesirables. Ad hoc militias organized in late 2018 to stop refugees from Central America who traveled through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States. Armed men and women from groups calling themselves United Constitutional Patriots, Patriots of the Constitution, and Mountain Minutemen, gathered at the border to repulse what they claimed was an “invasion” by members of the Islamic State disguised as Central Americans. Politicians attempted to capitalize on the arrival of asylum-seekers just prior to the 2018 midterm elections, playing upon nativist fears. The apprehension that Muslim terrorists were crossing the U.S.-Mexico ­border began shortly after the al-Qaeda attacks of September 2001. This anxiety

New Religious Movements: Nativist Extremism

gave birth to a number of extrajudicial citizen patrols. In 2004, Chris Simcox (b. 1961) and Jim Gilchrist (b. 1949) cofounded the Minuteman Project to monitor the border between Mexico and California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The Minuteman Project (separate from Mountain Minutemen) was short-lived, despite receiving national publicity and the endorsement of members of Congress, including former Colorado representative Tom Tancredo (b. 1945), a staunch opponent of illegal immigration. It conducted only a month-long border operation in 2005, which attracted hundreds of volunteers, including some from neo-Nazi groups. The group then became the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), but that too was short-lived, although in 2009, it claimed to have seventy-four chapters in some thirty states. MCDC disbanded as a corporation in 2010, its officers concerned about being legally liable for the actions of its members. Muslim U.S. citizens and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries have surpassed Mexicans as the targets of nativist ire. After 9/11, a wave of violence against Muslims—and people wearing turbans, such as Sikhs—swept across the nation. It was not until 2007, however, that ACT for America was established to combat the imposition of “sharia law” in the United States. (Sharia means “law” in Arabic.) ACT’s founder, Lebanese immigrant Brigitte Gabriel, has authored several bestselling books, including Because They Hate (2008) and They Must Be Stopped (2008). She claims that a practicing Muslim who believes the Qur’an to be God’s divine word cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States. Physical fights broke out in some cities where marches against “sharia law” were held in June 2017, and arrests were made. The city of Portland, Oregon, had refused to give demonstrators a permit in the wake of the fatal stabbing of two men who came to the defense of an African American woman wearing hijab on public transportation. ACT for America canceled its September 2017 “March for America” rallies in the wake of the violence that occurred at “Unite for America” rallies the previous month. In January 2019, three men from a group called the Crusaders were sentenced to prison terms for plotting to blow up an apartment complex that housed Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kansas. Although the Crusaders also considered bombing churches and elected officials, they decided to attack Muslim “cockroaches” in 2016 (Fortin 2019). Anti-Muslim extremists have broadcast misinformation—repeated in both fringe and mainstream media—that asserted that “Islamic extremists have infiltrated the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and other agencies . . . that there are ‘no-go zones’ in Europe where non-Muslims including police are afraid to enter . . . [and] suggested that there is a Muslim plot to impose Sharia religious law on U.S. courts” (Southern Poverty Law Center 2017). In addition to ACT for America, a number of other groups with patriotic names—including the Center for Immigration Studies, Center for Security Policy, American Freedom Defense Initiative, Strategic

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Engagement Group, Federation for Immigration Reform, and the American Freedom Law Center—regularly deliver anti-Muslim propaganda to journalists. The American Freedom Law Center has been responsible, in part, for the introduction of anti-Sharia bills in forty-three states since 2010. So far, however, fewer than a dozen states have enacted the legislation. Anti-Muslim hate groups and hate crimes have risen since the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Hate groups grew from 101 to 114 chapters in 2017, triple the number of those existing in 2015. According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims jumped 19 percent between 2016 and 2017 (Southern Poverty Law Center 2017). A report prepared by South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)—an advocacy group that tracked hate violence against South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab communities—found a 45 percent increase in violence during the same period. Yet a study conducted in 2019 by California State University–San Bernardino, reported that hate crimes against Muslims had declined in the nation’s ten largest cities for two years in a row between 2017 and 2018 (Farivar 2019). Part of the problem in determining the extent of nativist activity is that hate crimes are under-reported. In European countries, which have experienced waves of terrorist attacks, nativist fears about immigrants are high. German federal police reported that right-wing groups committed more than 250 attacks on refugee shelters in 2017. In December 2017 thousands of demonstrators in Poland carried signs saying “Pure Poland, Refugees Get Out” and “White Europe.” Also in 2017, the nativist group Britain First created fake videos of Muslims purportedly committing violent acts to incite anti-immigrant violence. Ultra-right nationalist parties with anti-immigrant platforms are winning elections across the continent. For example, Italy’s anti-immigrant League Party took 34 percent of Italy’s vote in the European Parliament elections held in May 2019. Rebecca Moore See also: Islam: Islamophobia; New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis; State Violence: United States: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Farivar, Masood. 2019. “Report: Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Drop for Second Year in a Row.” VOA News, July 30. ­https://​­www​.­voanews​.­com​/­usa​/­report​-­anti​-­muslim​-­hate​ -­crimes​-­drop​-­second​-­year​-­row. Fortin, Jacey. 2019. “3 Men Sentenced in Plot to Bomb Somali Immigrants in Kansas.” New York Times, January 26. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2019​/­01​/­26​/­us​/­kansas​-­militia​ -­trial​-­sentencing​.­html.

New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis Fry, Brian N. 2006. Nativism and Immigration: Regulating the American Dream. El Paso: LFB Scholarly Publishing. Jacobson, Robin Dale. 2008. New Nativism: Proposition 187 and the Debate over Immigration. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Schrag, Pater. 2010. Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). 2018. “Communities on Fire: Confronting Hate Violence and Xenophobic Political Rhetoric,” January. h­ ttp://​­saalt​.­org​ /­wp​-­content​/­uploads​/­2018​/­01​/­Communities​-­on​-­Fire​.­pdf. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. “Latest FBI Figures Show Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Continue to Rise.” November 14. ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­hatewatch​/­2017​/­11​/­14​ /­latest​-­fbi​-­numbers​-­show​-­anti​-­muslim​-­hate​-­crimes​-­continue​-­rise​-­suggest​-­growing​ -­shift​-­toward.

NEO-NAZIS Neo-Nazi groups, a subset of the larger white nationalist movement, draw their inspiration from the National Socialist (Nazi) Party of Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler (1889–1945). They embrace the swastika as the symbol of Nazism (the German appropriation of the Vedic svastika), the leader (Hitler), and the ideology (elimination of Jews). Extremely antisemitic, neo-Nazis believe that a global conspiracy made up of Jews controls international financial and political institutions. They see themselves as Aryans—the white race of northern Europeans—which is far superior to the dark-skinned “Semites.” Thus, a life-and-death struggle must be waged to eliminate Jews and other inferior peoples to preserve the purity and perfection of Aryans. Most neo-Nazis reject Christianity as a religion that promotes race mixing and racial equality under the principle of a universal love ethic. They may worship Hitler, observe pagan rituals, practice new religions, or even adopt atheism. What they have in common is the conviction that the white race must be protected at any cost, even if it means the annihilation of other races. The religious beliefs of the original Nazis developed in Europe out of the nineteenth-century romantic valorization of nature; romantics also elevated the concept of peoplehood above that of the political boundaries of nation-states. In many respects, Nazis were pagan in outlook, despising the perceived weakness of Christianity as an alien influence that undermined Germanic power. They promoted the idea of a master race by combining historical anti-Judaism with the belief in an advanced South Asian race of Aryans, who originated in northern India. Hitler promised a miraculous recovery of the hegemony of the Aryans through self-purification (expulsion or elimination of polluting elements), pledging to bring about a thousand-year reich, or rule, of the deserving race. His fight—after the title

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of his autobiography Mein Kampf—would guarantee the success of the nation’s millennial expectations—a pure people and a pure land, completely judenrein (Jew free, literally pure of Jews). Neo-Nazi movements emerged in the aftermath of World War II in both the United States and in Europe. James Madole (1927–1979) assumed leadership of the National Renaissance Party, which was founded in 1949 by German American Kurt Mertig (1886–1964), a pro-German antisemite. Madole initially vowed to abolish the U.S. Congress, deport “the colored races,” and destroy communism “by eliminating the Jews” (Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 74–75). He also adopted a type of esoteric fascism that was indebted to theosophical concepts of “root races” that had been defiled through race mixing. The most prominent neo-Nazi throughout the late 1950s and 1960s was George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967), who established the American Nazi Party (ANP) in 1958. Rockwell deemed U.S. conservatism insufficiently radical, especially when it came to protecting white interests. Several deeply religious experiences led him to Nazism, and he came to regard Hitler as a god, to be worshiped and adored. A key individual in the development of a neo-Nazi theology was Savitri Devi (1905–1982). Born Maximiani Portas, she adopted her Hindu name after traveling to India in the 1930s in search of a prehistoric Indo-European religion, which she believed she found in modern Hinduism. Convinced that Hitler was the incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, she returned to Europe in 1945, where she distributed Nazi literature throughout the postwar period. Devi’s chief importance “lies in her supplying the postwar neo-Nazi movement with a mystical pan-Aryan myth that embraces white people across the world” (Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 105–6). Savitri Devi’s most important book, The Lightning and the Sun (1958), won an international audience, thanks to the publication of a condensed edition by William Pierce in National Socialist World. Editor of the journal, Pierce (1933–2002) began his racialist career in Rockwell’s ANP before starting the National Alliance in 1974, which is currently the most visible neo-Nazi group in the United States. His version of National Socialism was grounded in the metaphysical belief that the white race was destined for eventual godhood. In Cosmotheism—the religion that articulates Pierce’s ideology—white people have an inner divine spark that provides the impetus for political action, namely violence directed at those who threaten white survival (Berry 2017, 54–69). Another significant neo-Nazi group is the National Socialist Movement (NSM), a descendent of Rockwell’s ANP. The group has its own music label, NSM88 Records (the 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, thus “Heil, Hitler!”). “The NSM is probably best known for carefully staged protests, carried out in full-blown Nazi uniforms and swastika armbands, that have managed to win substantial news coverage for the group” (Southern Poverty Law Center n.d.). In

New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis

2018, members of the NSM organized a rally in Newnan, Georgia, to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday and to protest the removal of monuments to the Confederacy, though counter-protestors outnumbered the two dozen neo-Nazis present. In 2019, a small group of armed NSM protestors attempted to disrupt a gay pride parade in Detroit, but were protected by local police during the march. Numerous other neo-Nazi groups are operating in the United States and abroad, especially in Europe, where they frequently manifest themselves as violent skinhead gangs dressed in T-shirts, jeans, and steel-toed boots. Fueled by immigration from war-torn Middle Eastern and African nations, nationalist and even national socialist parties are gaining adherents on the continent. The internet has also helped develop a transnational culture of violent antisemitism through a variety of types of propaganda: music, literature, clothing, flags, and more. Conspiracy theories about Jewish world domination and articles that deny the Holocaust are online staples. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous work of fiction that first appeared in Paris in 1897–1898, can readily be found on most neo-Nazi websites. The Protocols purport to reveal the machinations of Jews in their effort to control the world. Conspiracy-minded antisemities also find support for their belief that a Zionist Occupation Government, or ZOG, manipulates current events in contemporary alt-right (alternative right) news sources, such as Breitbart News and Infowars. Because social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have removed some neo-Nazi content, the movement communicates on other platforms, such as Gab, 4chan and Discord (until Discord management closed down private alt-right chat rooms and email groups after the Charlottesville, Virginia, “Unite the Right” violence). Robert Bowers, charged with killing eleven people who were worshipping at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg in 2018, posted and reposted a number of antisemitic comments on Gab that revealed his belief that Jews threatened the white race. The fortunes of neo-Nazi groups seem to be steadily improving in Europe and the United States, despite the incarceration, absence, or death of leaders. The Daily Stormer remains a popular website that provides news and podcasts from a neo-Nazi perspective, even though its founder was fined more than $4 million in damages in June 2019 after he falsely claimed a Muslim talk show host worked for ISIS. Andrew Anglin has been at large since 2018, however, fleeing another lawsuit that charged him with intimidation when he posted the address of a Jewish woman in Montana. Intra-movement violence also occurs, such as the murder of two roommates by a member of Atom Waffen Division (AWD) in 2017. Alex Linder, a graduate of the National Alliance and cocreator of Vanguard News Network, organized several rallies in 2007 and 2008 to protest anti-white “hate crimes,” although no evidence for such crimes existed. Unlike NSM, AWD operates in small cells and maintains a low, rather secretive profile.

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While the neo-Nazi movement is currently split into factions that disagree on tactics and strategy, its diverse adherents have nevertheless been able to come together. Their common hatred of Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and people of color unites them. Rebecca Moore See also: Judaism: Antisemitism; New Religious Movements: Millennialism; The Turner Diaries (MacDonald, 1978); White Nationalist Groups FURTHER READING Berry, Damon T. 2017. Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press. Simi, Pete, and Robert Futrell. 2010. American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Southern Poverty Law Center. n.d. “National Socialist Movement.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​ .­org​/­fighting​-­hate​/­extremist​-­files​/­group​/­national​-­socialist​-­movement.

ODINISM Odinism is a type of modern paganism, or nature-based religion, of particular appeal to young white nationalists that embraces Norse deities, mythology, and rituals. Three primary types of Odinism exist: a universalist or antiracist form (sometimes calling itself Heathenry), which condemns racism and explicitly invites all peoples to be part of their community; a racialist form, which excludes all nonwhite and non-heterosexual persons; and an ethnic, or folkish, form, which, though not focusing directly on race, emphasizes the cultures of northern Europe. In its racialized manifestations, Odinism, also known as Asatru and Wotanism, valorizes whiteness and makes white survival central to its theological program. These Odinists try to emulate the warrior culture of the Vikings, rejecting the pacifism of Christianity as inauthentic and self-destructive. As warriors, their violence is not only defensive—aimed at protecting their land and people—but also offensive—directed at Jews and nonwhites. Interest in Norse civilizations arose in nineteenth-century Europe, when certain intellectuals sought to recover their indigenous roots in the face of widespread industrialization and their experience of alienation in modernity. They retrieved a rich pantheon of Norse deities that included Odin, the giver of wisdom, writing, culture, poetry, death, and victory; Frigg, the wife of Odin, goddess of motherhood,

New Religious Movements: Odinism

courage, sexuality, and female power; Thor, the warrior god who defends both the sacred and the profane orders; Gefjon, goddess of plowing and agriculture; and Loki, the trickster (Gardell 2003, 155–56). Asatru, which literally means “faith of the Aesir” and, colloquially, “belief in the gods,” is used synonymously with Odinism, especially in Iceland, where it is a recognized religion. Wotanism, another synonym, uses Wotan—the Germanic form of Odin. (Wotan is also the acronym for “Will of the Aryan Nation.”) Contemporary Odinism arrived in two waves. The first began in the late 1960s with the creation of the Odinist Fellowship, instituted by Else Christensen (1913–2005). A native of Denmark and member of a Danish pro-Nazi movement, Christensen exerted enormous influence on subsequent racialist paganism. She considered Norse paganism to be the religious soul of the Aryan people, seeing in the deities Jungian archetypes that bore race-specific identities. Christensen wanted the Odinist Fellowship to become a communion of all European peoples “to secure a future for the white race” (Berry 2017, 118). In contrast, Stephen McNallen (b. 1948), who formed his first Norse group, the Viking Brotherhood, in 1969–1970, emphasized the folkish element of paganism, at least at first. Although he dissolved his second group, the Asatru Free Assembly, because he claimed fascist elements were joining, his new organization, the Asatru Folk Assembly, is vehemently pro-white. Its statement of ethics declares allegiance to “strong healthy white family relationships” and opposes “activities and behaviors destructive of the white family” (Asatru Folk Assembly 2019). The second wave of racialist Odinism surged in the 1990s, when white power culture found its footing in black metal music, internet chat rooms and blogs, and transnational information sharing. The most important group to emerge was Wotansvolk, developed by David Lane (1938–2007), his wife Katja Maddox (b. 1951), and Ron McVan (b. 1950) in 1995. David Lane had a long history of involvement in neo-Nazi activities as part of The Order, an ultraviolent White Nationalist group. When he cofounded Wotansvolk, Lane was serving a 190-year prison sentence on racketeering charges and for violating the civil rights of talk show host Alan Berg, who was assassinated by members of The Order. He also coined the “14 Words,” a motto widely used by white nationalists around the world: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children.” Wotansvolk is both a political ideology and a religious philosophy. Its two principle political purposes are to instigate a race war by paramilitary underground cadres and to recruit whites, especially white men, to the cause through a public propaganda wing. Secret and anonymous cell groups are supposed to target vulnerable infrastructure and the people who run it. As society crumbles, whites will join forces against their enemies, especially the Jews. At the same time, propaganda is needed to counter the so-called lies spread by mainstream media. To combat

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what they believe is a Zionist conspiracy running the news, the Lanes established 14 Word Press, which Katja Lane operated from her home in St. Maries, Idaho. Katja, who holds a master’s degree in economics and speaks several languages, published a newsletter, pamphlets, and books, including several by David Lane and Ron McVan (the press is now defunct). McVan joined the 14 Words Press team in 1995 and brought to it an ariosophic perspective. (Ariosophy is the veneration of Aryan wisdom, which may encompass a belief in the divine nature of the white race.) An artist and illustrator, McVan produced religious artifacts—such as Thor’s hammer, banners, rune staffs, and other paraphernalia—which were sold through the press. He also wrote most of the pamphlets produced by Wotansvolk and was essentially the theologian of Wotanism. He wrote that each race has “a genetic pool of spiritual identity” (Gardell 2003, 208), and that if all Aryans recognized their inner Wotan consciousness, they would be liberated. They would become as gods. A key characteristic of Wotanism and other forms of Odinism is its patriarchal outlook—as bearers of the white race, women must be protected. Adopting the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, Odinists see competition, especially for women by men and among women for mates, to be the norm. Given the belief that “might is right,” some Odinists believe that “control of women can clearly involve both physical and mental coercion” (Dobratz and Shanks-Meile 2004, 127). At the same time, Odinists celebrate sex and fertility and even revere female power in their rituals and beliefs. Odinism is flourishing in prison culture, thanks to early outreach efforts conducted by Else Christensen and more recent missionizing by Wotansvolk. Prisoners in various jails organized the Gallows Tree Wotansvolk, which has affiliates across the nation. The Federal Bureau of Prisons recognizes Wotansvolk (aka the Temple of Wotan) as an official vendor, as do many state prison systems (Gardell 2003, 217), although hate literature is monitored and censored by some authorities. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis; White Nationalist Groups FURTHER READING Asatru Folk Assembly. 2019. “Statement of Ethics.” ­https://​­runestone​.­org​/­statement​-­of​ -­ethics​/. Berry, Damon T. 2017. Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Dobratz, Betty A., and Stephanie L. Shanks-Meile. 2004. “The White Separatist Movement: Worldviews on Gender, Feminism, Nature, and Change.” In Abby L. Ferber, ed. Home-Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism. New York: Routledge, pp. 113–41.

New Religious Movements: Order of the Solar Temple Gardell, Mattias. 2003. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Durham: Duke University Press. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2017. “Hate Map.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­hate​-­map.

ORDER OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE The Order of the Solar Temple—or OTS for its French name, l’Ordre du Temple Solaire—was an esoteric religious group whose members committed a total of seventy-four murders and suicides over a three-year period, from 1994 to 1997. At its height in 1989, OTS had no more than 450 members, most of whom were Roman Catholic and came from francophone countries such as Switzerland, France, French-speaking Canada, and Martinique, although about a dozen members lived in the United States and another dozen lived in Spain. Defections from the group began in 1990, when members learned that the manifestations of Ascended Masters in which they had fervently believed were simply holographic projections intended to deceive them. Ex-members sought to regain the financial assets they had donated to the group, and rumors of embezzlement circulated. Compounding this pressure were public complaints made by anticult groups and the arrests of several OTS members in Canada, who attempted to acquire illegal weapons. Already physically ill and mentally unstable, the group’s leader, Joseph Di Mambro, became increasingly apocalyptic in his thinking and began to discuss making a “transit” to a safer place, namely another planet. The first transits, which occurred in Quebec and two locations in Switzerland, were carefully planned. Subsequent deaths in France in 1995 and in Quebec in 1997 were equally well-organized. Some contemporary reports claim that thirty surviving OTS members live in Quebec, and that an additional 140 to 500 disciples exist worldwide. Joseph Di Mambro (1924–1994) and Luc Jouret (1947–1994) cofounded the International Chivalric Order of Solar Tradition, the parent organization of Order of the Solar Temple, in 1984, though Di Mambro was the leader in fact and Jouret was the public persona of the group. Di Mambro had a checkered past, with evidence of criminal convictions on charges of fraud and the suspicion of an insurance swindle. He had long been interested in esoteric traditions and had dabbled in Rosicrucianism and Neo-Templarism; both these movements purported to have roots in medieval secret societies. Jouret, a homeopathic doctor with a medical degree, was a gifted New Age and motivational speaker in French-speaking Canada and Europe. Like Di Mambro, he had a background of involvement in esoteric traditions. Together they conceived of their new order as a secret society of the elect: Jouret’s public lectures would attract a coterie of spiritual beings, who would be initiated into the higher mysteries by Di Mambro.

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Members of OTS came from the well-educated and well-to-do classes of society and included corporate executives, symphony musicians, and government officials. They were attracted by the promise of gnosis, that is, knowledge of their true identity as divine beings. Although Di Mambro and Jouret drew from a potpourri of esoteric ideas, chief among them was the theosophical teaching of Ascended Masters. These are enlightened beings who incarnate from age to age, such as Buddha, Lord Krishna, Jesus Christ, and Muhammad. During initiation ceremonies, the Masters would manifest themselves to initiates (although these appearances were technologically contrived), persuading them of the authenticity of their leader and his pronouncements. A number of events coalesced to persuade Di Mambro that an international conspiracy against OTS existed. As members learned of the fraudulent Masters and departed, they demanded the return of millions of dollars that they had contributed; some became apostates and joined forces with anticult organizations. The French consulate in Montreal began investigating the passports of Di Mambro and his wife Jocelyne. Moreover, both Di Mambro and Jouret grew more and more pessimistic about the fate of the Earth, anticipating worldwide environmental disaster in the near future. In four letters, which they called Testaments and which were mailed to more than sixty journalists, academics, and government officials shortly before the October 1994 events, OTS members invited sympathizers to join them on a new plane in order to avoid the terrible tests of the imminent apocalypse. News of the transits trickled in slowly. Canadian police discovered five charred bodies in the burned-out home of Di Mambro on October 4, 1994. Three of the five had been brutally murdered: a man and a woman were stabbed multiple times, along with their infant son, who had been repeatedly stabbed through the heart. This child—the son of the technician who had created the phony Masters—had been seen as a threat to the cosmic family being planned by Di Mambro. Also on October 4, a fire was spotted near the Swiss village of Cheiry; twenty-three corpses were discovered at a farmhouse there. Most had been given a soporific drug, but they had also been shot in the head, some voluntarily, others not. More fires erupted on October 5 at three chalets in Granges-sur-Salvan; twenty-five died there, including Di Mambro, his family, and Luc Jouret. Only core group members lived in Salvan, and they had been injected with poison provided by Jouret. A total of fifty-three people died in those events. In December 1995, sixteen Solar Temple members were found dead outside Grenoble, France. Fourteen had been drugged and shot, and then arranged in a circular star formation before being set on fire. The two perpetrators, also OTS members, then shot themselves so that they would fall into the fire. Finally, in March 1997, five OTS members died due to smoke inhalation, though one had been voluntarily suffocated with a plastic bag. Three teenagers were spared these

New Religious Movements: Rodnoverie

last deaths—though, at their parents’ request, they triggered the incendiary device that engulfed the house in flames. The murders and suicides committed by OTS members energized an already active anticult movement in Europe, especially in France. The involvement of two groups in particular—the Martinique branch of the French group Association pour la défense des familles et de l’individu (ADFI, Association for the Protection of Families and Individuals) and Info-Secte, a Canadian anticult organization—brought the ACM into the picture before the deaths and provided the media the opportunity to publish lurid apostate accounts of OTS. After the tragedies, European parliamentary commissions began to research the dangers of new religions. Consequently, in 1998 the French government established an official mission to fight cults (Introvigne and Mayer 2002). Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement (ACM); Millennialism FURTHER READING Bogdan, Henrik. 2011. “Explaining the Murder-Suicides of the Order of the Solar Temple: A Survey of Hypotheses.” In James R. Lewis, ed. Violence and New Religious Movements. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 133–45. Introvigne, Massimo, and Jean-François Mayer. 2002. “Occult Masters and the Temple of Doom: The Fiery End of the Solar Temple.” In David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Cults, Religion, and Violence. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 170–88. Lewis, James R., ed. 2006. The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death. London: Routledge. Mayer, Jean-François. 1999. “‘Our Terrestrial Journey Is Coming to an End’: The Last Voyage of the Solar Temple.” Translated by Elijah Siegler. Nova Religio 2, no. 2 (April): 172–96.

RODNOVERIE Rodnoverie is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of Slavic native faith movements in countries of the former Soviet bloc. These diverse groups incorporate elements of pre-Christian vernacular religion and folk practices that celebrate Slavic culture. Because ethnic identity is central to their traditions, some groups—although not all—have espoused an ultranationalist, xenophobic, or antisemitic ideology. On rare occasions, this has led to outbreaks of hate crimes directed at ethnic minorities. The image of the warrior, a central symbol in Rodnoverie, may indeed suggest the need for vigorous action to be taken to defend one’s homeland

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against global forces arrayed against the community, but it may also suggest the struggle for social justice and environmental protection that is common to other contemporary pagan groups. Because these movements are heterodox, it is difficult and misleading to make broad generalizations, especially when the majority of these native faith groups appear to eschew violence, despite the martial themes and activities in which they engage. The term Rodnoverie comes from the Russian words radnaya vera, or native faith. Some Rodnovers identify themselves as Vedists, believing their origins are to be found in the Vedic religions of India; others call themselves Pravoslavs, believing their faith predates that of Orthodox Christians, who are also known as Pravoslavs; some self-identify as pagans, although most followers of native faith find this a derogatory characterization and prefer the expression “heathen” as an alternative. Some adherents have come from the urban intelligentsia, disillusioned with the turn to gangster capitalism in Russia and elsewhere. Others come out of a youth culture devoted to heavy metal music and role-playing games. It is difficult to estimate the numbers of those who embrace Rodnoverie: there may be as many as ten thousand in Russia, and there are claims that forty thousand participated in Rodnover combat games at one time. What is clear, however, is that men outnumber women participants. The return to a patriarchal social order may be part of the explanation; the emphasis on martial arts may be another; and the rejection of Western norms of feminism and individualism may play still another part. Native faith ideologies—in which the land or nation and its people assume paramount emotional and cultural significance—arose as part of the Romantic movement in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. A growing consciousness of the past, which could be identified through the study of prehistory, history, and archeology, also contributed to this trend. In the twentieth century, folklore studies and ethnographic research that investigated folk tales, popular medicine, ritual calendars, and demonology contributed to this interest. A few native faith groups emerged toward the final decades of the Soviet era as part of larger trends of dissidence and nationalism. But it was not until perestroika, the reform of the Russian economic and political systems promoted by Communist Party secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931) in the 1980s and 1990s, that citizens of Soviet bloc nations could declare their independence and reclaim their pre-Soviet customs. The quest for national sovereignty seemed to include the recovery of a faith that antedated the arrival of Christianity in Eurasia. It is difficult to generalize about Rodnoverie groups because they vary by country, ethnic background, and ideological alignment. One common element, however, seems to be a nationalistic orientation. This can take a militant and even violent approach, such as the Russian Liberation Movement, which attracts skinheads

New Religious Movements: Rodnoverie

and advocates National Socialism. These groups can be fiercely anti-Zionist and anti-Christian, and have committed hate crimes against ethnic minorities. They see the West as degenerate and as foisting an alien world view upon a subjugated people—that is, themselves. Other nationalists simply revere their land and culture. Inspired by folk traditions, they tend toward a more pacifist contemporary paganism, respecting and honoring nature, and engaging in festivals and rituals that coincide with the seasons. They may adopt Slavic names or wear traditional costumes and outfits. Some organizations, such as the Circle of Pagan Traditions in Russia, explicitly reject the ultranationalism and intolerance of some of the more extreme groups. They value community and solidarity, yet emphasize personal responsibility. Other religious elements found in Rodnoverie come from Western esotericism, occultism, Eastern mysticism, theosophy, sorcery, New Age, and even science fiction, including the belief in ancient aliens. For example, the Ukrainian group Ancestral Fire emphasizes martial arts and magic in its practices. Many Rodnovers believe that Christianity and the ethic of “turning the other cheek” perpetuates injustice by delaying equality into a transcendent, postmortem realm. They feel that foreign intrusion has weakened the natural strength and nobility of Slavic peoples. Like many contemporary pagan movements, Rodnoverie is disseminated through the internet via social media. Yet Rodnovers do share a sacred text: the Book of Veles. Purportedly carved into wooden planks by pagan priests in the ninth or tenth century, the Book of Veles presents a mythical history of the Slavic peoples, describing their conquests throughout Eurasia over a period of fifteen hundred years. Excerpts of the book first appeared among Ukrainian émigrés in the United States in the 1950s, before being discovered by Russian and Ukrainian writers in the 1970s. Although scholars consider the Book of Veles a forgery, this condemnation merely lends it cachet—that is, its contested nature proves that there is a conspiracy to suppress the truths it contains. For its adherents, Rodnoverie is not a religion, as such, but a faith, a world view, a philosophy, and a tradition. It is nondogmatic in that it does not require blind faith. Rather, their motto is “We are not God’s slaves, but God’s sons.” In theory, it is open to other religious and cultural expressions. At the same time, however, it is clear that a warrior ideology combined with ethnic hatreds may well have deadly potential. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Nativist Extremism; Odinism; White Nationalist Groups

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Ivakhiv, Adrian. 2005. “In Search of Deeper Identities: Neopaganism and ‘Native Faith’ in Contemporary Ukraine.” Nova Religio 8, no. 3 (March): 7–38. Lesiv, Mariya. 2013. The Return of Ancestral Gods: Modern Ukrainian Paganism as an Alternative Vision for a Nation. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Mitrofanova, Anastasia. 2016. “Russian Ethnic Nationalism and Religion Today.” In Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, eds. Imperialism, Ethnicity and Authoritarianism 2000–2015. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 104–31.

SATANISM Satanism encompasses a heterogeneous mix of groups for whom Satan, the personification of evil, is the defining feature. Satanists may view Satan as a symbol of purposeful self-seeking or as an actual being to be worshiped. They may glorify transgressive behavior for aesthetic or political reasons, such as rock bands that display satanic imagery for shock value, or they may attempt to use occult magic—the dark arts—to obtain personal goals or social ends by secret means. The adjective “satanic,” however, has a different connotation. It is used to delegitimize new religions, particularly those originating out of slave cultures in the Caribbean and Central and South America. The allegation that a religion is “satanic” stems from misunderstanding the relationship between the living and the dead in certain religions, along with fear of the unknown and attempts to suppress indigenous traditions in favor of missionary religions. Moreover, when a class of people is labeled satanic—which happened in the 1980s when child care workers were widely accused of abusing children—a climate of fear can arise, in which innocent people are harmed. Thus, Satanist, Satanism, and satanic are multivalent terms that may accurately describe the beliefs of self-described Satanists, but may also falsely malign other religions, or individuals, as evil. Christian and Muslim traditions have taught that the devil is a fallen angel who is the archenemy of humanity, tempting men and women to commit evil deeds. Contemporary Satanists, however, see the prince of darkness as a figure whose power (real or imagined) frees humans from the strictures of narrow dogma and ordinary morality. Some Satanists, who tend toward paganism, understand nature as inherently violent and, reciprocally, believe that violence is natural. Some, who tend toward esotericism, credit the existence of supernatural forces of good and evil and choose to side with evil in the conviction that it will ultimately prevail. Despite holding a theology that justifies violence in the name of self-preservation and promotion, Satanists do not seem predisposed to be any more violent than other religionists, with a few notable exceptions.

New Religious Movements: Satanism

Contemporary Satanism developed in three periods in the twentieth century. In the first, Anton Szandor LaVey (1930–1997) established the Church of Satan in 1966 for “a generation of rebellious hedonists bent on getting the most out of life” (Faxneld and Petersen 2013, 80). Although critical of the sixties counterculture, LaVey engaged in activities designed to antagonize the establishment, such as running workshops in magic and presiding over Black Masses. Satan for him was a mythological figure who externalized the human will to power. In part because LaVey’s Satanism was nontheistic and non-occult, an alternative Satanist group emerged called the Temple of Set. Founded by Michael Aquino, a former member of the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set worships the Egyptian deity Set, god of death and destruction, and its members utilize occult techniques to control their surroundings. The second era comprised a satanic panic in the 1980s to early 1990s. At this time, narratives of satanic ritual abuse (SRA) dominated popular culture in books, films, and news programs. Therapists claimed to have helped victims of SRA recover memories of abuse; the victims reported thousands of human and animal sacrifices—eventually so many as to render their accounts unbelievable (Richardson, et al. 1991; Frankfurter 2006). In the meantime, law enforcement officials, encouraged by activists in the ACM, assumed that there was an epidemic of SRA crimes. Particular targets of the scare were child care workers, who were accused not only of abuse, but of transporting children through the air to magical cities. In this second period, “satanic” did not indicate actual Satanists but, rather, was an indictment of many innocent people who were charged with imaginary crimes. The final phase commenced with the rise of the internet and the ability of individuals to engage with each other virtually in blogs, websites, chat rooms, and social media. Although Satanists are quite visible online, it is impossible to calculate the number of actual practitioners. Currently the Satanic Temple in the United States has attracted public attention with its activities aimed at promoting freedom of religion. The group places, or attempts to place, statues of Satan—also called Baphomet—in public spaces, arguing that this is constitutional if other religious items, such as the Ten Commandments, are also displayed. While the great majority of Satanists deliberately maintain a low profile due to the stigmatized nature of their world view, several individuals and groups have attained notoriety due to outbursts of violence. Most infamous is the Charles Manson Family and its murder of seven people, although its connections to Satanism are somewhat tenuous: Susan Atkins, one of the Manson Family members, had worked for Anton LaVey. More sinister, however, was the friendship between LaVey and James Madole (1927–1979), the founder of the National Renaissance Party, a neo-Nazi group. A number of musicians in the black metal scene, which arose in Europe in the 1990s and featured musicians painted as corpses who displayed

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satanic icons on stage, brandished medieval weapons, and said they worshipped the devil. Extremely anti-Christian band members were responsible for burning more than sixty churches in Norway, although some of the arsonists denied any connection to Satanism. According to Jesper Petersen, “Aside from the crimes committed by a small minority, violence usually took a sonic form, with blast-beats on grotesquely distorted guitars, growling or shrieking vocals and fast-paced drums,” with satanic imagery utilized to emphasize a violent message (Petersen 2013, 179). A number of connections between National Socialism and Satanism—called Nazi Satanism by Goodrick-Clarke (2002)—have also been documented. Nikolas Schreck, son-in-law to Anton LaVey and a member of the Temple of Set, appeared on the neo-Nazi television program Race and Reason. Schreck praised Hitler in an interview with Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), and called “race-mixing” a form of “genetic suicide” (Race and Reason 1988). The Order of the Jarls of Baelder, which began in Great Britain in 1990 and has spread throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, attracts skinheads and neo-Nazis with its “colorful baits of magic and satanism” (Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 226). Several “Left-Hand Path” groups are bent on creating mischief and mayhem. Left-Hand Path refers to pagans and Satanists who follow an ideology of individualism, self-deification, and antinomianism, or lawlessness (Granholm 2013, 213). Perhaps the most menacing of all Left-Hand branches is the Order of Nine Angles (ONA), which is intent on “infiltrating and destabilizing the current society and civilization through a combination of magickal [sic] and practical means” (Senholt 2013, 251). ONA members believe that world history is divided into eons of approximately two thousand years each; we are living in the Faustian eon of Western civilization. Long-term goals of the ONA include enhancing human evolution by disrupting and reshaping existing institutions. Through practicing “insight roles,” initiates work undercover for a period of six to eighteen months to learn the best ways to undermine the “system”—that is, the status quo. David Copeland, who became known as the “Nail Bomber” in Great Britain, had connections to the founder of the ONA. Copeland conducted several attacks on Asian and black minorities in 1999 that killed three and injured more than one hundred (Senholt 2013, 263). In contrast to Satanism, which actual Satanists embrace and uphold, several new religions that cultivate contact with the spirit world have been accused of being satanic. Historically, Christians alleged that all forms of paganism were satanic—that is, products of the devil. This indictment generated the persecution of women as witches in the Reformation era and the inquisitions of indigenous populations in the Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere during the age of exploration. In the modern period, many Christians view most Afro-Caribbean religions,

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along with Afro-Brazilian groups, as satanic. Ancestors—that is, the spirits of the dead—play a large role in these religions, guiding participants in their daily lives. On special occasions, these spirits may become embodied, or incorporated, within the believer, seeming to take control for a short time. These spirits of the dead function much as saints do in Catholic Christianity: they bestow favors, solve problems, provide healing, and reward those who keep their vows. Born in times of political repression, Santería in Cuba, Vodou in Haiti, Candomblé and Umbanda in Brazil, and many others, have now expanded to North America. Because adherents of these new religions experienced persecution, many of them once hid or disguised their beliefs and practices. Only recently are their views becoming known to a wider audience. In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a city ordinance in Hialeah, Florida, that attempted to suppress the practice of animal sacrifice conducted in a Santería church. But fears about Afro-Caribbean religions remain. As recently as 2010, televangelist Pat Robertson blamed a devastating earthquake that killed between forty-six and eighty-six thousand and displaced more than eight hundred thousand people in Haiti, on that nation’s “pact with the devil.” He was referring to a Vodou ceremony performed prior to the Haitians’ revolt against the French colonists at the end of the eighteenth century. It is important, therefore, to differentiate between actual Satanists—who may or may not espouse violent ideologies—and religions and individuals that are falsely painted as satanic due to ignorance or prejudice. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement (ACM); Neo-Nazis FURTHER READING Faxneld, Per, and Jesper Aa. Petersen, eds. 2013. The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press. Frankfurter, David. 2006. Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press. Granholm, Kennet. 2013. “The Left-Hand Path and Post-Satanism: The Temple of Set and the Evolution of Satanism.” In Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen, eds. The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 209–28. Laycock, Joseph P. 2020. Speak of the Devil: How the Satanic Temple Is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. Petersen, Jesper Aagaard. 2013. “The Carnival of Dr. LaVey: Articulations of Transgression in Modern Satanism.” In Per Faxneld and Jesper Aa. Petersen, eds. The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 167–88. Race and Reason. 1988. “Interview with Nikolas Schreck.” Posted on altCensored on June 20, 2015. ­https://​­altcensored​.­com​/­watch​?­v​=​­pEaUdZnctIE.

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SCIENTOLOGY The Church of Scientology has generated controversy throughout its seven decades of existence. Former members have reported abusive treatment and manipulative techniques, and detractors have ridiculed some of the church’s most closely guarded mysteries. Church-generated lawsuits have intimidated or bankrupted critics and opponents. Ex-members allege that some adherents have even died as a result of negligence or abuse. Yet Scientology is also one of the most persecuted new religions, facing extraordinary repression in France and Germany and experiencing discrimination against its members in many other nations. Government agencies in the United States and abroad have continuously contested its status as a legitimate religion. High-profile celebrity members both help and harm the church, with famous Scientologists drawing attention to the group, for better or worse. At the same time, millions of ordinary Scientologists find meaning in the technology designed to further individual potential and self-realization developed by founder L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986). The description of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard—or LRH as he is called by Scientologists—presented by the church attributes vast learning, travel, and accomplishments to the leader. He purportedly was initiated into a Blackfoot tribe in Montana at the age of six and traveled to Tibetan lamaseries to learn the secrets of Kublai Kahn as a teenager. His importance to the movement as its “Source” is evident in the fact that every church has a completely furnished office dedicated to LRH. By any measure, Hubbard was a prolific writer, a vigorous entrepreneur, an engaging speaker, and a commanding presence. Hubbard’s short story “Dianetics,” published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1950, formed the basis for his book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, the precursor to Scientology. Dianetics—which combines the Greek words dia and mind, to indicate “through the mind”—provided what Hubbard called a technology for helping individuals overcome painful memories. He developed the E-Meter as part of a counseling process designated as “auditing,” by which people could achieve a state of “clear.” This freed them from negative thoughts, fears, and insecurities. (The electropsychometer is basically a simple lie detector that

New Religious Movements: Scientology

measures galvanic skin responses when a subject hears and answers a question.) Hubbard began with the conviction that human beings are souls, or “thetans,” who exist eternally across time and space. Hurtful experiences from this life and from previous lives remain stored in a “reactive mind” that controls our thoughts and behaviors in the present. Clearing the reactive mind is the first step toward fully realizing one’s potential as a thetan. If Dianetics is the psychological means by which one can discover the origins of one’s unhappiness, Scientology is the religious philosophy that will increase spiritual awareness of one’s true nature. Scientology is defined as “the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, to universes and to other life” (Church of Scientology); and the institution provides an exact, standardized progression for reaching each higher stage of being. These higher levels allow one to become an Operating Thetan (OT)—that is, a completely realized being who is able to control the material world around him- or herself by manifesting supernatural powers. Embarking upon the highly structured Bridge to Total Freedom is expensive, however, with the cost of auditing to begin the OT pathway estimated to be $6,800 per 12.5 hours (Urban 2011, 135). The fact that religious instruction required a substantial financial outlay was one of the reasons Scientology came under government scrutiny; its claims to health and healing were another. Hubbard incorporated the first Church of Scientology in California in 1954. A series of conflicts with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the FBI, and other government agencies then commenced. Although the Washington, D.C. church was recognized as tax-exempt in 1956—and therefore was a legitimate religion—the IRS revoked its tax exemption in 1958 following the FDA seizure of the anti-radiation sickness drug Dianezene sold by the church. Five years later, the FDA confiscated one hundred E-Meters and two tons of documents at the church’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., charging that healing assertions for the E-Meter were fraudulent. Earlier Scientologists had been jailed for practicing medicine without proper licensing. In 1965, the IRS started an audit of the church in California, which resulted in the loss of tax exemption for that branch in 1967 (Urban 2011). In response, the church launched Operation Snow White in 1973, a covert plan to infiltrate the IRS and other agencies to gather and destroy as much intelligence as possible that the government had collected on the church. Investigative reports and other internal documents were stolen, and government offices were wiretapped. At its height, Operation Snow White “employed up to 5,000 covert agents, who carried out a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, and private organizations in over 30 countries” (Wright and Palmer 2016, 188). The FBI was able to capture one of the ringleaders and persuade him to inform on fellow Scientologists, leading to one of the largest raids

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in the agency’s history in 1977. Thousands of documents were confiscated from the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. offices, along with eavesdropping equipment and burglary tools. Eleven Scientologists were arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned on the spying activities; Hubbard was named as an unindicted coconspirator and went into hiding for the rest of his life. Another reason Scientology has fallen under suspicion is its well-known culture of secrecy. Like other esoteric or initiatory groups, Scientologists believe that some aspects of their religious practices can be imparted only to those sufficiently trained to receive them. The Xenu materials, for example, which reveal that an evil space alien populated the Earth with unhappy thetans, are intended only for those who have been initiated into the Operating Thetan III level or higher. (There are currently eight levels of OT, although Hubbard said there could be as many as fifteen.) Early in its history, Scientology instituted security checks, or sec checks, as a form of internal surveillance to identify potential problem people—critics, traitors, or subversives. Troublemakers were identified as suppressive persons (SPs)—that is, antisocial individuals bent on destroying the church. When someone renounces the church today, family members who remain behind must “disconnect” with their relative, who has become an SP. Spying on external enemies was part of Scientology’s repertoire of techniques aimed at protecting the institution and its technology. In the mid-1960s Hubbard instituted the policy of Fair Game, which meant that an SP might be injured, tricked, lied to, sued, or financially destroyed without repercussions to the Scientologist engaged in the retaliation (Westbrook 2018). Although Hubbard apparently cancelled the policy—calling it bad publicity—it seems to remain in effect, given the frequent use of lawsuits employed against individuals and institutions considered to be enemies of the church. Established in 1966, the Guardian’s Office (GO) was tasked with responding to attacks on the church; in addition to managing Operation Snow White, the GO infiltrated the American Medical Association and the Better Business Bureau. It targeted church critics for private investigation and harassment, such as the mayor of Clearwater, Florida, when he objected to the church’s advanced training center, the Sea Organization (SeaOrg), based there. (Conflicts between the Clearwater city council and Scientology are ongoing, given the fact that the church is the Clearwater downtown’s largest property owner, with forty buildings located on a nine-mile square grid housing the campus of the Flag Land Base—spiritual headquarters for the church.) The GO also set up Operation Freakout, a program of disinformation aimed at discrediting Paulette Cooper, the author of the critical exposé, The Scandal of Scientology (1971). The Office of Special Affairs replaced the GO when the latter was disbanded in 1983. Adopting the stance that the best defense is a good offense, Scientology aggressively uses the legal system to defend its religious interests, challenge unfavorable

New Religious Movements: Scientology

court rulings, and intimidate opponents. When the IRS finally granted tax exemption to all Scientology organizations in 1993, the group agreed to drop dozens of lawsuits against the agency and pay $12.5 million in back taxes. Another major target of litigation throughout the 1980s and 1990s was CAN, which referred family members who were worried about relatives in new religions to deprogrammers. Individual Scientologists and the organization itself registered more than fifty lawsuits against CAN in this period, and by 1993, CAN was spending $10,000 a month in legal bills (Urban 2011, 149). The final blow came from Jason Scott, a member of a Pentecostal group who filed a civil suit against CAN, alleging that the group had referred his family to the deprogrammers, who kidnapped and violently abused him. An experienced trial lawyer from Scientology represented Scott in his claims against CAN and the deprogrammers, and a jury unanimously found in favor of the plaintiff; the court awarded him $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, $1 million of which was to be paid by CAN. Defending this and other cases bankrupted the nonprofit group, however, and, in 1996, its assets—including the CAN name and logo—were sold at auction to a Scientologist. The Church of Scientology became the owner of New CAN and, acting as a clearinghouse, now dispenses information about new religions, though undeniably not in the way the old CAN did. A final reason Scientology raises concerns is its opposition to psychology and psychiatry, especially the use of psychotropic drugs to treat mental illness. The church’s antagonism dates back to Hubbard’s contention in the 1950s that Dianetics was a scientific approach to mental health—a contention ignored by both the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association and rejected as pseudoscience by individual medical doctors. In the Scientology world view, psychiatrists, or psychs, are SPs who have created and controlled “an immoral and criminal society” (Westbrook 2017, 47). Thus, in 1969, the church cofounded the nonprofit organization Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) with Thomas Szasz (1920–2012), a psychiatrist who was highly critical of what he felt was the arbitrary and socially constructed nature of mental illness in the United States. CCHR describes itself as “a watchdog responsible for helping to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices” (CCHR). A storm erupted in 2005 when the actor Tom Cruise publicly chastised the actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to treat her postpartum depression. More controversy arose in 2006 when the twenty-five-year-old daughter of two Scientologists in Australia stabbed her father and sister to death and injured her mother: her parents had denied their daughter psychiatric help, despite a doctor’s diagnosis of mental illness. Widespread fear of Scientology has created a global climate of mistrust that governments have used to justify state intervention in the group’s activities. Some

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of the earliest assaults on the church occurred shortly after the 1965 passage of the Psychological Practices Act in the Australian state of Victoria. A few hours after Scientology was officially outlawed, its offices were raided (Wright and Palmer 2016). Other Australian states passed the Scientology Prohibition Act in 1968, which banned the practice of Scientology and criminalized possessing Scientology devices or literature. More raids followed. Federal forays against Scientology offices in the United States also occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Then, in 1983, more than a hundred Ontario Provincial Police attacked the Church of Scientology’s headquarters in Toronto, Canada, with battering rams, fire extinguishers, axes, and sledge hammers. They seized two hundred and fifty thousand pages of documents in the raid. Eighteen months later, charges were filed against the church and some of its members. In 1993 and again in 2009 the U.S. State Department noted the problem of discrimination against Scientologists that was occurring in Germany. As recently as 2017, Russian authorities raided the church’s St. Petersburg branch as part of a probe into what authorities maintained was illegal entrepreneurship, extremism, and incitement of hatred. Today France leads the way in taking strong action against Scientology. Government ministries and secular anticult activists have joined forces to create an official policy of combatting cults, or sectes. The church heads the list of new religions raided between 1971 and 2009, with twenty-one out of fifty-seven total; the next highest groups—Mandarom and Waldorf schools—were invaded six times each (Wright and Palmer 2016). Not only are Scientology lawsuits generally unsuccessful in France, but, in contrast, suits against Scientologists are frequently successful. Moreover, Scientologists may be refused employment or promotions and may lose their jobs or their reputations if their connection to the church becomes known. The Church of Scientology has weathered these and other challenges, including a spate of books and articles featuring accounts by hostile high-ranking celebrity members; a critical documentary—Alex Gibney’s 2015 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief; a television series by antagonistic ex-member Leah Remini; and a number of analyses by scholars assessing a variety of church practices. Furthermore, groups like Anonymous and free scientologists (they prefer the lower-case designation), who use the technology and respect L. Ron Hubbard but dislike current church leadership, undermine Scientology’s monopoly on the tech by revealing secrets and performing audits without benefit of clergy. It remains to be seen how the Church of Scientology will handle new challenges in the future. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement (ACM); Deprogramming

New Religious Movements: Sovereign Citizen Movement FURTHER READING Church of Scientology. 2019. “What Does the Word Scientology Mean?” h­ ttps://​­www​ .­s cientology​.­o rg​/­f aq​/­b ackground​-­a nd​-­b asic​-­p rinciples​/­w hat​-­d oes​-­t he​-­w ord​ -­scientology​-­mean​.­html. Citizens Commission on Human Rights. ­https://​­www​.­cchr​.­org​/.­ Cooper, Paulette. 1971. The Scandal of Scientology: A Chilling Examination of the Nature, Beliefs, and Practices of the “Now Religion.” New York: Tower Publications. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. 2015. Directed by Alex Gibney. 119 minutes. HBO Documentary Films. Lewis, James R. 2009. Scientology. New York: Oxford University Press. Lewis, James R. 2017. Handbook of Scientology. Leiden: Brill. Urban, Hugh B. 2011. The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Westbrook, Donald A. 2017. “‘The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend’: Thomas Szasz, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, and Scientology’s Anti-Psychiatric Theology.” Nova Religio 20, no. 4 (May): 37–61. Westbrook, Donald A. 2018. Among the Scientologists: History, Theology, and Praxis. New York: Oxford University ­Press​.­ Wright, Stuart A., and Susan J. Palmer. 2016. Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities. New York: Oxford University Press.

SOVEREIGN CITIZEN MOVEMENT(SCM) The Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) is a loose affiliation of individuals, entrepreneurs, tax protesters, and others who share the belief that the federal government of the United States is illegitimate and consequently has no legal authority. Sovereign citizens (SCs) also deny the jurisdiction of most state and local governments and, therefore, do not recognize laws, policies, or regulations, though they may recognize the authority of the county sheriff. Because SCs deem the current system unlawful and in violation of the U.S. Constitution, they claim that only English common law, rather than U.S. statutory law, is in effect. This means they dismiss ordinary forms of state rule, such as the power to award driver’s licenses, to issue subpoenas, and, especially, to tax income. This position has brought them into largely nonviolent conflict with the courts and law enforcement officials. In a tactic called “paper terrorism” or “paper warfare,” SCs around the country flood their local courts with title claims, liens, arrest warrants, and other legal paperwork, which, although frivolous, must be handled by court staff. SCs also engage in more serious criminal activity, however, such as committing mortgage fraud, counterfeiting, evading taxes, running drugs, and intimidating government employees. Between 1990 and 2013, more than six hundred financial schemes, devised primarily by sovereign citizens or tax protestors,

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resulted in criminal charges, with estimates of public losses approximating $1 billion (Powers 2019). Although violence has erupted sporadically since the SCM first emerged in the 1980s, it seems to be on the rise in the twenty-first century, with law enforcement officers particularly targeted. SCs believe that the laws on which the United States was founded were secretly replaced during Reconstruction in the nineteenth century and during the Great Depression in the twentieth. They argue that people born in the United States at the time the Constitution was written were citizens of their respective states, not of the nation. It was the Fourteenth Amendment—which gave citizenship to former slaves by virtue of being born in the United States—that created a new legal entity, U.S. citizens. Furthermore, according to the SCM narrative, the innovations introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s to alleviate the hardships of economic catastrophe marked the end of constitutional government. When the United States abandoned the gold standard in order to prevent bank failures, the future earnings of each U.S. citizen were offered as collateral instead. When a person is born, the U.S. Treasury Department sets up an account with actual, or pledged, dollars assigned. SCs assert that a birth certificate creates a “straw man” to indicate this Treasury account, rather than identifying the “sovereign citizen,” who is a real person. Government legitimacy was further eroded when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1938 that “there is no federal general common law,” and thereby appeared to substitute contract law for it. SCs conflate statutory law, contract law, and admiralty law in opposition to what they believe is God-given common law. This explains why SCs frequently refer to admiralty law in their documents. It also clarifies why they believe that the federal government is a corporation, rather than a legitimate authority. SCs thus interact with government agencies on the basis of contract law, outlined in the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). In the absence of recognized government power, SCs have turned to common law to assert what they feel are their civil rights. Their view of common law is based on the Bible, natural law, the Magna Carta, English precedent as outlined in the William Blackstone commentaries, and a unique interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court is not the highest court in the land, as specified in Article III, but rather common law courts are, which SCs call “constitutionalist courts.” While they accept the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—they reject subsequent amendments, including the Sixteenth Amendment, which sanctioned the federal income tax. SCs rely on this unique view of law, citizenship, and patriotism to rationalize the tactics they use to challenge what they see as unjustified infringement on their liberty. Because they repudiate all forms of authority, apart from their self-created common law courts, SCs destroy their birth certificates, renounce Social Security

New Religious Movements: Sovereign Citizen Movement

(and tear up their identification cards), and refuse driver’s licenses, car registrations, or license plates. They create their own sovereign citizen identity cards, licenses, and insurance forms. They establish fictitious courts and bogus law enforcement agencies, and issue fake indictments that can have real consequences. In 2017, for instance, a common law court in Pennsylvania issued indictments against Hillary Clinton and Harvey Weinstein, setting trial dates and calling for their executions. In addition to creating false identities to avoid paying taxes and evade arrest, SCs generate their own financial instruments, including “certified money orders, comptroller’s warrants, bills of exchange  .  .  . [and] ‘bonded promissory notes’” (Anti-Defamation League 2012, 22). In some instances, they print their own money. SCs also file sham liens against public officials—especially judges and prosecutors—to harass and intimidate them. Although some states have adopted laws against this tactic, many government employees continue to find unknown liens clouding the titles of their properties. Additionally, common law courts may vacate criminal charges or convictions issued against SCs and issue spurious arrest warrants against judges and other public officials. The SCM originated in the farm crisis of the 1980s, in which thousands of farmers defaulted on bank loans and lost their land, equipment, and homes. Bankers had encouraged farmers to take out large loans in the 1970s, but when the economy collapsed during the next decade, the farmers faced insurmountable debt. On top of that, a savings and loan crisis led to the closure of a thousand banks and the loss of $500 billion in assets. The federal government sought to bail out banks, which raised the ire of taxpayers and spawned an anti-tax movement. All these forces led to the rise of conspiracy theories that alleged that greedy Jewish bankers were in control of an unsympathetic government. Evangelists for Posse Comitatus, Christian Patriots, militias, and white nationalist groups persuaded some individuals to turn to common law strategies to save their properties, and the Sovereign Citizen Movement was born. (Although Posse Comitatus originally described a legal principle giving broad power to the county sheriff, the term now indicates a movement of antisemitic white Christians who oppose the federal government. As many as five thousand local law enforcement officials now consider themselves, rather than the U.S. Supreme Court, the final arbiters of the constitutionality of laws where they live.) SCM tactics have been, at times, not only harassing and illegal but also violent. Perhaps the most famous SC is Gordon Kahl (1920–1983), a North Dakota farmer and tax resister who was part of Posse Comitatus. Convicted of tax evasion in 1977, Kahl served about a year in prison; upon his release, he continued to refuse to pay taxes, and the IRS seized his land in 1981. An attempt to serve an arrest warrant on Kahl led to a shootout, in which two federal marshals were killed by the tax protester. Kahl escaped and remained hidden for five months through a

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Posse Comitatus underground. The FBI caught up with the fugitive in Smithville, Arkansas, and, in an exchange of gunfire, Kahl and the local sheriff shot and killed each other. Additional martyrs to the SCM cause include Vicki Weaver and her fourteenyear-old son Samuel, killed by federal agents in 1992 at their mountain home in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. A nine-day standoff between Weaver’s husband and the FBI ended with Randy Weaver’s surrender. The next year, a jury acquitted Weaver of the murder of a federal marshal during the shootout; he served sixteen months in jail and was later awarded $3.1 million in a lawsuit that charged the Department of Justice with wrongfully killing his wife and son. A year after the Ruby Ridge disaster, federal agents once again were involved in what SCs viewed as an attack on citizens, namely, the fifty-one-day siege of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. An initial firefight on February 19, 1993 resulted in the deaths of four federal agents and six Branch Davidians, while the final offensive—which began when combat engineering vehicles knocked down the walls of the Branch Davidian buildings and inserted CS gas—left seventy-six Branch Davidians dead. These events seemed to confirm the SC belief that the federal government not only conspired to disarm citizens but was willing to kill them as well. Two years after Waco, Timothy McVeigh and others attempted to ignite a revolt against the government by blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 people and injured more than 600 others. The FBI peacefully resolved the standoff with another SC group, the Montana Freemen, in 1996. (Another name for SCs is Freemen.) The Montana Freemen utilized the tools of the SCM, issuing liens against the property of government officials and declaring war against “foreign agents” operating in the county. Counterfeit bank drafts were used to make child support payments and to buy trucks and cars. A cohort of about a dozen families moved to a 960-acre wheat farm near Jordan, Montana, and designated the farm Justus Township, their own sovereign community. The Freemen threatened local officials—including posting a bounty for the arrest of the sheriff and county attorney—when they attempted to enforce state law. The standoff began with the arrest of several Freemen off the property on March 25, 1996. Throughout the eighty-one-day impasse, the FBI remained out of sight on the perimeter of the property; the agency allowed relatives to visit and exchange information with the Freemen inside; it encouraged third-party mediation between the Freemen and other Christian Patriots and SCs; and it listened to advice from religious studies scholars. Meanwhile, militia groups from around the country arrived to defend the Freemen from a government assault, although they were turned away by local authorities. The stalemate ended when the FBI brought in attorneys familiar with, and sympathetic to, common law as intermediaries, who could discuss legal issues with the Freemen. Prior to leaving Justus Township on

New Religious Movements: Sovereign Citizen Movement

June 13, 1996, the sixteen remaining Freemen carefully packed up their papers in order to have them as evidence for their defense: the documents were seen as integral to the common law arguments they would be making at their trials. The FBI exhibited a similarly measured response in 2016 in responding to the illegal occupation of the MNWR in Oregon. Armed militants seized refuge headquarters on January 2, claiming that the government—acting through the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management—had no right to own lands on behalf of the public. Although the apparent reason for the seizure was to protest the prison sentences given to two ranchers who had set fire to federal lands, the primary purpose was to attract national attention to the antigovernment cause. Militia members from around the country flocked to Harney County. The occupation ended on February 11 with one casualty—a militia member who had attempted to draw a gun during a stop at a checkpoint was fatally shot. Seven leaders of the occupation were acquitted of conspiracy charges in 2017. The SCM began as an all-white Protestant Christian crusade containing clear elements of racism and antisemitism. The group remains largely white, but today nonwhites, especially African Americans, have adopted tactics of the antigovernment drive. Individuals in these groups—some of which are offshoots of the Moorish Science Temple of America (MTSA)—call themselves Moors or Moorish. They believe that a treaty enacted in 1787 between the United States and Morocco gives them special rights, including immunity from U.S. law. For example, in the late 1990s, the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors clashed with local officials in Georgia when members refused to abide by county building ordinances. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the SCM poses an extreme security threat (Office of Intelligence Analysis 2015). Most instances of violence occur in the homes of SCs, at routine traffic stops, or at government facilities. Indeed, SCM extremism first gained national attention with the murder of two police officers by Joseph and Jerry Kane in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 2010. Unlike terrorists, who select public symbols for high-visibility violence, SCs target individuals whom they believe have violated their rights in some way. In other words, their targets are personal rather than impersonal. Law enforcement officials are particularly vulnerable, since they have the most direct contact with SCs. Stoked by antigovernment rhetoric on the internet and at the highest levels of public authority, the Sovereign Citizen Movement seems to be growing, according to reports by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Branch Davidians; Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Occupation of (2016); United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors; White Nationalist Groups

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Anti-Defamation League. 2012. The Lawless Ones: The Resurgence of the Sovereign Citizen Movements. 2nd ed. ­https://​­www​.­adl​.­org​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­documents​/­assets​/­pdf​ /­combating​-­hate​/­Lawless​-­Ones​-­2012​-­Edition​-­WEB​-­final​.­pdf. Barkun, Michael. 1994. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit II. 2010. Sovereign Citizens: An Introduction for Law Enforcement. Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation. h­ ttp://​­www​ .­minnesotatzd​.­org​/­events​/­conference​/­2016​/­documents​/­Sovereign​_Citizens​_Intro​_For​ _LE​.­pdf​. Koniak, Susan P. 1996. “When Law Risks Madness.” Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 8, no. 1 (Summer): 65–138. Levitas, Daniel. 2002. The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right. New York: Thomas Dunne Books. Office of Intelligence Analysis. 2015. Sovereign Citizen Extremist Ideology Will Drive Violence at Home, During Travel, and at Government Facilities. Washington, D.C.: Department of Homeland Security. ­https://​­fas​.­org​/­irp​/­eprint​/­sovereign​.­pdf. Powers, Ashley. 2019. “How Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1 Billion from the Government They Disavow.” New York Times, March 29. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2019​ /­03​/­29​/­business​/­sovereign​-­citizens​-­financial​-­crime​.­html. Wessinger, Catherine. 2000. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate. New York: Seven Bridges Press.

THE TURNER DIARIES(MACDONALD, 1978) Called “the Bible of the racist right,” The Turner Diaries (1978) is one of the most influential books to come out of the white nationalist movement (Southern Poverty Law Center n.d.). Written by William Luther Pierce (1933–2002) under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, and initially serialized in Attack!, the journal of the National Alliance, it first appeared in book form in 1978. Set in the future, The Turner Diaries describes the revolutionary activities of Earl Turner, who, with his cohorts, violently take over the United States government and, in the process, instigates a race war. Unlike technical manuals, which may require scientific aptitude, or scripture, which requires the proper interpretation, The Turner Diaries is written in an accessible style, which helps explain its popularity. The novel has influenced neo-Nazi movements that organize underground units such as those described in the book. William Pierce began his career as a university physics professor before becoming an important figure in George Lincoln Rockwell’s (1918–1967) American Nazi Party, where he edited its quarterly journal National Socialist World. After Rockwell’s assassination in 1967, Pierce joined the National Youth Alliance (NYA),

New Religious Movements: The Turner Diaries

which styled itself as a right-wing youth movement to challenge the leftist counterculture on college campuses. He reorganized NYA to include more people (NYA limited membership to those under age 30) and, in 1974, named the new group National Alliance (NA). Under Pierce’s leadership, NA was extremely successful: it had a publishing house that produced books and news magazines; it acquired Resistance Records and made it into a multimillion dollar company selling white power music; and, in the era before online shopping, it had a large mail order bookstore that specialized in “white” classics, as well as racist literature. The NA fell on hard times after Pierce’s death in 2002, with a number of leadership struggles, but, according to the NA website, it has reorganized under two of Pierce’s top leaders: William White Williams and Kevin Alfred Strom (National Alliance). While a number of White Nationalist groups made the white race their religion or religious commitment, Pierce grounded his racism on metaphysical principles. For him, racial survival was a spiritual task in which the white race must recognize the heavenly spark within in order to fully realize its own divinity. In what can be called pantheism (God is in all things), Pierce claimed that all of reality was the manifestation of the Creator, including the various races, in their distinct hierarchical ordering. In order to live according to the Creator’s will, the white man must recognize his elite place in the hierarchy (Berry 2017). Elements of Cosmotheism, which is what Pierce called this religious philosophy, can be found in The Turner Diaries and in his lesser-known novel Hunter. “Widely considered one of the most racially violent books ever written” (Berry 2017, 62–63), The Turner Diaries presents a day-by-day account of its hero, as he and members of the Organization viciously assault Jews, African Americans, and white race traitors. Living under an oppressive government—which the novel calls the System—they find that their rights as white people have been taken away, starting with the confiscation of their firearms. Earl Turner and the Organization engage in acts of terrorism, torture, and assassination; they blow up the FBI building in Washington, D.C.; and, later in the book, they shell the capital city with mortar fire until the president and his administration must flee to safety. Forced to operate underground, the Organization ends up in southern California, where its members seize Vandenberg Air Force Base, along with its nuclear weapons. Nonwhites who are not killed outright, flee the state and head for the Northeast, where they attack the whites living there. Thus, a race war ensues, in which whites finally wake up to the reality that racial equality is a tyrannical fantasy designed to keep them powerless. Whites must be provoked into realizing the truth of the Cosmotheistic principle that their racial survival is a religious obligation. The novel ends as Turner embarks on a suicide mission to destroy the Pentagon by flying a nuclear warhead into the government building. An epilogue from the year 2099 reports that

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nuclear strikes were conducted against New York, Israel, and elsewhere, and joyously declares that all nonwhite races have been destroyed. Pierce’s second novel, Hunter, features another violent protagonist, Oscar Yeager (the German word for “hunter”). Based on the real-life criminal Joseph Paul Franklin, who was convicted of murdering an interracial couple and several African American men, Yeager sets out to kill anyone he believes is destroying the white race. “The novel is not simply about violence but rather about using violence to bring about change that will begin with awakening the racial consciousness of other white people” (Berry 2017, 65). A lone wolf, Hunter/Yeager joins up with the “National League” so that, together, they may liberate the white race. A number of white nationalist groups and individuals appear to have implemented Pierce’s novels as field guides to terror. Several individuals convicted of race-based murders in England and Europe were found with copies of The Turner Diaries or had quoted from it. The book was banned in Germany in 2006. In the United States, members of the Brüder Schweigen, or Silent Brotherhood—also called The Order, named after the elite guerilla unit in the Diaries—engaged in a systematic spree of bank robberies and counterfeiting. They are best known for killing two people in a synagogue bombing and assassinating Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg in the 1980s. Highlighted selections from The Turner Diaries were collected in the belongings of Timothy McVeigh, who used a tactic described in the novel—a truck bomb full of explosives—to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and injured more than 600 in 1995. A year after the Oklahoma City bombing, Jewish publisher Lyle Stuart reissued The Turner Diaries as a trade paperback, which gave the underground novel mainstream exposure. Roundly criticized, Stuart defended his decision by saying that censorship of hate literature was worse than ignorance of it. Since then, however, the book has become widely available for free on the internet. It is also possible to listen to William Pierce reading his own audiobook on YouTube. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis; White Nationalist Groups FURTHER READING Berry, Damon T. 2017. Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press. National Alliance Website. ­https://​­natall​.­com​/. Pierce, William [as Andrew Macdonald]. 1980 (1978). The Turner Diaries. 2nd ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books.

New Religious Movements: United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors Pierce, William [as Andrew Macdonald]. 1989. Hunter. Arlington: National Vanguard ­Books​.­ Simi, Pete, and Robert Futrell. 2010. American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Southern Poverty Law Center. n.d. “William Pierce.” ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­fighting​ -­hate​/­extremist​-­files​/­individual​/­william​-­pierce.

UNITED NUWAUBIAN NATION OF MOORS The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors is a black nationalist spiritual movement that claims its Native American heritage puts it above the laws of the United States. Functioning as a Sovereign Citizen Movement, it has issued its own currency and written liens against public property. The Nuwaubians moved to Eatonton, Georgia, from Brooklyn, New York, in 1993 to establish both a communal residence and an Egyptian theme park. In 1997 and 1998, disagreements with white residents of the rural area intensified over zoning permits for construction of the park; the arrival of thousands of black pilgrims for the annual week-long festival also alarmed the community. The sheriff of Putnam County worked with federal law enforcement officials to develop criminal charges against the community and its leader, Malachi Z. York (a.k.a. Dwight York). On May 8, 2002, more than three hundred agents from the FBI, ATF, and the sheriff’s office executed a paramilitary raid on the community, but found only twenty-five elderly men, forty women, and more than fifty children there. The foray did not reveal evidence of weapons or child abuse, the ostensible reason for the search (Wright and Palmer 2016, 130), but charges were brought against York, who was convicted of child molestation and racketeering in 2004. Nevertheless, the general Nuwaubian membership does not appear inclined to violence. Malachi Z. York (b. 1935 or 1945) was a religious entrepreneur who converted to Islam while in prison. Influenced by the black power culture of the 1960s and 1970s, York’s beliefs evolved in the decades after his parole in 1967, shifting from Sunni Islam and Moorish Science to Sufism and Judaism. He established numerous groups in Brooklyn and other U.S. cities under various names: Ansaar Pure Sufi (1967), The Nubian Islamic Hebrews (1969), and his most successful group, the Ansaaru Allah Community (1973–1992). His interests turned to psychology, telepathy, and extraterrestrials in the 1980s, and then to Egyptian and Native American cultures in the 1990s. Although the group became the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors in 1993 when it moved to Georgia, it shortly thereafter adopted the name the Yamassee Native American Moors of the Creek Nation. This assertion of indigenous heritage bolstered claims to sovereignty apart from laws governing U.S. citizens.

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The Nuwaubians acquired 473 acres of land in Putnam County in order to construct an Egyptian village. Tama Re (“The Land”) was designed as a modestly priced tourist destination and pilgrimage site, as well as a haven for African Americans during the impending apocalypse predicted by York. Within a few years, the site featured a forty-foot tall black pyramid, eight-foot tall statues of Egyptian gods and goddesses, pillars with hieroglyphics, sphinxes, and smaller twenty-four-foot pyramids (Bailey 2006). The group encountered legal and bureaucratic obstacles to their project, however, with the first serious confrontation occurring in 1997, when guards at Tama Re refused to allow a county building inspector onto the premises. Moves and counter-moves by the Nuwaubians and officials of Putnam County spiraled into a dangerous situation. York ignited local ire when he declared Tama Re a sovereign nation that required visitors to change their money into “egiptian” coins and buy passports to be there. In 1999, the local sheriff padlocked five buildings on the grounds—including two buildings the Nuwaubians used for worship—over zoning violations. The county also removed 198 Nuwaubians from its voting rolls. For their part, the Nuwaubians won a small victory when the courts ruled that the county could not sue them for damages during zoning disputes. The group invited prominent African American leaders—such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson—to visit Tama Re, along with local black politicians, in an attempt to ameliorate the situation and gain respectability. Meanwhile, York’s disaffected son Jacob saw the Nuwaubians as a cult and began to cooperate with the FBI, beginning in the mid-1990s. Jacob York organized an informal network of ex-members, who became outspoken critics in the media and star witnesses in the subsequent criminal case against Malachi York. Local officials also took measures. Howard Sills, Putnam County sheriff, reported that he received anonymous phone calls and letters alleging that child abuse was occurring at Tama Re. Jacob York and a group of apostates met with Sills in 1998 and made additional serious accusations. Finally, Heaven’s Gate—the mass suicide of a UFO group that occurred in May 1997—fueled local fears that the Nuwaubians, who also believed in extraterrestrials, might do the same. The purpose of the March 2002 raid was to seize weapons and rescue children. It was over in three minutes, since residents offered no resistance. The effort turned up twenty handguns and rifles, all properly registered. The senior York had been arrested off-site before the raid. He was charged with transporting children across state lines for the purpose of sex. A federal judge rejected a plea bargain that had been made, and, following his conviction of child molestation and racketeering in April 2004, York was sentenced to 135 years in federal prison. The question remains as to whether members of the United Nuwaubian Nation were treated fairly or were subjected to overly strict legal requirements designed to thwart their building plans. The Putnam County sheriff traveled to Wasco County,

New Religious Movements: White Nationalist Groups

Oregon—the scene of a similar confrontation between locals and a new religion, the Rajneesh Movement, in the 1980s—where he was told to use zoning laws strategically to shut down operations and sources of revenue (Wright and Palmer 2016, 142). Clearly, members of the Nuwaubian Nation considered themselves sovereign citizens when they created fake checks and official-looking documents in order to purchase homes in Georgia (Southern Poverty Law Center 2003). The extent of violent proclivities, however, remains to be determined. Rebecca Moore See also: New Religious Movements: Anticult Movement (ACM); Black Separatism; Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) FURTHER READING Bailey, Julius H. 2006. “The Final Frontier: Secrecy, Identity and the Media in the Rise and Fall of the United Nuwaubian Nation.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, no. 2 (June): 302–23. Easterling, Paul. 2015. “The ‘Nu’ Nation: An Analysis of Malachi Z. York’s Nuwaubians.” In Stephen Finley, Margarita Guillory, and Hugh R. Page, Jr., eds. Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: There is a Mystery.  .  .  . Leiden: Brill, pp. 198–209. Nuwaubian Facts. 2009. ­http://​­nuwaubianfacts​.­com​/­index​.­htm. Palmer, Susan J. 2010. The Nuwaubian Nation: Black Spirituality and State Control. Burlington: Ashgate. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2003. “Nuwaubians Arrested in Common-Law Scam.” Intelligence Report, December 21. ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/­fighting​-­hate​/­intelligence​ -­report​/­2003​/­nuwaubians​-­arrested​-­common​-­law​-­scam. Wright, Stuart A., and Susan J. Palmer. 2016. Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities. New York: Oxford University Press.

WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS White nationalist groups believe that the white race is the primary determinant of value, morality, and existence. They may be called white identity, Identiarian, or white power advocates, who see their position of privilege threatened. Some are known as shite supremacists, who seek the annihilation of nonwhites or, in contrast, white separatists, who merely wish to live apart from nonwhites. What all these white nationalist groups have in common is their conviction of the superiority of whiteness and its supreme significance for regulating all relationships—including political, economic, and religious—in a multicultural society. They may be Christian, pagan, or atheistic; they may come from privilege or from deprivation; they

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may be well-educated or self-taught; they may be strongly capitalistic or violently anti-capitalist; they may attempt to foment racial holy war or merely advocate strict segregation and separation of the races. But paramount in their ethical system is the importance of the white race and its survival. Damon Berry calls this unifying theme “racial protectionism,” in which the quest for ideological and biological purity serves as the motivating force for public and private conduct (Berry 2017, 3–4). This anti-egalitarian and hierarchical world view carries within it the seeds of violent behavior, which can be justified according to the logic of protecting one’s race. Members of white nationalist groups believe that they are under attack along a number of fronts. First, the white race itself is in jeopardy due to intermarriage and racial mixing. Birth rates of Europeans have been steadily falling over the past several decades, while birth rates of non-Europeans have skyrocketed. Second, Western civilization is being undermined by tides of immigrants pouring into Europe and the United States from the southern hemisphere. This crisis is understood as an invasion of people bringing alien languages, cultures, and standards, which pose a variety of threats to the well-being of white inhabitants. Immigrants are accused of taking jobs from white people, especially from white men, and are suspected of promoting foreign policies at every level of government. Many are assumed to harbor terrorist goals and to worship strange gods. Moreover, foreign men are considered dirty, impure, and filthy-minded, desiring only to have sexual intercourse with white women, while nonwhite females are thought to be oversexed temptresses who wish to breed with white men. Finally, a Zionist Occupation Government run by a global cabal of Jews is believed to control the media and financial and political institutions in the United States and abroad. Clearly, a culture of conspiracy as well as ingrained stereotypes determine the beliefs of white nationalists. White nationalists participate in the movement in a variety of ways. Most enter through reading racist materials, especially online, since advocates are quite literate. They may then get more involved by attending a meeting, joining a group, making financial contributions, or engaging in demonstrations and political actions designed to garner media attention and to awaken whites to the need for activism. Yet ever since the early 1980s, white nationalists have advocated for “leaderless resistance”—that is, individuals acting on their own initiative. Dylann Roof (b. 1994), for example, never joined any organization, though a manifesto he wrote mentioned the impact the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens had on his views about race. Radicalized by this and other online hate sites, he executed a mass shooting in 2015 at a predominantly African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, where he killed nine people and injured another. (Roof currently awaits execution in federal prison.)

New Religious Movements: White Nationalist Groups

White nationalist groups proliferated in the United States after World War II, and especially in the 1990s and twenty-first century, but the historical legacy of slavery before the Civil War and legal segregation following Reconstruction, set the stage long before. In the late nineteenth century, white Citizens’ Councils and the Ku Klux Klan emerged in the South, supposedly to defend whites from the depredations of blacks; in reality, these groups sought to maintain white privilege through acts of terror and repression directed at former slaves. At the same time, the influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe and Catholic and Orthodox Christian immigrants from Southern Europe raised political concerns among whites in the North, where purity leagues were formed to protect the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment. The pseudoscience of eugenics also developed in the United States (long before the Nazis put the ideology into practice), which promoted the idea that only the fittest specimens of humanity should be allowed to reproduce. Another significant racialist ideology arose in late nineteenth-century England. Called British-Israelism, it eventually became the Christian Identity movement in the United States. Christian Identity members assert that white people, or Aryans, are the true descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel, not the Jews. God’s chosen people, Israel, are actually Europeans. Identity Christians claim that Jews are children of the devil (as Jesus says in the gospel of John 8:44), “the literal biological offspring of a sexual alliance between Satan and Eve in the Garden of Eden” (Barkun 1994, ix). They also believe that an apocalyptic battle between good and evil is at hand, in which Aryans will fight against Jews for the redemption of the world. Consequently, some are committed to a program of survivalism to prepare for Christ’s Second Coming during a time of great tribulation. Very active during the rise of the religious right in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States, a number of Identity Christian leaders have since retired or died. Richard Butler (1918–2004) was undoubtedly the most influential. Founder of the Aryan Nations, a neo-Nazi political group, in 1974, he also started the Church of Jesus Christ Christian in 1977, an Identity Christian institution. Beginning in 1980, Butler held annual gatherings of white nationalist individuals—skinheads, Identity Christians, neo-Nazis, and other white power advocates—at his Hayden Lake, Idaho, compound for more than twenty years. These congresses energized violent activists from around the nation and prompted the formation of The Order, or Silent Brotherhood, which went on a crime spree in 1983 that ended in a gun battle with federal agents on Whidbey Island, Washington, in 1984. Another Identity Christian was Tom Metzger (b. 1938), a former grand dragon in David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Metzger was an ordained pastor in the New Christian Crusade Church before he had a falling-out with the church’s

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founder, James K. Warner. Metzger soon dropped the religious elements from his own rhetoric and went on to organize the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a group that boasted it published “the most racist newspaper on earth.” Metzger also hosted a cable access television program, Race and Reason, that, at its height, was carried in sixty-one cities in twenty-one states (Southern Poverty Law Center n.d.). A number of WAR associates were convicted of criminal actions, including the beating death of an Ethiopian student in Oregon and the injury of two individuals by letter bomb in Arizona. Like other white nationalist activists, Metzger has become an atheist. Even though Christian Identity adherents differentiated between their brand of Christianity and mainstream Christians, positing a clear distinction between true Israel (white Europeans) and satanic and false Israel (the Jews), Christianity was nevertheless “too Jewish” for hard-core antisemites. Any type of Christianity, no matter how racist it was in outlook, was anathema for those who saw an ineradicable connection between Judaism and Christianity. Thus, National Socialist, or neo-Nazi, movements arose in the United States throughout the second half of the twentieth century that rejected Christianity outright and adopted esoteric, pagan, or atheistic beliefs. A unique new religion, the Creativity Movement—once called Church of the Creator and World Church of the Creator—also has a religious commitment to racial protectionism. Its founder, Ben Klassen (1918–1993), asserted that only the “Laws of Nature,” such as Charles Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest, had any validity. Rejecting what he called “spooks in the sky,” Klassen believed that the primary natural law was “to propagate, advance, and expand the white race,” since whites represent the pinnacle of creation/evolution. In support of that cause, he declared “Racial Holy War,” or RaHoWa, against all other races. These opposing ideologies contribute to the factionalized nature of the white nationalist movement. Postwar neo-Nazi movements began with the National Renaissance Party of James Madole (1927–1979) in the 1950s. This continued with the American Nazi Party of George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) in the 1960s; it developed further with the National Alliance of William Pierce (1933– 2002) in the 1980s and 1990s; and remain today as the NSM that materialized in 2004 after the deaths of Pierce and Butler. White nationalist groups now outnumber neo-Nazi groups in the United States, but these, combined with the Ku Klux Klan, racist skinhead, neo-Confederate, and Christian Identity organizations, made up 427 identified groups espousing antisemitic and other racist views in 2018 (Southern Poverty Law Center n.d.). Norse Paganism has superseded Christian Identity in religious popularity among white nationalist groups. Embracing the strength and violence of Viking warriors and seeking to reclaim their European heritage under the slogan of “White

New Religious Movements: White Nationalist Groups

Pride,” a number of groups have turned to the old gods of Europe as sources of identity and self-respect. Odinists revere Norse deities and attempt to practice pagan rituals and traditions; at the same time, they see the white race—the culmination of Western progress—as genocidally endangered. Not all Odinists are racialists: some practitioners of Asatru have explicitly rejected any suggestion of bigotry. Others, however, such as the Wotansvolk, or followers of Wotan (the German name for Odin), intend to launch “a violent revolution to preserve the white race” (Berry 2017, 119). The violence perpetrated by members of these white nationalist groups and by “lone wolves”—individuals unconnected to any organization who act on their own initiative—is measurable. Now called domestic terrorism by law enforcement agencies, occurrences of violence on behalf of racial protectionism are on the rise. A few notable incidents include the murder of six worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin (2012); the murder of three people at a Jewish Community Center in Kansas (2014); the murder of nine people at a black church in South Carolina (2015); the murder of a protester at the “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia (2017); and the murder of eleven people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018. In addition to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City (killing 168 and injuring 600) in 1995, a shooting spree in 1999 by a white nationalist in Illinois and Indiana left two dead and nine injured; and a security guard at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., was shot and killed by a white nationalist in 2009. Many more attempted instances of bombings of mosques, synagogues, and clinics have been thwarted by the FBI and other law enforcement entities, who focus on criminal activity executed on behalf of an ideological agenda. For example, a Coast Guard lieutenant who was plotting to kill Democratic elected officials and prominent journalists in the hope of sparking a race war was arrested in 2019 before putting his plans into effect. One of the leading monitors of white nationalist activities is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama. Instituted in 1971 to litigate civil rights cases, particularly on behalf of people physically injured by Ku Klux Klan members, SPLC has successfully used the power of the courts to win financial damages for those seriously harmed by white nationalist violence. A SPLC suit filed on behalf of victims of Aryan Nation violence bankrupted the white nationalist organization, as did the SPLC suit against WAR in the case of a murdered black graduate student. In addition, SPLC documents hate crimes along with posting an annual “Hate Map” that lists all the white power (and black power) groups it can identify. While the SPLC documents hate groups, the FBI monitors hate crimes. The federal agency notes that these rose during the administration of President Barack Obama (b. 1961), the United States’ first African American president. Although

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the number dipped in 2014, it grew dramatically in 2015 and 2016. According to the FBI, it reached a five-year all-time high in 2016, with an upsurge after the election of Donald Trump. The removal of monuments to Confederate soldiers has sparked a number of violent clashes between members of white nationalist groups, counter-demonstrators, and the police. The 2017 “United the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—in which one person was killed and others were attacked—was organized as one such protest. In the last decade white nationalist groups have received a big boost with the growth of “alternative right” media. The alt-right, a label created by Richard Spencer, a long-time leader in white nationalist politics, rejects mainstream conservatism as too wishy-washy. It criticizes multiculturalism and promotes a white nationalist agenda. Alt-right news sources, such as Breitbart News and The Daily Stormer, and the websites 4chan and Infowars, give legitimacy to ideologies once relegated to the margins of U.S. society. At the end of 2017, alt-right organizers created Operation Homeland, a group dedicated to professionalizing white nationalist and neo-Nazi activities. “Our purpose is to plan and carry out bold demonstrations, train and mentor young activists, and foster collaborations among Identitarians in America and around the world,” said the organizer, Richard Spencer (Spencer 2017). With more publicity, organization, and vocal enthusiasts, white nationalist groups and the vision they endorse seem to present real possibilities of violence. Rebecca Moore See also: Christianity: Christian Identity Movement; Judaism: Antisemitism; New Religious Movements: Neo-Nazis; Odinism; Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM) FURTHER READING Barkun, Michael. 1994. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Berry, Damon T. 2017. Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Ryan, Nick. 2004. Into a World of Hate: A Journey among the Extreme Right. New York: Routledge. Simi, Peter, and Robert Futrell. 2010. American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Southern Poverty Law Center. n.d. ­https://​­www​.­splcenter​.­org​/. Spencer, Richard. 2017. “Operation Homeland.” ­Altright​.­com, December 2. ­https://​­altright​ .­com​/­2017​/­12​/­02​/­introducing​-­operation​-­homeland​/. Zeskin, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

SIKHISM

INTRODUCTION Geographically and culturally, Sikhism originated more than five centuries ago in the Punjab (“five rivers”) region of northwest India. The religious and cultural innovations of its founder, Guru Nanak (1469–1539), and those of his successors engendered the first of the three main elements on which the evolution of Sikhism depended. The second was the rural base of Punjabi society with its martial traditions. The third significant element was the period of Punjab history during which Sikhism evolved in tension with Mughals and Afghans in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. All three elements combined to produce the mutual interaction between ideology and environment, making “militancy” an integral part of the tradition in self-defense (Singh 2003, 1511). A conceptual distinction between “violence” and “militancy” is essential to understand the point that Sikhs are not essentially violent, but they are militant. Here “militancy” does not mean violence in actions and reactions alone, but also an aggressive and passionate stand for the cause of their religion and the gurus (Wallace 2011, 85–87). With unflinching faith in the oneness of divinity, Sikhism stresses the ideal of achieving spiritual liberation from self-centeredness (haumai) within a person’s lifetime through the practice of meditation on the divine Name (nām simaran). In contrast to asceticism, it is oriented toward action, encouraging the dignity of regular labor as part of spiritual discipline. Family life and social responsibility are important aspects of Sikh teachings. The Sikh tradition is the youngest of independent religions of India, where the Sikhs make up less than 2 percent of India’s more than one billion people. What makes Sikhs significant in India is not their numbers but their contribution in cultural, political and economic spheres. The global population of the Sikhs is about twenty-five million, making Sikhism the fifth-most populated religion in the world (and constitutes, which is more than the worldwide total of Jewish people). About twenty million Sikhs live in the state of Punjab, while the rest have settled in

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other parts of India and elsewhere. These include substantial communities of Sikhs established in Southeast Asia, Australia, East Africa, United Kingdom, mainland European countries, and North America through successive waves of emigration. In the twentieth century, more than a half million Sikhs immigrated to the United States of America. In the last few decades, Sikhs in the Western world have received a great deal of media attention. Unfortunately, much of this attention has been negative, based on stereotypes rather than knowledge of Sikh traditions. In the United States, for instance, the first victim of the racial backlash that followed the terrorist attacks of September 2001 was a Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi of Arizona, who was shot dead by a self-described “patriot” who mistook him for a Muslim. A large majority of people in North America simply do not know who Sikhs are and why they fight for their right to wear turbans in the workplace and kirpans (“miniature swords”) in public schools. On August 5, 2012, a gunman burst into the Sikh Gurdwara (“House of the Guru,” Sikh place of worship) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and opened fire, killing five men and one woman, ambushing one police officer and injuring three others. During an exchange of gunfire, he eventually died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, after he was shot by another police office. The dominant narrative that emerged in both media coverage and public discourse since then has been one of mistaken religious identity. It presumes that the killer, identified as a white supremacist named Wade Michael Page, may have shot the Sikhs because he ignorantly believed they were Muslim. Such a storyline has prevailed in the media because since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, hundreds of Sikhs have been the victims of horrific hate crimes (Singh 2014, 625). Recent research has made us aware of two divergent views on the place of violence in the Sikh tradition. The first view is based on the framework of “early pacifism versus later militancy” discourse that has dominated in the popular writings on Sikhism. It draws attention to the apparent contradiction between the interior devotion of the early Nanak Panth (“followers of Guru Nanak’s path”) and the militant character of the Khalsa tradition. For instance, Khushwant Singh’s history of the Sikhs contains a chapter entitled “From the Pacifist Sikh to the Militant Khalsa” (Singh 1999 [1963], 76–98). Following the Orientalist paradigm, such works ignore the contextual depth and misrepresent the process of evolution by focusing too much on the apparent “contradiction” between “religion” and “politics” in the Sikh tradition (Singh 2019, 3). The second view has emerged more recently in the writings of Balbinder Singh Bhogal and Navdeep Mandair, who claim that canonical sources reveal a more startling view of warfare as a phenomenon that is profoundly excessive to any rationalization (Bhogal 2007, 107–35; Mandair 2009, 85–101). In particular, the central theme of the three goddess compositions in the Dasam Granth is focused on

Sikhism: Introduction

unrelentingly gruesome battles against demons, with the poet delighting in sketching images of shining swords and other weapons flashing as warriors wield them against their enemies; the sounds of swords and arrows whizzing through the air, the shrieks and cries of warriors; and gaping wounds, severed body parts, and flowing rivers of blood. However, the killing of demons that occurs in these battles is auspicious, even to be celebrated, for it represents a triumph of the forces of good, and allows good people to live well (Rinehart 2011, 102–3). Navdeep Mandair points out savage excesses of the goddess (Chaṇḍī/Durgā), who delights in conflict and carnage, expressing a horrid pleasure when she laughs mightily amid the bloody wreckage of battle. For him, it is the gleeful accent of this onslaught that renders it excessive—a violence that exceeds the measures strictly necessary to restore order and righteousness (dharam) and, therefore, regulated by the capricious tempo of divine play (Mandair 2009, 94–95). Accordingly, Sikh religious violence must be understood by taking into account its profoundly gratuitous nature and intensity, which is not irrational but incommensurate with a rationale. These are the two extreme positions based on doctrinal readings of textual sources (Singh 2012, 201). This overview offers a measured assessment of canonical sources and follows a genealogical mode of reading by employing multiple voices to relativize all the voices; in this way, no single voice becomes dominant. It examines the connection, both actual and perceived, between Sikh texts and the justification of violent acts as divinely mandated. In the Guru Granth Sahib, the foundational text of Sikhism, “violence” is represented as an integral part of the human situation. The Punjabi term for violence is hansu or hinsā, referring to the “infliction of injury” in the situation of conflict. Employing the metaphor of a “burning river” for human existence, Guru Nanak proclaimed, “Violence, attachment, avarice, and wrath are four rivers of fire. Falling into these, people get burnt, O Nanak; they can be saved only through the grace of loving devotion at the Master’s feet” (Guru Granth Sahib (GGS) 147). In his spiritual vision, both good and evil exist in the divine plan. While cherishing the beauty and goodness in the world in his celebrated Japjī (“Honored Recitation”), Guru Nanak simultaneously admits the existence of evil and violence in the straightforward language of the following stanza: “Countless the fools, the thieves, the swindlers; countless those who rule by force. Countless are the cutthroats and violent murderers; countless those who live evil lives” (GGS 3–4). Again, violence is divinely sanctioned: “When it pleases You, O Lord, some wield swords cutting off heads [of their enemies] as they move” (GGS 145). In the Mārū hymn, Akāl Purakh (“Timeless One,” God) is represented as both violent and benevolent: “He himself kills and rejuvenates” (GGS 1034). Unsurprisingly, love and violence, pain and pleasure, good and evil, matter and spirit are intrinsic to the human condition. The true meaning of “violence” is linked with a struggle to kill

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one’s ego or “self-centeredness” (haumai), making self-sacrifice an inseparable part of one’s spiritual discipline. It is instructive to note that Guru Nanak frequently condemned corrupt and violent state structures. For instance, during his invasion to secure northern India in the 1520s, the first Mughal emperor, Babur (1483–1530), achieved his final victory over Ibrahim Lodhi in 1526 in the field of Panipat. Most instructively, Guru Nanak commented on the violence inflicted on innocent people in his four hymns, collectively known as Bābar-vāṇī (“Utterances Concerning Babur,” GGS 360, 417–18 and 722–23). In fact, these hymns provide an eyewitness account of Babur’s invasion of India and throw considerable light on the devastation caused by his army. Guru Nanak was pained to see the suffering of the innocent, who had little to do with politics and war. For instance, in his Āsā hymn, the guru addresses God as follows: “You spared Khurasan yet spread fear in Hindustan. Creator, you did this, but to avoid the blame you sent the Mughal as messenger of death. Receiving such chastisement, the people cry out in agony and yet no anguish touches you” (GGS 360). The principal theme in this hymn is related to the question of why the weak and innocent should suffer unmerited torment at the hands of the strong. In this respect, this hymn has obvious affinities with the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. God is called into account, just as Job summons him. Guru Nanak makes it quite explicit that it was the Creator who sent Babur as the messenger of death to destroy the Lodhi Sultanate. With a firm belief in God’s omnipotence, he provides a rationale of the normalization of violence as follows: “You alone unite and you alone divide; thus is your glory manifested” (GGS 360). The guru thus stresses the absolute nature of divine command (hukam), which is ultimately beyond human comprehension. A similar response appears in other verses: “To whom should we complain when the Creator himself acts and causes others to act? To whom should one lament when you yourself dispense suffering and happiness through your will?” (GGS 418). Here Guru Nanak is looking at the violent historical events from a mystical perspective. Nevertheless, he underscored the point that if any mighty person attacks “the weak and unarmed” person then it is a violation of an ethical norm of warfare (Singh 2019, 4). Most instructively, Guru Nanak’s response to war and suffering is not limited to his personal anguish. He is responding to an actual life situation with his profound inner experience. In tune with Akāl Purakh, he reflects on the situation at hand from various perspectives. A careful examination of the four hymns of the Bābar-vāṇī collectively reveals a powerful condemnation of both the invaders and the rulers. Guru Nanak describes the Lodhis as “wretched dogs” for their moral failure to protect their sovereignty and the innocent (ratan, “jewels”) people. They had acted in a manner contrary to the divine intention and were responsible for the

Sikhism: Introduction

ultimate overthrow of their dynasty. In the Tilaṅg hymn, on the other hand, Guru Nanak refers to Babur’s army as the “marriage-party of evil” (pāp kī jañj), and thus charges them for their moral failure to forcibly demand a “dowry” (dān) from the suffering people (GGS 722). Elsewhere, Guru Nanak holds heedlessness of Akāl Purakh on the part of the general public responsible for bringing about this retribution (Singh 2019, 4). In the case of the rape of women, for instance, the guru makes the following comment: “The wealth and sensual beauty which intoxicated them became their enemies. The messengers of Death, under orders to persecute, strip them of their honor and carry them off” (GGS 417). All the violence in war and rape was caused by the senseless pursuit of worldly pleasures and heedlessness of Akāl Purakh. Some other verses represent a terrible portrait of women being raped by soldiers who did not discriminate between Hindus and Muslims who were in their path: “Some lost their five times of prayer, some the time of puja” (GGS 417). Thus, Guru Nanak was deeply anguished over the horrible situation of women. He employed the Punjabi phrase “stripping of one’s honor” to describe the rape of women by the Mughal army. In fact, rape is regarded as a violation of women’s honor in Punjabi culture. For all his sympathy with the suffering people, Guru Nanak is cognizant of the situation of poor women. Their agony reminded him of a religious truth: “that God’s justice cannot be ignored, that the divine order (hukam) cannot be defied, that unrighteousness will be punished” (McLeod 1968, 136). Those who have committed the unpardonable crimes will certainly receive punishment in the future. Here we have a rationale of the normalization of violence from a moral dimension, a process that stresses both free will and retribution themes. Nevertheless, these themes cohere into the higher purpose of divine will, order or command (hukam) (Singh 2019, 4). In order to understand the dynamics of religious violence, we need to understand the human actors who participate in warfare or sporadic acts of violence from time to time. One must comprehend the motivation of those warriors who fight in the battlefield, resulting in the shedding of blood in violent encounters. They may be inspired by the religious ideals of their faith. One may die fighting for “heroic values,” and his death may be constructed in the ideal of martyrdom. Let us examine the Sikh understanding of a “true hero” in the Guru Granth Sahib. The notion of the “hero” who fights for righteousness and one’s “heroic death” may be traced back to the works of Guru Nanak and his successors. There are a number of references to the lifestyle of “true heroes” (sūrā, sūr or sūrbīr) in the text that may point out how one lived heroically. For instance, Guru Nanak addressed a Nath yogi (audhū) about his understanding of a “true hero”: “O audhū, one can become a true hero (sūr) throughout the four ages if one contemplates the divine Word” (GGS 908). Similarly, the third guru, Amar Das (1479–1574) defined the

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“true hero” (sūrā variāmu) as the one “who overcomes within [oneself] the enemy of self-centeredness” (GGS 86). The fifth guru, Arjan (1563–1606) concurred with his predecessors: “The one who destroys [duality] is the true hero” (GGS 237). Again, the fifth Guru proclaims, “One who eradicates his own evil is a brave warrior” (GGS 258). Evidently, the gurus define a true hero in spiritual terms as one who participates in the battle that is fought within oneself against the five evil impulses of lust, anger, covetousness, attachment, and pride (Singh 2012, 6–7). The use and imagery of weapons—the tools of hinsā—offers a rationale about violence in its own right. The rhetoric of weaponry can provide us with a window into the reality of “how instruments of harm were understood within the complex web of social relationships that necessitated them” (Patton 2007, 13). In the Guru Granth Sahib, wielding weapons symbolizes the cultivation of ethical virtues in the internal struggle against worldly temptations. The sword is variously visualized as the divine Word, Name, Guru, God (prabhu kirpān), and Wisdom, but also as the loving devotion: “The Loving devotion (bhagatī) of God is the sword (khaṛag) and armor of the True Guru with which the tormentor death is slain and subdued” (GGS 312). Indeed, the sword of Wisdom (giān khaṛag) is meant to slay duality, the false self, and its desires and delusions. It is in this sense that the scriptural words have the power to act as weapons in the battle, whether it is fought within the self or with external enemies who are a threat to the faith (Singh 2012, 207). Historically, militancy became a part of the Sikh tradition with Guru Arjan’s execution in 1606 under Emperor Jahangir’s orders. This horrible event empowered the Sikhs to stand for the ideals of truth, justice, and fearlessness more boldly. A radical reshaping of the Sikh Panth took place after his martyrdom. His son and successor, Guru Hargobind (1595–1644), signaled the formal process of empowering the Sikh Panth for defense purposes, when he traditionally donned two swords, symbolizing the spiritual (piri) as well as the temporal (miri) investiture. He also built the Akal Takhat (“Throne of the Timeless One”) facing the Harimandir (the present-day “Golden Temple” in Amritsar), which represented the newly assumed role of temporal authority. Under his direct leadership, the Sikh Panth took up arms to protect itself from Mughal hostility. From the Sikh perspective, this new development was not taken at the cost of abandoning the original spiritual base. Rather, it was meant to achieve a balance between temporal and spiritual concerns. Thus, Guru Arjan’s martyrdom became the watershed in Sikh history, contributing to the growth of Sikh community self-consciousness, separatism, and militancy. Indeed, it became the single-most decisive factor for the crystallization of the Sikh Panth (Singh 2019, 8–9). Bhai Gurdas (c. 1558–1636) provides us with the firm evidence of the change that took place under Guru Hargobind. As a loyal disciple of the guru, he defended the new martial response as “hedging the orchard of the Sikh faith with the hardy

Sikhism: Introduction

and thorny kikar tree” (VBG 26: 25). It should, however, be emphasized that Guru Hargobind, who fought to resist the oppression of Mughal authorities, instructed his followers that even when one is fighting in battle, one should do so without any feeling of enmity towards one’s foe. His contemporary, Maubad Zulifkar Ardastani (ca. 1615–1670) recorded in his Persian text Dabistān-i-Mazāhib (“School of Religions”) on the basis of his personal knowledge: “It comes to my mind that swordstriking of the Guru was also by way of teaching, for they call the teacher a Guru (or that Guru means a teacher), and not by way of anger because it is a condemned thing” (Singh 1967, 63). After four skirmishes with Mughal troops, Guru Hargobind withdrew from Amritsar to the Shivālik hills—beyond the jurisdiction of the Mughal state—and Kiratpur became the new center of the mainline Sikh tradition. Relations with the Mughal authorities eased under the seventh and eighth Gurus, Har Rai (1630– 1661) and Harkrishan (1655–1664), although the gurus held court to adjudicate on temporal issues within the Panth and kept a regular force of Sikh horsemen. But the increasing strength of the Sikh movement during the period of the ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675), once again attracted Mughal attention in the 1670s. Guru Tegh Bahadur encouraged his followers to be fearless in their pursuit of a just society: “One who holds none in fear, nor is afraid of anyone, is acknowledged as a person of true wisdom” (GGS 1427). In so doing, he posed a direct challenge to Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), who had imposed Islamic laws and taxes and ordered the replacement of Hindu temples with mosques. Guru Tegh Bahadur was summoned to Delhi, and when he refused to embrace Islam, he was publicly executed on November 11, 1675. If the martyrdom of Guru Arjan had helped to bring the Sikh Panth together, this second martyrdom helped to make human rights and freedom of conscience central to its collective identity (Singh 2019, 10). Most instructively, the Dasam Granth (DG), the secondary scripture of the Sikhs, must be regarded as the principal source for understanding the idea of a just war (dharam yudh) based on Guru Gobind Singh’s reflections of his experience of warfare both against the Mughal authorities and the local Hindu hill chiefs. For him, Akal Purakh is supremely just, exalting the devout followers and punishing the wicked. In the everlasting cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil, Akal Purakh intervenes in human history to restore the balance in favor of those who wage war on behalf of the good. From time to time, particular individuals are chosen to act as agents of God in the struggle against the evil forces. Defining his mission in his autobiographical Bachitar Nāṭak (“Wondrous Drama”) the guru firmly believed that he was such an agent of God: “For this purpose I was born in this world. The divine Guru (gurdev) has sent me to uphold righteousness (dharam), to extend the true faith everywhere and to destroy the evil and sinful” (DG I: 74).

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In his celebrated Jāp Sāhib (“Master Recitation”) Guru Gobind Singh proclaims: “I bow to you, the one who wields weapons that soar and fly. I bow before you, Knower of all, Mother of all the people” (verse 52). Thus, the divine Being is a great warrior who wields weapons of all kinds. But before he uses those weapons, he has the perfect knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Also, during the battle he does not fight savagely with anger but with the nurturing presence of the mother whose aim is to reform her children who have gone astray. On Vaisakhi Day in 1699, he established his army in the Order of the Khalsa (“Pure”) that would retain “its commitment by steadfastly refusing the temptation to seek concealment in times of danger” (McLeod 1997, 105). Most instructively, his army was never to wage war for power, gain, or personal rancor. As McLeod wrote, “The Khalsa was resolutely to uphold justice and to oppose only that which is evil” (McLeod 1997, 105). The final textual source in our discussion relates to a new genre of literature called Rahit-nāmās or “manuals of code of conduct.” These texts provide a rare insight into the evolving nature of the Khalsa code in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In fact, the Rahit grew considerably during the eighteenth century in response to Mughal campaigns and later to the Afghan menace, and it produced injunctions that were clearly aimed at protecting the Khalsa from enemies, who were seen to be Muslims. In this context, we need to closely examine W. H. McLeod’s work on the Rahit-nāmās of the eighteenth century, which provides us with an understanding of early Sikh views on warfare (McLeod 2003, 65–73, 279–325). Of these texts, the Tanakhāh-nāmā is the oldest document written during the period of Guru Gobind Singh, and its earliest extant manuscript is dated 1716 CE. The following relevant extracts from it throw considerable light on the ideology concerning warfare: “He is a Khalsa who in fighting never turns his back.” “He is a Khalsa who slays Muslims (turk).” “He is a Khalsa who triumphs over the five [evil impulses].” “He is a Khalsa who avoids another’s woman.” “He is a Khalsa who fights face to face.” “He is a Khalsa who destroys the oppressor.” “He is a Khalsa who carries weapons.” (McLeod 2003, 284)

McLeod has translated the word turk as “Muslims” because of its entry in the sense of religious identity in North Indian usage. However, any Sikh who reads this translation would be stunned. This is certainly not the contextual meaning of the original passage. It is directly against the teachings of the Sikh gurus to kill anyone

Sikhism: Introduction

because of one’s religious affiliation. Even the Muslim followers of Pir Buddhu Shah fought on behalf of Guru Gobind Singh in the battle of Bhaṅgāṇī. In fact, the word turk in the Rahit-nāmās and early Sikh literature refers to an “invader” or an “oppressor.” In almost all cases, turk or turkaṛā refers to the Mughal rulers of the day or to Afghan invaders, although neither of these groups were of Turkic ethnic origin. They were perceived to be oppressors and hence it was the fundamental duty of the Khalsa to “slay oppressors” (Singh 2012, 217). In sum, there is a connection between Sikh sacred sources and the justification of militant acts as divinely mandated. Indeed, scriptural words can act as weapons to motivate people to battle against the temptations in the mind. In wars or other forms of collective violence, these words do inspire the killing of unjust and ruthless enemies who pose a danger to the survival of the faith. Not surprisingly, militant interpretation of these texts has been seminal in generating a culture of violence in different historical periods. Further, the sword is central to the teachings and example of Guru Gobind Singh, and the text of the Zafarnāmā (verse 22) is explicit in declaring that it may be drawn only in defense of righteousness (dharam) and only when all other means of peaceful negotiations have failed. In other words, there is no sanction for indiscriminate, unrelenting, and insatiable violence in the Sikh tradition. In the face of tyranny, however, justice can be defended and maintained only through sacrifices. Like all religious traditions, Sikhism has its own share of violence in its history, especially in times of nationalistic fervor. In fact, acts of violence or nonviolence are social phenomena that take place at particular historical junctures. They cannot be described as essential features of any community. Pashaura Singh FURTHER READING Bhogal, Balbinder Singh. 2007. “Text as Sword.” In John R. Hinnells and Richard King, eds. Religion and Violence in South Asia, 107–35. London: Routledge. Mandair, Navdeep. 2009. “An Approximate Difference.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 5, no. 2: 85–101. McLeod, W. H. 1968. Guru Nanak and the Sikh Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McLeod, W. H. 1997. Sikhism. London: Penguin. McLeod, W. H. 2003. Sikhs of the Khalsa. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Patton, Laurie L. 2007. “Telling Stories about Harm.” In John R. Hinnells and Richard King, ed. Religion and Violence in South Asia, 11–40. London: Routledge. Rinehart, Robin. 2011. Debating the Dasam Granth. New York and Oxford: Oxford ­University Press. Singh, Ganda, trans. 1967. “Nanak-Panthis.” The Panjab Past and Present I. Patiala: ­Punjabi University.

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Religious Violence Today Singh, Khushwant. 1999 (1963). A History of the Sikhs, Vol. 1: 1469–1839. New Delhi: Oxford University ­Press​.­ Singh, Pashaura. 2003. “Sikhism.” In International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, 1511–15. New York and Farmington Hills: Macmillan Reference USA and Thomson & Gale Group. Singh, Pashaura. 2012. “Words as Weapons: Theory and Practice of a Righteous War (Dharam Yudh) in Sikh Texts.” In John Renard, ed. Fighting Words: Religion, Violence, and the Interpretation of Sacred Texts, 200–25. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2014. “New Directions in Sikh Studies.” In Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 625–43. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2019. “How Avoiding the Religion-Politics Divide Plays Out in Sikh Politics.” Religions 10, no. 296: 1015024. Wallace, Paul. 2011. “Sikh Militancy and Non-Violence.” In Pashaura Singh, ed. Sikhism in Global Context, 85–101. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

BABBAR KHALSA INTERNATIONAL The Babbar Khalsa International is considered the most radical and fierce faction of Sikh separatists who advocate for the creation of a Sikh sovereign state, Khalistan. This group was the resurgence of the Babbar Akalis of the 1920s. The Babbar Akali Movement was formed as an offshoot of the Sikh political party known as the Akali Dal. The purpose of these revolutionaries was to regain the management of Punjab’s gurdwaras, or Sikh places of worship, and revolt against the injustices occurring in British India (Nijjar 1987). Unlike the Akali Dal, Babbar Akalis used violent methods to achieve their goal, as Sikhs were mercilessly persecuted during the Jallianwala Bagh (1919) and the Nankana Sahib (1921) massacres. However, the movement was eliminated in a matter of years, as the British government infiltrated the Babbar Akalis, which led to the deaths and prosecutions of several high-ranking members. The formation of Babbar Khalsa can be traced backed to 1977, when Bhai Fauja Singh of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha (group of musicians) organized camps, where they focused on two key concepts of Sikhism: rahit (Sikh code of conduct) and shastar vidiya (martial arts and art of war). Hundreds of Sikhs attended Bhai Fauja Singh’s camp and grew fond of the leader. Concurrently, a group known as Nirankaris was committing blasphemy against Sikhism and its gurus, which became a concern for Sikhs. On April 13, 1978, Bhai Fauja Singh led Sikhs in a peaceful protest to a Nirankari public assembly. The Sikhs were met with force, resulting in the death of thirteen Sikhs, including Bhai Fauja Singh. During his funeral, close associates and prominent Babbar Khalsa leaders, such as Sukhdev Singh Babbar (1955–1992), Wadhawa Singh

Sikhism: Babbar Khalsa International

Babbar, Tarsem Singh Babbar (d. 1993), Kulwant Singh (commonly known as Mengha Singh Babbar) (1957–1984), Mehal Singh Babbar, Manmohan Singh Babbar (1958–1985), and twenty-five other Singhs made a promise to go through legal channels to attain justice, and, if that failed, they would avenge the death of the thirteen Sikhs. This group requested the leader of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha, Ram Singh, to file official charges with the Amritsar Court. From the attack, sixtytwo Nirankaris, including the head of the sect, Gurbachan Singh, were accused of the killings. All were acquitted on the grounds that they acted in self-defense. One of the earliest acts by the Babbar Khalsa was the murder of Nirankari Shaadi Lal by Sukhdev Singh and Kulwant Singh Nagoke (d. 1982), before Talwinder Singh Parmar (1944–1992) had reached India. Upon his arrival from Canada, Parmar went from village to village to spread the message of the unjust treatment of Sikhs and held amrit sanchars (baptism ceremonies). In 1980, following the assassination of Gurbachan Singh and thirty-five of his followers, the central government became aware that the Babbar Khalsa was behind the attacks on the Nirankaris. As arrest warrants were issued, many individuals fled to the jungles in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In 1981, the group was divided between those who returned to Punjab to continue the campaign and those who felt the need to escape India. Sukhdev Singh was elected to be the overall leader of Babbar Khalsa, with Parmar leading those in the diaspora, primarily in Canada (Mahmood 1996, 156). Sukhdev Singh made it clear to the entire organization that members abroad must abide by the laws of those countries, and unlawful action would only transpire in India, where there was no enforcement of the regulations. Babbar Khalsa men fought side by side with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale against the Indian Army’s attack on the Golden Temple in 1984. In fact, the first martyr of the attack was Mengha Singh Babbar. In post-1984 India, the organization targeted individuals who were complicit in the Golden Temple attack and the anti-Sikh genocide carried out by the Punjab police, eliminating many high-ranking police officials and politicians, such as then Punjab chief minister, Beant Singh. Joyce Pettigrew noted that despite being involved in a violent uprising against the government throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Babbar Khalsa members were good citizens and Sikhs (Pettigrew 1995, 73). As a result of the high tensions between the government and separatists, the Babbar Khalsa was labeled as a terrorist group in India, which forced most members to flee to Pakistan (and other countries). The Indian government infiltrated the organization, which led to the death of its president, Sukhdev Singh, in 1992. His death resulted in a decrease of activities and slowly to the demise of Babbar Khalsa in India. The organization depended on its members in the diaspora to continue its existence. The group has established branches in Australia, the United Kingdom,

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France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, the United States, and Pakistan. Under the command of Sukhdev Singh, members in the diaspora took a nonviolent approach by supporting the movement monetarily and initiating conversations with courts and governments. Members are still frequently arrested, including the Punjab chief minister’s murderer, Jagtar Singh Tara, in 2015. The South Asian Terrorism Portal reported that the Babbar Khalsa is now headed by Wadhawa Singh. Along with many other wanted members, Singh is said to be in Pakistan (“International” 2017). The New York Times recognized the Babbar Khalsa International as “the best armed, most feared and most powerful of dozens of the militant groups in Punjab State that are fighting for an independent state for Sikhs, known as Khalistan” (Hazarika 1992). Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation); Khalistan; Persecution of Sikhs (India) FURTHER READING Hazarika, Sanjoy. 1992 “Punjab Violence Eases as Police Claim Successes.” The New York Times, August 31, 1992. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1992​/­08​/­31​/­world​/­punjab​ -­violence​-­eases​-­as​-­police​-­claim​-­successes​.­html. Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 1996, Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Nijjar, B. S. 1987. History of the Babbar Akalis. Jalandhar: ABS Publications. Pettigrew, Joyce. 1995. The Sikhs of Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence. New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd. South Asian Terrorism Portal. 2017. “Incidents and Statements Involving Babbar Khalsa International: 2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2005–2012.” Institute for Conflict Management. ­https://​­www​.­satp​.­org​/­satporgtp​/­countries​/­india​/­states​/­punjab​/­terrorist​_outfits​/­BKI​ .­html.

BHINDRANWALE, JARNAIL SINGH(1947–1984) Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–1984) was one of the most influential Sikh leaders, preachers, and activists in the twentieth century. He was extremely charismatic and captivating, amassing a huge following and an almost superhuman status. He has been admired by Sikhs through his lifetime and into the present. Bhindranwale was born in the village of Rode (Moga District of Punjab) in 1947. As a child, he was sent to Damdami Taksal, the prestigious school for Sikh instruction. This school was founded by Guru Gobind Singh over three hundred

Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh

years ago in a place now known as Damdama Sahib. Taksal translates to “mint” in Punjabi, and, just as a mint presses perfect coins, Sikhs believe Taksal produces perfect Sikhs. Following the death of his teacher, Bhindranwale was elected to lead Damdami Taksal in 1977. With the power that came from the leadership, Bhindranwale became extremely active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He visited villages across Punjab to spread the message of Sikhism. Bhindranwale rose to fame at a time when Sikhs did not have a leader who engaged with the community. An avid supporter of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), he advocated for resistance against the cultural change that plagued Punjab, from the drug epidemic to the increasingly secular climate in politics. He encouraged all to become amritdhari (baptized) Sikhs and refrain from alcohol and drugs and men to adorn a turban and beard. In a setting where individuals from a lower caste were often ostracized, Bhindranwale regarded them as equals; other Sikh leaders considered them equals but never showed it in any tangible way (Singh 1999: 324–25). Although his political maneuvers may have seemed calculated, Bhindranwale expressed no interest in a political career and preferred to be recognized as a religious reformer. Following the acquittal of the Nirankaris who had been complicit in the 1978 clash, Bhindranwale publicly accused Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of being involved, which jump-started his militancy and political activism (Sandhu 1997, 21). Over time, he shifted his rhetoric away from the Nirankaris and began focusing on the central government for its lack of action in Punjab and the continuing hardships of Sikhs. Bhindranwale denounced the Indian government and the media, which he viewed as spreading Hindu nationalism and oppression of Sikhism. One of the biggest critics of both Sikhs and Bhindranwale was Lala Jagat Narain, proprietor of several newspapers in Punjab, including Punjab Kesari (Tully and Jacob 2006, 66). Narain stood as a witness on behalf of the Nirankaris, which helped with their acquittal. His papers played a monumental role in inciting hatred between Hindus and Sikhs. Narain was assassinated on September 9, 1981, which led to Bhindranwale’s arrest. He was never prosecuted and was eventually released. His short stint in prison helped his popularity. Bhindranwale began captivating the masses as he pushed for the economic and religious freedom of Punjabi Sikhs. In 1982, he launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha, which were peaceful protests to implement the ASR of 1973. The peaceful movement attracted thousands of Sikhs. Its success frightened Hindu leaders, as thousands of Sikhs were arrested and several hundred were killed. These acts legitimized Bhindranwale’s claim about the oppression and unfair treatment of Sikhs as he began carrying heavier militant overtones. One specific case that angered Bhindranwale was the treatment of Manjit Singh (also known as Musibat Singh). On August 20, 1982, Singh hijacked an airplane and landed it in Amritsar. He had already surrendered to the police but

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was killed. Bhindranwale responded that following the arrest of Indira Gandhi in 1978, two brothers hijacked a plane, demanding her immediate release. Once Gandhi returned to power, she rewarded the brothers by inserting them into the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly (Darshi 2007, 68). This clear distinction highlighted Bhindranwale’s message, and his momentum continued. The central government and Bhindranwale’s enemies attempted to suppress the movement and his popularity. As rumors about him secretly being an agent or traitor began, he felt the need to address them. Bhindranwale was already a widely known figure, and the controversy made him more fascinating to the public. Discrimination and violent attacks against Sikhs continued. Government officials pressured Indira Gandhi to take action against Bhindranwale and eradicate the movement. Gandhi agreed and began planning a military operation against the Sikhs, Operation Blue Star. On December 15, 1983, Bhindranwale moved to the religious sanctuary of the Akal Takht, the administrative building within the Golden Temple complex. In early June, 1984, the Indian Army attacked the Golden Temple, where Bhindranwale and a group of militants had been stockpiling weapons, waiting for the inevitable. For over two days, the two sides exchanged gunfire, before army tanks entered the Temple grounds at the end of the day on June 5. Bhindranwale and the Sikh separatists were extremely outnumbered and outgunned. On June 6, Bhindranwale told his compatriots, “Baba Deep Singh [a Sikh hero believed to have fought the Afghans with his head cut off] came so far to give his head at this place, and I am privileged to be able to give mine right here” (Mahmood 1996, 40). A few moments later, Bhindranwale was killed, and the army successfully took control of the Golden Temple complex. Gupta (1984, 92) noted that many of Bhindranwale’s fellow militants who had been captured attempted to touch his feet as he lay dead near the main entrance of the Akal Takht. Sikhs around the world were outraged that the sanctity of the Golden Temple had been violated, and many mourned the loss of Bhindranwale. In many circles, he is considered to be the greatest Sikh general of the twentieth century and is dubbed a martyr. Despite never stating whether he was for or against Khalistan, Bhindranwale declared that its foundation stone will be laid the moment the Indian Army sets foot inside the Golden Temple Complex. In 2018, a large gurdwara was built in Bhindranwale’s hometown of Rode (Moga, Punjab) in his honor. Although many locals shy away from the Khalistan movement, they embrace and appreciate the work that Bhindranwale did. Whether viewing Bhindranwale through a negative or positive lens, he has cemented his legacy as one of the most prominent figures in Sikh history. Sikhs from around the world helped fund the gurdwara in his memory, which highlighted the impact he had. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal

Sikhism: Dal Khalsa

See also: Sikhism: Dal Khalsa; International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation); Khalistan; Martyrdom; Operation Blue Star (1984); Persecution of Sikhs (India); Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999) FURTHER READING Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh. 1999. Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations with Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Translated by Ranbir Singh Sandhu. Dublin: Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation. Darshi, A. R. 2007. The Gallant Defender. Amritsar: B Chattar Singh Jiwan Singh. Gupta, Shekhar. 1984. “Blood, Sweat and Tears.” In Amarjit Kaur ed. The Punjab Story, 73–101. New Delhi: Roli Books International. Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 1996. Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sandhu, Ranbir S. 1997. Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale—Life, Mission and Martyrdom. Dublin: Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation. Singh, Khushwant. 1999. A History of Sikhs. 2nd ed., Vol. II. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Tully, Mark, and Satish Jacob. 2006. Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle. New Delhi: Rupa Co.

DAL KHALSA The Dal Khalsa (Army of the Pure) is a pro-Khalistani group that formed after the death of thirteen Sikhs at the hands of the Nirankaris in 1978. It strongly aligned itself with Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who had a large following among the Sikh population (Grewal 2006, 101). The Dal Khalsa shared both the name and goal of an eighteenth-century Sikh military confederation. At a time when the Mughal Empire had openly waged war against the Sikhs, smaller groups, called misls, formed to protect themselves. These misls were spread throughout Punjab and continued to disrupt the government of Zakariya Khan, the governor of Lahore at the time. Nawab Kapur Singh (1697–1753) rose through the ranks and unified all Sikhs under the banner of Dal Khalsa. This eventually led Sikhs to establish the Sikh Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh over two centuries later and the Dal Khalsa was disbanded. It took the fall of the Sikh Empire, British Raj, the Partition of Punjab, and the threat of another oppressive government to revive the group. The modern version of the Dal Khalsa brought independent Khalistani units together for a common cause (Mahmood 1996, 108). Before gaining the support of and alliance with Bhindranwale, which undoubtedly expanded its support base overnight, Dal Khalsa was only popular among limited lower-caste yet educated, urban Sikhs (Chima 2010, 47). The close connection with Bhindranwale

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led many members of the Dal Khalsa to fight beside him during the Indian government’s attack on Amritsar. According to Tully and Jacob, the modern version of Dal Khalsa was formed in 1978 by Giani Zail Singh, who became the seventh president of India, and Sanjay Gandhi, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son, for the purpose of interfering with Akali Dal’s support base and operations (Tully and Jacob 2006, 60). The Akali Dal was the major Sikh political party of the time. Dal Khalsa’s ultimate goal was to divide the Sikh vote and boost the Congress Party’s chances to win more seats in government. With Bhindranwale rising to fame following the Nirankari clash, the party promoted him. There seems to be a bit of controversy with Bhindranwale’s actual connection with the party as he stated multiple times that he was a man of religion and not a politician. Regardless of his stance, Dal Khalsa was always considered to be Bhindranwale’s party. According to Chima (2010, 47), the plan of attack was to make the Akali Dal appear weak and incompetent. Zail Singh eventually admitted to forming Dal Khalsa, though he claimed it was not because of his desire to see the Congress Party defeat Akali Dal but his desire to enter into Gurdwara politics (Grewal 2006). Mahmood (1996, 82) argues that Dal Khalsa was formed by a Lahore plane hijacker, Gajinder Singh, for the purpose of freeing the Sikhs from an oppressive, Hindu-majority government (Chima 2010, 47). On September 29, 1981, five members of Dal Khalsa, led by Gajinder Singh, hijacked an Indian Airlines plane that was flying from New Delhi to Srinagar (Jammu and Kashmir). In an interview, Singh stated that he wanted the government of India to release “a number of activists . . . who had been detained on charges of insulting India’s Constitution” (Kaufman 1981). The hijackers also demanded the release of Bhindranwale, who had been arrested in connection with the murder of Sikh separatist critic, Lala Jagat Narain. The plane was diverted to Lahore, where all five members were arrested by Pakistani officials. There were no casualties in the incident. The Dal Khalsa accused the government of India of being fraudulent by claiming to support secularism, when it was actually Hindutva, or the hegemony of Hindus (Oberoi 2008, 151–52). Mahmood’s view of Gajinder Singh forming Dal Khalsa continues to be the dominant and accepted view, especially amongst Sikhs. During the spring and summer of 1982, several gurdwaras were desecrated throughout Punjab as backlash for two severed cow heads that were placed outside a Hindu temple in Amritsar. A former member of Dal Khalsa, Jaswant Singh Thekedar, was angered by the government’s failure to recognize Amritsar as a holy city. Dal Khalsa reported that Hindu organizations had fought against banning tobacco from Amritsar and that was what drove Thekedar to commit cow slaughter, which is prohibited by the Hindu religion and Indian law. Fearing prosecution, he fled to the United Kingdom in 1983. The president of the Dal Khalsa disapproved of

Sikhism: Dal Khalsa

these actions and expelled him for “anti-party” activities (Walia 2005). Over the next few weeks, several riots erupted, cigarettes were found at gurdwaras, and numerous Guru Granth Sahib birs (Sikhs’ eternal guru and holy scripture) were found burned. Up until these Hindu-Sikh clashes, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi believed that there were not any Sikh separatists in India. This action taken by Thekedar led the government of India to ban Dal Khalsa in May 1982 (New York Times 1982). Similar to other pro-Khalistani groups, such as the All India Sikh Student Federation (AISSF), Dal Khalsa has become more peaceful, committing legal actions as opposed to violence since the ban was lifted. Sikhs in the diaspora rallied to join the group as the first international branch was established in the United Kingdom. The organization continues to fight for Sikh equality, with reports of leaders sending a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh regarding constitutional and legal discrimination (Express News Service 2010). On the thirty-first anniversary of the Golden Temple attack, Dal Khalsa UK, along with Council of Khalistan and Akali Dal UK, delivered a similar letter to the U.K. prime minister’s residence, urging the United Kingdom to reconsider its foreign policy toward India (Srai 2015). Thackrah (2004) reported that Dal Khalsa has been active in Pakistan and Germany as well. The Dal Khalsa continues to work within the structures to achieve their original goal of Khalistan. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Hinduism: Hindutva; Sikhism: Babbar Khalsa International; Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation); Khalistan FURTHER READING Chima, Jugdep. 2010. The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Express News Service. 2010. “Dal Khalsa: Give Sikhs Right of Self-Determination.” The Indian Express. ­https://​­indianexpress​.­com​/­article​/­cities​/­chandigarh​/­dal​-­khalsa​-­give​ -­sikhs​-­right​-­of​-­selfdetermination​/. Grewal, Gurdev. 2006. The Searching Eye: An Insider Looks at the Punjab Crisis. New Delhi: Rupa Co. Kaufman, Michael. 1981. “Sikh Separatists Hijack Indian Jetliner to Pakistan.” The New York Times. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­1981​/­09​/­30​/­world​/­sikh​-­separatists​-­hijack​ -­indian​-­jetliner​-­to​-­pakistan​.­html. Mahmood, Cynthia. 1996. Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. The New York Times. 1982. “India Seizes 350 After Religious Clashes.” ­https://​­www​ .­nytimes​.­com​/­1982​/­05​/­04​/­world​/­india​-­seizes​-­350​-­after​-­religious​-­clashes​.­html.

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Religious Violence Today Oberoi, Harjot. 2008. “Sikh Fundamentalism: Translating History into Theory.” In Aakash Singh and Silika Mohapatra eds. Indian Political Thought: A Reader. New York: Routledge. Srai, Ranjit S. 2015. “31 Years Amritsar Massacre 1984: UK Sikhs and Kashmiris Unite to Condemn Indian Aggression and to Reaffirm Solidarity on Freedom Agenda.” Sikh Siyasat News. ­https://​­sikhsiyasat​.­net​/­2015​/­06​/­08​/­uk​-­sikhs​-­and​-­kashmiris​-­unite​-­to​ -­condemn​-­indian​-­agression​/. Thackrah, John Richard. 2004. Dictionary of Terrorism, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. Tully, Mark, and Satish Jacob. 2006. Amritsar: Mrs. Gandhi’s Last Battle. New Delhi: Rupa Co. Walia, Varinder. 2005. “Dal Khalsa Leader Thekedar Shot at in UK.” Tribune India. ­https://​ ­www​.­tribuneindia​.­com​/­2005​/­20050815​/­punjab1​.­htm.

GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION(SIKHISM) For centuries, men have been seen as superior to women and have been dictating the way women lived their lives since the beginning of time, including the way they dress, interact, speak, feel, and so forth. Evidence of patriarchy can be found in Punjabi culture and has polluted the minds of Sikhs everywhere. Dowry, female infanticide, sati (the ritual of the burning of a woman on her husband’s funeral pyre), and the objectification of women has become normal in everyday thoughts and language (although this is not exclusive to this culture). Negative views of women are portrayed through media and in everyday life, which has taken a front seat to the gurus’ philosophies of equity and equality. Women are treated like slaves, property, or burdens on Sikh families, when they were meant to be queens and warriors, just as the gurus continuously stated. Guru Nanak dedicates an entire salok to discuss the importance of women, when he wrote: We are conceived in the woman’s womb and we grow in it. We are engaged to women and we wed them. Through the woman’s cooperation new generations are born. If one woman dies, we seek another; without the woman there can be no bond. Why call her bad who gives birth to rajas? The woman herself is born of the woman, and none comes into this world without the woman; Nanak, the true one alone is independent of the woman. (GGS 473, cited in Jakobsh 2003, 5)

Guru Nanak makes it unequivocally clear with this salok that women are crucial for the success of society and deserve to be seen as equals. There is strong evidence that suggests that women played an integral part in Sikhism. Bebe Nanaki, Guru Nanak’s elder sister, served as an inspiration to him as he began challenging the societal norms that classified women as second-class citizens. McLeod wrote that Guru Nanak’s ideology was far more advanced than

Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation

the society surrounding him, and this was carried on to the later gurus (McLeod 2007, 192). Guru Amardas (the third Sikh guru) directly attacked the absurdity of the practice of sati, in which widows burned themselves alive following their husbands’ deaths, as they were deemed useless. Some may argue that the absence of female Sikh gurus serves as evidence of a patriarchal society, but McLeod refutes that, a female guru would not have been effective, as the misogynistic society of the time would not have deemed her important (McLeod 2007, 193). Jakobsh notes that, despite not holding the position of guru, Bibi Bhani, Guru Amardas’s daughter, served as his economic successor, which put her in a leadership position among the elite class (Jakobsh 2003, 30–31). In the following years, Mata Sundri guided the Khalsa politically and spiritually for roughly forty years following the death of Guru Gobind Singh (Gill 1995). Other than Guru Nanak, Mata Sundri led the Sikhs longer than any guru. The inclusion of female leaders during the guru’s era served as an example to future generations that men and women should be treated equally. Feminism goes hand in hand with Sikhism. The gurus (1469–1708) were trailblazers for women’s rights, but somewhere along the way, their message was muddied in practice by society. Despite the gurus denouncing acts such as dowry and female infanticide and elevated women, Sikhs began to drift away from these messages. Jakobsh notes that there were a higher number of dowries and female infanticides in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Jakobsh 2003, 71); however, these problems continue to affect the current Sikh society. Contemporary Sikh institutions and households have been influenced by patriarchal societies. as they have become increasingly male dominated. The present-day Sikh Panth imposes subordination on women. Gender inequality continues to plague Sikh households to this day. It was this ideology that the gurus attempted to destroy by giving women leadership roles and respect in the community. Women, such as Bebe Nanaki, Bibi Bhani, and Mata Sundri, carried significant roles in the gurus’ lives and were always treated as equals. The Sikh gurus preached the message of equality, but, in reality, these practices have rarely been followed. The media and various cultures have helped prevent the rise of women and perpetuate the idea that females are the weaker sex, when, in reality, no functioning society has ever progressed to its true potential without the inclusion of women. It is of the utmost importance for historians to consider the exclusion of women from historical texts and attempt to close this gap and create a more inclusive narrative that can be more representative of what really occurred in the past. With its historical backing in Sikhism, Sikhs across the nation have rallied to support fellow feminists. From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, Sikhs were an active part of the Women’s March and #MeToo movement. Sikh women are

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fighting to be seen as equals, as the gurus wanted. Today, Sikh women, such as Valarie Kaur, are becoming leaders in the community and are slowly gaining respect. The key is to revert to the gurus’ philosophy, which will elevate the status of women. One of the key teachings of the gurus is to fight for equality, justice, and against the oppression of any minority. This mentality has translated to certain Sikhs respecting and fighting for LGBTQ+ rights; however, there is a divide. There is a full range of views, from those completely against the LGBTQ+ community to those who completely accept it and everywhere in between. Although the gurus taught Sikhs to view everyone as one and not to discriminate, the Sikh Rahit Maryada (Code of Conduct) clearly states that an Anand Karaj (Sikh marriage ceremony) takes place between a Sikh man and woman. Sikhs see the body as a gift from God, which is why they are not to alter their bodies in any way (i.e., cutting of their kes, or hair; tattoos; and body piercings). If one was to change his or her body or sexuality in any sense, it can be taken as a sign that God made a mistake, which is why many Sikhs are against transsexuality. There is an unclear line that many Sikhs today face, as the religion preaches equality among all but also has a strict code of conduct that goes against much of what the LGBTQ+ community represents. There are few such groups in the diaspora. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Khalsa; Sikh Activists FURTHER READING Gill, M. K. 1995. The Role and Status of Women in Sikhism. Delhi: National Book Shop. Jakobsh, Doris. 2003. Relocating Gender in Sikh History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. McLeod, W. H. 2007. Essays in Sikh History, Tradition, and Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

GHADR MOVEMENT Throughout the history of India, the fight to capture India has always come from outside its border. The Sikhs were a key part of protecting India from foreign invaders, and this applied when the British came as well. Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Hardinge described Sikhs as Britain’s “bravest and most warlike and most disruptive enemy in Asia” (James 1997, 106). Due to this, the British wanted to disperse the Sikh Army. Although the British were able to contain a fight for freedom within India’s borders, they were subjected to the first fight for freedom from abroad. Led

Sikhism: Ghadr Movement

by a majority of Sikhs, a group of passionate Indians (Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims) from the United States decided to take back their homeland. In 1913, in Astoria, Oregon, the Ghadr Party was created. Although formed in Oregon, the Ghadr Party trickled down to California and made the Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco its main headquarters. The main members of the Ghadr Party included students, labor workers, and scholars. At the Yugantar Ashram, the Ghadr Party purchased a printing press and began advertising itself and its cause. The Ghadr Press reached thousands of revolutionaries across the world through “Ghadr,” “Ghadr di Gunj,” “Shamsher-i-Khalsa,” and other seditious literature. These newspapers made their way to Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Canada, Japan, and many other nations. Due to its influence on other immigrants across the globe, in June 1914, British India prohibited the “Ghadr” and “Ghadr di Gunj” from entering British India. The government had the power to punish those in possession of the literature from California (Singh and Singh 1988). Despite being banned from British India, the Ghadrites continued to attempt to encourage Indians to return home and fight for freedom. In a 1914 issue of the Ghadr, the following wanted ad was released: Wanted: Enthusiastic and heroic soldiers for organizing Ghadr in Hindustan Remuneration: Death Reward: Martyrdom Pension: Freedom Field of Work: Hindustan

After taking a year to set the stage, on August 4, 1914, the revolutionaries in San Francisco declared open war against Britain. On that day, the Ghadr newspaper released an article, “The Trumpet of War: Commencement of the Great War.” In this issue, the Ghadr Party targeted Indian immigrants to spread the word that “the opportunity that [they] have been searching for years has come, that is, the Trumpet of War has sounded; the war has started; [that they] lie sleeping here.” The Ghadr Party used the start of World War I to its advantage, as Europe was divided into two factions, and Britain’s army was preoccupied with fighting against Germany. Therefore, the Ghadr Party saw this as their golden opportunity to rid India of the white troops. Within a few weeks of the declaration of war, Ghadrites in the United States were made aware that fellow Indians would be sent to fight Germany. In the August 18th issue of the Ghadr newspaper, they urged fellow Indians to understand how cunning the British were by sending Sikhs, Rajputs, and other Indians to fight Germans in order to keep India enslaved. In order to save more Indians from being slain, the Ghadrites went against the United States’ ally (Britain) and announced

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their alliance with the Germans as a result of their common enemy. These messages were relayed to Indians across the globe, and thousands were ready to head back to British India for the fight for freedom. Britain was busy fighting against Germany in a bloody war across Europe, and this was the opportunity Indians abroad were looking for in hopes of freeing India from the hands of the British government. The push for allegiance with Germany and hatred toward Britain continued over the weeks. Over the next several months, the call to fight for freedom was answered by eight thousand individuals, who sailed back to their homeland (Gopal 1967, 223). Ghadr leaders made clear what they were supposed to do, as they stated, “Your duty is clear. Go to India. Stir up rebellion in every corner of the country. Rob the wealthy and show mercy to the poor. In this way gain universal sympathy. Arms will be provided you on arrival in India. Failing this, you must ransack the police stations for rifles” (Singh 2005). Although they gained a tremendous amount of momentum, they were unable to succeed due to British spies, who infiltrated the movement. Despite the Indians’ failing, the British government was worried about the Ghadr activists and stated. “It is evident that the Ghadr movement in the Punjab came within an ace of causing widespread bloodshed” (East Indian Sedition Committee 1918). The resilience and determination shown by Sikhs has constantly surprised their enemies. The Ghadr Revolution was a complex, yet simple, movement. It was one of the first major attempts to free India from British rule and influenced many revolutions and revolutionaries. Many former members of the Ghadr joined other movements, including the Babbar Akali in the 1920s, which was the primary influence for the Babbar Khalsa. Certain individuals involved in the Ghadr also served as crucial figures in history. Udham Singh, the assassin of Governor Dwyer in 1942, recognized Bhagat Singh as his hero, but Bhagat Singh may have never sought revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh if it were not for Kartar Singh Sarabha (1896–1915). Sarabha served as the editor of the Ghadr Press in San Francisco and led several dacoities across British India before being hung to death at the young age of nineteen. In recent times, the community continues to hold seminars, conferences, and events in honor of the Ghadr Party. On the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the party, a sign was resurrected in Astoria. Stockton Gurdwara, known as the historical gurdwara of the Ghadr Party, held a series of conferences and events between 2012 and 2015. The gurdwara also has a special museum exhibition, displaying the original Ghadr Party printing press. In 2015, there was a rise in sacrilege, which forced Sikhs to hold the first Sarbat Khalsa (deliberative assembly) since 1986. Similar to how Sarabha urged fellow revolutionaries to travel from California back to India to fight against a tyrannical government, Stockton Gurdwara decided to send representatives to India for Sarbat Khalsa. The

Sikhism: Granth-Panth

Ghadr has influenced thousands of diasporic Sikhs to continue fighting an oppressive government from abroad. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Babbar Khalsa International; Khalistan FURTHER READING East Indian Sedition Committee. 1918. Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate Revolutionary Conspiracies in India. London: H.M. Stationery Office. Ghadr. 1914a. “The Trumpet of War: Commencement of the Great War.” August 4, 1914. San Bruno: National Archives and Records Administration. Ghadr. 1914b. “Wake, O Indians! Wake!” August 18, 1914. San Bruno: National Archives and Records Administration. Gopal, Ram. 1967. How India Struggled for Freedom. Bombay: The Somaiya Trust. James, Lawrence. 1997. Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. San Francisco Call. 1907. “White Workmen Protest against Hindu Toilers.” November 15, 1907. Berkeley: Bancroft Library. Siddiqui, S. 2010. “Wasted Heroism: Ghadar Propaganda and the Human Cost of Rebellion.” Ex Post Facto: Journal of the History Students at San Francisco State University, Volume XIX. ­https://​­history​.­sfsu​.­edu​/­sites​/­default​/­files​/­EPF​/­2010​_S​.%­20Siddiqui​.­pdf. Singh, Khushwant. 2005. A History of the Sikhs, Vol. 2: 1839–2004. New York: Oxford University Press. Singh, Nahar, and Kirpal Singh, eds. 1988. Struggle for Free Hindustan: Calendar of Political Events, 1907–1918, Vol. 2, Part 1. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press.

GRANTH-PANTH The phrase Granth-Panth literally refers to the relationship between the scripture and the community. In the Sikh tradition, however, it has a special meaning of the twin doctrine of Guru-Granth and Guru-Panth, signifying the presence of the “guru” within the scripture and the collective body of the believers. This doctrine is at the heart of the notion of “authority” within the Sikh Panth. During the period of ten personal gurus, from Guru Nanak (1469–1539) through Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708), authority lay with each one of them. The tenth guru terminated the line of personal gurus, before he passed away in 1708 and invested the Sikh scripture and the Sikh Panth with the authority of the guru. Thus the twin doctrine of Guru-Granth and Guru-Panth came into being, implying that Sikhs can collectively take any decision in the light of the teachings of the Sikh scripture. Such a

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decision will be known as gurmatā (“Guru’s intention”) that will have the approval of the guru. Sikhs normally refer to their scripture as the Guru Granth Sahib (“Honorable Scripture Guru”). In so doing, they acknowledge their faith in the scripture as the successor to Guru Gobind Singh, with the same status, authority, and functions, both in terms of personal piety and of collective identity, as any of the ten personal gurus. Thus, Guru Granth Sahib has become the perennial source of divine guidance for Sikhs, and it is treated with the most profound respect. The Guru Granth Sahib is more authoritative than the secondary Sikh scripture, the Dasam Granth, which contains the works attributed to the tenth (dasam) guru, Gobind Singh. It is also the authoritative basis of the most important Sikh doctrines, rituals, and social and ethical positions. Simply to see the Guru Granth Sahib or to hear a sentence read aloud from it, makes Sikhs feel as though they are in the presence of something sacred (Singh 2008, 671). The Sikhs respected each of the personal gurus in the lineage of Guru Nanak as an incarnate embodiment of the eternal guru. From these gurus came the devotional compositions compiled in the Sikh scripture. Thus, the doctrine developed that the bāṇī (“divine Word”) of the gurus as a group was a textual, literary embodiment of the guru. In this context, Guru Gobind Singh’s dialogue with Bhai Nand Lal in Praśan-uttar, a composition in Punjabi verse, reflects this doctrine as it developed during the period of the gurus. In it, the Guru declares: “Listen attentively, Nand Lal, and I shall explain. I am manifested in three ways: the formless or invisible (nirguṇ), the material or visible (sarguṇ), and the divine Word (gur-śsabad) . . . The second is the sacred scripture, the Granth. This you must accept as an actual part of me, treating its letters as the hairs of my body. This is truly so. “Sikhs who wish to see the Guru will do so when they come to the Granth. . . . He who wishes to converse with me should read or hear the Granth and reflect on what it says. He who wishes to hear any words should attentively read or hear the Granth. Acknowledge the Granth as my visible presence, rejecting the notion that it is other than me.” (McLeod 1989, 53)

The doctrine of Guru-Granth, holding the text to be the ongoing embodiment of the personal guru, has remained authoritative for the Sikh community. This doctrine has functioned to heighten respect for the Guru Granth Sahib, particularly for the profoundly spiritual hymns of the gurus contained within. Sikhs have always called their community the Panth. Literally, the word panth (“path” or “way”) refers to a distinctive body of belief or the following of a particular religious leader. For Sikhs, it simply means “the Sikh community.” Originally, the first Sikh families who gathered around Guru Nanak at Kartārpur formed the

Sikhism: Granth-Panth

nucleus of the Gurmukh Panth (“The Path of the Guru-oriented”), the community who followed his path to liberation from self-centeredness (haumai). The outsiders gave it the name of “Nanak Panth.” Guru Nanak himself defined the ideal person as a Gurmukh who practiced the threefold discipline of “the divine Name, charity and purity” (GGS 942), claiming that the “path of the Gurmukh is beyond worldly attachments” (gurmukh panth atītaṅg, GGS 360). During the period of later gurus, the Sikh community came to be known as simply the Panth. The phrase “Guru-Panth” is employed in two senses: one, “the Panth of the Guru,” refers to the Sikh community; the other, “the Panth as the Guru,” refers to the Guru-Panth doctrine, which developed from the earlier idea that the guru is mystically present in the congregation. At the inauguration of the Khalsa in 1699, Guru Gobind Singh symbolically transferred his authority to the “Cherished Five,” when he received initiation from their hands. Thus, the Panth became the Guru-Panth. Sainapati, the contemporary author of Gur Sobha (1701–1711CE), recorded that Guru Gobind Singh designated the Khalsa as the collective embodiment of his divine mandate: “Upon the Khalsa, which I have created, I shall bestow the succession. The Khalsa is my physical form and I am one with the Khalsa. To all eternity I am manifest in the Khalsa. Those whose hearts are purged of falsehood will be known as the true Khalsa; and the Khalsa, freed from error and illusion, will be my true Guru.” (McLeod 1989, 52)

As the elite group within the Panth, the Khalsa has always claimed to speak authoritatively on behalf of the whole, although, at times, non-Khalsa Sikhs have interpreted the doctrine of Guru-Panth as conferring authority on the broader community. In practice, consensus is achieved by following democratic traditions. During the eighteenth century, the twin doctrine of Guru-Granth and GuruPanth successfully provided cohesiveness within the Sikh tradition. The celebrated gurmatā system provided an effective means of passing resolutions in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib. However, in order to consolidate his power, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–1839) abolished political gurmatās in 1809 and downplayed the doctrine of Guru-Panth to reconcile the growing inequalities in the Panth. J. S. Grewal has aptly remarked that “every Sikh was equal in the presence of the Granth Sahib, in the sangat (“congregation”) and the langar (“community kitchen”), but in the life outside social differences were legitimized” (Grewal 1991, 118). Thus, the process by which the doctrine of Guru-Granth came to the fore in place of the doctrine of Guru-Panth was set in motion. It gained further momentum during the Singh Sabha period (1873–1925) in colonial rule. With the passage of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act of 1925, the control of all gurdwaras passed to the Shiromani Gurdwara

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Prabandhak Committee (SGPC, “Chief Management Committee of Sikh Shrines”), giving it enormous political and economic influence. Over time, the SGPC became the “authoritative voice” of the Sikhs. As a democratic institution, it has always represented the majority opinion. As such, it has laid the claim to represent the authority of the Guru-Panth, although Sikhs living outside the Punjab have frequently challenged it. Having established itself as central authority on all questions of religious discipline, the SGPC published the standard manual of the “Sikh Code of Conduct,” known as Sikh Rahit Maryada, in 1950. Ever since, this manual has been regarded as the authoritative guide to orthodox Sikh doctrine and behavior. In the diaspora setting, for instance, Sikhs have applied the doctrine of GranthPanth in actual practice in the last few decades by adopting nonviolent means of protest and advocacy to fight against violent hate crimes. At annual Khalsa Day parades (nagar kirtan) in the cosmopolitan cities of London; New York; Los Angeles; Surrey, B.C.; Toronto, Ontario; and some European countries, Sikhs have shown solidarity in their lobbying efforts before the invited local politicians and government representatives. In fact, the relationship between scripture and community has been strengthened as a result of this public display of religiosity at these parades. In Sikh doctrine and actual practice, therefore, the Khalsa sangat (“congregation”) and the true guru are one: the congregation can take any action on behalf of the Guru, and it can punish or it can forgive any offender who has transgressed rahit (“Khalsa Code of Conduct”) injunctions. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Guru Granth Sahib; Khalsa; Sikh Activists; Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999) FURTHER READING Grewal, J. S. 1991. The New Cambridge History of India II.3: The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McLeod, W. H. 1989. Who Is a Sikh? The Problem of Sikh Identity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2000. The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2008. “Scripture as Guru in the Sikh Tradition.” Religion Compass 2, no. 4: 659–73.

GURU GRANTH SAHIB The primary scripture of the Sikhs is commonly referred to as the Guru Granth Sahib (“The Honored Scripture as Guru”) to reflect its authoritative status within

Sikhism: Guru Granth Sahib

the Sikh community (Panth) as the living embodiment of the guru. For Sikhs, it actually succeeded the tenth guru, Gobind Singh, who terminated the line of personal gurus before he passed away in 1708, installing the Sikh scripture as “Guru Eternal for the Sikhs.” As such, it carries the same status, authority, and functions, both in terms of personal piety and collective identity, as any of the ten personal gurus of the Sikhs from Guru Nanak (1469–1539) through Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708). Thus, the Guru Granth Sahib (GGS) has become the perennial source of guidance for Sikhs, and it is treated with the most profound respect when it is installed ceremonially in a gurdwara (“guru’s house”). The standard version of this collection contains a total of 1,430 pages, and every copy is identical in terms of the material printed on the individual pages. It is instructive to note that Guru Arjan’s prodigious efforts were responsible for the creation of Sikh scripture. He used the best possible words to crystallize the divine message. Indeed, his intention was to create a “letter-perfect text” for the Sikh community. He carefully directed the whole operation of recording of the Adi Granth (“Original Book”). This is quite evident from his personal approval of the content, form, and organization of the bāṇī (“divine Word”), particularly the raga sections, as indicated by the use of the word sudh (“correct”) in the margins of the text. In fact, the use of such editorial directions as sudh and sudh kīchai (“make corrections”) in the Kartārpur Pothī, prepared in 1604, and other early documents make sense only when we place them in the context of what are normally described as the “inspection notes” (arz-dīdas) recorded in the flyleafs of imperial manuscripts that were prepared during Emperor Akbar’s reign. In Mughal India, it was a well-established tradition to send the books written by calligraphers and scribes for proofing by the comparing scribe, whose duty was to compare a copy with the original and correct any mistakes. Such a specialist was called the corrector (musāhhih), who was a man of great ability and learning. Similarly, a professional class of calligraphers and scribes maintained the manuscripts of gurbāṇī at the Sikh court in the Guru’s archives (pothī mahal). Historically, the pothīs of gurbāṇī have always remained prized and frequently used ritual objects, and Sikh scribes have continually worked as carefully as possible to copy them, holding dear the belief that they were producing as accurate and correct (sudh) text as they could (Singh 2006, 137–41). Guru Arjan’s achievement can be seen from the remarkably consistent structure of the Adi Granth. He devised certain checks and balances that made it extremely difficult for anyone to interpolate extraneous matter in the text without being identified. Each entry in the Adi Granth is numbered, and its position is further determined by its raga, authorship, and metrical form. The Adi Granth consists of 5871 hymns of carefully recorded authorship. The code word mahala (or simply M), with an appropriate number, identifies the composition of each guru. The works

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by Guru Nanak, Guru Angad, Guru Amar Das, Guru Ram Das, Guru Arjan and Guru Tegh Bahadur are indicated by M1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9, respectively. All the gurus sign their compositions “Nanak” in the Adi Granth to stress the unity and continuity with the founder of the tradition. The fundamental message of all the gurus remains the same, that liberation can be achieved only through meditation on the divine Name. Most importantly, the Adi Granth stresses uncompromising monotheism in which there is no place for incarnation or idol worship. The systematic arrangement of the Adi Granth reveals that Guru Arjan followed a well-defined pattern of organization that was seldom breached. The text of the Adi Granth is divided into three major sections. The introductory section includes three liturgical prayers: (1) Guru Nanak’s Japjī (“Meditation”) is recited early in the morning; (2) five hymns of the Sodar (“That Gate”) text and four hymns of the So Purakh (“That Being”) composition form part of the evening prayer; and (3) five hymns of Sohilā (“Praise”) text are recited at bedtime. The middle section contains the bulk of the material and is divided into thirtyone major ragas (“melodic patterns”) in the standard version of the Adi Granth. Each raga has further subdivisions, based on the length of the compositions, beginning with the shorter pad genre (usually chaupadās or “four verses”), followed by other poetic forms (aṣṭapadīs or “octaves”; chhant or “lyrical hymn”; and other longer works, such as Guru Nanak’s “Siddh Goṣṭ,” Guru Amar Das’s “Anand,” and Guru Arjan’s “Sukhmanī”), and ending with the longer vār or “ballad.” The hymns in each of these classifications are arranged so that the works of Guru Nanak are placed first, followed by those of the later gurus, in the order of their succession. Similarly, the works of the bhagats (bhagat bāṇī) are arranged at the end of each raga section. The final section includes an epilogue, comprising of miscellaneous works that could not be accommodated in the middle section. It concludes with Guru Arjan’s Mundavani and his final salok of gratitude, followed by a controversial text Ragamala (“garland of ragas”). The Guru Granth Sahib is the basis of the most important Sikh doctrines, rituals, and social and ethical positions. Simply to be in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib or to hear a sentence read aloud from it makes Sikhs feel that they are on sacred ground. Indeed, the place and function of the Adi Granth as guru has inspired Sikhs throughout their history in personal piety, liturgy, ceremonies, and communal solidarity. It has provided a framework for the shaping of the Panth and has been a decisive factor in shaping a distinctive Sikh identity. It even enjoys the textual hegemony over the secondary Sikh scripture, the Dasam Granth, which contains the works attributed to the tenth (dasam) guru, Gobind Singh. Thus, the ultimate authority within the Sikh tradition, for a wide range of personal and public conduct, lies in the Guru Granth Sahib. In a sense, the Sikhs have taken their

Sikhism: International Sikh Youth Federation

conception of sacred scripture further than other “text-centered communities,” such as Jews and Muslims. Sikhs have always drawn inspiration from the words of the Guru Granth Sahib to fight against injustice and tyranny, even in the contemporary events of persecution and violence in India, as well as the experience of hate crimes in the diaspora. In post-1984 events, militant Sikhs faithfully observed their daily prayers while fighting guerrilla warfare against security forces in the Punjab. In their interviews to scholars, they frequently cited scriptural passages to justify their struggle for justice. In North America, for instance, Sikh activists selectively use certain famous quotations from the Guru Granth Sahib in interfaith gatherings and political rallies to bring home to their audience the dire need of protecting the members of the Sikh community from racial backlash in the backdrop of 9/11events. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Granth-Panth; Sikh Activists; Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999) FURTHER READING Singh, Pashaura. 2000. The Guru Granth Sahib: Canon, Meaning and Authority. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2006. Life and Work of Guru Arjan: History, Memory and Biography in the Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2014. “The Guru Granth Sahib.” In Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 125–35. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

INTERNATIONAL SIKH YOUTH FEDERATION(ALL INDIA SIKH STUDENTS’ FEDERATION) The International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) was one of the most active organizations in the 1980s and 1990s that was working toward an independent Khalistan outside of India. It was the international branch of the All India Sikh Students’ Federation (AISSF). Beginning in the aftermath of the Golden Temple attack. AISSF was led by Bhai Amrik Singh (1948–1984), who was a close associate of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. As president, he unsuccessfully ran in the election to the Shrimoni Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee in the Beas district as one of the forty individuals selected by Bhindranwale. Nayar and Singh point out that AISSF called on the Punjab government to issue an all-out ban on tobacco within Amritsar by May 30, 1981. They wished to see

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Amritsar declared a holy city. Bhindranwale supported the organization’s demand, and he led his own demonstration on May 31, which turned violent (Nayar and Singh 1984, 39). The government failed to respond to their request, and sacrilegious acts  continued. AISSF felt it necessary to carry out attacks against those responsible for the disrespectful actions against Sikhs, even resorting to the use of explosives. These attacks were under the protection of Bhindranwale and with his blessing (Nayar and Singh 1984, 75). In the following years, Amrik Singh and the AISSF joined the Dharam Yudh Morcha (1982), peaceful protests that sought to implement the forgotten ASR (1973). This led to the arrest of Amrik Singh on July 19, 1982 and only reinvigorated AISSF, as his release became a talking point for Bhindranwale and the Dharam Yudh Morcha. By 1984, the government of India felt threatened by AISSF and declared it an illegal organization. Government officials made attempts to speak with Bhindranwale, but he agreed to do so only on the condition that the ban on the group be lifted (Nayar and Singh 1984, 88). The ban was eventually lifted, and Amrik Singh was released. Members of AISSF were actively fighting the Indian Army when it attacked the Golden Temple. Amrik Singh lost his life in the attack. The AISSF was once again listed as a terrorist organization by the Indian government under the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) of 1985 due to its involvement in the attack (Singh 1991, 78–9). Pettigrew (1995, 157–58) noted that the AISSF influenced many separatists, such as Sukhwinder Singh Gora (of the Khalistan Commando Force), through political meetings. The government’s attempt to suppress the movement was not enough to deter young Punjabi Sikhs from joining it. The group continued to grow and organize protests (Pettigrew 1995, 169). Before his death, Amrik Singh had established the ISYF with Jasbir Singh Rode, the nephew of Bhindranwale. The Mackenzie Institute (2016) reported that Rode arrived in the United Kingdom in August 1984 to speak to the Sikhs in the diaspora about AISSF and officially start international branches. Although he was expelled for encouraging Sikhs to support Khalistan a few months later, Rode’s mission was a success. In September 1985, ISYF held its first conference in Walsall, the United Kingdom), which sparked Sikhs to open chapters in the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Later that year, the Canadian branch held a convention, where they discussed the situation in Punjab. ISYF members declared that they would organize an arms deal in the United Kingdom, with other units helping with finances. Two years later, a prominent leader of the ISYF in Canada, Satinderpal Singh, bought weapons from Lahore and sold them to members of the Khalistan Liberation Force. In 1991, ISYF-UK launched the “Bhai Amrik Singh Saheed Fund” to financially assist families of Sikhs killed in encounters with the police and army (South Asian Terrorism Portal 2014). The militants with connections to ISYF in India were responsible for numerous targeted bombings,

Sikhism: International Sikh Youth Federation

assassinations, and kidnappings of individuals complicit in anti-Sikh activities (Mackenzie Institute 2016). These attacks decreased by 1992, as the Indian Army and Punjab Police either killed or captured senior Sikh militants. Over the years, the different branches of ISYF continued funding activities in India. The ISYF is known to collaborate with and fund other organizations, such as Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Khalistan Commando Force (KCF), and Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF). Eventually, the organization was banned in India, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Reaction to this ranged from burning an Indian flag in front of the Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, on August 18, 2001 to disbanding the Canadian branch on February 10, 2002. ISYF-Canada spokesperson, Amrit Singh Raj stated that it was difficult to operate the organization, as it was being identified as a terrorist group. This led to the slow demise of ISYF in the 2000s. The South Asian Terrorism Portal reported that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been attempting to revive Sikh militancy in India and met with representatives on Babbar Khalsa International and ISYF in Berlin in June 2007. ISI has allegedly offered to provide funds, armaments, ammunition, and military training to the ISYF (Mackenzie Institute 2016). There were rumors of ISI involvement with Sikh secessionist groups as late as 2012, but no major outbreak had ever occurred (South Asian Terrorism Portal, 2014). As for the AISSF, it has turned to more peaceful ways of bringing about change in Punjab, yet they still demonstrate when necessary. In February 2017, President Karnail Singh Peer Mohammed called for a march to shut down the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal. This new government legislation would divert water away from Punjab (Singh 2017). Mohammed, along with several other AISSF members, were detained in February 2018 as they headed toward the Golden Temple to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The group had intended to give Prime Minister Trudeau a 1984 genocide report and a memorandum, urging him to recognize the anti-Sikh riots as genocide within the Canadian parliament (Press Trust of India 2018). AISSF’s ability to remain active in India is impressive in its own right, as most pro-Khalistan groups are still banned and listed as terrorist organizations. The organization collaborates with Sikhs for Justice and the Sikh Federation UK on issues related to human and Sikh rights. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Babbar Khalsa International; Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Khalistan; Khalistan Commando Force FURTHER READING Mackenzie Institute. 2016. “International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF).” The Mackenzie Institute. ­https://​­mackenzieinstitute​.­com​/­2016​/­01​/­international​-­sikh​-­youth​-­federation​ -­isyf​/.

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Religious Violence Today Nayar, Kuldip, and Khushwant Singh. 1984. Tragedy of Punjab: Operation Bluestar and After. New Delhi: Vision Books Pvt. Ltd. Pettigrew, Joyce. 1995. The Sikhs of Punjab: Unheard Voices of Sate and Guerilla Violence. London: Zed Books Ltd. Press Trust of India. 2018. “All India Sikh Students Federation Chief Peermohammad Taken into Custody in Punjab.” The New Indian Express. ­https://​­www​.­newindianexpress​ .­com​/­nation​/­2018​/­feb​/­21​/­all​-­india​-­sikh​-­students​-­federation​-­chief​-­peermohammad​ -­taken​-­into​-­custody​-­in​-­punjab​-­1776873​.­html. Singh, Jagmohan. 2017. “All India Sikh Students Federation Declare to Close Down SYL from Kapoori Village on 23rd Feb.” Punjabi News Express. Legit Expressions Pvt. Ltd. ­http://​­punjabnewsexpress​.­com​/­punjab​/­news​/-­all​-­india​-­sikh​-­students​-­federation​ -­declare​-­to​-­close​-­down​-­syl​-­from​-­kapoori​-­village​-­on​-­23rd​-­feb​-­57901​.­aspx. Singh, Partap. 1991. Khalistan: The Only Solution. Chandigarh: Lt. Col. Partap Singh. South Asian Terrorism Portal. 2014. “International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF).” Institute for Conflict Management. ­https://​­www​.­satp​.­org​/­terrorist​-­profile​/­india​-­punjab​ /­international​-­sikh​-­youth​-­federation​-­isyf.

JUSTICE, SIKH CONCERN FOR Since the conception of Sikhism, fighting for justice has been one of the key pillars of the faith. For a majority of their existence, Sikhs have been fighting for justice. The eighteenth century was a very trying time for Sikhs in India. There was a constant struggle between the unjust empire and mere citizens trying to practice their faith. In a war against the Mughal Empire that led to thousands of innocent civilians to choose Islam or death (including Guru Gobind Singh’s father, mother, and four sons), Guru Gobind Singh entrusted Banda Singh Bahadur with the task of “punish[ing] the tyrants of the common people” (Sagoo 2001, 118). For years, the Khalsa went from village to village, freeing citizens from the shackles that had enslaved them. Banda Singh Bahadur was seen by Hindus as the “champion of Hinduism,” as he fought valiantly against the tyrannical rule of the Mughals that terrorized Hindus for a number of decades (Sagoo 2001, 160). Following the 1857 mutiny, the British occupiers needed to evaluate how they would deal with the recently subjugated Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. Under the Waqf Act of 1861, British authorities allowed the Hindus and Muslims to care for their respective places of worship. Management of gurdwaras throughout Punjab, however, were transferred to non-Sikhs, who knew little to nothing about Sikhi (Petrie 1969). These individuals committed acts that were considered sacrilege. Sikhs fought for over six decades to regain control of gurdwaras before the Sikh Gurdwaras Act was passed in 1925. Independence from the British divided the state of Punjab, displaced thousands of Sikhs, and separated them from some important gurdwaras such as Nankana Sahib and Panja Sahib.

Sikhism: Justice, Sikh Concern for

The struggle for justice in India centuries ago still continues to this day, as Sikhs fight against anti-1984 rhetoric, sacrilegious actions committed at gurdwaras, and the drug epidemic that has plagued Sikh youth. On November 4, 2017, police officers, disguised in plain clothes, put a sack over Jagtar Singh Johal’s head and threw him into an unmarked van (Foulds 2017). Initial reports stated that Johal was detained for radicalizing individuals through his involvement with a website that discusses the atrocities committed by the Indian government in 1984 and for “influencing the youth through social media” (Riordan 2017). Weeks and several court appearances later, Johal was accused of being an accomplice in the murder of several Hindu leaders over the past few years by providing funds to the Khalistan Liberation Force, a militant movement formed in the wake of the 1984 attack on Amritsar (Duttagupta 2017). Johal, a Scotland native, remains in custody awaiting official charges four months after his arrest. With accusations of his unlawful arrest and torture, Sikhs in the diaspora rallied to his aid, fearing it would lead to his death. Around the world, they were worried, as this has been a recurring theme in post-1984 India. With a rise in anti-Sikh riots in the late 1980s and ’90s, Jaswant Singh Khalra went from village to village to document the mysterious disappearances of as many as twenty-five thousand Sikh men in an attempt to raise awareness about the human rights violations. Like Johal, Khalra was taken by the police in 1995. The Punjab Police abducted and killed the human rights activist for collecting data on the thousands of Sikhs who were killed and cremated. Sikhs for Justice, a human rights advocacy group based in New York, pursue legal battles to seek justice at an international level for the victims of the November 1984 Sikh genocide that was perpetuated by the Congress party of India, along with various organizations of the Indian State. Since the first Sikhs immigrated to the United States in 1899, they have faced a struggle for justice with the institutionalized racism that has been built into the very core of the country they immigrated to. Since World War I, Sikhs have fought on behalf of the United States and its allies, and, at every stage, they faced segregation. From the food that they were provided with to the weapons that were released to them, Sikhs were discriminated against. Following World War II, President Harry Truman desegregated the United States Armed Forces, but over time, the policy and how it was implemented changed. In 1984, men who served in the U.S Army were stripped of their ability to serve on active duty while maintaining their articles of faith (i.e., keeping their hair uncut and tying a Sikh turban) under the orders of then chief of staff of the army, General John Wickham. In 2009, two Sikh members of the U.S Army, Kamaljeet S. Kalsi and Tejdeep S. Rattan, filed a petition to allow them to serve with their articles of faith intact. The Sikh Coalition accepted the case and argued that not allowing service members to freely practice their religion violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. In 2010, it

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was passed that Sikh individuals were able to keep their facial hair and tie a turban (Elliott 2010). Even in the police force, only in recent decades were Sikh members allowed to go on active duty with a turban on. Sikhs live by a code of conduct. They strive to help those who cannot help themselves and try to achieve justice in every situation they face. Since the eighteenth century, Sikhs had to go to war with the Mughal Empires to protect their very livelihoods. Rulers of the time felt threatened by the presence of Sikhs, which led to the persecution of many individuals. Over time, warfare became prevalent, and the number of Sikhs in Punjab has been decreasing. The fight for justice has been a continuous effort for the Sikhs and will continue to be so indefinitely. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Khalsa; Operation Blue Star (1984); Persecution of Sikhs (India); Persecution of Sikhs (United States); Sikh Activists FURTHER READING Duttagupta, Ishani. 2017. “Jagtar Singh Johal: A Scottish Sikh in a Punjab Jail.” The Economic Times, November 26, 2017. ­https://​­economictimes​.­indiatimes​.­com​/­nri​/­nris​-­in​ -­news​/­jagtar​-­singh​-­johal​-­a​-­scottish​-­sikh​-­in​-­a​-­punjab​-­jail​/­articleshow​/­61798950​.­cms. Elliott, Steve. 2010. “Sikh Soldiers Allowed to Serve, Retain Their Articles of Faith.” U.S. Army, March 25, 2010. ­https://​­www​.­army​.­mil​/­article​/­36339​/­sikh​_soldiers​_allowed​ _to​_serve​_retain​_their​_articles​_of​_faith. [Site discontinued.] Foulds, Jenny. 2017. “Dumbarton Man Allegedly Tortured in Indian Jail Appears in Court for 12th time.” Daily Record, December 6, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­dailyrecord​.­co​.­uk​/­news​ /­local​-­news​/­dumbarton​-­man​-­allegedly​-­tortured​-­indian​-­11649970. Petrie, David. 1969. Development in Sikh Politics (1900–1911): A Report. Amritsar: Chief Khalsa Diwan. Riordan, Conor. 2017. “British Tourist Arrested in India for Influencing the Youth through Social Media.” Independent, November 10, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­independent​.­co​.­uk​ /­news​/­world​/­asia​/­india​-­british​-­tourist​-­youth​-­social​-­media​-­arrest​-­jagtar​-­singh​-­johal​ -­jalandhar​-­punjab​-­dumbarton​-­a8048211​.­html. Sagoo, Harbans Kaur. 2001. Banda Singh Bahadur and Sikh Sovereignty. Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications.

KHALISTAN The word khālistān means “the country of the pure.” It is an idea and a movement for the creation of an independent Sikh state. In the colonial period, Vir Singh Bhatti of Ludhiana first employed this term in April 1940 in a pamphlet demanding “Khalistan” as a buffer state between India and “Pakistan” to oppose the “Pakistan

Sikhism: Khalistan

Resolution” of the Muslim League. As the specter of partition was on the horizon of Indian politics in 1942, the mission of Stafford Cripps appeared to be to concede the demand of Pakistan in principle. The precarious situation of the Sikhs in Punjab became obvious because of their thin demographic distribution over the province. They put forward the “Azad Punjab Scheme,” which the Akalis popularized for about two years as an alternative to the Cripps Proposals. For the Sikhs, the Sikh state or Khalistan would be synonymous with an area where no single community would be in absolute majority. They invoked property and religious/ historical associations as the criteria of Partition and talked of “Sikhistan,” with the option to join either Hindustan or Pakistan to extort the largest possible concessions in terms of territory (Singh 2019, 14). In this context, G. E. B. Albel wrote a confidential document on June 5, 1946: “If the Sikhs raise the question of a separate Sikh state such as KHALISTAN, the answer is that it would have been quite impossible for the Cabinet Mission to consider such a scheme in view of the fact that the Sikhs would be a small minority in every area of the districts which it had been proposed to include in such a territory” (cited in Nahal 2011, 140). It is no wonder that under these circumstances Jawaharlal Nehru, gave a solemn assurance in 1946 that there was nothing objectionable in the Sikhs having an area demarcated in northwest India, where they could “enjoy glow of freedom.” With the largest proportion of the Sikhs opting for India in 1947, the “East Punjab” became, in a sense, a gift of the Akalis to the Indian Union (Grewal 1990, 178–80; Singh 2019, 14–15). As a political stratagem, the idea of “Khalistan” was once again kindled in postcolonial India in a half-page advertisement in the New York Times on October 12, 1971 by Dr. Jagjit Singh Chauhan (1927–2007). Chauhan was a former finance minister in the Punjab government that was led by Chief Minister Lachhman Singh Gill, who headed a minority breakaway group of Akali Dal, supported by Congress. Chauhan was a “hawkish person,” who became the self-proclaimed president of the Khalistan Council, asserting that Sikhs were a “religious, ethnic, and cultural entity, distinct from Hindus that rule India.” A “nation in our own right,” Sikhs have “endured persecution and endless suffering at the hands of an intolerant, mercenary majority that rules India—the Hindus” (New York Times 1971). Unsurprisingly, the view that India was essentially a Hindu polity was reinforced by the “communalization” of Indian politics under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In particular, she “communalized” Punjabi politics in two main respects: through appeals to a pan-Indian Hindu community at a national level, and through direct intervention in the Sikh “political system” at the state level (Shani 2008, 53). In her battle to assert her authority over the Congress Party both nationally and provincially, she became insensitive to regional demands for more autonomy, as she “ruthlessly” centralized power (Brass 1991, 210).

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Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale did not explicitly support the idea of Khalistan. He used to say, “We are not in favor of Khalistan nor are we against it. We wish to live in India, but would settle for a separate state if the Sikhs did not receive what they regarded as their just respect” (Juergensmeyer 1988, 76). However, he gave his last warning that “if the Indian Army attacks the Golden Temple, the foundations of Khalistan will be laid.” After the events of 1984, therefore, the Five Member Panthic Committee (FMPC) declared the formation of Khalistan on April 29, 1986, spelling out the “social structure of Khalistan,” whose main objective will be the “welfare of humanity and service to society,” based on the teachings of the Sikh gurus. Earlier, the collective body of the Khalsa Panth had passed a resolution on January 26, 1986: “This august assembly of Sarbat Khalsa clarifies that Sikhs are slaves in India and freedom is their fundamental right” (FMPC, emphasis in original, Dilgeer 1988, 187–88). Clearly, the Panthic Committee rejuvenated the eighteenth-century tradition of passing a resolution (gurmatā, “Guru’s Intention”) in the Sarbat Khalsa (“Entire Khalsa”) gatherings for contemporary purposes. Lacking a dominant leader, Sikhs used it as a means for collective decision-making in times of community crisis. The Indian government wielded accusations of treason against the Sikhs in order to consolidate its power and crush the militant movement. Through intensive propaganda, charges of treason were deployed to combat the power of the Sikh establishment. However, one must acknowledge the limits of this strategy, as it can easily backfire. Not all the Sikhs whom the state branded as traitors could be branded as such unproblematically. The Indian state played on the rhetoric of the “unity and integrity of India” to serve its narrow political gains in the electoral process, while underestimating the consequences of its violent actions in the future. In the process, it alienated a religious and cultural minority that played a significant role in the economic development and freedom struggle of the country (Singh 2016, 185–87). An objective observer can easily see that the overwhelming majority of the global Sikh community has nothing to do with the rhetoric of Khalistan. A fringe group, however, is still active in the movement to create Khalistan through peaceful means. It articulates the need for Khalistan as an act of resistance against India to bring awareness of the issues of the 1984 events that still remain unresolved. Most of its vocal members in North America range from idealists with the perceived noble goals for the establishment of an independent Sikh state to the other extreme of criminal elements seeking to hijack the movement’s name for personal gains. Khalistan, as a movement, no longer significantly threatens India or the Punjab state within it (Wallace 2017). Nevertheless, various governments and media outlets frequently use the rhetoric of Khalistan to smear the global Sikh community. For instance, the maiden trip of Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau to India in February 2018 was marred

Sikhism: Khalistan Commando Force

by allegations in the Indian media that he supported Khalistani separatists, triggered by a controversy over an invite to a convicted Khalistani terrorist, Jaspal Atwal (a member of the International Sikh Youth Federation, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison for trying to kill the then-Punjab cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu on Vancouver Island in 1986), for a dinner at the Canadian High Commissioner’s in Delhi. Mr. Trudeau was accompanied to Amristar by his cabinet ministers, such as Harjeet Singh Sajjan (defense minister) and Navdeep Singh Bains, who were accused of sympathizing with the Khalistan movement. Although the prime minister and his ministers proclaimed that they were in favor of a united India, the rhetoric of Khalistan kept returning to haunt them during their Indian visit and in the aftermath. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Khalistan Commando Force; Khalistan Zindabad Force; Operation Blue Star (1984) FURTHER READING Brass, P. R. 1991. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison. New Delhi: Sage. Chauhan, Jagjit Singh. 1971. “The Sikhs Demand an Independent State in India … the Only Guarantee for Peace on the Sub-continent.” The New York Times (a half-page advertisement in the October 12, 1971 issue of the NYT). Dilgeer, Harjinder Singh. 1988. Khalistan di Twarikh (History of Khalistan). Oslo, ­Norway: Guru Nanak Institute of Sikh Studies. Grewal, J. S. 1990. The New Cambridge History of India II.3: The Sikhs of the Punjab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1988. “The Logic of Religious Violence: The Case of the Punjab.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 22, no. 1: 65–88. Nahal, Tarlochan Singh. 2011. Religion and Politics in Sikhism: The Khalsa Perspective. Amritsar: Singh Brothers. Shani, Georgio. 2008. Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age. London: Routledge. Singh, Pashaura. 2016. “Deconstructing the Punjab Crisis of 1984: Deer, Hawks, and Siqdārs (‘Officials’) as Agents of State Sponsored Violence.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 12, no. 2–3: 173–90. Singh, Pashaura. 2019. “How Avoiding the Religion-Politics Divide Plays Out in Sikh Politics.” Religions 10, no. 296: 1–24. Wallace, Paul. 2017. Khalistan Movement: Fragmented but Reviving? (unpublished paper).

KHALISTAN COMMANDO FORCE The Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) was one of the major militant groups following Operation Blue Star in 1984. It was the largest of the umbrella organizations

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with approximately sixty-three subgroups or bands out of an estimated 167 militant organizations. Its founder was Manbir Singh Chaheru (1959–1987) who was arrested in 1986 and died in police custody in the following year. It then came under the command of Labh Singh (1952–1988), a former police constable, who took the title of general. His cousin Paramjit Singh Panjwar, who belonged to the village Panjwar near Tarn Taran, joined KCF under his influence. Before he joined the organization, Panjwar worked at the Central Cooperative Bank in Sohal. After the death of General Labh Singh in July 1988, KCF split into factions, led by Wassan Singh Zafarwal (b. 1952), Paramjit Singh Panjwar (b. 1967), and Gurjant Singh Rajasthani (1965–1991). Shortly after taking charge of the KCF in the 1990s, Panjwar left for Pakistan and is believed to still be keeping the KCF alive by raising funds through crossborder heroin trafficking, with the help of top Punjab smugglers, such as Bhola Thanthian and Pargat Singh Narli. His wife and children are said to have relocated to Germany. Ten FIRs (First Information Reports) have been registered against Paramjit Singh Panjwar from 1989 to 1990, including seven counts of murder and two under TADA, including for “reviving the Sikh insurgency,” the murder of former army Chief General A. S. Vaidya, and India’s biggest bank robbery in Ludhiana (Sareen 2014). In 2008, Panjwar had been in Pakistan for thirteen years, “pioneered narco-terrorism,” and was allied with International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF), Sikh Youth of America, and Sikh Youth of Belgium, with sympathizers in the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, United States, and Canada. He allegedly works closely with Kashmir militants and Pakistan’s Military Inter-­Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate. “Panjwar’s links with smuggler and Islamist terrorist groups are well-known” (Rediff News 2008). KCF has international connections. In particular, Pakistan’s strategy is directed against India by “reviving Khalistan groups” along with others, thus “inflicting death by a thousand cuts.” Despite the supposed end of militancy in the 1990s, ISI continues to provide weapons, financial support, and a protected sanctuary in Pakistan. A US federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Khalid Awan in 2006 for providing financial aid to the Khalistan Commando Force. He was subsequently given a ­fourteen-year prison sentence. In a statement, the FBI said, “KCF has been responsible for thousands of deaths in India since it was founded in 1986” (USDOJ 2006). The death of Chief Minister Beant Singh of Punjab in 1995 and hundreds of bombings, acts of sabotage, and kidnappings are attributed to the KCF (Wallace 2017). According to a report published in The Tribune (Singh 2001), the curtain finally came down on the Khalistan Commando Force chief Wassan Singh Zaffarwal’s case, with his arrest by the Majitha Police on April 11, 2001. One of the most wanted persons in connection with militancy in Punjab, he was involved in more than a dozen cases, including those of murder and attempt to murder.

Sikhism: Khalistan Commando Force

Zaffarwal has been one of the most-dreaded Sikh militants and was declared a proclaimed offender in at least half a dozen cases, including a few in the Dasuya, Amritsar, and Batala police districts. Born in a poor farmer's family of Zaffarwal village in Gurdaspur District, Wassan Singh, a school dropout, started as a class-IV employee in Dhariwal Mills. Being an amritdhāī Sikh initiated with the nectar of a double-edged sword, he undertook recitation of the Guru Granth Sahib in gurdwaras. Later, he joined Damdami Taksal and became a follower of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. He was a member of the Panthic Committee, headed by Gurbachan Singh Manochahal (1954–1993). Later, he developed differences with Gurbachan Singh Manochahal and formed his own Panthic Committee. He also floated Khalistan Commando Force and was responsible for many militancy-related incidents not only in Punjab but also in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and other parts of North India. Wassan Singh Zaffarwal, who pronounced Khalistan from Akal Takht on April 29, 1986, was declared a proclaimed offender in a number of cases, as he moved to Pakistan after the declaration. He continued to coordinate the activities of KCF (Zaffarwal) men from Pakistan and sneaked into India, although he mostly stayed in Pakistan before going to Europe. In 1995, he moved to Switzerland and was reportedly running a hotel near Zurich. Married to Darshan Kaur, he has a daughter in college and a teenaged son. He also has three brothers and two sisters. He has now fully reintegrated himself in mainstream Punjab politics and does not take part in any violent activity. On August 31, 1991, the Punjab police encountered Gurjant Singh Rajasthani of Khalistan Commando Force (Rajasthani), as he tried to escape from a house in Mohali. The government had put up a 20 lakh rupees reward for the capture of Rajasthani, because he was responsible for many killings in Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Rajasthani had arrive in a blue Gypsy off-road vehicle with his wife, Sukhwinder Kaur, and son, Gurpinder Singh. When the police received this information, the SSP, Mohammed Mustafa, and DSP, Ajaib Singh, along with their teams, surrounded the house. Gurjant Singh Rajasthani fired bullets from the back of the house as he tried to escape; the police returned fire in that direction. The police later found Gurjant Singh Rajasthani dead. Before dying, Gurjant Singh Rajasthani, shouted slogans, such as, “Khalistan Zindabaad!” and swallowed a capsule of potassium cyanide. He instantly died. With his death, his faction of KCF became defunct. At present, Paramjit Singh Panjwar is the only active KCF person, based permanently in Pakistan (Chima 2010, 228). Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Dal Khalsa; Khalistan; Khalistan Zindabad Force; Operation Blue Star (1984)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Chima, Jugdep S. 2010. The Sikh Separatist Insurgency in India: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Rediff News. 2008. “Paramjit Singh Panjwar,” June 24, 2008. ­http://​­m​.­rediff​.­com​/­news​ /­2008​/­jun​/­24slide8​.­htm. Sareen, Aneesha. 2014. “UT Procures Arrest Warrants against Panjwar” The Tribune, December 30, 2014. ­https://​­www​.­tribuneindia​.­com​/­news​/­archive​/­ut​-­procures​-­arrest​ -­warrants​-­against​-­panjwar​-­24173. Singh, Prabhjot. 2001. “Police Arrests Zaffarwal.” The Tribune, April 12, 2001. ­https://​ ­www​.­tribuneindia​.­com​/­2001​/­20010412​/­main1​.­html. USDOJ: US Attorneys Office, Eastern District of New York. 2006. “Khalid Awan Convicted of Providing Material Support and Resources to Indian Terrorist Organization.” Press Release, December 20, 2006. ­https://​­www​.­justice​.­gov​/­archive​/­usao​/­nye​ /­pr​/­2006​/­2006Dec20​.­html. Wallace, Paul. 2017. Khalistan Movement: Fragmented but Reviving? (unpublished paper).

KHALISTAN ZINDABAD FORCE The Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) is another militant group that aims to establish a “sovereign Khalistan state.” Although the exact cadre strength and organizational structure of the KZF is not known, it is largely comprised of Jammu-based Sikhs. Ranjit Singh Neeta was listed as the leader in 2009 and 2011. Originally a resident of the Sumbal Camp area in Jammu, Neeta is reportedly based somewhere in Pakistan. One of the twenty terrorists that India wants Pakistan to deport, Neeta began his career as a small-time criminal and subsequently developed links with smugglers in the RS Pura and Samba areas. His name figures in at least six FIRs (“First Information Reports”) filed after bomb blasts on trains and buses running between Jammu and Pathankot between 1988 and 1999. He is also alleged to have been involved in the killing of Deputy Superintendent of Police Devinder Sharma in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir in October 2001. Neeta's second-in-­ command, Amritpal Singh Romi, was killed in an encounter in 2000. Khuram Masih, alias Manjit Singh, a Christian-turned-Sikh and a close associate of Neeta, was shot dead by the police during an encounter in the village of Dablehar in the RS Pura Sector of Jammu on December 28, 2000. Reportedly a “hit man” for Neeta, Khuram Masih was involved in at least twenty explosions in Jammu, Punjab, and New Delhi. Ravinder Kaur, another leading member of the KZF, was arrested from Rudrapur in the State of Uttar Pradesh on March 30, 1998. Ravinder, an alleged “human bomb,” was wanted in connection with two bus bomb blasts in Pathankot in Punjab during April and June 1997, in which nine people died. Ravinder, the sister-in-law

Sikhism: Khalistan Zindabad Force

of KZF chief Ranjit Singh Neeta, was married to Nirmal Singh Nimma, who was acquitted in the General Vaidya assassination case. Ravinder got involved in terrorist activities after her sister married Neeta in 1990. On July 6, 2005, a day after the failed terrorist attack on the makeshift Ram temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, the Jammu and Kashmir Police were working on intelligence that the KZF outfit was making attempts to regroup in Jammu, according to Indian Express. Official sources said that many of the KZF activists against whom cases were filed in the courts have been released on bail, and they are seeking to regroup. Inspector General of Police (Jammu), S. P. Vaid, while confirming that the KZF was making attempts to regroup said, “We are making efforts that the KZF does not become successful in reviving itself here. Many of the activists were involved in different violence related activities” (Sarin 2005). While Punjab, Jammu, and Delhi are the main areas of operation, the outfit is also reported to have operated from Nepal in the past. For instance, the Delhi Police (DP) claimed to have neutralized a Nepal module of the outfit with the arrest of three cadres on August 24, 2000. While addressing a press conference on that day, Ajai Raj Sharma, the then DP Commissioner, said Neeta, who was in Lahore, had established a powerful base at Bir Ganj in Nepal and that Maan Behanji and Lakhbir Singh were the main organizers of this base. Earlier, in November 1998, Lakhbir Singh, an activist of the KZF, was arrested from a hotel in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, along with twenty kilograms of RDX (“Research Department Explosive,” an organic compound cyclonite used for the purpose of an explosion) and timing devices. On interrogation, he is alleged to have identified three Pakistani embassy officials with whom he had liaised, one of whom was identified as Asim Saboor, according to an Asiaweek report of April 21, 2000 (Davis 2000). The bases in Nepal were reportedly set up by the KZF, with support from the Pakistan’s Military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during the phase of Punjab militancy. While Pakistan continues to host the KZF and its “chief,” Ranjit Singh Neeta, the outfit is also reported to have activists and sympathizers in Britain, Germany, Canada, and other European countries. Apart from being linked to the ISI, the KZF has close links with several terrorist groups that are active in Jammu and Kashmir, including the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. Explaining such linkages, Sarabjit Singh, the then Punjab Police Chief, said on November 14, 1999, that the KZF always had links with Kashmiri terrorists as it comprised Sikhs from the Jammu region (SATP 2017). On November 15, 2000, the Daily Excelsior reported, “While the KZF still has much interest in hitting at Punjab, the ISI, intelligence reports say, has prevailed upon it to focus its attention on assignments given to its cadres in Jammu and Kashmir. Fresh and vigorous strikes in Poonch district (where Khalistan Zindabad Force has pockets of influence) and in other areas of the Jammu region, including

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the city of Jammu, according to the calculations purported to have been made by the ISI, would be more useful to it (ISI)” (SATP 2017). The group has, intermittently, attempted to regroup and operationalize its subversive capacities in Punjab, Jammu, Delhi, and elsewhere in India. However, a consistent loss of cadres and leadership has led to the KZF being marginalized, although it retains its operational capacities. The Indian Express (PTI 2013) reported on May 16, 2013 that Daljit Singh, alias Jitu, was extradited from Malaysia at the request of the Punjab Police through the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on May 15. He is described as a militant of the KZF: “A lookout notice was already there [Malaysia] against Daljit at all airports in the country . . . He was produced in Hoshiarpur’s court following his extradition and now is in police remand,” said an unnamed senior Punjab Police officer. Manjit Singh is named as the leader of the KZF in a September 4, 2017 article of the Hindustan Times. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Khalistan; Khalistan Commando Force; Operation Blue Star (1984) FURTHER READING Daily Excelsior (November 15, 2000): Cited in South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP): ­https://​­satp​.­org​/­satporgtp​/­countries​/­india​/­states​/­punjab​/­terrorist​_outfits​/­KZF​.­htm. Davis, Anthony. 2000. “Cockpit of Intrigue: Why Kathmandu Is Now Labeled the Subcontinent’s ‘Casablanca.’” Asiaweek, April 21, 2000. ­http://​­www​.­cnn​.­com​/­ASIANOW​ /­asiaweek​/­magazine​/­2000​/­0421​/­nat​.­nepal​.­html. PTI, Washington. 2013. “Suspected Babbar Khalsa Member Arrested in US.” Indian Express (December 19, 2013). ­https://​­indianexpress​.­com​/­article​/­world​/­world​-­others​ /­suspected​-­babbar​-­khalsa​-­member​-­arrested​-­in​-­us​-­2​/. Sarin, Ritu. 2005. “Old Ghosts Return to Punjab with New Faces.” Indian Express, July 24, 2005. ­http://​­www​.­indianexpress​.­com​/­print​.­php​?­content​_id​=​­75016. SATP (South Asia Terrorism Portal). 2017. Institute of Conflict Management: ­https://​­www​ .­satp​.­org​/­satporgtp​/­countries​/­india​/­states​/­punjab​/­terrorist​_outfits​/­KZF​.­htm. Wallace, Paul. 2017. Khalistan Movement: Fragmented but Reviving? (unpublished paper).

KHALSA The Khalsa (“pure”) refers to the institution founded by Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur on Vaisakhi Day, 1699, an order of loyal Sikhs bound by common identity and discipline. The tenth guru initiated the first “Cherished Five” (pañj piāre), who formed the nucleus of the new order of the Khalsa. These five volunteers, who responded to the guru’s call for loyalty and who came from different castes and

Sikhism: Khalsa

regions of India, received the initiation through a ceremony that involved sweetened water stirred with a double-edged sword (khaṇḍe dā amrit) and was sanctified by the recitation of “five liturgical prayers.” It was the ceremony of enthronement to the exalted status of the Khalsa with its power and authority. The inauguration of the Khalsa was the culmination of the canonical period in the development of Sikhism, under the guidance of the ten gurus. The observant Khalsa represent the solid core of the Panth. The second meaning of this key word derives from the preexisting usage of the word khālsā for land directly owned by the Mughal emperor, rather than by an intermediary. It was adapted from its contemporary usage to refer to the institution of the Khalsa under the direct command of the tenth guru rather than through the institution of the masands (“deputies”) who had become corrupt. Some important issues need to be addressed from the perspective of ritual studies with respect to the original Khalsa amrit ceremony. Was it really an initiation ceremony? Or was it the ceremony of enthronement to the exalted status of the Khalsa, with its power and authority? A careful examination of the ancient Indic “enthronement ceremony” (rājasuya) reveals that some elements of the original amrit ceremony are quite similar. Most of the features had principal Sikh components, such as the recitation of five liturgical prayers. The “double-edged sword” (khanda) became the central article in the Khalsa amrit ceremony. Three aspects of the institution created by Guru Gobind Singh on Vaisakhi Day 1699 are particularly significant. First, it was understood that, in undergoing the amrit ceremony, the Khalsa initiates were “reborn” into the house of the guru. From that day forward, Guru Gobind Singh would be their spiritual father and his wife, Sahib Kaur, their spiritual mother. As part of their new identity, male members of the Khalsa were given the new surname Singh (“lion”), and female initiates were given the surname Kaur (“princess”). Their birthplace became Kesgarh Sahib (the gurdwara that commemorates the founding of the Khalsa) and their home Anandpur Sahib (the town where Kesgaṛh Sāhib is situated). The new collective identity conferred on the Khalsa initiates gave them a powerful sense of belonging (Singh 2014, 23). Second, the Guru himself received the nectar of the double-edged sword from the hands of the Cherished Five, becoming part of the Khalsa Panth, subject to its collective will. In so doing, he symbolically transferred his spiritual authority to the Cherished Five, paving the way for the termination of the office he occupied as a human guru. At the same time, he abolished the institution of masands (“deputies”), which was becoming increasingly disruptive; several of them had refused to forward the offerings they collected to the guru and were trying to cultivate their own factions within the Sikh Panth. In addition, Guru Gobind Singh removed the threat posed by the competing seats of authority when he declared that the Khalsa should have no dealings with the followers of Guru Arjan’s elder brother, Prithi Chand (the Minas); Dhir Mal (Guru Har Rai’s elder brother, who established his

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seat at Kartarpur, Jalandhar), and Ram Rai (Guru Harkrishan’s elder brother, who established his seat at Dehra Dun). The severing of relations with these five dissident groups (panj mel) led to greater awareness of boundaries and a heightened consciousness of identity (Singh 2014, 24). Finally, it was at the inauguration of the Khalsa that Guru Gobind Singh delivered the nucleus of what would become the order’s Rahit (“Code of Conduct”). By sanctifying the hair with amrit, he made it “the official seal of the Guru,” and the cutting of “bodily hair” was thus strictly prohibited. The guru further imposed a rigorous ban on smoking. In addition, he made the wearing of “five weapons” (panj hathiar) such as sword, disc, arrow, noose and gun obligatory for Khalsa Sikhs: “Appear before the Guru with five weapons on your person” (Singh 1967, 179, 194). This injunction must be understood in the militaristic context of the contemporary situation. To ensure that Khalsa members would never seek to conceal their identity as Sikhs, he made five physical symbols mandatory: (1) kes, unshorn hair, symbolizing spirituality and saintliness; (2) kaṅgha, a wooden comb, signifying order and discipline in life; (3) kirpan, a short sword, signifying divine grace, dignity, and courage; (4) kaṛā, a steel “wrist-ring,” signifying responsibility and allegiance to the guru; and (5) kachhahirā, a pair of short breeches, symbolizing moral restraint. Known (from their Punjabi names) as the Five Ks (pañj kakke), these outward symbols of the divine Word imply a direct correlation between bāṇī (“divine utterance”) and bāṇā (“Khalsa dress”). Every morning, in putting on the various items of dress (including the turban, in the case of male Sikhs) while reciting prayers, Khalsa Sikhs dress themselves in the word of God; their minds are purified and inspired, and their bodies are girded to do battle with the day’s temptations. In addition to cutting the hair, three other sins are specifically prohibited: using tobacco (this injunction was later expanded to include all intoxicants); committing adultery; and eating meat that has not come from an animal that was killed with a single blow. In sum, the creation of the Khalsa by Guru Gobind Singh was unique in two fundamental ways: first, it invited all Sikhs to join the Order of the Khalsa regardless of their background, and second, it had a coherent vision of political sovereignty. All Sikhs were encouraged to become warriors of righteousness (dharam), engaged in a struggle against tyranny. They were further inspired to establish the sovereign rule of the Khalsa. Thus, “Khalsa shall rule” (rāj karegā khālsā) became an integral part of daily Sikh Prayer (Ardās). It is no wonder that Guru Nanak’s fundamental message of cultivating in life the values of human equality, selfrespect (pati), justice for all, human dignity, and fearlessness found its practical expression in the lived experience of the Khalsa. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Granth-Panth; Khanda; Kirpan; Miri-Piri

Sikhism: Khanda FURTHER READING Kapur, Prithipal Singh, and Singh, Dharam. 1999. The Khalsa. Patiala: Punjabi University. Kaur, Gurnam, ed. 2001. Khalsa: A Thematic Perspective. Patiala: Punjabi University. McLeod, W. H. 2003. Sikhs of the Khalsa. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Ganda. 1967. Hukam-name: Guru Sahiban, Mata Sahiban, Banda Singh Ate Khalsa Ji de. Patiala: Punjabi University. Singh, Nikky-Guninder Kaur. 2005. The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Re-Memory of Sikh Identity. Albany: State University of New York Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2014. “An Overview of Sikh History.” In Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sikh History, 19–34. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

KHANDA The khanda is the central iconic symbol of Sikhism. The term is employed in two significant ways. In the first place, it refers to a double-edged sword used in the Khalsa initiation ceremony (khaṇḍe dā amrit). For Guru Gobind Singh, it was the symbol of divinity, simultaneously representing the attributes of justice and grace. Second, the modern Khalsa insignia is also called khanda, comprising a vertical double-edged sword over a quoit (chakkar), with two crossed sabers (kirpans) below the quoit, signifying the temporal (miri) and spiritual (piri) aspects of life. Today, this emblem is proudly displayed on the Khalsa flag, turbans, building decorations, publications, car windows, and so on. Most instructively, religion and politics have been linked throughout Sikh history. It is important to note that the Sikh concept of spiritual and temporal power is represented in the double sides of the blade in the center of the Khanda, as shown in the figure below.

The khanda—the central iconic symbol of Sikhism

Guru Gobind Singh has described the khanda as the original divine creation: “The one who created the whole world first crafted the double-edged sword” (DG,

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Vār Durgā Kī, 2). It is the center of the universe. Its two sharp edges symbolize the connection between the binaries of creation and destruction, spiritual and temporal, justice and grace, religion and politics. It illuminates the miri-piri tradition of the sixth guru, Hargobind (1595–1644), who created a balance between the spiritual (piri) and secular (miri) aspects of life. It stands for the “warrior-saint spirit” of the Khalsa to fight against injustice and tyranny. During the eighteenth century, this iconic emblem consisted of a cooking vessel or cauldron, a punch dagger (kaṭār), and a saber, corresponding to the Khalsa slogan of Degh Tegh Fateh (“Victory of Cauldron and Sword,” signifying “food for all and justice for all”). It evolved into the modern Khalsa insignia in the early twentieth century due to Singh Sabha reforms, and the round cooking vessel became a quoit. Its earlier form was based on the following verses of Guru Gobind Singh: With your grace, O Lord, let the Cauldron and the Sword (degh tegh) Ever flourish in the world. You yourself protect me,   Let none should be able to oppress me. (DG, Krishna Avtār, v. 436)

Guru Gobind Singh’s mission was to establish an egalitarian society based on the values of justice and equality, providing food to all (degh) and protecting the lowly and the oppressed with the sword (tegh). By establishing the free community kitchen (langar) Guru Nanak had already brought a social revolution through a dining convention that required people of all castes to sit in status-free lines (paṅgat) in order to share a common meal. In fact, the establishment of community kitchen at Kartarpur was the first reification of Guru Nanak’s spiritual concerns to reorganize the society on egalitarian ideals. In this setting of the partaking of food, anyone could sit next to anyone else, female next to male, socially high next to socially low, and ritually pure next to ritually impure. This institution promoted the spirit of unity and mutual belonging and struck at a major aspect of caste, in which the Indian society was divided. Reciting their daily prayer (Ardās) the Sikhs implore Vāhigurū (“Wonderful Lord”) to protect their honor so that they may uphold the twin ideal of “charity and justice” (degh tegh fateh) in all their undertakings, thereby bringing glory to the Panth. They also acknowledge the contribution of those Sikhs who were noble, both in the practice of charity (degh chalāī) and in wielding the sword in battle (tegh vāhī). In fact, the Khalsa was created for this purpose, to uphold these noble ideals. For this purpose, Guru Gobind Singh dramatically introduced a new rite of stirring the sweetened water with a double-edged sword of creation-destruction

Sikhism: Khanda

potency, by which an ordinary Sikh is knighted into a “Singh” (“Lion,” or “Kaur,” “Princess” in the case of a female Sikh) and thus enrolled as a member of the Order of the Khalsa. The transforming power of this mystic rite can be seen in the regenerative act of communion and union with the divine, giving birth to a new life impulse, which ferments in the human society, releasing ever-expanding forces of love, service, and strength (Singh 1989, 188–89). An early Sikh tradition emphatically states that Guru Gobind Singh desired that “sparrows had to be turned into hawks, that a new baptism and discipline should be introduced in order to convert his followers into men [and women] of steel” (McLeod 1989, 42). The ambrosial nectar of the double-edged sword (khaṇḍā dā amrit) plays the dual role of destroying the “egocentric self” and giving birth to a new life of an ever-expanding optimism. The following scriptural passage illuminates this process: The divine Name is Ambrosial Nectar (amrit), O my soul,   Through the Guru’s Teachings, this Nectar is obtained. Pride in Maya is poison, O my soul,   Through the Ambrosial Nectar of the Name, this poison is eradicated. The dry mind is rejuvenated, O my soul,   By meditating continuously on the divine Name. (GGS 538)

The recitation of five liturgical prayers and meditation on the divine Name are integral to the Khalsa discipline (rahit). The meaning and significance of the “nectar of double-edged-sword” (khaṇḍe dā amrit) lies in the fact that it produced an army of saint-warriors, who became role models by combining devotional self-­ surrender with the ability to use force and wield power, reflecting the ethos of miri-piri (Mandair 2013, 62). In sum, the khanda signifies the intersection between the sacred and secular dimensions of Sikh life. It is the symbolic representation of the notion of degh-teghfateh, a famous slogan that inspired the Khalsa, stamping its seal of sovereignty and spirituality. The earlier circle, symbolizing the cooking pot or “cauldron” (degh) was later transmuted into a quoit, the saber (tegh) into two kirpans, and the kaṭār punch dagger into a double-edged sword (khanda). From this process emerged the modern form of khanda, serving the logo of the Khalsa and affirming the Sikh doctrine of miri-piri that binds religion and politics together. The khanda publicly displays that religious issues must be defended in the political arena and that political issues must be conducted in accordance with the Sikh normative values of truth and justice. The ASR, adopted by the Akali Dal, the main political party of the Sikhs, in 1973 is an example of an intersection between religion and politics. The sermons of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale delivered in 1980s provide the testimony

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of this intermingling of secular and spiritual affairs. In actual practice, the Sikh Panth has always followed the ideals of the khanda, resulting in confrontations with the secular state of India. It is impossible for Sikhs to divorce their faith from their political activity. As a symbol of the sovereignty and justice of the guru, the khanda is referenced repeatedly in historical Sikh sources, highlighting the balance between religious and political aspects of Sikh life. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Khalsa; Kirpan; Miri-Piri; Operation Blue Star (1984) FURTHER READING Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh. 2013. Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury. McLeod, W. H. 1989. The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society. New York: Columbia University Press. Singh, Kapur. 1989 (1959). Pārāśarapraśna: An Enquiry into the Genesis and Unique Character of the Order of the Khalsa with an Exposition of Sikh Texts. 2nd ed. Edited by Piar Singh and Madanjit Kaur. Amritsar: Guru Nanak Dev University.

KIRPAN Literally, the word kirpān stands for “grace” (kirpā) and “dignity” (ān). Sikhs regard the use in the media of the terms “dagger” and “knife” as demeaning translations. For them, it is an article of faith, not a weapon of offense. All members of the Khalsa carry the sword (kirpan) as one of the “Five Ks.” In Western countries, fierce controversy erupts from time to time over the right to wear the kirpan and the size that is required. The acceptable length varies from six to nine inches, though many Sikhs wear miniatures that are about one inch long, attached to the kangha when they travel by air. Khalsa Sikhs have had to negotiate with various institutions for permission to wear the kirpan as part of their discipline of the “Five Ks.” Many non-Sikhs understand the kirpan to be a weapon rather than a religious symbol (Stoker 2007, 814–39). Unsurprisingly, the Sikh community has fought many legal battles in Canadian and U.S. courts to win Khalsa Sikhs the right to maintain their external identity markers. Guru Gobind Singh identifies Akal Purakh with the Divine Sword in the celebrated canto of Bachitar Nāṭak: Thee I invoke, All-conquering Sword,   Destroyer of evil, Ornament of the brave.

Sikhism: Kirpan Powerful your arm and radiant your glory,   Your splendor as dazzling as the brightness of the sun. Joy of the devout and Scourge of the wicked,   Vanquisher of sin, I seek your protection. Hail to the world’s Creator and Sustainer,   My invincible Protector the Sword. (DG 39; McLeod 1989, 52)

Similarly, the “divinity” is addressed as “all-steel” (sarb loh) or as the “revered sword” (srī bhagautī). In early Sikh writings, the word bhagautī means “sword,” and srī bhagautī stands for “double-edged sword,” signifying Akal Purakh (“Almighty God”). After all, the sword is the primary symbol of the Khalsa, standing for truth and justice (Singh 2015, 125). Much before the creation of the Khalsa in 1699, Bhāī Gurdās (c. 1558–1636) had already referred to bhagautī as a “sword” (BGV, 25:6: “the sword [bhagautī] is forged from iron”). Notably, the visual representations of the sword and double-edged sword appear in the signatures of Guru Gobind Singh who frequently displayed them as signifiers of divinity in the beginning of his letters (Singh, 1967, 125–90). In India, Sikhs have a constitutional right to wear kirpans, irrespective of their length, but this is not the case in the diaspora. In Canadian courts, for instance, there have been legal cases involving the right of the Sikhs to wear kirpan in public spaces, such as schools. In December 1984, a provincial court in Winnipeg ruled that the “daggers” would not be allowed in the courtroom during the trial of five Sikhs, who were charged with assaulting the Indian Acting High Commissioner to Canada during the protest against the Indian Army’s attack on the Golden Temple complex. Judge Lawrie Mitchel argued that he was not disputing the importance of the sheathed daggers or kirpans to the Sikh religion, but he said that in Canadian law, they constitute offensive weapons. Although the Sikh community appealed, the chief justice of the Court of Appeals of Manitoba upheld his decision. In contrast to this case, however, Sikhs wore kirpans into a courtroom during civil proceedings in Calgary, Alberta. The security officials at Calgary’s Court of Queen’s Bench felt “there was no reason for any concern.” Obviously, they were well-aware of the religious significance of the kirpan to the Sikhs of Alberta (Singh 1996, 165). In 1991, a Sikh teacher, Harbhajan Singh Pandori, filed a complaint against the Peel Board of Education following the prohibition of the kirpan in the local school. A board of inquiry determined that the school policy violated the 1981 Ontario Human Rights Code and discriminated against Sikhs. On March 2, 2006, four years after Gurbaj Singh Multani was forbidden to wear a kirpan in his Montreal school, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that the ban violated

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his Charter right to freedom of religion. In effect, the court definitively recognized that, like the turban, the kirpan enjoys sacred status among initiated Khalsa Sikhs, as does the menorah among practicing Jews or the crucifix among faithful Christians (SCC 2006). In a similar case in the United States, three kirpan-wearing Sikh children (Rajinder Singh Cheema, 10; Sukhjinder Kaur Cheema, 8; and Jaspreet Singh Cheema, 7) were excluded from school in the middle of January 1994 in the Livingston school district of Fresno, California. In June, a federal court judge turned down a request by those children that they be allowed to attend school wearing their kirpans while their lawsuit was being resolved. The children and the American Civil Liberties Union had sought a preliminary injunction against the Livingston School District. The judge ruled that the school district “has compelling interest in preserving a learning environment at its school which facilitate the healthy well-rounded growth of young people. It also has a compelling interest in protecting the health and welfare of children, while in that environment, from the disruption and harm that kirpans in the hands of young children at school present” (Sundram 1994, 1). The U.S. Court of Appeal in San Francisco, however, ruled in favor of the children in early September 1994, overruling a lower court decision backing the school district. The appellant court said that the Livingston School District did not try to compromise with the children, who said they were willing to wear shorter, blunt kirpans sewn securely into sheaths. Thus, the children returned to school with their kirpans. It should, however, be emphasized that three California districts—Yuba City, Live Oak, and Selma—had already granted exemptions to their no-weapons policies for kirpans. This was due to the political influence of the Sikh community in those areas (Singh 1996, 167–68). In sum, the kirpan is employed metaphorically in the Guru Granth Sahib as the “sword of knowledge” to cut the roots of self-centeredness and ignorance. Ritually, it is used to touch the sacred food (kaṛāh praśād) in the gurdwaras after the congregational prayer to highlight the “victory of cauldron and sword” (degh tegh fateh) before distribution. The kirpan is an integral part of the Khalsa discipline. As an external marker, it has functioned as an object of contestation of the public sphere but within the politics of recognition. The Sikh community has had to fight the kirpan case repeatedly from different platforms. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Khalsa; Khanda; Miri-Piri FURTHER READING McLeod, W. H. 1989. The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society. New York: Columbia University Press.

Sikhism: Martyrdom SCC (Supreme Court of Canada). 2006. “Multani v. Commission scolaire MargueriteBourgeoys.” ­https://​­scc​-­csc​.­lexum​.­com​/­scc​-­csc​/­scc​-­csc​/­en​/­item​/­15​/­index​.­do​?­site​ _preference​=​­normal​\. Singh, Ganda. 1967. Hukam-nāme: Gurū Sahibān, Mātā Sāhibān, Bandā Siṅgh ate Khālsā jī de. Patiala: Punjabi University. Singh, Pashaura. 1996. “Observing the Khalsa Rahit in North America.” In Pashaura Singh and N. Gerald Barrier, eds. The Transmission of Sikh Heritage in the Diaspora, 149–75. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Singh, Pashaura. 2015. “Framing the Dasam Granth Debate: Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath Water!” Encountering Sikh Texts, Practices and Performances: Essays in Honour of Professor Christopher Shackle. 10th Anniversary Issue of Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 11, no. 1–2 (April–August): 108–32. Stoker, Valerie. 2007. “Zero Tolerance: Sikh Swords, School Safety and Secularism in Quebec.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 75, no. 4: 814–39. Sundaram, Viji. 1994. “Judge Bars Kirpans from School Till Case Resolved.” India West, June 8–12, 1994.

MARTYRDOM The notion of martyrdom is an integral part of the Sikh tradition. In the early Sikh tradition, the Punjabi phrase sīs deṇā (“offering of a head”) was used for martyrdom. The same phrase, sīs deṇā, has been adopted in the standard Sikh Prayer (Ardās): “Think of the sacrifices of those Khalsa men and women [Singhs and Singhaṇis) who gave their heads for righteousness.” The most popular scriptural passage that has inspired the Sikh community for making any “sacrifice” is the following verse by Guru Nanak: “If you want to play the game of love step into my lane with your head on the palm of your hand. Place your feet on this path and give your head without any fear or grumbling” (GGS 1412). For Guru Nanak, to place one’s “head on the palm” symbolizes the sacrifice of one’s egoistic self. This understanding of violence as self-sacrifice does not make Guru Nanak a “pacifist.” Thus, loving devotion in the Sikh tradition is a matter of life and death, where to love, ultimately, means to sacrifice one’s life. This motif of love-violence may be seen in the tradition of the “Cherished Five” (pañj piāre) who offered their “heads” at the call of Guru Gobind Singh when he inaugurated the institution of the Khalsa (“Pure”) on Vaisakhi Day 1699. An enormously popular tradition involving the ultimate sacrifice of one’s head is lionized in the narrative of eighteenth-century martyr, Baba Dip Singh (1682–1757), who had become an icon for Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–1984) in the 1980s. The first martyrdom in the Sikh tradition was that of the fifth guru, Arjan (1563–1606), who was put to death by torture on May 30, 1606, according to Mongol tribal law of Yasa, on the orders of Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627). Although

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the primary cause of this capital punishment was presented as Guru Arjan’s alleged blessings of the rebel prince Khusrau, there were other urgent religious, sociocultural, and economic factors that contributed to the final judgment of the absolute monarch. The Mughal administrators of Lahore, who carefully monitored the activities of the Sikh movement for a number of years, found their opportunity in the volatile atmosphere of Prince Khusrau’s rebellion to act against the guru. They moved swiftly to eliminate Guru Arjan and cripple the rapidly growing Sikh movement. Through their machinations, they purposely kept the guru’s execution from public view in an attempt to absolve the state by subverting the understanding of the Sikh community (Singh 2006, 298). In the narrative of Kesar Singh Chhibbar’s Bansāvalī-nāmā (1769) Guru Arjan is said to have stated, “Our head will be given in sacrifice, and this moment has come as certainty” (verse 131). The end of his life was not really the end. Undoubtedly, Jahangir had projected two solutions in his mind: either to put an end to “this false trade” or to bring him into the “embrace of Islam.” To the utmost frustration of the Mughal authorities, neither of these solutions worked. Those who had originally experienced the divine power through Guru Arjan’s vision and example continued to do so after his death. As a matter of fact, his martyrdom empowered them to stand up more boldly for the ideals of truth, justice and fearlessness (Singh 2006, 298). During the period of the ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675), the increasing strength of the Sikh movement in the rural areas of the Malwa region of the Punjab once again attracted the hostility of Mughal authorities. The guru encouraged his followers to be fearless in their pursuit of a just society: “He who holds none in fear, nor is afraid of anyone, is acknowledged as a man of true wisdom” (GGS 1427). In doing so, Guru Tegh Bahadur posed a direct challenge to Emperor Aurangzeb, who had imposed Islamic laws and taxes on non-Muslims. According to an earlier narrative, when a group of Hindu pandits (“scholars”) from Kashmir asked for the guru’s help against Aurangzeb’s oppressive measures, he agreed to do whatever was necessary to defend their right to wear their “sacred threads and frontal marks” (DG 70). A message was sent to the emperor saying that if Guru Tegh Bahadur could be persuaded to accept Islam, the Hindus would convert as well. Accordingly, the guru was summoned to Delhi, and, when he refused to abandon his faith, he was publicly executed on November 11, 1675. His martyrdom was thus described in the Dasam Granth: “It was for the protection of the sacred thread and frontal marks [of Hindus] that Guru Tegh Bahadur performed a tremendous deed in the Dark Age. He gave his head for the sake of holy men and uttered not a sigh of regret. For the cause of righteousness he undertook this task, giving his head yet retaining his honor and resolve [to defend the freedom of faith]” (Bachitar Nāṭak, 5th Canto, 13–14).

Sikhism: Martyrdom

If the martyrdom of Guru Arjan helped bring the Sikh Panth together, this second martyrdom helped make “human rights and freedom of conscience” central to its identity. In this context, Wilfred Cantwell Smith aptly remarked, “The attempt forcibly to convert the ninth Guru to an externalized, impersonal Islam clearly made an indelible impression on the martyr’s nine-year-old son, Gobind, who reacted slowly but deliberately by eventually organizing the Sikh group into a distinct, formal, symbol-patterned, boundaried community” (Smith 1981, 191). Tradition holds that the Sikhs who were present at the scene of Guru Tegh Bahadur’s execution shrank from recognition, concealing their identities for fear that they might suffer a similar fate. To respond to this new situation, the tenth guru, Gobind Singh (1666–1708), resolved to impose an outward form on his followers that would make them instantly recognizable. He did this through the creation of the Order of the Khalsa. The actual significance of martyrdom may be seen in the text of daily Sikh Ardās (“Prayer”). It recalls the past trials and triumphs of the Panth in a most profound way. In one sense, the Ardās is central to ongoing memorialization of sacrifice and martyrdom. It is no wonder that after performing Ardās, many a Sikh warrior died fighting in the battlefield in defense of his faith. For Sikhs, sacrifice became the ultimate gift, and the act of dying in the war became the most complete method of reenacting the sacred history of the Panth. The text of Ardās glorifies them, not by their names but by their heroic deeds. In the recent past, Baba Thakar Singh, head of the Damdami Taksal, refused to concede Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s death during Operation Blue Star of 1984, insisting that “the Sant was in an intensely state of high spirits (charhdi kala) and repudiating all rituals of mourning” (TNS 2001). Undoubtedly, Thakar Singh was acting as a willing agent of state-sponsored stratagem to mislead the general Sikh population (Singh 2016, 180). The government of India acknowledged Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale’s power even in death and wanted to postpone the ascription of the title of “martyrdom” to his sacrifice as long as possible. However, nineteen years after Operation Blue Star, the Akal Takht (“Throne of the Immortal,” the seat of temporal authority among the Sikhs), finally declared Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale a martyr in June 2003. The Shiromani Akali Dal also endorsed Bhindranwale’s martyrdom. Its president, Parkash Singh Badal, said that besides Bhindranwale, about four hundred Sikhs killed in Operation Blue Star in 1984 were all martyrs. The Sikh organizations heartily welcomed the move. Ultimately, this decision of the Sikh community put an end to the controversy of whether Bhindranwale was dead or alive. While observing the twenty-eighth anniversary of Operation Blue Star in 2012, the “voluntary work” (kar seva) commenced at the Golden Temple Complex to erect a memorial to those who died fighting security forces during the

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three-day operation in 1984. After the completion of this project in 2013, a plaque on the memorial in Amritsar mentioned that it was a gurdwara in the memory of “the 14th head of Damdami Taksal Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and all martyrs of the 1984 holocaust.” In addition, the portraits of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other Sikh martyrs were displayed in the central Sikh museum in Amritsar. This is how Sikh martyrs are remembered and venerated at the central place of Sikh worship in contemporary times. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Khalsa; Operation Blue Star (1984) FURTHER READING Fenech, Louis E. 2000. Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the “Game of Love.” New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2006. Life and Work of Guru Arjan: History, Memory, and Biography in the Sikh Tradition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2016. “Deconstructing the Punjab Crisis of 1984: Deer, Hawks, and Siqdars (‘Officials’) as Agents of State-Sponsored Violence.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 12, no. 2–3 (August–December): 173–90. Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. 1981. On Understanding Islam: Selected Studies. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton Publishers. TNS (Tribune News Service). 2001. “Bhindranwale’s ‘antim ardas’ on June 6.” The ­Tribune, May 17, 2001. ­https://​­www​.­tribuneindia​.­com​/­2001​/­20010517​/­punjab1​.­htm​#­10.

MIRI-PIRI The two terms in this popular Sikh concept are of Persian origin, miri signifying the rank of a chieftain and piri the spiritual role of a Sufi saint. In his Bābarvāṇī (“Utterances concerning Babur”), for instance, Guru Nanak (1469–1539) employed both terms, pīr (saint) and mīr (sovereign), representing religious and secular powers in the early sixteenth century: “Millions of religious leaders (pīr) failed to halt the invader, when they heard of the Emperor’s (mīr) invasion. He burnt the rest houses and ancient temples; he cut the princes limb from limb. None of the Mughals went blind, and no one was able to perform any miracle to stop this devastation” (GGS 417). Thus, the religious leaders failed miserably to halt the invader with their miraculous tricks by claiming that the Mughals would be blinded when they arrived. Guru Nanak thus realized that unchecked political power could easily crush the religious authority of saintly people. It is no wonder

Sikhism: Miri-Piri

that he sowed the seeds of the miri-piri tradition in his bold resistance of the power structures of his times (Singh 2019, 4). The Sikh Panth faced the first Mughal challenge when Emperor Jahangir executed the fifth guru, Arjan, in 1606. A radical reshaping of the Sikh Panth took place after his martyrdom. His son and successor, Guru Hargobind (1595–1644), signaled the formal process when he donned two swords, symbolizing the spiritual (piri) and the temporal (miri) investiture. The revered Sikh savant, Baba Buddha, performed his investiture to the office of the guru ceremony. At the conclusion of this ceremony, Guru Hargobind sent out an edict to his followers that from now on, they were to bring offerings of arms and horses, as well as money. He also built the Akal Takhat (Throne of the Timeless One) facing the Harmandir, to represent the guru’s newly assumed temporal authority. Under his direct leadership, the Sikh Panth took up arms in order to protect itself from Mughal hostility. Sikhs held that this new development was not undertaken at the cost of their original spiritual base. Rather, it was meant to achieve a balance between temporal and spiritual concerns. The Sikh doctrine of miri-piri thus provides the justification for the duty of the Panth to fight against oppressors. It explicitly affirms that religion and politics are bound together and that religious issues must be defended in the political arena, and political activity must be conducted in accordance with the universal principals of truth and justice. Following the earlier miri-piri tradition of Guru Hargobind, the tenth guru, Gobind Singh (1666–1708) assumed characteristics of the spiritual leader and of a ruler, who had specific responsibilities to protect righteousness (dharam). Unsurprisingly, waging battles was part of his dharmic responsibility. The majority of the narrative of his life is devoted to detailed description of a series of battles. Indeed, Guru Gobind Singh was an able spiritual and political leader who maintained a court at Anandpur and led an army in many battles throughout his life, some of which are described in the Bachittar Nāṭak section of the Dasam Granth (Rinehart 2011, 66–68). His army would retain “its commitment by steadfastly refusing the temptation to seek concealment in times of dangers” (McLeod 1997, 105). Thus, in transforming Sikhs into a self-governing warrior group, the tenth guru set in motion a profound change in the political and cultural fabric of the Mughal province of Punjab (Dhavan 2011, 3). Most instructively, his army would never wage war for power, for gain or for personal rancor. As McLeod says, “The Khalsa was resolutely to uphold justice and to oppose which is evil” (McLeod 1997, 105). In Sikh memory, Guru Gobind Singh is revered as the “Lord of an Aigrette” (kalaṅgīān wālā), the “Lord of the White Hawk” (chiṭṭe bajān wālā), and the “Lord of the Blue Charger” (nīlle ghoṛe wālā), reflecting his regal status. With the creation of the Khalsa, he infused a new spirit among his warrior-saints, who were ready to fight against injustice and tyranny.

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Before he passed away in 1708, Guru Gobind Singh placed the spiritual and temporal authority (jama) within the collective body of the Khalsa, emphasizing the corporate sovereignty of the Sikh Panth. The inauguration of the Khalsa was the culmination of the canonical period in the development of Sikhism. Guru Gobind Singh also closed the Sikh canon by adding a collection of the works of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur (1621–1675), to the original compilation of the Adi Granth. Before he died in 1708, he terminated the line of human gurus, and installed the Adi Granth as the eternal guru for Sikhs. Thereafter, the authority of the guru was invested both in the scripture (Guru Granth) and in the corporate community (Guru Panth). This twin doctrine of Guru-Granth and Guru-Panth actually exemplifies the ethos of miri-piri in the lived experience of the Sikh Panth for the last three centuries. In sum, the distinction between public and private does not exist in the Sikh sphere (as it does elsewhere) prior to the early nineteenth century. We need to look at the early Sikh tradition to see how the Sikh gurus mediated the two spaces as one. For them and for societies of that time, this division did not exist. It is the same division as between religion and politics. In recent studies, “religion” is not considered a purely interior impulse secreted away in the human soul and limited to the private sphere, nor an institutional force separable from other nonreligious or secular forces in the public domain. Rather, all the public-private, religionpolitics, and church-state dichotomies have come under the powerful critique of postmodern and postcolonial studies. It has been suggested that such dichotomies, rather than describing reality as it is, justify a certain configuration of power. The Sikh doctrine of the inseparability of “temporal and spiritual domains” (miri-piri) explicitly affirms that religion and politics are intertwined. In contemporary context, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and Shiromani Akal Dal (SAD) are the two wings of authority or power that are responsible for the religious and political affairs of the Sikh Panth respectively. The SGPC became the first democratic institution in British India when it came into being in 1920s. Since then, its members have always been elected through the electoral process. The role of the SGPC in political affairs can be articulated in terms of freedom to do those things that the SAD as a political party is not able to do. While at some level, the SAD appears to be becoming an increasingly secularized regional party under the constitution of India, it is still deeply imbricated through the SGPC in religious affairs (Kalra 2014, 269). Thus, there will always be some tensions and push among the Sikhs for intertwining religion and politics in their dealings with the Indian state. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Granth-Panth; Khalsa; Khanda

Sikhism: Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre FURTHER READING Dhavan, Purnima. 2011. When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition, 1699–1799. New York: Oxford University Press. Kalra, Virinder S. 2014. “Secular and Religious (Miri/Piri) Domains in Sikhism: Frames for Sikh Politics.” In Pashaura Singh and Louis E. Fenech, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies, 262–70. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. McLeod, W. H. 1997. Sikhism. London: Penguin. Rinehart, Robin. 2011. Debating the Dasam Granth. New York: Oxford University Press. Singh, Pashaura. 2019. “How Avoiding the Religion-Politics Divide Plays Out in Sikh Politics.” Religions 10, no. 296: 1–24.

OAK CREEK (WISCONSIN) GURDWARA MASSACRE (2012) On Sunday, August 5, 2012, the Sikh community of Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara was preparing for their weekly congregation when Wade Michael Page opened fire. Page was a lone neo-Nazi gunman motivated by hate, with one purpose: to kill as many individuals as possible. He murdered six members of the congregation: Sita Singh, Ranjit Singh, Satwant Singh Kaleka, Prakash Singh, Paramjit Kaur, and Suveg Singh, before he was killed by the heroic cops of the Oak Creek Police Department. One lieutenant, Brian Murphy, was critically injured during the attack. While there was a quick uproar about the tragedy, the aftermath was soon forgotten. Just as with any story of injustice that occurs at the hands of white supremacists, the media reported the incident and quickly moved on to the next story. Balbinder Singh Bhogal shifted the focus of common perception of the root cause of violence from “fringe madness” of a “lone wolf” to the “continued injustices of a neo-colonial globalized economy dominated by the Euro-American West.” Policy-makers must pay attention to his constant pleas to make what is just strong and combine justice with force—otherwise they are complicit in aiding the unjust to gain strength and maintain power over the just. Bhogal wrote that the incident was not “merely a blip in an otherwise trouble-free space and history of secular liberal democracy” (Bhogal 2012, 335). Bhogal explained that these types of attacks have been normalized in the United States and that there is another underlying issue that society is ignoring: institutionalized racism and the matter of white supremacy, which allows such events to continue to occur. Over the past few decades, Sikhs continued to be targeted and victimized by the ignorance of white terror. With images of al-Qaeda terrorists wearing turbans plastered all over major media outlets, the lives of turbaned individuals in the United States post-9/11 have been forever altered. This influence has been streamlined to Hollywood, as various blockbuster movies display terrorists wearing turbans.

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This constant negative imagery has further ingrained fear and hate for turbans in the minds of Americans. Amar Shergill stated, “The enemies of the United States do not wear turbans in the United States” (cited in Afridi 2013). Shergill is pointing out what seems to him as common sense: enemies of a region do not want to stand out in a crowd; going unnoticed is the main goal. Turbans have been targeted in the United States for many years. According to studies conducted by Stanford University and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), the majority of individuals who adorn a turban in the United States are Sikhs, not Muslims. Christian Unkelbach conducted research on what he called “the Turban Effect” and concluded that “whether they’re holding a steel coffee mug or a gun, people are just more likely to shoot at someone who is wearing a turban. Just putting on this piece of clothing changes people’s behavior” (Unkelbach et al. 2008). It is this ideology, coupled with the domination of others through colonialism that inspires certain individuals to kill as a righteous activity. This is evident through the actions of Wade Michael Page, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacist groups. In the aftermath of the Oak Creek massacre, Pardeep Singh Kaleka (son of Oak Creek Gurdwara President, Satwant Singh Kaleka) befriended a former skinhead, Arno Michaelis, and together the two began an organization, Serve 2 Unite, to combat discrimination and hate crimes. In the late 1980s to the 1990s, Michaelis was a founding member of what became the largest racist skinhead organization (Hammerskins, the same group that Wade Michael Page was a member of) and the lead singer of the hate-metal band, Centurion, which sold over twenty thousand CDs. Despite his background of being an inciter of hate and discrimination, Michaelis turned his life around and joined Serve 2 Unite. He states that they “defy hate and violence with peace and love. [They] bring people together. [They] celebrate the positive global human qualities that everyone shares, and no one can stop us” (Garlock 2016). Kaleka and Michaelis have been speaking at schools and events for the past several years in an attempt to educate the next generation and possibly prevent another massacre. The heroes of the Oak Creek shooting, Lieutenant Brian Murphy and Officer Savan “Sam” Lenda of the Oak Creek Police Department, were presented the attorney general’s Law Enforcement Congressional Badges of Bravery on the second anniversary of the Oak Creek shooting. On February 11, 2015, Vice-President Joe Biden and United States Attorney General Eric Holder awarded the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor to Lieutenant Murphy and Officer Lenda. The Oak Creek community hosts an annual Chardi Kala 6K, which honors the memory of the victims and their contributions to the community while also celebrating the renewed sense of purpose in the aftermath of the tragic event of August 5. Thousands of individuals from different backgrounds continue to attend the 6K memorial in Oak Creek, as hundreds more join in on memorial walks throughout the nation.

Sikhism: Operation Blue Star

Not in Our Town, a movement to combat hate and build inclusive communities, produced a documentary, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Police Services Office, about the massacre, titled Waking in Oak Creek. The documentary was screened in cities throughout the nation, with a panel of government officials and community activists to discuss the issue at hand. The tragic events of August 5, 2012 propelled many to take action and host numerous events, which educated and brought a diverse community together. Young Sikh students emerged as community leaders in a quest to end violence. The aspect of Charhdi Kala (eternal optimism) has helped the community grow, despite the horrific tragedy. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Christianity: Anti-Muslim Attacks; Sikhism: Justice, Sikh Concern for; Persecution of Sikhs (United States); Sikh Activists FURTHER READING Afridi, Mehnaz. 2013. The Gurdwara Sikh Killings. Sikh Formations 9, no. 2: 227–33. Bhogal, Balbinder Singh. 2012. “Oak Creek Killings: The Denial of a Culture of Oppression.” Sophia: International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions 51, no. 3: 335–39. Garlock, Vicki. 2016. “Serve2Unite Takes on Violence Fearlessly.” The Interfaith Observer. ­http://​­www​.­theinterfaithobserver​.­org​/­journal​-­articles​/­2016​/­2​/­5​/­serve2unite​-­takes​-­on​ -­violence​-­fearlessly​.­html. Unkelbach, C., J. P. Forgas, and T. F. Denson. 2008. “The Turban Effect: The Influence of Muslim Headgear and Induced Effect on Aggressive Responses in the Shooter Bias Paradigm.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44: 1409–13.

OPERATION BLUE STAR(1984) The code-named Operation Blue Star refers to the Indian Army’s full-fledged attack on the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar on June 3, 1984. The principal reason for this operation was related to the rise of Sikh ethnonationalism in the 1980s. The Akali Dal (“Army of the Immortal”), the main political party of the Sikhs in the Punjab, was demanding increased autonomy for all the states of India on the basis of the ASR of 1973. There was nothing unconstitutional about the Akali Dal’s demand for greater autonomy for all Indian states. During that period, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi developed increasingly strained relations with the Akali Dal because it had launched powerful campaigns to protest against the imposition of a state of emergency in 1975 through 1977. Interestingly, the Akali Dal was the most successful regional party in India that opposed the promulgation of

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the draconian Maintenance of Internal Security Act, giving the police the power to arrest and detain people without trial. The Congress Party was desperate to break up the formidable Akali Dal, which had sent forty thousand volunteers to court arrest against the emergency. It was, therefore, looking for someone who could challenge and put an end to the traditional Akali hegemony over Sikh affairs. In an apparent attempt to sow dissension in the ranks of the Akali Dal, the Congress government encouraged the rise of a charismatic Sikh preacher, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale (1947–1984). But this strategy backfired in the spring of 1984, when a group of armed radicals, led by Bhindranwale, provoked a confrontation with the government by occupying the Akal Takhat (“Throne of the Immortal”) building inside the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. The government responded by sending in the army. The assault that followed resulted in the deaths of many Sikhs, including Bhindranwale, as well as the destruction of the Akal Takhat and severe damage to the Golden Temple itself (Singh 2016, 173–74). Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was the key figure during the time leading up to Operation Blue Star. A squad of his armed Sikh supporters frequently followed him. In 1984, he moved into the Golden Temple, where he and his men stockpiled weapons for an anticipated war with the central government. By the time Bhindranwale moved into the Golden Temple complex, his following was nothing short of massive. He spoke in a simple dialect for the masses to understand, and he preached of a new, stronger Khalsa. Soon, he included the government and even Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in his diatribes. By 1984, his level of popularity became a threat to the government, forcing it to set up barricades around the main entrance of the Golden Temple. Bhindranwale threatened massive demonstrations if the barricades were not removed (Mahmood 1996, 88). On June 2, just before Operation Blue Star was set to commence, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi spoke to the nation via television, advocating for the resistance to violence on both sides. Operation Blue Star was underway on June 3, a day of Guru Arjan Dev martyrdom, when thousands of Sikhs had gathered to commemorate it. The militants were superbly trained, as Bhindranwale had made supporters of retired military personnel, such as Major General Shabeg Singh, who employed strategic military tactics: “The Golden Temple Complex is honeycombed by tunnels . . . Shabeg Singh had apparently taught them to fire at knee height” (Mahmood 1996, 90). Besides the use of tunnels by Bhindranwale’s men, the Dal Khalsa and Babbar Khalsa also joined the fight as snipers and shooters. By June 5, after days of trading fire with the militants inside the complex and suffering far more casualties than they were causing, General K. S. Brar led the army to actually storm the grounds of the Temple with the help of tanks. By June 7, Bhindranwale had been killed, making him into one of the most famous martyrs in Sikh history.

Sikhism: Operation Blue Star

There were many tragic consequences of Operation Blue Star. The immediate outrage from the Sikh community was based on several facts; first, that the most sacred of grounds was trampled on by the Indian Army, reminiscent of previous invaders (Mahmood 1996, 74). Second, in addition to the military and militant deaths that accumulated during the operation, roughly six hundred innocent visitors to the Golden Temple were killed in the cross fire. The hands of innocent civilians, who happened to be in the precincts of the Golden Temple to celebrate Guru Arjan’s martyrdom day, were tied behind their backs with their own turbans. They were stripped of their dignity before they were killed in cold blood. Third, during the fighting, a fire broke out, which completely destroyed precious, sacred documents within the Sikh Reference Library, including rare manuscripts of the Damdamā Bīṛ, the final version of the Guru Granth Sahib. Finally, after Blue Star there was Operation Wood Rose, a follow-up military campaign, in which thousands of Sikh males were taken from their homes, arrested, and killed in fake encounters (Pettigrew 1995, 37). After Wood Rose came Operation Black Thunder, utilizing highly trained Special Forces fighters to eliminate any remaining separatists still inside the Golden Temple (Pettigrew 1995, 153). To add insult to injury, the government released a document known as the White Paper, justifying Operation Blue Star. What the document actually did was blame the Akali Dal for Bhindranwale’s rise to popularity and actions, portraying the government as the savior of order in Punjab. Sikhs around the world were outraged. Unsurprisingly, a few months later, on October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s own Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. For several days, unchecked Hindu mobs in Delhi and elsewhere killed thousands of Sikhs. As a consequence of these events, 1984 became a turning point in the history of modern Sikhism, precipitating an identity crisis within the Sikh Panth. The following decade saw the bloody encounters between militant Sikhs and the armed forces of the Indian state. Many Sikhs believe that letting Operation Blue Star occur opened the floodgates for oppression for years to come. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Dal Khalsa; Khalistan; Khalistan Commando Force; Khalistan Zindabad Force FURTHER READING Mahmood, Cynthia Kepley. 1996. Fighting for Faith and Nation: A Dialogue with the Sikh Militants. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania. Pettigrew, Joyce J. M. 1995. The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerrilla Violence. London and New Jersey: Zed Books Limited.

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PERSECUTION OF SIKHS(INDIA) Sikhs have faced opposition since their conception, and many have welcomed death with open arms when faced with the option of conversion. Throughout the ages, Sikhs of all ages have faced some sort of oppression; in more recent times, more sophisticated acts of persecution have taken place. Freedom of religion is a basic human right. As Voltaire once said, “I may disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire was expressing his belief in the importance of the freedom of religion. This ideology is highlighted by the Sikh gurus and how they applied their teachings to their lives. The persecution of Sikhs in India can be dated back to the fifth guru, Arjan, who attained shaheedi (martyrdom) in 1606. A mere 137 years after Sikhism’s conception, he became the first martyr of the religion. During the height of the Mughal Empire, Sikh gurus and leaders stood against injustice and oppression, which, at times, led to their persecution. The ninth Guru, Teg Bahadur, was persecuted for standing up to Emperor Aurangzeb’s attempt to forcibly convert Brahmin priests to Islam. Religious freedom has been fought for by many and has been upheld by the Sikh gurus. They preached acceptance and tolerance for every religion. Following the Partition in 1947, Hindi was declared the official language of India. The current Indian Constitution, which was adopted in 1949, fails to recognize Sikhism as an independent religion, as Article 25 Section 2(b) states “Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion.” This decision was opposed by the Punjabi Suba Movement, which sought to further divide Punjab in order to establish Punjabi as the official state language. In 1955, a peaceful demonstration led to the arrest of roughly twelve thousand Sikhs (Sharma 1994, 324). The ASR (1973) presented a number of religious and political concerns, ranging from recognizing Sikhism and its practices to a greater autonomy and larger share of water for irrigation for the Sikhmajority state of Punjab. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi viewed it as a secessionist document. With the central government dismissing the document, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982 to implement the ASR. A total of four anti-Sikh military operations took place in the 1980s: Operation Blue Star (1984), Operation Woodrose (1984–1992), and Operation Black Thunder I (1986) and II (1988). These campaigns attacked gurdwaras, innocent Sikhs,

Sikhism: Persecution of Sikhs

and members of Sikh militant groups that had formed as a response to the way the government treated Sikhs. Immediately after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, anti-Sikh genocide erupted across India. Over the next few days, politicians, actors, and other well-known figures encouraged Hindu mobs to massacre thousands of Sikhs. Amitabh Bachchan, a beloved Bollywood actor, incited the masses by declaring, “Khoon ka badla khoon,” which translates to blood for blood (Rana 2011). Rajiv Gandhi, prime minister at the time, who was also Indira Gandhi’s son, justified the genocide, stating, “We know the people were very angry and for a few days it seemed that India had been shaken. But, when a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the earth around it does shake a little” (Mitta and Phoolka 2008). In smaller villages, Sikhs were safer than those in big cities such as Delhi. Violent criminals were released from custody by the hundreds in busloads and were dropped off in largely Sikh-populated areas. Police officers told their compatriots to turn a blind eye. Gurdwaras were desecrated. Men were dragged by their hair through the streets and burned alive. Women were raped. Drugs were introduced in the state of Punjab to the Sikh youth in order to suppress an eventual uprising against the atrocities committed by the government. The next decade consisted of young Sikh men being killed as a result of false encounters with the police. Within just two districts in Punjab, over twenty-five thousand Sikh men mysteriously disappeared or were killed, further perpetuating the Sikh genocide (Khalsa 2008). The TADA Act was initially enacted in 1985 following the post-1984 Punjab insurgency. The TADA Act was not the first time the government armed itself with legislation to justify the torture, arrest, and killing of revolutionaries. The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act (1919), popularly known as the Rowlatt Act and also known as the Black Act, allowed the government to imprison individuals for up to two years, without trial, for suspected terrorism. Any form of revolutionary activity or form of opposition was seen as an act of terrorism, and individuals were arrested for possessing certain pieces of literature. Thousands of innocent Sikh men were arrested by the government as a proactive method of suppressing “political opponents, human rights defenders, religious minorities, Dalits (so-called untouchables) and other “lower caste” individuals, tribal communities, the landless, and other poor and disadvantaged people” (Kalhan et al. 2006). Human rights organizations widely criticized the act for the unlawful arrests, torture, inability to appeal, and secret trials. The act also put the burden of proof on the defense, as individuals were guilty until proven innocent. This led to the repeal of the TADA Act in 1995, but the number of people arrested had exceeded seventy-six thousand (Zaidi 2002). To this day, Sikhs remain imprisoned as a result of the TADA Act.

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Sikhs have often been victims of hateful crimes that were committed by those who felt threatened by their victories. Since their establishment, they have spent a majority of their time being persecuted or engaged in war. Peace from the fifteenth century until now has been a dream that many Sikhs still long for. Unfortunately, the fight for equality is an ongoing battle for Sikhs; however, there are individuals fighting back with empowerment, education, and organization. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Justice, Sikh Concern for; Operation Blue Star (1984); Sikh Activists FURTHER READING Kalhan, Anil, Gerald Conroy, Mamta Kaushal, Sam Scott Miller, and Jed Rakoff. 2006. “Colonial Continuities: Human Rights, Antiterrorism, and Security Laws in India.” Columbian Journal of Asian Law 20, no. 93: 99–110. Khalsa, Baljit S. 2008. Hindustani Atwaad. Amritsar: Khalsa Fatehnama. Mitta, Manoj, and H. S. Phoolka. 2008. When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and Its Aftermath. New Delhi: Lotus Roli Books. Rana, Yudhvir. 2011. “1984 Riots: ‘Why Nobody Noticed Amitabh Bachchan Spewing Venom in India.’” The Times of India. ­https://​­timesofindia​.­indiatimes​.­com​/­india​ /­1 984​-­r iots​ -­W hy​ -­n obody​ -­n oticed​ -­A mitabh​ -­B achchan​-­s pewing​ -­venom​ -­i n​ -­I ndia​ /­articleshow​/­10429011​.­cms. Sharma, Sadhna. 1994. State Politics in India. New Delhi: Mittal Publications. Zaidi, S. Hussain. 2002. Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts. Mumbai: Penguin Books.

PERSECUTION OF SIKHS(UNITED STATES) The process of Sikh immigration to the United States began on April 6, 1899, when immigration officials in San Francisco allowed four Sikhs who arrived on the ship Nippon Maru to land. It did not take long for them to face persecutions. The San Francisco Chronicle released an illustration that stated that the United States did not want Sikhs. The first major attack against Sikhs took place in 1907, when a number of labor workers were driven out of Bellingham, Washington, in what became known as the anti-Hindoo riots (“Hindoo” or “Hindu” in this sense refers to all Indians rather than the practitioners of Hinduism). Shortly after the incident in Bellingham, white workers frequently hurled rocks at bunkhouses in Stege, California, that were occupied by immigrants. Whites objected to the fact that “Hindus” were able to establish themselves and expand to multiple industries (San Francisco Call 1907). These attacks continued over the years, such as when

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citizens of Live Oak, California, attacked two houses and forced seventy “Hindu” laborers to leave town (New York Times 1908). The discrimination and attacks were not only directed towards labor workers, but students, soldiers, and politicians as well. In 1921, three Sikh graduate students from UC Berkeley were victims of hazing attacks, which targeted their turbans. A group of students “captured and lined up” the three and wanted to “unwind their turbans to solve the mystery of what might be underneath” (San Francisco Chronicle 1921). When the three Sikhs resisted, there was a skirmish, which ended when members of the senior class interfered and restored peace. Enlisting during World War I, Bhagat Singh Thind (1892–1967) became the first turbaned individual to serve in the United States Army. Despite serving his country, Thind was unable to gain citizenship due to the color of his skin and the turban on his head. Thind continued to fight for citizenship, and his case was eventually heard by the United States Supreme Court. Having gained citizenship twice and losing it twice, Thind eventually overcame the struggle and officially became a citizen in 1936. when the United States Congress passed a law allowing U.S. veterans from “barred zones” to become citizens. Like Thind, Dalip Singh Saund (1899–1973) is a forgotten hero in U.S. history. In 1957, Saund became the first Asian American to serve as a voting member of Congress and is the only Sikh to have held a seat in Congress. To no surprise, Saund had many obstacles to overcome. Shortly after becoming a citizen, Saund was elected judge of Westmoreland Judicial District Court. Despite winning the election, he was unable to serve, since it was within a year of his gaining citizenship. A few years later, he was elected to the same seat and officially became Judge Saund. This, combined with the fact that Saund is relatively close to the common white surname Saunders, was crucial to his election. Despite being extremely qualified, Saund had to rely on voters not knowing that he was an immigrant. Racism and exclusion were common, and both federal and state legislatures often worked in sync. The Page Act of 1875 prohibited entry into the United States for Asian women, which separated families, as Sikh men immigrated to the United States with the promise of sending money back to their families. In May 1913, the state of California passed the Alien Land Law Act, banning Asian property ownership. This specific law made Stockton Gurdwara that much more significant, as it was established merely seven months earlier, in October 1912. An article written for The Literary Digest in 1923 stated, “Where the menacing spread of Hindus holding our lands will cease . . . [as] steps are being taken at once to escheat the recently purchased property of Hindus to the State, upon the contention that they are holding it unlawfully” since “there must be no more leasing or sale of land to such immigrants from India” (Literary Digest 1923). The same article carried an illustration of a Sikh farmworker with the ­caption “The Problem,” which showed the mentality of Americans toward Sikh immigrants.

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Finally, to finish off disastrous legislature, the Immigration Act passed by Congress in 1917 (also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act) gave the United States the ability to ban undesired and illiterate immigrants, as well as all South Asian immigrants. The central idea behind the Immigration Act of 1917 is similar to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13769 of 2017, commonly known as the Muslim ban, as it focused on people of particular national origins and ethnic and religious groups. This was deemed unlawful in 1965, when the new Immigration Act reformed this, abolished racial origins quotas, and specifically gave every nation an annual allotment of twenty thousand visas. September 11, 2001 impacted the lives of millions of Americans. Among the affected population, thousands of Sikhs were targeted, as xenophobia turned into Islamophobia. Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh American gas station owner, was the first victim of a hate crime related to the backlash after the 9/11 terrorist attack, when he was gunned down on September 15, 2001 in Mesa, Arizona. Many more Sikhs fell victim to hate crimes in the following years, mostly due to two things: the color of their skin and their turbans. Despite the struggle they face in the United States, Sikhs are resilient. Today, more than half a million Sikhs live in the United States, and they are contributing to society with their hard work and professional skills. These contributions, however, are too often overlooked by prejudiced predators. For example, in 2011 alone, two elderly Sikh men were murdered in Sacramento, a gurdwara in Michigan was defaced, and a Sikh man in New York was beaten. The following year, ninety-three members of Congress urged the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin recording and tracking hate crimes against Sikhs. The letter also mentioned that Sikh youth are among the most bullied in the nation, with approximately three out of four Sikh boys being severely bullied. Over the years, attacks against Sikhs remains constant. The most horrific hate crime took place on August 5, 2012 in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, when a white supremacist opened fire inside a gurdwara. Although these horrific fatalities continue to remain underreported, in 2015, the FBI finally started to track anti-Sikh hate crimes. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Islam: Islamophobia; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; Sikhism: Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012) FURTHER READING The Literary Digest. 1923. “Hindus Too Brunette to Vote Here.” Berkeley: Bancroft Library. New York Times. 1908. “Hindus Driven Out.” January 27, 1908. Berkeley: Bancroft Library. Philips, James Duncan. 1940. “Captain Stephan Philips, 1764–1838.” Essex Institute: Historical Collections LXXVI, no. 2 (April): 97–128.

Sikhism: Sikh Activists San Francisco Call. 1907. “White Workmen Protest against Hindu Toilers.” November 15, 1907. Berkeley: Bancroft Library. San Francisco Chronicle. 1921. “Seniors Rescue Hindus from U. C. Hazing Crowd.” August 16, 1921. Berkeley: Bancroft Library.

SIKH ACTIVISTS On April 15, 1469, Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, was born into a highcaste Hindu family. At this time, there was a constant clash between the Mughal rulers and followers of the Hindu faith. Simultaneously, within the Hindu community, the social construct of the caste system set clear boundaries that excluded a majority of the population. Among the minority high-caste communities, women were treated as second-class citizens. Through interactions with members of the lower castes and his older sister, Bebe Nanaki, Guru Nanak gained first-hand knowledge of the treatment of the excluded marginalized community, which led to his becoming a walking definition of activism as he began campaigning to bring about social change. Following the footsteps of Guru Nanak, many Sikhs, including Jaswant Singh Khalra (1952–1995), Valarie Kaur (1981–), and Simran Jeet Singh (1984–) campaigned to bring about political or social change. Jaswant Singh Khalra was a human rights activist in India who worked to gather information of innocent Sikh youth who were unlawfully killed by the Indian government. In 1993, Khalra attempted to retrieve the body of Sikh separatist leader Gurbachan Singh Manochahal from the police. Unable to do so, Khalra began checking crematory records, which led him to discover that thousands of Sikhs were being cremated. He conducted interviews with Sikh families who had members disappear, court officials, and crematory employees to prepare a list and highlight the injustices of India on the international level. In a speech in Canada, he declared that the number of deaths could be anywhere from fifty thousand to one million (Khalsa 2008). The Punjab Police threatened him if he continued gathering research, but Khalra persevered. On September 6, 1995, before his work was completed, he was abducted from his house, tortured, and killed. To this day, no one has been able to compile a list of Sikhs who were unlawfully murdered by the government that is as comprehensive as Khalra’s list, which exceeded twenty-five thousand. The gurus teach Sikhs to stand up during adversity and fight for justice no matter the personal cost. Another Sikh activist is Valarie Kaur. She has become one of the most prominent female Sikhs fighting for human rights. A graduate from Stanford University, she embodies many activist roles, from a civil rights activist to a lawyer and faith leader. Valarie is the founder or cofounder of many organizations, such as the

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Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Revolutionary Love Project. The Groundswell Movement is a platform in which all faiths can come together and discuss pertinent material in an organized way. The Faithful Organization is an organizational program that also brings people of different faiths together to preserve net neutrality. Finally, Valarie is the founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. This project encourages individuals to “practice love as a public ethic and wellspring for social action” (Kaur 2018). All Valarie's endeavors focus on promoting equality among all humankind. She has rallied and created a following for herself that continues to inspire individuals around the world. Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, who is a senior religion fellow for the Sikh Coalition, frequently contributes to news outlets and digital platforms about xenophobia, racial profiling, diversity and inclusion, civil rights, religion, and hate violence in the post-9/11United States. He uses current events to explain the impact that Sikh philosophy can have on the world, and he writes about “unique ideas that the Sikh tradition has to offer the world, ideas that resonate with modern notions of civic engagement, social justice, and mindful practice” (Singh 2015). As Sikh activism spiked in the United States following the September 11 ­terrorist attack, organizations such as the SALDEF, United Sikhs, The Sikh Coalition, and Jakara Movement were all empowered to bring change. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, SALDEF was the only Sikh American organization to meet with the secretary of transportation. Founded in 1996, SALDEF works to provide equal opportunities for and empower Sikh Americans by protecting civil rights, building dialogue, promoting civic and political participation, and upholding ideologies of social justice and religious freedom for all Americans. Second, United Sikhs was established in 1999, when a group of Sikhs from the New York metropolitan area banded together to assist in the socioeconomic d­ evelopment of immigrant communities in Queens, New York. The grassroots organization transformed into a UN affiliated, international nonprofit, nongovernmental, humanitarian relief, human development and advocacy organization, aimed at empowering those in need, especially disadvantaged and minority communities across the world. The Sikh Coalition was founded by volunteers on the night of September 11, 2001, in response to a torrent of violent attacks against Sikh Americans. While working to protect the constitutional right to practice one’s faith without fear, it has become the largest advocacy and community development organization for Sikhs in the United States. Finally, the Jakara Movement started as a collegiate conference at California State University, Fresno in 2000. A handful of individuals began discussing problems within the Sikh community, which led to their involvement with other communities facing similar issues. Its mission is to detect problems that plague minorities, organize the youth, and build community power. With a heavy

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base in California, the Jakara Movement opened a youth center in California and has become the largest Sikh youth-oriented organization in the United States. The importance of standing up against tyranny is built into the very core of Sikhism, and for generations to come, the fight will never end. From the gurus to Jaswant Singh Khalra to Valarie Kaur, each generation has fought valiantly against many different types of oppression in various ways. Individuals have organized to form Sikh civil rights organizations to bring political and social change at the highest level. Activism in embedded into the very core of Sikhism, and being an activist is synonymous with being a Sikh. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal See also: Sikhism: Gender and Sexual Orientation (Sikhism); Justice, Sikh Concern; Persecution of Sikhs (United States) FURTHER READING Kaur, Valarie. 2018. “We Declare Revolutionary Love as the Call of Our Times.” Revolutionary Love, January 25, 2018. ­https://​­revolutionarylove​.­net​/­about​-­the​-­revolutionary​ -­love​-­project​/. Khalsa, Baljit S. 2008. Hindustani Atwaad. Amritsar: Khalsa Fatehnama. Singh, Simran Jeet. 2015. “The Future of the Sikh Tradition.” Huff Post Religion, February 7, 2015. ­https://​­www​.­huffpost​.­com​/­entry​/­the​-­future​-­of​-­sikhism​_b​_6634748.

STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE(BHINDRANWALE, 1999) Struggle for Justice is the title of the book that contains speeches and conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale (1947–1984). Compiled by Ranbir Singh Sandhu, it contains translations in English from audio and video recordings of those speeches. Although the originality and power of Bhindranwale’s voice in Punjabi is lost in these translations, they still convey his ideas on central issues related to the Punjab crisis against the discriminatory policies of the government of India. The image of Bhindranwale that emerges from these speeches is that of “a homespun village preacher who called for repentance and action in defense of faith” (Juergensmeyer 2000, 88). What is remarkable about his sermons is his ability to link the Sikh past with contemporary politics in a convincing way. In a simple and straightforward manner, he evoked the image of a great war between good and evil being waged in the present day, describing it as “a struggle for the Sikh nation,” fearing that Sikhs would lose their identity in a flood of resurgent Hinduism or in a sea of secularism, and imploring his audience to “give up drug addictions, and keep the best weapons that, when the occasion arises, won’t miss

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their mark” (Sandhu 1999, 203). With a fiery rhetoric in his sermons, he garnered wide support among frustrated peasants and a body of unemployed young rural Sikhs who were semiliterate. Most instructively, the dissemination of his ideology through the cassette culture of the 1980s was vital in promoting the meteoric rise of his charisma, resulting in revitalization of religious identities and the emergence of Sikh ethnonationalism. The most popular scriptural passage that became the inspiration for Bhindranwale and his followers was the following verse of Guru Nanak: “He alone truly lives in whose heart dwells the Lord. O Nanak, no one else is truly alive. If one lives in ignominy by losing one’s self-respect (pati), all that one eats [for survival] is illegitimate” (GGS 142). In Guru Nanak’s view, the notion of honor and self-respect (pati) is highly prized. A new reading of this notion emerged in the historical context of the Punjab crisis of 1980s among the Sikh militants to justify their resolve to fight in the struggle for greater autonomy. For instance, Bhindranwale ended his speech of April 13, 1983 with the following exhortation: “Yes, stay peaceful everywhere and put on the train [of death] anyone who dishonors Satguru Granth Sahib or a daughter or a sister” (Sandhu 1999, 88). This twin concern with the honor of the sacred text and of Sikh women as part of the legitimization of armed resistance indicates that there was no real distinction between the private matters of Sikh men and women and the public matters of the relationship between the Sikhs and the Indian state. Thus, violence by militant groups was seen to be legitimate when the honor of women (from the Hindu, Sikh, or any other community) was harmed by police or army personnel or by members of other communities. In particular, the honor of Sikh women reflected the social standing of the Sikh community as a whole in Bhindranwale’s world view. Any breach of this collective honor by outside society was the primary cause of a righteous war (dharam yudh) against the Indian state (Singh 2016, 181). With regard to the possession and use of weapons, Bhindranwale revived the eighteenth-century Sikh martial tradition. He frequently referred to the fact that Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708) made the wearing of “five weapons,” that is, a sword, disc, arrow, noose, and gun obligatory for Khalsa Sikhs. In his sermon of October 20, 1983, Bhindranwale addressed his audience as follows: “With reference to weapons I shall only say that you should bear arms. Being armed, there is no greater sin for a Sikh than attacking an unarmed person, killing an innocent person, looting a shop, harming the innocent, or wishing to insult anyone’s daughter or sister. Also, being armed, there is no sin greater than not seeking justice” (Sandhu 1999, 313). He further stressed the point that Guru Hargobind (1595–1644) did not get any license from Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), nor did Gur Gobind Singh get any license from Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707). For his contemporary purposes, Bhindranwale invoked the sixth paragraph of the ASR of 1973, where it

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is written that “from a twelve bore pistol to a carbine, no license will be required” (Sandhu 1999, 312). Notably, the ASR for more autonomy for all Indian states afforded Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the opportunity to depict the Akali Dal, the main political party of the Sikhs in Punjab, as a “separatist organization” and to present herself as India’s savior, in much the same way as Jawahar Lal Nehru had earlier branded the demand for a Punjabi Suba (“province,” based on Punjabi language) as “communal.” Although the demands of ASR were primarily secular, the language used to articulate those demands enabled Indira Gandhi and the Punjab Congress Party to interpret it as a religiously inspired “secessionist” document, aimed at the establishment of an independent state of Khalistan. Using the political strategy of accusation of treason by putting the Akali Dal in the “secessionist” trap, Indira Gandhi wanted to consolidate her power. In his sermon of May 11, 1983, Bhindranwale addressed the issue of Khalistan as follows: “How can a nation which has sacrificed so much for the freedom of the country want it fragmented but I shall definitely say this: ‘We are not in favor of Khalistan nor are we against it.’ . . . But if the Center [Government of India] gives us Khalistan, we shall take it. This time we shall not repeat the mistake of 1947” (Sandhu 1999, 112–13). Interestingly, Bhindranwale had forewarned that the foundation of Khalistan would be laid if the Indian police or army ever tried to assault the Golden Temple Complex at Amritsar: “Khalistan will certainly be created the day the police come in here [in the precincts of the Golden Temple] and wish to engage in some improper activity” (Sandhu 1999, 77). In sum, Bhindranwale’s provocative speeches won him many enemies who wanted to silence him and sully his name. He was, however, least worried about the negative backlash or the political implications of his sermons. He stood by the teachings of the Sikh gurus to fight against injustice and tyranny. True to his words, he died fighting on June 6, 1984, during the Indian army’s assault on the Golden Temple Complex. His archetypal death assured that he will always be remembered as a great hero and martyr of the Sikh Panth. The audios and videos of his sermons are still circulating on social media. Their resonance may be seen in frequent discussions on contemporary Sikh politics. The younger generations in the diaspora have received Bhindranwale’s sermons in a positive light. The passion for an independent homeland has attained a new lease of life among the Sikh diaspora. In fact, the legacy of his sermons continues to be a key source of inspiration for contemporary Sikhs. Pashaura Singh See also: Sikhism: Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (1947–1984); Justice, Sikh Concern for; Khalistan; Martyrdom; Operation Blue Star (1984)

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Religious Violence Today FURTHER READING Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2000. Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sandhu, Ranbir Singh, trans. 1999. Struggle for Justice: Speeches and Conversations of Sant Jarnail Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale. Dublin: Sikh Educational and Religious Foundation. Singh, Pashaura. 2016. “Deconstructing the Punjab Crisis of 1984: Deer, Hawks, and Siqdars (‘Officials’) as Agents of State-Sponsored Violence.” Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 12, no. 2–3 (August–December): 173–90.

STATE VIOLENCE

INTRODUCTION The separation between church and state—between cosmological and political orders—represents a cornerstone of modern politics. But it has always been an uneasy, incomplete separation. Historically, political authority was entwined with the state, and, even today, religion pervades supposedly secular politics. Religion can provide the state with legitimacy and resources, while political authorities can elevate a chosen faith while suppressing others. One of the key functions of the state is to monopolize violence, raising armies to help enforce its policies. As a result, the blending of spiritual and political authority is, too often, intimately linked to violence—understood here in terms of the physical use of force that is intended to inflict suffering on others. This overview begins with a conceptual discussion of the relationship between the state, violence, and religion. It then unfolds chronologically, starting with a historical discussion of politics and religion. The next section charts the evolution of the modern state and its displacement of religious orders. Part four examines the religious resurgence in contemporary politics, a trend evident across all faiths that has only deepened in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the U.S.-led “War on Terror.”

The State: Violence and Religion Historically, human settlements took a range of forms, from villages and chiefdoms, to kingdoms, city-states, and empires. The modern state is often defined in terms of possessing a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence (Weber 1946). Modern states feature a single overarching government, an organized bureaucracy, fixed territorial borders, and a standing army. Long ago, many city-states became rich through trade, bringing human and cultural development, but lacked the resources necessary for security, namely a stable agricultural base and a supply

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of recruits. Meanwhile, empires tended to be unwieldly and poorly organized, with unclear borders and frequent rebellions. The modern state defeated its rivals, not because it is any more suited to human flourishing, but because it is better at war. As one famous scholar put it, “War made the state, and the state made war” (Tilly 1993, 67–91). When one thinks of the most violent events in human history, all have involved state actors—the World Wars and the Holocaust, the atomic bomb, Cambodian Killing Fields, Soviet purges, and more. Sustained violence requires a level of organization and capacity provided by the modern state. Although this chapter focuses largely on state violence and religion, and this book focuses on religious violence, we should not forget that religion can also serve peaceful roles. Religious actors may provide a regard for others that is sorely lacking in market-based, profit-driven economic systems. The faithful may operate hospitals, schools, charities, and homeless shelters, as well as advocate nonviolence. All religious traditions contain peaceful teachings, especially faiths such as the Baha’i and Amish, and some of the most important humanitarians in world history—Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa—have been religious leaders. Like religions, states also provide services such as health care, education, infrastructure, a clean environment, public safety, and more. Meanwhile, states make war, but they also make peace, with neutral powers seeking to mediate disputes and collections of states taking part in peacekeeping operations. States have protected religious minorities, as well as brought new levels of development and prosperity. Neither religion nor the state are entirely predisposed toward violence. This said, for some reason, there are fewer examples in which the combination of the state and religion has promoted peace and welfare. There appear to be more examples of partnerships between state and religion generating violence.

Historical Orders For much of human history, there was little distinction between religious and political power. Religious leaders were often political leaders, and vice versa. For example, Christian popes are hardly just religious figures; they have also commanded political and economic power, overseeing transnational empires. Islamic Caliphates quite clearly did not separate religious and political power, as political authority had a religious mission and identity, and law (Sharia) was carried out through Islamic scholars. Sultans strove not to be seen as gods, but instead as the shadow of God on this Earth, their rulings supported by military as well as moral force. Within the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), governance operated through religious communities, as the Millet System organized the peoples of the empire according to their faiths. Hindu rulers were draped in religious power, as God-kings, just as Buddhist kings sometimes took the role of enlightened beings or

State Violence: Introduction

their reincarnations. In China, emperors evoked the Mandate of Heaven, a cosmological justification of rule on this Earth. Even where there was separation between monarchs on one hand and religious leaders on the other, kings and queens tended to create mythological origins and a sense of divine favor. Not only were political leaders seen by many as sacred, their territory was often seen in cosmological terms. China was the Middle Kingdom between heaven and Earth. In Southeast Asia, Mandala conceptions of political power emphasized exemplary, sacred centers and diminishing spiritual radiance further afield. Somewhat similarly, the Inca Empire was laid out with towns in four corners and the capital in the center, which housed the Emperor, a God-king who was the son of the sun. In Islam, territories ruled by Muslims were Dar al-Islam, Abodes of Peace, whereas non-Muslim territories were Dar al-Harb, Abodes of War and Heathenism. Many faiths refer to holy lands and sacred territory, underlying the connections between otherworldly and this-worldly authority. Sometimes, the religious nature of political authority led to expansionist wars against rival faiths. Islam famously spread by the sword in the Middle East. Although conversion also occurred through education, trade, and alliances, the origins of Islam entailed military conquest and conversions, motivated by faith. Christianity was no different. The infamous Crusades (1095–1291) were motivated by a desire to support Christians in Mediterranean, secure Christian access to holy sites, and push back growing Muslim influence. The Crusades are thought to have begun in 1095, when Pope Urban II (1042–1099) called for Christian support of Byzantine resistance to Muslim expansion. There were several violent religious Crusades, an era thought to have ended either in 1453, when the Turks captured Constantinople, or 1492, when the Spanish captured Granada. The latter involved the religious terror known as the Inquisition, a Christian effort to purify their land of Muslims and Jews. Just as religious political authority led to international wars, it also led to an emphasis on internal homogeneity and forced conversions. Although religion has long helped to strengthen political authority, it also represented a rival source of power. Faith can help strengthen rulers but can also serve to constrain what they are allowed to do and undermine political legitimacy. Faith has also intensified political resistance. If political authority is a religious order, then resisting it may represent heresy for some but prophesy for others. Rebellions established rival political orders, with their leaders sometimes being seen as messiahs or prophets in their own right. Many world religions, as well as faiths lost to time, originated as cosmological and political rebellions, clashing with established interests. This meant that political authorities often worked to snuff out rival faiths within their territories; if a king draped himself in one faith to justify his rule, then adherents of other faiths would likely see his power as less legitimate, and thus be predisposed toward rebellion. Rulers often suppressed minority faiths, pushing

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them toward rebellion, but also making them too weak to succeed. Doing so, however, might catch the attention of members of that faith in other countries, with religious suppression within kingdoms sparking wars between them. The potential of faith to intensify international wars was evident in sixteenthand seventeenth-century Europe. The European wars of religion, namely the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), had their origins in papal excess and the Protestant Reformation. Christianity had always witnessed reform movements, but the most famous example unfolded in 1517, with German priest Martin Luther (1483–1546) criticizing the Church. His action coincided with the creation of the printing press, allowing reformist views to spread throughout western Europe, ultimately constituting the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The rise of Protestantism involved violent confrontation with established papal influence. The Thirty Years’ War was fought in Germany between political rivals but was invariably linked to post-Reformation power dynamics, with Catholic kings attacking Protestant communities and Protestant authorities seeking to purge Catholic influence. This and dozens of other wars led to peace talks in northwestern Germany. The decisions made here went on to reshape the relationship between the state, religion, and violence around the world.

The Sovereign State The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia sought not only to end a series of religious wars but also to rewrite the nature of European politics. Westphalia established the sovereign state—a single government ruling over the people and territory contained in recognized borders, within which foreign states were not supposed to interfere. The treaty fixed European states in place of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the right of each state to determine its own religion, with guarantees to religious minorities. This meant that, for example, Catholics in England or Germany were now recognized primarily as English or German, not under the authority of Catholic kings or the pope. The treaty’s staunchest critic was the Pope Innocent X (1574–1655), who clearly saw that the agreement represented an erosion of religious authority and identity. Meanwhile, Protestantism would become less transnational, managed by states, as evident with the creation of national churches in England, Sweden, and other countries. Although Westphalia hardly meant an end to religious conflicts in Europe, let alone war more generally, it established a new system of rules and norms that went on to shape the world system. Of course, this was also an age of European colonial expansion. Despite recognizing the principle of sovereignty, in which states possess an exclusive right to their internal affairs, Europeans did not extend this courtesy to other parts of the world. The colonial age began at the dawn of the sixteenth century, with the European

State Violence: Introduction

discovery of the Western hemisphere, as well as the arrival of Portuguese colonizers to India and Southeast Asia. Early colonialism was intimately tied to religion, as Spanish and Portuguese kings worked with papal authorities to win converts and deprive non-Christians of trade. Popes were important actors in early colonialism, providing guidelines regarding conversion and spheres of political influence. By the late sixteenth century, Protestant traders and explorers had joined the colonial competition. They had some immediate advantages, as they were more likely to ally with local Muslim leaders against Catholic colonizers, and they benefitted from new forms of corporate power. The British East India Company was created in 1600, and the Dutch East India Company formed in 1602, each organized as state corporations with funding from stocks and shareholders, allowing investment despite considerable risk. The British and Dutch slowly chipped away at areas under Spanish, Portuguese, and French rule, with the British coming to control much of North America and South Asia, while the Dutch ruled over many Southeast Asian ports. Protestant colonialism was also in some way a religious undertaking. While Catholics sought converts, Protestants were more inward-­looking, focusing on the behavior of their own people and capturing wealth to demonstrate divine will. The different approaches can be seen in terms of intermarriage that was extremely common in Catholic colonies but was resisted by Protestant rulers (Barter 2016). Protestants did not begin to pursue widespread conversion of nonEuropeans until after the Great Awakening, an eighteenth-century religious revival in British North America, after which powerful missions sought to expand to all corners of the world. Religious identification in Europe continued to be eclipsed or, more accurately, subsumed, by the rise of nationalism. Nationalism developed from the sovereign state system, prioritizing an identity derived from the modern territorial state united by a common language and culture (Anderson 1991). It would be a mistake to treat nationalism and religion as mutually exclusive. Religious identity is central to many national identities, evident in the creation of national churches as well as the role of religion in national cultures. In some ways, nationalism became a new form of religion, complete with a sense of national origins, beliefs, and sacred symbols (Hastings 1997). Where leaders once gained legitimacy from religious blessings or church patronage, they increasingly gained legitimacy for being part of the nation, developing national identity, and pursuing national interests. Just as religion can compel people to do great things or fight fierce wars, nationalism was no different. Although religion never came close to disappearing, many states were motivated by national interests in place of purely religious edicts. Nationalism soon spread to the colonized world. Anticolonial resistance was never uncommon, but the difficulty was organizing at a larger scale. Religious networks and leaders provided this social glue in many colonies—for instance, with

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early nineteenth-century resistance against Dutch colonialism in what is now Indonesia. But it was difficult for religions to mount effective anticolonial resistance for very long, as many colonies were home to different faiths and interpretations. In the early twentieth century, colonial education and activism created a new sense of national identity for many anticolonial leaders. The fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I (1914–1918), in some ways, served as a Westphalian moment for the Islamic world. The end of the Caliphate, of a system of religious rule, dislodged the center of religious politics. In its place, leaders promoted national identities that cut across Islam. While in the past, Turks and Arabs were united under the Caliphate by faith, with Greek and Arab Christians ruled separately, the creation of territorial states meant that Turks and Arabs would be separated by nationality, but be part of the same nation as religious minorities. Although the Cold War (1945–1991) divided much of the world into capitalist and communist camps, both sides possessed considerable nationalism—even if capitalist markets and community solidarity were transnational forces. For example, Vietnamese communists, although linked to communist allies, were staunch nationalists. Both sides in the Cold War projected a secular vision, seeing religion as a relic of a bygone era. The nationalist turn in political identity in the postcolonial, Cold War world, and the seeming obsolescence of religious politics was farreaching. In India, independence leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) saw religion as a rival to secular nationalism, a premodern holdover to be defeated (Juergensmeyer 2008, 11). This sense of nationalism led many regimes to demand uniformity among its peoples. If state power comes from nationalism, then making people more alike, united in their national identity, was a path to strength. This often meant that the ruling elites imagined their own language and culture as that of the entire country, using education, courts, investment, and force to project this identity across their territories. Some such projects were successful, with regional dialects and traditions giving way to a more homogenous national culture. This was, however, not always the case. For regions with distinctive cultures, especially with histories of statehood and distinct faiths, the response was often resistance, leading to ethnic conflict and separatism. Religion provided a key source of difference, as well as international support and motivation, for beleaguered minorities. It is not a coincidence that many rebellious national minorities—Québécois in Canada, Irish in Britain, Palestinians in Israel, Chechnyans in Russia, Uighurs in China, Tamils in Sri Lanka, Moros in the Philippines, Malays in Thailand, and many more—­ possess religious identities that differentiate them from the national majority. In other cases, rebellious minorities are nominally part of the same faith as the majority but possess distinctive traditions, as with indigenous peoples in the Americas, Tibetans in China, and Acehnese in Indonesia. As nationalism pushed many rulers

State Violence: Introduction

to create a more homogenous nation-state, religion provided an obstacle to assimilating minorities.

Religious Resurgence By the 1960s, many commentators saw religion as a premodern, fading source of identity and knowledge, eclipsed by civic nationalism and science. This is known as the Liberal Expectancy, the idea that modernization would dissolve religious bonds. In reality, nationalism had only temporarily been overlaid on top of religion; many national identities had religious cores, and many struggles contained hidden religious elements. From the 1970s, there was a return to the politics of religion. In many ways, this began in the Muslim world, where arbitrary colonial borders and strong religious identities meant that nationalism never really took hold. A series of events, such as Palestinian resistance, the rise of Saudi Arabian petroleum wealth, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan brought Islamic religious identity back into mainstream politics. This Islamic resurgence entailed a growing sense of Islamic identity, with greater everyday piety, international solidarity, and demand for religious influence in politics. The return of religion to mainstream politics was hardly limited to Islam. The United States saw a new wave of evangelical politics, organized through the “Christian Coalition.” By the end of the 1980s, U.S. Christianity had undergone a conservative political turn, becoming a pillar of the Republican Party. In Latin America, new religious activism was leftist, as liberation theology focused on the suffering of the poor against authoritarian governments. Even in Europe, a considerable degree of anti-communist mobilization was inspired by religion, most notably the influence of Pope John Paul II (1920–2005), a Polish national who wielded tremendous influence in Eastern Europe. The Catholic Church was central to the overthrow of dictatorship in the Philippines, as People Power gained the support of church leaders in confronting the army in 1986. This shift was also evident in Israel, with the demographic and political rise of Orthodox Judaism, namely the creation of the Shas and other political parties. The rise of religious politics in the 1980s was also found in India, where the multiethnic, nationalist Congress Party declined, while the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained new electoral success. Also in India, the mid-1980s saw a series of violent clashes between the Indian state and Sikh organizations, including terrorist strikes carried out by Sikh radicals. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka saw a rise of political Buddhism among Sinhalese nationalists. At the end of the Cold War, the resurgence of religious politics exploded into public consciousness. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered conflicts, as leaders fought for power, with ordinary people mobilizing in the face of

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uncertain futures. A series of violent conflicts, especially in the former Yugoslavia and the Caucasus region, were based on identity. The most intense conflicts tended to be waged among different religious groups. In Yugoslavia, Catholic Croatians, Orthodox Serbians, and Muslim Bosnians and Albanians fought intense wars. In the Caucasus, Christian Armenia fought a war with Muslim Azerbaijan for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, while Chechnya’s resistance against Russia increasingly took on Islamic overtones. It is not that the newly assertive religious politics were against the modern state or nationalism—far from it. Most religious groups sought state power and demanded a more religious form of nationalism, rejecting overt secularism (Juergensmeyer 2008). The role of religious identity and its potential for conflict in the post-Cold War world was captured in Samuel Huntington’s now infamous “Clash of Civilizations” (1996). Huntington argued that the end of Cold War competition between capitalist democracy and communist authoritarianism would not bring world peace, but instead a competition among rival civilizations. Huntington suggested that Western Christian civilization was on the decline, creating a multipolar world, divided into civilizational blocks—namely, Christian Islamic and Chinese Confucian. Huntington’s many critics pointed out the arbitrary nature of many civilizational lines, with Japan standing as its own civilization, while Korea and Vietnam were part of Chinese culture, Spain and Portugal being Western but Central and South American being Latin American, Muslim-majority states not being African, and India’s status as “Hindu” obscuring its millions of Muslims. Many alliances cut across these civilizations, while many fierce rivalries exist within them. Still, Huntington’s schema was highly influential, and with events to come, reality would partly conform to this primordial model.

9/11 and the War on Terror The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States ensured that the linkages between the state, violence, and religion would continue to dominate popular discourse. Islamists had long spoken of Holy Wars against the West, labelling Christians as infidels, while Western actors had long viewed Islamic societies as challenges to Christian civilization. The terrorist attacks in New York, as well as attacks in Bali, New Delhi, Paris, Boston, London, Barcelona, and more deepened the shared view of Islamists and many conservative Westerners that politics represented a sort of religious competition. Terrorists often claim to act in the name of Islam, rhetoric that deepens religious divisions. In response to September 11, the United States and many allies launched a military campaign against the Taliban, an al-Qaeda affiliate operating out of Afghanistan. While the Taliban had once been U.S. allies against the Soviets, their brutal Islamist social order and support

State Violence: Introduction

for terrorism made the group a clear enemy. Shortly after invading Afghanistan in 2001, the United States also invaded Iraq in 2003, although this campaign did not receive much international backing. Iraq had few connections with al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, with brutal dictator Saddam Hussein representing an enemy of many Islamists. For some, support for the Iraq campaign and its conflation with Afghanistan demonstrated that the U.S. War on Terror was, in some way, a war against Islam. As the United States and its NATO allies have waged a complex war in Afghanistan, Iraq became home to a new threat, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which sought to establish Islamic rule across the region. The result of terrorists acting in the name of religion has been the growing securitization of faith. In Muslim countries, Christians, Jews, and sectarian Muslim minorities have been attacked and displaced. In the West and in Asia, Muslim minorities have faced new pressures. Islamophobia has not just become a social phenomenon, but even a campaign promise, with President Donald Trump (1946–) promising to ban Muslim immigration. The assumption here is that Islam represents a potential source of violence, with heavy-handed political reactions doing their part to make this vision a reality. The trend toward religious politics and accompanying religious violence is a continuing reality. This is not just the case of Islamic societies or of the West. After years of suppressing religion, the Russian state is increasingly linked to the Orthodox Church, with each force helping the other carry out conservative agendas. Even self-styled communist countries such as China, Vietnam, and Cuba have seen a return of religion. We see a growing sense of Buddhist nationalism and anti-Islamic violence in South and Southeast Asia, as well as growing Hindu state nationalism. The state, violence, and religion are entwined in modern political life, as power over this world and life in the next world are interconnected. The following entries provide overviews of specific cases and themes. They emphasize the linkages between the state, violence, and religion. This focus should not reify or exaggerate these connections; of course, the state and religion can interact for peace. The below entries, however, demonstrate the potential for violence for the state and religion in the contemporary world. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Iraq: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Barter, Shane Joshua. 2016. Explaining the Genetic Footprints of Catholic and Protestant Colonizers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Religious Violence Today Hastings, Adrian. 1997. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huntington, Samuel. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2008. Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tilly, Charles. 1993. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Cambridge: Blackwell Press. Weber, Max. 1946. Politics as a Vocation. Translated by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Free Press.

CAMBODIA: TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROCESS The small Southeast Asian country of Cambodia will forever be marked by the events of 1975 to 1979, in which the communist Khmer Rouge oversaw the deaths of approximately two million of their fellow Cambodians, some 25 percent of the population. The destruction was staggering, compounded by a civil war, Vietnamese intervention and occupation, poverty, and twenty-five years of semiauthoritarian rule. The most high-profile effort to come to terms with the “Killing Fields” has been Cambodia’s truth and reconciliation process, namely the trials of aging former Khmer Rouge leaders. Along with punitive justice, there exists a pressing need to promote cultural and spiritual regeneration for ordinary Cambodians. Along with the Mon and Cham, the Khmer people formed one of mainland Southeast Asia’s oldest native civilizations. The Khmer Empire stretched across much of the region, especially the powerful Angkor Kingdom (800–1431). The twelfth century saw the construction of the magnificent Angkor Wat temple complex, dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. In the 1320s, Angkor saw mass conversion to Buddhism, with Angkor Wat being repurposed for Buddhist worship. The Angkor Kingdom would soon decline though, a consequence of agricultural failures, succession disputes, and war. It collapsed in 1431, when Thai armies destroyed and depopulated the temple region. For decades, Cambodia was reduced to being a Thai vassal, an era known as Cambodia’s Dark Ages. In the early nineteenth century, Cambodian principalities also faced Vietnamese encroachment, leading them to reach out to new allies. Interested in the Mekong River as a potential back door to China, the French took advantage of the Cambodian distress, signing a treaty of protection in 1863. French colonizers would subsequently re-create the Khmer monarchy, recapture Cambodian territory, and restore Angkor Wat. In some ways, France may have saved Cambodia from being destroyed by its powerful neighbors. France ruled Cambodia as one of five provinces of Indochina, connecting it to Vietnam. Cambodia’s colonial bureaucracy was staffed by ethnic

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Vietnamese, with Chinese traders dominating the markets. King Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012), a playboy who accommodated the French but later championed independence in 1953 was coronated in 1941. As communism expanded and U.S. influence grew, Sihanouk worked to placate all parties. This strategy eventually failed in 1970, when the U.S.-backed Lon Nol (1913–1985) led a coup on the pretense of stopping communist expansion. The communist Khmer Rouge then grew quickly, allying with the former king and Vietnamese communists. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge ousted Lon Nol, promising to carry out a revolution. Led by the ruthless Pol Pot (1925–1988), the Khmer Rouge set the clock back to year one. Influenced by Maoist thought, as opposed to the Leninist model in Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge wished to return to an agrarian utopia. They emptied the cities, seen as contaminated by foreign influences. This meant killing educated people, destroying books and musical instruments, and even purging the country of Buddhism. The Khmer Rouge relocated entire communities, killing those who resisted. Many of the two million casualties were the result of disease and starvation, as farmers were forced to abandon their fields. Many observers have described this as a genocide, even though it was not carried out with the precise goal of eliminating a particular ethnic group or nation. This was a mass killing by a regime against its own people, in the delusional view that it would ultimately strengthen their country. The Killing Fields ended with the 1979 Vietnamese invasion. This represented both an intervention to put an end to the killings, as well as an effort to expand Vietnamese power. Although Vietnam put an end to the worst of the Khmer Rouge, a civil war continued near the Thai border, with China and the West supporting Khmer Rouge forces. With the end of the Cold War, Vietnam invited the United Nations (UN) to form a provisional government in 1991. The UN welcomed Sihanouk to again reign as king. Elections led to a victory of Hun Sen (1952–), a former communist who was first given power by the Vietnamese. Hun Sen created a stable, quasiauthoritarian system that has endured for over twenty-five years. Cambodia still faces the question of what to do about its troubling past. Many Cambodians feel it would be best to move on, with some arguing that Buddhist culture emphasizes avoiding uncomfortable discussions and trusting in karmic justice. However, there is also support from international groups and Cambodians for a truth and reconciliation process. This approach was popularized by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1996–2000), which focused on revealing the horrors of the country’s past, with amnesty provided for many who committed crimes. Western influences pushed for a similar process in Cambodia, suggesting that moving on is only psychologically possible once the past has been dealt with. Still others wanted to establish trials to punish former Khmer Rouge leaders, prioritizing justice over truth-telling. In 2001, Cambodian rulers finally

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decided to hold trials. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia were created as a hybrid system of UN and Cambodian courts. The results have been disappointing, marked by delays and the failing health of aging Khmer Rouge leaders. Some defendants died while on trial, and many former Khmer Rouge were protected by the Hun Sen government. Comrade Duch (1942–), who oversaw a notorious prison, has been the sole conviction from the expansive, expensive court system. As the courts focus on who is guilty, less attention has been paid to ongoing injustices and the cultural legacies of the past. Forty years later, most Cambodians today were not alive during the Killing Fields. Emphasizing the Killing Fields has drawn attention away from Hun Sen’s continued semiauthoritarian rule, including intense corruption and violence against opponents. An important facet of dealing with the past involves cultural regeneration. For a country where education, religion, and culture were targeted for destruction, Cambodia faces the unique challenge of regenerating its identity. Cambodians who fled to Thailand or the West have played important roles in sharing traditional dance and Cambodian pop music with a new generation. Aided by monks in Thailand, although cautious to maintain a distinctive Cambodian identity, temples have been restored, and monastic ranks have been repopulated. A return to spiritual life marks one of the most important approaches to healing Cambodian society, in hopes that punitive and karmic justice will face those responsible for the country’s suffering. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Kiernan, Ben. 2014. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. New Haven: Yale University Press.

CHINA: TAIWAN CONFLICT Since 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or China) and the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan) have been separate governments. In many ways, this is a purely political conflict. China has largely rejected religion, and Taiwan’s leaders rarely invoke faith. However, under the radar, Buddhist organizations in China and Taiwan, such as Fo Guang Shan, have forged deep ties. Taiwanese Buddhist groups have been keen to expand their influence as China has thawed its stance on religion, with China happy to deepen these ties and undermine Taiwanese independence. In this case, religion has brought warring parties together, softening the longstanding political tensions between the two Chinas.

State Violence: China

Accounting for religion in China represents a complex task. In Western countries and Judeo-Christian traditions, we tend to see individuals as adhering to a single faith. In China, religion is more fluid and overlapping. The major religious traditions in China include Daoism (a philosophy mixed with folk religions), Confucianism (outlining ideal social and political orders), Buddhism (imported from India in its Mahayana form), as well as Islam, Christianity, and various folk religions. Although Islam and Christianity, and to some extent Buddhism, involve clear divisions, for the other traditions, it is not uncommon for people to practice some mixture of beliefs. Religious diversity often exists in individual practice, forbidding precise estimates of the number of adherents. As China has liberalized its views on religion since the 1980s, there is a resurgent identification with Buddhist traditions, as well as a growth in Christianity and Islam. Meanwhile, communist rulers have come to promote Confucian ethics, consistent with a longer history of Chinese officials supporting conservative social and political values and suppressing less pliable faiths. Meanwhile, among Taiwan’s twenty-three million residents, 35 percent identify as primarily Buddhist, 33 percent as Daoist, 4 percent as Christian, and 20 percent as nonreligious. China has a long, rich spiritual history. Ancient China developed various forms of mysticism and ethics long before the arrival of Buddhism in the first century CE. Buddhism expanded in the sixth century CE and organized into various sects and monasteries, sometimes with political support from the emperor. China then saw a resurgence of Confucianism and a suppression of Buddhism, which was seen as unproductive by conservative rulers. Islam arrived through traders in the fourteenth century, and Christianity arrived through the Jesuits and colonizers in the sixteenth century. Early Christian influences were especially strong on the island of Taiwan, which soon saw European influence and Chinese migration. China ruled Taiwan before losing it to Japan in the 1890s. This was a time of violent upheaval in China, with the end of the imperial system and the rise of modern, Western political ideas. The Japanese invasion took advantage of this chaos, ending with the rise of Mao Zedong (1893–1976) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, est. 1921), which proclaimed rule over China in 1949. The defeated Chinese nationalists (Guomindang) retreated to Taiwan and other Chinese borderlands, protected by U.S. allies, as the Cold War took hold. Communist China conducted violent attacks on all religions, targeting temples and religious knowledge. Militant atheism reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when youth brigades sought to wipe out old, hierarchical ways of thinking. The destruction of religion was especially brutal in Tibet, where communist forces attacked ancient monasteries and opposed the exiled Dalai Lama (1935–). Taiwan was also initially hostile to religion, but soon developed a more liberal view as it came to oppose Chinese authoritarianism and deepen its ties to

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the West. As Taiwan democratized in the 1980s, the number of Buddhist adherents and temples has grown, as has the influence of major Buddhist organizations. Tzu Chi (Compassionate Relief) was founded in the 1960s as a charitable organization. Its popularity has grown due to its work in hospitals and disaster relief in Taiwan as well as around the world. Fo Guang Shan (Buddha’s Light Mountain, est. 1967) has some monastic elements, overseeing charitable work through the lay-based Buddha’s Light International Association. These and other humanitarian Buddhist organizations can be understood as new religious movements, less based on monastic orders and more focused on charity, education, and self-help. Meanwhile, democratic Taiwan has also seen the rise in demands for formal independence from China, a position promoted by Taiwanese Christian groups that reject ties to China. On the mainland, China has slowly thawed its view of religion, supporting the reconstruction of temples and allowing independent religious organizations. This said, China has taken a cautious approach toward Christianity and Islam (especially among Uighurs in Xinjiang), seen as potential sources of instability. China has also banned movements such as the Falun Gong, which authorities have labeled a cult. However, the Chinese government has actively promoted Confucian ideals and increasingly accommodates Daoism and Buddhism. For Taiwanese Buddhist groups, this has represented an opportunity to help the people of China and develop greater influence. Fo Guang Shan has been especially active in China and has supported unification efforts, even receiving funding from the Chinese government (Laliberté 2004). Tzu Chi has been less politically active, but has also grown throughout China through its charitable activities. Although not as clearly pro-unification, its operations in Taiwan and China have the effect of bringing the two Chinas closer together. In the shadow of high politics, including demands for Taiwanese independence or unification, religion increasingly ties the two entities together. Although religious minorities have promoted Taiwanese independence, Buddhist organizations have emphasized common ties. On one hand, some groups can be seen as carrying out China’s agenda and moving toward unification. On the other hand, Buddhist organizations have brought aid and meaning to many people in China, undermining military tensions and providing common understandings. Shane Joshua Barter and Jaroslav Zapletal FURTHER READING Johnson, Ian. 2017. “Is a Buddhist Group Changing China? Or Is China Changing It?” New York Times, June 24, 2017. ­https://​­www​.­nytimes​.­com​/­2017​/­06​/­24​/­world​/­asia​/­china​ -­buddhism​-­fo​-­guang​-­shan​.­html.

State Violence: Egypt Laliberté, André. 2004. The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan, 1989–2003: Safeguarding the Faith, Building a Pure Land, Helping the Poor. London: Routledge.

EGYPT: COPTIC CHURCH CONFLICT By far the most populous Arab country, Egypt represents an important part of the Islamic world. However, Egypt is also home to an important Coptic Christian community, one with an extremely long history and a distinctive culture. After more than thirteen hundred years of coexistence with Muslims, the Christian Copts have been increasingly under attack, as more puritanical approaches to Islam have led to the destruction of churches, riots, and a Christian exodus. As in other parts of the Arab world, Egypt’s religious minorities are fleeing their increasingly hostile homelands. Egypt is home to approximately ninety million people, with 90 percent identifying as Muslim. Most of the remaining 10 percent are Christians, known as the Copts. Coptic Christianity is mostly associated with Orthodox Christianity, although there is also a community of Eastern Catholic Copts. Coptic communities are also found in Sudan and Libya. The Copts have sustained their faith and culture for two thousand years, with some still speaking the Egyptian language, although in the past two centuries, most have come to speak Arabic. Some Copts trace their cultural roots, not just to early Christianity but also to ancient Egypt, the inheritors of a Pharaonic world that was largely erased by the arrival of Islam. Christianity is thought to have arrived in Egypt within decades of Jesus Christ’s death, with the faith flourishing in Alexandria long before Roman conversion. Alexandria became a center of Christian knowledge, with the suppression of traditional religions and mass conversion to Christianity in the third century. Egyptian Copts trace a line of popes/patriarchs back to 30 CE, with the current pope being Tawadros II (1952–). Egypt faced an Arab invasion in the seventh century, but Christianity was protected under the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). In the tenth century, Egypt became the center of the Fatimid Caliphate (921–1171), under which Christians were subject to additional taxes and faced persecution, leading many to convert to Islam over several centuries. Copts were essentially cut off from the wider Christian world for several centuries. Their position improved in the nineteenth century, encouraging Copts to become more active outside their communities and to integrate into Arab society. Many Copts played key roles in the Egyptian independence. In the 1950s, Arab nationalism, promoted by President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), both attracted the Copts, since it was largely secular, but also pushed some away, since Copts may not identify as Arab. In the 1970s, under President Anwar Sadat (1918–1981), the Copts saw the rise of

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perhaps the most famous Coptic Christian, Boutros Boutros Ghali (1922–2016), who became the minister of foreign affairs and later secretary general of the United Nations. The world has seen a growing sense of Islamic identity and piety since the 1980s, a phenomenon known as the Islamic Resurgence. In Egypt, it is seen in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1928. Tensions with Israel and the West, as well as an increasing emphasis on doctrinal purity under Saudi-funded Wahhabism, have led to tensions between Egypt’s Muslim majority and Christian minority. From the late 1990s, Egyptian authorities have created oppressive laws against the Copts. It is increasingly difficult to renovate or build a church, even though mosque construction is encouraged. Egyptians can convert to Islam, but not from it, creating a one-way street and a slow shift toward Islam. Mixed marriages mean conversion to Islam, and those wishing to return to Christianity after a divorce are not permitted to do so. In 2000, a series of riots occurred in Kosheh, a largely Christian village south of Cairo. After years of tensions, an argument between a Christian shopkeeper and Muslim customer led to Muslims attacking Christian businesses and burning down Christian homes. Muslim youths killed twenty Christians, but they were released by Egyptian authorities, prompting Coptic leaders to express their outrage. The coming years saw several churches destroyed and a series of attacks at Christmas services. On New Year’s Eve 2010, Islamists attacked Coptic churches in Alexandria, killing twenty-one people. Dozens of attacks on Coptic churches occurred in 2011, amid political chaos in Egypt, especially the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and even more extreme Islamists. In 2013, Egypt witnessed a coup against the elected President Mohammed Morsi (1951–), representing the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi’s increasingly authoritarian rule alienated many supporters, and his effort to sideline the Egyptian Army ultimately led to his overthrow. Islamists were outraged, with many targeting Coptic Christians, whose leaders mostly supported the coup. The coming months saw multiple Christian-Muslim riots, with churches looted and burned by protestors. Growing sectarian tensions have continued with the rise of ISIS, which beheaded twenty-one Copts in Libya in 2015 and was credited with a suicide attack on the Botroseya Church in 2016. In 2017, ISIS affiliates attacked a convoy en route to a Coptic monastery, killing twenty-nine people, one of several such attacks that led to one hundred deaths within a few months. Despite growing tensions and violence, it is useful to note some positive developments. After the 2010 New Year’s Eve bombings, the Muslim Brotherhood immediately criticized the attacks and supported Coptic communities. The Brotherhood worked with the Copts to create a massive human shield around major churches during Christmas services, providing a clear statement of support for Christians in Egypt. It is also important to note that Copts are not solely victims,

State Violence: Indonesia

with Coptic youths triggering outrage in online videos mocking Islamic beliefs. The Egyptian government has made some efforts to support Coptic Christianity, organizing Christmas Mass in the new capital building for 2018. Continued political instability in Egypt, high unemployment, and religious tensions have led many Copts to flee to Western countries. The Coptic diaspora consists of some two million people, mostly living in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Copts have been assisted by Western churches, alarmed by their continued persecution. Although this has helped many Copts, it is also part of a broader pattern throughout the Arab world, in which Christians, Jews, and other minorities have fled. This is the goal of many Islamists, hoping to cleanse the region of minorities. The result is an increasingly homogenous Arab Muslim Middle East, representing a massive demographic shift in this troubled region. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Pakistan: Christian Crisis FURTHER READING Guirguis, Laure. 2016. Copts and the Security State: Violence, Coercion, and Sectarianism in Contemporary Egypt. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

INDONESIA: MALUKU CONFLICT Indonesia features the world’s largest Muslim population, totaling nearly 88 percent of its 260 million residents. But Indonesia is also home to many other faiths, including some twenty-six million Christians. The Maluku region in eastern Indonesia features both Muslim and Christian communities, with the two groups roughly balanced across various islands. Enjoying access to education and employment under Dutch colonial rule, Maluku’s Christians saw their influence wane in the 1990s. Tensions exploded into religious conflict in 1999, sparked by new electoral competition. Violence between Christian and Muslim communities in Maluku were extremely bloody, with an estimated five thousand killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and neighborhoods torn apart. The violence ended with a peace accord in 2002, but such conflicts are difficult to overcome completely, as the region has seen sporadic returns to communal violence. Eastern Indonesia is known as the Spice Islands, the home of many of the world’s spices, such as cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Islam arrived peacefully through spice traders in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the clove-rich rival islands of Ternate and Tidore becoming sultanates. The Portuguese arrived in the sixteenth century, setting up forts and joining the spice trade. They soon made conversions

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among local animist populations, with some islands retaining Catholic majorities to this day. The Dutch arrived in the seventeenth century, displacing the Portuguese, and then monopolizing much of the spice trade. While Dutch colonizers were mostly uninterested in religious conversion, Maluku provided an exception. The Dutch transformed Portuguese churches and schools to create Protestant missions, especially in the city of Ambon. The Dutch later converted communities in Halmahera, in northern Maluku, a second area of Protestant influence. Under the Dutch, Ambonese Christians gained access to colonial education and employment. Ambon provided many native soldiers and bureaucrats to the Dutch East Indies government and enjoyed an elevated status. As Indonesia fought its war for independence after World War II, Christians feared for their position in a Muslim-majority country, leading Ambon to wage a rebellion in 1950. Ambon’s soldiers and bureaucrats initially fared well under Indonesian rule, as the new country was in dire need of expertise. But with the expansion of education, a new generation of Muslim officers and bureaucrats arose to challenge Christian influence. Additionally, migration and higher birth rates led to the growth of Maluku’s Muslim population. It is often believed that demographic changes in Maluku were caused by state transmigration programs. In reality, it was spontaneous migration from nearby Sulawesi that brought Muslim merchants and traders to Maluku, where they competed with Ambonese leaders for political and economic control (Bertrand 2004, 122). Additionally, the increasing piety of local Muslim and Christian communities led to their growing separation, with fewer intermarriages and shared cultural traditions to provide common ground. The fall of Suharto in 1998 brought political chaos, especially with the introduction of elections and the creation of new administrative divisions. The conflict in Ambon began in January 1999. A series of smaller clashes led to a confrontation between youths near a local bus station. The fight drew in friends and allies, spiraling into communal riots. This form of violence was not centered on professional militaries but was, instead, between militias formed from ordinary communities. The violence was intense, marked by executions, rape, arson, and forced religious conversions. Christian Ambonese forces were strengthened by the presence of local gangs that had long operated in Jakarta and Ambon. Muslim forces were soon reinforced by the arrival of Laskar Jihad, an Islamic militia organized throughout Indonesia in support of their war against Christians. Additionally, police and military units sometimes contributed to the fighting, with the largely Christian police and Muslim army picking sides. Riots soon spread to nearby islands, with fighting continuing for nearly a month, reigniting at several points over the coming months. Then, the creation of new administrative districts in North Maluku led to elite competition and generated insecurities among Muslim and Christian communities, which feared becoming minorities in local elections. In December

State Violence: Iraq

1999, violence reignited in Ambon following a traffic accident. In deeply divided communities, even small incidents have a way or spiraling into larger riots, fueled by shared insecurities. Even amid such brutal violence, some communities maintained peace. For example, in North Maluku, the traditional guards of the Sultan of Ternate helped to protect Christians from rioters in November 1999. In much of Maluku, ethnic Javanese transmigrant communities maintained neutrality and avoided violence, despite being Muslim. There are also several cases of Islamic and Christian religious leaders demanding peace and engaging in dialogue, as well as specific villages that maintained interreligious cohesion (Duncan 2013). The conflict simmered through 2000 with several smaller incidents. In February 2002, Christian and Muslim leaders came together to sign a peace agreement. Inspired by the December 2001 Malino Accord, which helped overcome MuslimChristian violence in nearby Sulawesi, the February 2002 Malino II Accord communicated a shared commitment to peace. Unlike traditional peace agreements, in which leaders of coherent armed groups promise to end fighting, peace agreements between communities have especially important symbolic roles, reassuring each side and seeking to create shared understandings. They involve religious and traditional leaders conducting ceremonial exchanges, promising security to the other side, and encouraging shared traditions. A variety of peace organizations and interfaith groups have contributed further to peace. But it has not been easy. A 2011 traffic accident led to brief clashes, just as violence broke out at a local university over admission rates. Maluku’s Muslims and Christians are working to maintain peace, but this will demand ongoing cooperation. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Bertrand, Jacques. 2004. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duncan, Christopher R. 2013. Violence and Vengeance: Religious Conflict and Its Aftermath in Eastern Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

IRAQ: MUSLIM CRISIS Iraq features one of the deadliest sectarian conflicts in the world, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. Although Iraq’s Christians and other religious minorities also face attacks, religious violence in Iraq primarily unfolds within Islam, with ethnic and doctrinal groups involved in intense violence. The

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conflict revolves around competition between ethnic Arabs and ethnic Kurds, groups that share the Sunni Muslim faith in northern Iraq, as well as between majority Shia and minority Sunni Muslims communities, which share ethnic ties in southern Iraq. After the 2003 U.S. invasion, Shia Muslims have dominated Iraq’s government, stoking fears among Sunni communities and, in turn, fueling support for ISIS. Ethnic and sectarian violence among Iraq’s Muslims has no end in sight, promising to scar Iraq for years to come. The relative size of these groups is contested, with precise estimates impossible in a context of violence and displacement. Shia Muslims represent the majority of Iraqis, somewhere between 55 and 65 percent. Concentrated in the southeast, most Iraqi Shia are ethnic Arabs, providing them with religious ties to Iran and ethnic ties to the Arab world. About 35–40 percent of Iraqis are Sunni Muslims, divided roughly equally between ethnic Arabs and ethnic Kurds. Arab Sunnis were favored under the Saddam Hussein regime, while Kurds, who live in the mountainous north of Iraq, were heavily persecuted. With a Sunni north and a Shia south, sectarian violence has been most severe around Baghdad, a meeting spot for the different sects. The current crisis has deep historical roots. The Sunni/Shia division began immediately after the death of the Prophet Mohammed (570–632), as it was unclear who would succeed him as leader of the Muslims. Communities that favored Abu Bakr (573–634), a close companion of the Prophet, established the Sunni tradition, while those who supported Ali (599–661), a cousin of Mohammed who had married the Prophet’s daughter, established the Shia tradition. The groups fought a civil war, and, in 661, Ali was assassinated, and his martyrdom became a key theme in Shia Islam. Although Islam contains divisions, with Sunnism containing various legal traditions and Shiism containing different views of succession after Ali, the Sunni-Shia divide represents the most enduring, violent schism in the Muslim world. Over 85 percent of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, who predominate in Asia, northern Africa, and parts of the Middle East. Meanwhile, Shia communities are found primarily in Iran, as well as in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. A component of the Turkish Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), modern Iraq was formed by the League of Nations in 1920. Iraq’s king was overthrown by the Arab nationalist Ba’athist Party in 1968. Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) came to power in 1979 and immediately became involved in a war against Iran, whose recent Islamic Revolution had brought Shia clerics to power. Iran’s exiled Ayatollah Khomeini had actually lived in Iraq, with Iraqi leaders pleased to see their neighbor destabilized, but this changed when the Ayatollah began mobilizing Iraqi Shia communities. The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) deepened sectarian tensions, with Iraq’s Shia caught between ethnic and religious allegiances. Saddam Hussein ruthlessly suppressed Shia movements, including overseeing the 1982 massacre of nearly 150

State Violence: Iraq

Shia civilians, but was especially brutal to the country’s Kurdish minority. As Iraqi leaders worked with the Soviets, Americans funded Kurdish forces in the 1970s. During the Iran War, Hussein was concerned with Kurdish resistance at home. In 1982 and again in 1988, Hussein oversaw the massacre of tens of thousands of Kurds using chemical weapons. During the 1991 Gulf War, both Shia and Kurds resisted Hussein, who responded with further attacks. Hussein went so far as to drain the marshes surrounding the historical Tigris and Euphrates rivers to deprive Shia rebels of sanctuaries. Hussein retained control of Iraq through the 1990s, still promoting Arab, Sunni power in an ailing country. The 2003 U.S. invasion, ostensibly pursuing al-Qaeda, led to the overthrow of the Ba’ath Party and the execution of Saddam Hussein. The 2005 elections led to a victory of the Shia majority, a group long deprived of power by the Sunni minority. The United States also strengthened Kurdish forces, providing political, economic, and military aid. The groups that Hussein had fought for decades were empowered by the U.S. invasion, with many seeking revenge against Arab Sunnis. In turn, Arab Sunnis now resented their loss of power and feared such reprisals, providing fertile soil for the rise of militants. This was amplified by the presence of former Ba’ath Party political and military leaders, now out of official power but still commanding Sunni loyalties. Within a year of the U.S. invasion, Sunni militants were waging a sustained rebellion under the banner of al-Qaeda, the very group the United States sought to control by invading Iraq. This soon devolved into sectarian violence, as Iraq found itself in a civil war, sparked by the 2006 bombing of the alAskari Shia Mosque. For the next two years, Sunni and Shia militants took part in sustained fighting that left tens of thousands dead and over four million displaced. With the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, sectarian violence again flared. This time, Sunni resistance organized under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). ISIS captured significant territory in northern Iraq and served as a de facto government over the next five years. ISIS also captured the northern city of Mosul, which was not retaken by Iraqi forces until 2017. ISIS has merged Iraq’s sectarian war with the deadly Syrian civil war, expanding religious violence within Iraq. ISIS has fought U.S. forces but has primarily clashed with Kurdish and Shia soldiers, as well as targeting smaller minorities. In 2014, ISIS forces attacked the Yazidis, a small religious minority, in an act of ethnic cleansing. Reports have shown that ISIS rebels have committed intense sexual violence against women and committed horrible acts against other ethnic and religious groups they see as infidels (Ahram 2015). The past fifteen years have seen unprecedented violence throughout Iraq. Smaller religious minorities such as Yazidis and Christians have been targeted, with many emigrating from Iraq. Kurdish communities, having survived Saddam Hussein’s regime, have secured their territories and have taken part in numerous

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battles against Sunni Arab Islamists. The most intense fighting has been waged by Sunni and Shia forces, a long-standing conflict with an indefinite future. Shane Joshua Barter and Mahesh Kushwaha See also: State Violence: Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict FURTHER READING Ahram, Ariel. 2015. “Sexual Violence and the Making of ISIS.” Survival 57 no. 3: 57–78.

ISRAEL: IRAN PROXY CONFLICT Since its founding, Israel’s relationship with the Muslim world has been severely strained. Most Muslim countries have no diplomatic relations with Israel, refusing to recognize it as a country. Israel is known for its ongoing territorial expansion and persecution of Palestinians, while Muslim leaders fan antisemitism for local political gain and support violent resistance movements in Palestine. Over time, Israeli tensions with many Sunni, Arab states have cooled somewhat, especially those with common U.S. allies. Despite having cordial relations prior to 1979, Iran has emerged as Israel’s foremost foe. This is despite the fact that Palestine features few Shia Muslims, the community that Iran typically defends. The Iran-Israel conflict includes direct tensions but is primarily carried out by proxy, with both sides (especially Iran) supporting armed groups against their enemies. When Israel was created after World War II, it was largely at the expense of local Palestinians. Sunni Arab countries responded by invading Israel in 1948, leading to a cease-fire, with Egypt and Jordan occupying Gaza and the West Bank. Jewish migration and investment in security forces led to Israeli expansion, along with further regional tensions. In 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack but were defeated by superior Israeli forces. This era saw the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which attacked Israeli security forces, as well as civilians. One of Israel’s few Muslim allies at this time was Iran, as the two countries shared Arab Sunni Muslim enemies and Palestine was not primarily a Shia issue. This alliance ended with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Iran promised to export the Islamic Revolution abroad. Iran was immediately attacked by Iraq, leading to a devastating eight-year war. After 1990, Iran regained strength, especially as Iraq warred with the United States. As Arab countries lessened their hostility toward Israel, and Israel invaded Lebanon to eliminate PLO bases, Iran turned its attention to Israel. Since the 1990s, the Israel-Iran relationship has continually worsened. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995) provided outspoken criticisms of Iran,

State Violence: Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict

while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s (1956–) constant barrage of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish rhetoric strained relations even further. Iran has been working to develop nuclear technology, directly threatening Israel, which maintains an aggressive policy to halt Iranian nuclear development. In the 2000s, Israel and the United States are thought to have been behind a software virus that deleted Iran’s nuclear database. Given Iranian promises to “wipe Israel off the map” and efforts to develop nuclear weapons, Israel sees Iran as its main security threat. However, the most significant clashes between Israel and Iran have been indirect, mounted through proxy wars. A proxy war exists when one country, instead of confronting its enemy directly, provides military aid to a group fighting its common enemy. The term can be misleading, as it overlooks the potential of the proxy group to have its own agenda, separate from its supporter’s. This said, proxy battles have a long, bloody history and have been especially intense between Israel and Iran. Iran has been far more active, funneling aid through Syria to support deadly armed groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah is primarily a Shia-armed group, making Iran its natural ally. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, this brought Israel into contact with large Shia communities. Israel’s use of force and support for Christian Lebanese militias led Shias to create their own armed groups. Hezbollah was created by Lebanese Shia followers of the Ayatollah of Iran, its core fighters trained in Syria. In the 1990s, Hezbollah expanded to become a powerful armed group, and then evolved into a larger social and political actor. Hezbollah has contested Lebanese elections, provides social services such as education and health care, and has cooperated with Christian communities. In the 2000s, Hezbollah created its own television stations and media. In some ways, Hezbollah is a state within a state for Lebanon’s Shia Muslims and is bankrolled mostly by Iran. It also remains a powerful, violent armed group, responsible for a range of terrorist attacks. Hezbollah funds its own satellite organization within the West Bank against Israeli forces. In 2000, Hezbollah abducted and killed three Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese border. Continued incursions led to the month-long 2006 Lebanon War, primarily between Israel and Hezbollah. Foreign governments are divided regarding Hezbollah, with U.S. allies classifying it as a terrorist organization, while other countries differentiate among its various wings, and Russia, Syria, and Iran provide open support. Operating within Palestine, Hamas is a second major recipient of Iranian aid against Israel. The connection, however, is more tenuous, since Hamas is Sunni, and Iran has long struggled against Sunni Islamic powers. Hamas evolved as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s, competing with the largely secular PLO. Hamas emerged as a broader social movement, as well as a militant group, part of the First Palestinian Intifada (1987–1993) against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It began attacks on Israel in the early 1990s,

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forming an alliance with Hezbollah. Hamas has been responsible for several highprofile strikes, as well as attacks on its rival PLO and Fatah, the PLO government in Palestine. The 2008 Gaza War saw Hamas clash with Israeli forces, and, in 2014, Israel led another assault into Gaza to stop Hamas rocket attacks. In 2005, Hamas began participating in elections. Like Hezbollah, it has evolved to provide social services, media, and governance, as well as continue violent attacks, funded in part by Iran. However, Hamas broke off relations with Iran in 2012 in response to the Arab Spring, as Hamas supported Sunni militants against Iran’s ally Bashar alAssad. After 2014, a loss of Egyptian aid and the changing tide in Syria led Hamas to resume relations with Iran, later including renewed military support. Israel also supports militant groups in Iran. It is widely believed that Israel supports Jundallah, a Sunni rebel group, as well as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. This said, Israeli support for armed groups is covert and is nowhere near as significant in scope as is Iranian aid for anti-Israeli armed groups. The Israel-Iran proxy war continues to take lives and destabilize the Middle East, with no end in sight. The conflict has spread to Syria and other troubled regions. With Iraq remaining in chaos, Iranian influence in the region promises to grow. Shane Joshua Barter See also: Judaism: Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict FURTHER READING Levitt, Matthew. 2015. Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

ISRAEL: PALESTINIAN CONFLICT The brutal, long-running Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the most challenging cases to discuss. Emotions run high on both sides, as the conflict has become a symbol for Jewish survival for some and for national liberation for others. Both sides possess important concerns and grievances but have also committed human rights abuses and house their own extremists. As Israel uses its superior military capacity to dominate Palestinians, and settlements continue to expand into disputed areas, Palestinians continue to commit violent attacks against Jewish targets, with those responsible for killing Jewish persons considered by some to be martyrs. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian sides are coherent, each featuring divisions between left and right, violent and nonviolent, and religious and secular

State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict

visions. The conflict is not solely about religion, but religious dimensions are difficult to ignore in this holy land. It is often seen as the world’s most intractable conflict, although there remain hopes for a two-state solution, however imperfect this would be. The State of Israel is home to 8.5 million people. About 75 percent of Israel’s population is Jewish, along with nearly 20 percent Muslims (mostly Sunni), and an important Christian minority. Israel is also home to smaller religious groups, as well as a growing number of migrant communities. Israel is a rare Middle Eastern democracy, featuring impressive education and development, but it is also highly militarized, with nearly all citizens required to undertake military service. Among Jews, it is estimated that about half are secular in their outlook, while 40 percent are traditional or Orthodox, and 10 percent are ultra-Orthodox known as Haredi. The dramatic growth of the ultra-Orthodox community, due to extremely high birthrates, is concerning for many Israelis, especially given their exemption from military service, high unemployment rates, and government assistance, not to mention their uncompromising views. Although not a religious state, Israel is by no means secular either. Israel is home to a number of holy places in the Abrahamic faiths. Jerusalem houses the Western Wall and Temple Mount, among the holiest sites in Judaism, along with the historical al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Israel is also home to Nazareth and Bethlehem (sacred to Christians), Tiberias and Safed (sacred to Jews), and numerous mosques, such as the White Mosque (sacred to Muslims). Israel is the spiritual home of Judaism and Christianity, and while Islam’s spiritual home is Mecca, sites in Israel are nonetheless important parts of the Muslim world. Israel is also home to holy sites for the Bahai, Druze, and Samaritan faiths. As a result, Israel is considered a holy land, with faith coloring the country’s very identity. The modern State of Israel, however, is very much Jewish. Israel was founded as a Jewish state, its flag depicting the Star of David, and developed as a homeland for persons of the Jewish faith. The Law of Return provides any Jewish person the right to Israeli citizenship, defined as anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent or who married into a Jewish family. This religious immigration policy represents a clear limitation on claims to Israeli secularism or religious neutrality, as well as inflaming tensions with a shrinking Palestinian minority. History is an important battleground in this conflict. No discussion of IsraelPalestine can unfold without a discussion of history, although no discussion of history can fully address the complexities of the conflict. The early kingdoms of Israel and Judah were thought to have thrived around 900 and 700 BCE, respectively. In 586 BCE, the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed Solomon’s Temple, and exiled much of the Jewish community. The Romans occupied the region in 63 BCE,

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prompting Jewish resistance. After the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity grew over the coming centuries. The region saw a variety of wars, leading to the Arab conquest in the seventh century CE. In 1099, during the First Crusade, Christian invaders clashed with allied Muslim and Jewish defenders of Jerusalem. The coming century saw Christian occupiers struggle to maintain control against Muslim generals such as Saladin (1138–1193). Control over the region remained in Muslim hands, including the Ottoman rule after 1566. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I (1914–1918), the British arrived to control the Mandate for Palestine. At this time, over 75 percent of the region’s population was Muslim, numbers that changed dramatically in the decades to come. The need for a Jewish homeland long predates the horrific events of World War II (1939–1945). The idea of returning from exile to Zion (Jerusalem) is embedded in Jewish thought. It was not Muslim, but Christian intolerance that led Jewish migration to the Palestine region. In 1881, the First Aliyah saw thousands of Jews flee Christian attacks in eastern Europe. Violence throughout Europe, especially in Russia and its neighbors, led to a rising Jewish population in Israel. The rise of fascism in Europe caused a Jewish exodus in the 1930s. The dramatic growth of the Jewish population under British rule did not escape the attention of Muslims, leading to Arab insurgencies in the late 1930s. German atrocities during the Holocaust, as well as the indifference to Jewish suffering from other Western countries, led to a new exodus of Jewish survivors to Israel, arriving with a mission to create their own state. They did so, in part, through an ideology called Zionism, which emerged in the late nineteenth century among Europeans Jewish thinkers, such as Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), who envisioned the creation of a Jewish homeland in Israel. The Zionist vision was supported by many European powers, partly to encourage Jewish communities to leave Europe. In 1947, the United Nations proposed the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with international control over Jerusalem. This was accepted by Jewish leaders, who continued to build the Jewish state, but was rejected by Muslim leaders in the region. The tensions led to riots. and then the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in which neighboring Muslim countries attacked Israel, ending with Jordan occupying the West Bank, while Egypt took the Gaza Strip. The conflict also led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, their lands occupied by Jewish settlers. Jewish migration continued, with left-wing kibbutz farms working to open up new lands. Israel’s Jewish population grew from around eighty thousand in the 1910s, to around five hundred thousand in the 1940s, to over two million by the late 1950s (Jewish Virtual Library 2017). Jews from all over the world arrived speaking different languages and practicing different customs, with European Jews often discriminating against North African and Middle Eastern Jews. The new country’s economy benefitted from the controversial 1952 agreement for Germany

State Violence: Israel: Palestinian Conflict

to pay reparations for the Holocaust to the State of Israel, funds that were central to expanding the country’s military. Israel soon enjoyed dramatic growth, although this came partly at the expense of Arabs, who were displaced from their land and had uncertain rights. Tensions again grew in the 1960s, with Arab countries encouraging violence against Israel and depriving the country of resources. The 1960s saw the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a national liberation movement for the Palestinian people led by Yasser Arafat (1929–2004). In 1967, Israel launched an attack on its increasingly hostile neighbors. A victorious Israel reclaimed the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, as well as part of the Golan Heights from Syria. In 1973, the Yom Kippur War involved a surprise attack from Egypt and Syria, which Israeli forces successfully repelled. In the late 1970s, Israeli politics shifted right with the electoral victory of Likud. Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt and, shortly afterward, attacked Lebanon, which was harboring militants and supporting attacks on Israel. In the 1980s, Israel and Palestine both shifted toward more religious politics. Israel was founded partly by socialist groups, who saw Jews as a nation and limited religious sentiment in politics. For Arabs, the PLO was a national movement, focused on Arab rights rather than religious doctrine. This changed with the rise of the more Islamist Hamas to rival the PLO in the Gaza Strip, while the Shia Hezbollah emerged against Israeli occupiers in Lebanon. Israel, meanwhile, witnessed the rise of Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities both numerically and politically. The 1980s saw the creation of Shas and Degel HaTorah, ultra-Orthodox Haredi political parties that represent religious interests in government and seek to replace Zionism with Orthodox Judaism as the country’s core ideology (Peled 2010). Deepening religious identities have raised the stakes even further in Israel, leading both sides to fight for control of the holy land and to view the other side as a cosmological threat. It has also undermined the cohesion of both sides, with Israel struggling to control ultra-Orthodox settlers, and the PLO-dominated Fatah governing authority struggling against Hamas. Despite this, the 1990s saw some progress toward peace, with a series of high-profile peace talks; Israeli recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a local government; PLO recognition of Israel; and, in 2000, an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. These changes were controversial within Israel, and, in 1995, pro-peace Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Orthodox right-wing militant. Early 2000 saw the two sides come close to a two-state solution, a compromise promoted by the Israeli prime minister, but political provocation by opponents and deep mistrust saw a return to fighting shortly thereafter. Since this time, Israel has been plagued by continued suicide bombings and attacks by Islamists, while Israel has launched strikes into Lebanon and Gaza.

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There has been some hope on the Palestinian side, with competition between PLO and Hamas declining, leading to the 2014 Unity Government. Hamas has moderated its demands, accepting 1967 borders, and governing Palestine alongside the PLO. This said, Palestinians continue to conduct attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets, including rocket fire launched from border regions into Israel. Israel has taken a hard-line stance, however, turning a blind eye to Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. Neither side seems willing or able to control its extremists, a major barrier to renewing the peace talks. Tensions were inflamed in 2017, when President Donald Trump announced that the United States would relocate its embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the contested holy city as Israel’s capital instead of Tel Aviv. For some, this amounted to a recognition of reality in the Israeli government, while, for others, it condoned ongoing expansion into Palestinian areas. The two-state solution seems to represent an imperfect, but perhaps best way forward. Palestine has its own de facto government in Gaza and the West Bank, although Fatah remains at odds with Hamas. Despite early Arab hostility to the two-state solution and the very existence of Israel, Arab governments have made peace with Israel, and Palestinians have accepted the idea of a two-state solution. The majority of Israeli and Palestinian citizens, as well as political leaders, accept a two-state solution in some form (Ragson 2016). But Israel seems to be in a state of paralysis, unable to finalize any agreement. Of course, Palestinian statehood will not solve tensions. A Palestinian state could elevate intrastate violence to an interstate conflict. It should not be forgotten that separation of different peoples into their own polities is, in some way, a conservative move, keeping groups apart instead of learning how to live together. Still, given the historical and religious dimensions to this intractable conflict, separation may be the only way forward. Just as the Jewish people worked to create their own state and gain security, the same may be true for Palestinians. Both sides want security for their peoples, leaving open the question of how to achieve this. Shane Joshua Barter See also: Judaism: Operation Defensive Shield (2002); Price-Tag Policy; Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995); Temple Mount; Zionism and Anti-Zionism; State Violence: Israel: Iran Proxy Conflict FURTHER READING Jewish Virtual Library. 2017. “Demographics of Israel.” ­https://​­www​.­jewishvirtuallibrary​ .­org​/­demographics​-­of​-­israel. Peled, Yoav. 1998. “Towards a Redefinition of Jewish Nationalism in Israel? The Enigma of Shas.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21, no. 4: 703–27.

State Violence: Mexico: Cartel Saints Ragson, Adam. 2016. “Poll Indicates Majority Supports Two-State Solution, But Not on Previous Negotiations.” Jerusalem Post, August 22, 2016. ­https://​­www​.­jpost​.­com​/­Arab​ -­Israeli​-­Conflict​/­Majority​-­of​-­Israelis​-­Palestinians​-­still​-­support​-­two​-­state​-­solution​ -­464748.

MEXICO: CARTEL SAINTS For over a decade, Mexico has reeled from its ongoing war against various drug cartels. Cartels distribute illegal drugs throughout Mexico and the world, take part in violent struggles against rival cartels and Mexican authorities, and have infiltrated many levels of the Mexican state. Cartels and associated gangs are part of the Mexican political landscape and are responsible for more casualties than many traditional wars. Their sustained power is due in part to the fact that they benefit from popular support, as some Mexicans feel that the state has failed them and that the cartels may provide them with a better future. An important element of cartel popularity is religion, as cartels cultivate links to popular folk saints, such as Jesús Malverde, known as the “angel of the poor” and the “narco-saint.” Many world religions feature special recognition for persons who demonstrate extraordinary spiritual power. Forms of sainthood have allowed faiths such as Mahayana Buddhism and Catholicism to expand to new places by incorporating local religious figures, thus making conversion more comfortable for local believers. In Catholicism, sainthood is an official process by which the church recognizes those with exemplary devotion, first as servants of God, then as venerable, blessed, and then saint. There also exist patron saints, who are closely connected to specific crafts, regions, people, or situations. It is impossible to count the number of Catholic saints, and some are disputed. What is more important is that different saints suit different contexts and times, venerated by the faithful in need of special help. For instance, Saint Expeditus has become a patron saint of those hoping to overcome procrastination and is popular among many students. As in any religion, for every official system, shadow processes exist, popular versions that follow the form of official practices while also subverting them. In Catholicism, we see this in the form of folk saints, popular figures who are seen as blessed or as capable of performing miracles, and the worship of whom can help people in ways that the official church overlooks. Colonial conversion to Catholicism throughout Latin America was enabled by the practice of informally recognizing local gods and other figures as saints, who were often rejected by Church authorities but worshipped as folk saints. Some reflect precolonial beliefs, such as Santa Muerte, the lady of death, originally an Aztec deity, who provides safe delivery into the afterlife. The Catholic Church

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condemns the worship of Santa Muerte, but she nonetheless remains a fixture of Mexican culture, especially during the Day of the Dead. Other folk saints are rebels, such as Pancho Villa (1878–1923), or persons who performed miracles, such as Niño Fidencio (1898–1938). Many saints are worshipped for their ability to provide cosmological protection to disadvantaged groups. The cult of Santa Juan Soldado follows a soldier who was executed for rape in 1938, but who has become the folk saint of undocumented migrants, protecting them on their journey into the United States and elsewhere. Mexican drug cartels have sought to cultivate folk saints to improve their images, provide legitimacy, and embolden their members. Their saint of choice is Jesús Malverde. Thought to be born in the late nineteenth century in Sinaloa state, Jesús Juarez Mazo was a bandit knowing for helping the poor. His mythical exploits led locals to create shrines to him, and he was credited with returning property to the poor. In the 1990s, this outlaw saint became an important figure for Mexico’s drug cartels, especially in Sinaloa. Cartel leaders recognized popular frustration with Mexican authorities’ disregard for the poor, undertaking philanthropic activities and helping the poor. They began promoting Jesús Malverde as their patron saint, tapping into folk Catholicism and the image of a Robin Hood with godly support. Saint Jesús Malverde is typically portrayed flanked with guns, with a moustache. His cult has expanded to become an icon of popular culture, with countless shrines, shirts, household products, and even media attention. Jesús Malverde has been featured in several films, television shows, and musical performances, as well as in the U.S. television show, Breaking Bad. Cartel members report wearing amulets adorned with his image, which have allowed them to escape authorities and achieve invulnerability. His primary shrine in Sinaloa’s capital city is home to an annual parade on May 3, the anniversary of his death, in which locals drink and smoke as they pay their respects to the protector of the poor. The cult of Jesús Malverde shows how, just as cartels represent a violent shadow-state, their reach can be extended by connection with a sort of shadow-church. Cartel leaders are violent criminals, but many have gained popularity through their supposed generosity to the poor, as well as quasireligious missions. Nazario Moreno González was born in 1970 in the state of Michoacán. By the time of his death in 2014, he had developed a cult following, known as El Chayo (the Rosary), the head of a violent, though for some ethical, cartel. González was raised Catholic but became a Jehovah’s Witness in the United States. Returning to Mexico, his charismatic preaching earned him many followers. González joined the drug cartel La Familia Michoacana and rose through its ranks. When he became its head, he immediately incorporated religious and pro-family messages. The group promised to only kill the guilty, never women, and to never kill for money alone. Its members came to carry “bibles” filled with González’s religious sayings and self-help

State Violence: Mexico: Chiapas Conflict

teachings and were forbidden from consuming drugs or alcohol. González published his sayings and teachings and funded various charities. He was killed by authorities in 2014, and his followers erected shrines dedicated to his righteous violence and protecting the poor. It seems that, promoted by his cartel, González is now becoming a folk saint as well, used by his successors to gain popular legitimacy in its war against rivals and the state. Shane Joshua Barter See also: Christianity: Narcoreligious Movements; State Violence: Mexico: Chiapas Conflict FURTHER READING Chesnut, R. Andrew. 2017. Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

MEXICO: CHIAPAS CONFLICT The southern Mexican state of Chiapas is primarily known in the West for the 1994 Zapatista uprising, an agrarian anarchist movement that stood up to resist local landowners and the effects of capitalism on indigenous peoples. Since the initial violent uprising, Chiapas has been home to ongoing civil disobedience campaigns and occasional violent clashes with authorities. The Zapatista movement has continued to champion indigenous rights in Mexico, namely supporting native land claims. But another related conflict has also been simmering over local souls. As Catholicism represents, for many, a symbol of mestizo state control, natives have looked for spiritual alternatives. Some have opted for other forms of Catholicism, including a traditional form containing precolonial religious traditions. Others have been attracted by evangelical movements promoted by U.S. missionaries. These changes have sparked religious tensions in the highlands of southern Mexico, with violence against Evangelical congregations generating internal displacement. Prior to Spanish colonialism in the sixteenth century, what is now Mexico was home to thriving, diverse indigenous communities. Located around today’s Mexico City, the Aztecs were the region’s most powerful traditional kingdom. In the mountainous south of the country, Central American Mayan influence predominated. Reaching its peak around 900, Mayan civilization developed a sophisticated culture and a decentralized political system. Spanish colonizers arrived in Chiapas in 1528 and were immediately met with native resistance. Spanish armies faced great difficulty pursuing native attackers, as the mountainous terrain allowed

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native communities to flee from Spanish weapons and diseases for a time. The Spanish subdued many indigenous communities in the coming decades, establishing large estates that utilized forced indigenous labor. The Catholic Church also arrived, converting locals but also serving as their defenders against colonial exploitation. Chiapas was largely overlooked by Spanish colonizers due to its remote, hilly environment and lack of resources. As Mexico won its independence in 1821, many natives preferred to join Guatemala, emphasizing shared Mayan identities, but highland landowners ultimately joined Chiapas to Mexico. In the late nineteenth century, Chiapas was home to several rebellions, including several spiritual millenarian movements, as the state faced population growth, continued migration, deforestation, and indigenous poverty. The first glimmers of the Zapatista uprising were seen in the 1970s, when Catholic priests and nuns promoted liberation theology, a pro-poor, reformist Christianity. Leftist groups created native unions, seeking to bring together diverse indigenous communities. The Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) pushed thousands of Mayan refugees into Chiapas, rekindling cross-national ties. The year 1992 marked an important year for indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, with a spate of activism marking the five hundredth anniversary of European colonialism. The catalyst for the 1994 uprising was the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which caused ideological resistance among leftists, as well as resistance from indigenous peoples against expanding agribusinesses. On January 1 1994, the Zapatistas occupied several towns, emptied local jails, and announced their opposition to capitalist exploitation. The rebels had dubbed themselves Zapatistas in honor of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919), who led southern rebel movements against landowners in the early twentieth century. The uprising lasted for two weeks before Mexican authorities reestablished control. However, the Zapatistas never intended to capture and hold territory; instead, they made a statement, mobilized political allies, and gained concessions. One result was a promise of political autonomy from the Mexican government, although little has changed. The region has seen a number of continued clashes, with incidents in 1997 and 2014 leading to dozens of fatalities. Another effect has been renewed indigenous activism and identity, with widespread civil disobedience campaigns and the rise of various cooperatives. The Zapatista uprising caught the imaginations of leftist and indigenous movements throughout the Americas. A lesser-known social movement and conflict involved religious changes. The spiritual landscape of Chiapas is incredibly complex. Even though approximately 65 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, many indigenous peoples have come to reject mainstream Catholicism, seen as pro-state and tied to Spanish colonialism, and have thus developed alternative spiritualities. Some of these alternatives have been found within a

State Violence: Mexico: Chiapas Conflict

Catholic identity. Pro-poor liberation theology continues to attract many indigenous peoples. Chiapas is also home to a form of traditional Catholicism that mixes mainstream practice with native traditions, including the presence of shamans and curses, the use of sugar cane alcohol in ceremonies, offering food to God and then consuming it as a form of communion, occasional animal sacrifice, and encouraging native deacons to marry. Another growing group is the Word of God Catholics, a movement that has banned alcohol and tends to be critical of local Catholic leadership. A related movement is Catholic Charismatic Renewal, an approach that emphasizes direct relationships to God, faith healing, and miracles. Meanwhile, Chiapas has also seen the growth of Christianity outside of Catholicism, with U.S.-backed evangelical Protestant missions attracting many converts. Approximately 25 percent of people in Chiapas identify as Evangelical, among the highest proportion in Mexico. The dominant strain has been the Presbyterian Church, which, for some signifies this-worldly success, and many appreciate the livelier services. Despite U.S. roots, Mexican Presbyterians have broken off from the U.S. system, partly in opposition to U.S. approval of same-sex marriage and female ordination. These religious changes have become intertwined with local politics and violence. The Zapatistas have long been associated with liberation theology and opposition to local, state-affiliated Catholic authorities. There are many unofficial linkages between the Zapatistas and Presbyterian churches, as the two movements possess similar grievances against the local order. As Evangelicalism has grown, local Catholics and state authorities have attacked converts and their houses of worship. Mainstream and traditional Catholics have forced evangelical converts to leave their villages, and wider attacks have led to hundreds of displaced peoples. Evangelicals report being jailed, lacking access to clean water, and being barred from community events because of their religious beliefs. For their part, Evangelicals have been outspoken critics of drunkenness and immorality. Their public preaching on such topics, along with ties to powerful U.S. churches, have deepened local tensions. This said, some groups have worked to bridge these divides, with Word of God and Charismatic Catholics reaching out to Evangelicals to unify against common concerns and limit tensions. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Mexico: Cartel Saints FURTHER READING Trejo, Guillermo. 2009. “Religious Competition and Ethnic Mobilization in Latin America: Why the Catholic Church Promotes Indigenous Movements in Mexico.” American Political Science Review 103, no. 3: 323–42.

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MYANMAR: MUSLIM CRISIS The Southeast Asian country of Myanmar is known for its exceptional ethnic diversity. Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar is over 85 percent Buddhist. It is home to sizable Christian minorities in its northern hill regions, groups that have long sought independence. Along the southern coasts, Myanmar is also home to a Muslim minority, people known as Rohingya, who have ethnic ties to Bangladesh. For decades, the Muslim Rohingya have faced persecution from the government. Since 2012, they have been involved in intense ethnic violence, clashing with their Buddhist Rakhine neighbors, who have gained the support of national Buddhist groups and the army. The result is that the Muslim Rohingya have faced ongoing violence and displacement, with many observers dubbing them “the most persecuted people on Earth.” The territory of Myanmar features rivers, steep hills, and fertile valleys. It was originally inhabited by the Mon people, who converted to Buddhism through early Sri Lankan influence. Ethnic Burmese are thought to have migrated from southern China around the ninth century. The Burmese established powerful kingdoms, assimilating or displacing the Mon and adopting their Buddhist faith. The Konbaung Dynasty (1752–1885) expanded Burmese power, defeating its rival Siam, and then looked west to British India. After a series of expansionist wars, the British ruled Burma. Instead of ruling it as an independent colony, Burma became part of British India, with South Asian migrants wielding considerable economic power. In the north, British missionaries converted many isolated communities to Christianity, allying against lowland Buddhists. As Burma achieved independence, leaders had to convince minorities to join the new country. In 1947, the Panglong Agreement provided full autonomy for northern minorities, promising them independence if they were not satisfied. Importantly, the agreement said nothing of the southern Muslim minorities, as the north was considered a priority for the new country. A decade later, Burma’s minorities considered independence in light of financial mismanagement and pro-Burmese cultural policies. The Burmese army refused to allow independence for minorities, whose resistance helped lead to a military coup in 1962. The military established a dictatorship in Burma, withstanding the massive 1988 student protests through intense violence. In 2007, Buddhist monks led a large protest movement against the government, with protesters again met with violence. This shocking event also led to reforms, with the military partially stepping back to allow for limited elections, which were won by ethnic Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–) and her National League for Democracy (NLD). It was in this context that ethnic riots broke out in Rakhine state in 2012, with Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists destroying each other’s communities.

State Violence: Myanmar

As violence intensified, the Burmese military arrived to establish order but are thought to have supported Rakhine Buddhists against the Rohingya Muslims, in part because the Rohingya are not officially citizens of Myanmar. Prior to the violence, there were an estimated one million Rohingya in Rakhine state, representing nearly half the population, mostly concentrated in the northwest, toward Bangladesh. The government of Myanmar views Rohingya as illegal migrants, overlooking their long-standing roots in the region. Before the colonial era, Muslim communities inhabited the coastal areas, linked to maritime trade, living far from the Buddhist interior. British rule encouraged the migration of co-ethnics from Bangladesh, with the Buddhist Rakhine becoming a minority in the region. In 1942, violence erupted between the pro-British Rohingya and nationalist Rakhine, leading many Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Violence in Bangladesh during partition in 1947 and independence in 1971 led Rohingya refugees to flee back into Burma. The Burmese military attacked many of the refugees, pushing many back into Bangladesh, despite international criticism. In the 1980s, new citizenship excluded the Rohingya, leaving them a stateless people. The Rohingya have been denied access to education and citizenship, lacking the ability to move freely or to own land. The national government has even rejected the term “Rohingya,” preferring to label the minority as “Bengalis” to emphasize their supposedly foreign identity. There were clear tensions between Rohingya and Rakhine leading up to 2012. Early that year, criminal violence involving Rohingya and Rakhine youths led to ethnic reprisals. This spiraled into communal violence, with both sides burning rival villages. Religious violence destroyed Muslim and Buddhist houses, shops, and houses of worship. As the Burmese army arrived, they generally supported the Rakhine against Rohingya Muslims, pushing them out of central Rakhine state and the state capital of Sittwe. The situation has worsened with the activism of conservative Burmese monk organizations. Monks have spoken of a global Islamic conspiracy to destroy Buddhism, slowly taking over Myanmar to establish an Islamic caliphate. In 2012, controversial monk Wirathu led a rally to deport all Muslims from Myanmar, applauding efforts to create Buddhist militias to defend the faith. They have also led campaigns to boycott Muslim businesses and any organization that provides assistance to the Rohingya, while collecting donations to support Rakhine Buddhists. Ethnic violence continued over the next few years, with hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in the squalor of temporary camps. By 2015, tens of thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar by boat, leading to a new crisis, as many overburdened boats sank or arrived in neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, which have refused to offer them asylum. The international community has condemned Myanmar, but little action has been taken, especially since the

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West is eager to encourage ongoing democratic reforms, and neighboring countries have done little to help refugees. A particular disappointment has been democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence regarding the crisis, with her attention focused on reforms in the rest of the country. In 2016, Burmese soldiers were attacked by a new group of Rohingya militants with Middle Eastern connections, sparking new fears of radical Islamist influence. Ongoing violence and deprivation have provided fertile ground for Muslim and Buddhist militancy. The result is that little is being done to assist what may be the world’s most persecuted people. Slowly, Muslim Rohingya are being pushed out of Myanmar, a simmering act of ethnic cleansing. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Sri Lanka: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Human Rights Watch. 2018. “Rohingya Crisis.” ­https://​­www​.­hrw​.­org​/­tag​/­rohingya​-­crisis.

NIGERIA: CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM CONFLICT Africa is an immensely diverse continent, with thousands of ethnicities and languages, varied ecosystems, and different faiths. It is estimated that, of Africa’s 1.2 billion people, Christians and Muslims each represent about 40 percent of the population. Islam dominates in the top third of the continent, as well as much of the eastern coast, while Christianity is found in the center, south, and west. The Islamic/Christian cultural border bisects several countries, with many divided into a Muslim north and Christian south, often resulting in religious tensions. Some of Africa’s most violent religious conflicts have been found in Nigeria, home to continued clashes between evangelical Christians in the south and Islamists in the north. In the past decade, Boko Haram has led a reign of terror, bombing civilian targets, displacing Christian minorities, and abducting young girls. As authorities combat this violent group, they struggle to maintain peace between religious communities. Christianity arrived in northern Africa by the end of the second century, with Orthodox Christianity surviving today primarily in Ethiopia and, to some extent, in Egypt. Islam arrived in northern Africa through the Umayyad Caliphate during the late seventh century, and in the tenth century, Egypt became the center of Islamic rule. Northern Africa became culturally Arab and spiritually Muslim, with Islam expanding south toward sub-Saharan Africa. By the fifteenth century, European

State Violence: Nigeria

traders arrived along Africa’s west coast, seeking outposts en route to Asia and taking part in the slave trade. The nineteenth century “scramble for Africa” brought new European powers to the continent, with many promoting religious conversion and the dramatic growth of Christianity. At independence, several colonies were left with a religious fault line, leaving Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Chad, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria home to powerful, often rival Muslim and Christian communities. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country; its 188 million people make it the seventh-most populous country in the world. Although numbers are hotly disputed and estimates range widely, approximately half of the country identifies as Muslim and half as Christian, forming a north/south division. Among Christians, about one-quarter are Catholic, mostly in the southeast, while the rest belong to various evangelical Protestant sects. Prior to British colonialism, northern Nigeria was part of the Bornu Sultanate (1380–1893). The south featured several kingdoms, such as Ife and Oyo. The southern port of Lagos had early contact with Catholic traders, with the British making Lagos a colony in 1861 and missionary work expanding shortly thereafter. In 1901, Nigeria became a British colony, ruled as northern and southern regions. The British did not interfere a great deal with Muslim schools or Islamic practice but supported missionary work and Christian education in the south. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960 but was soon beset by a 1967 civil war, with the Biafran region seeking independence. Biafra enjoyed support from Western Christian groups, and the conflict had clear religious dimensions, viewed by many rebels as a cosmological struggle for Christianity against Islam (Wiseberg 1975). Over the next few decades, Nigeria would fluctuate between coups and elections. During the 1980s, several Nigerian regions saw Christian-Muslim riots, with Christian missions being pushed out of northern cities. Instability across the country, including an uprising among Christian Ogonis, has spurred the growth of religious violence. Northern Nigerian states have become home to various forms of Sharia Law, especially Kano state. Muslim and Christian populations have each witnessed increasing devotion, leading to fewer common cultural traditions and greater tensions. Nigeria’s most infamous extremist group is Boko Haram, Islamist terrorists responsible for thousands of deaths and numerous bombings. Its name referring to its rejection of Western education, Boko Haram was created in 2002 by Salafi teacher Mohammed Yusuf (1970–2009). The group attracted unemployed and radical youth, promising to eliminate corruption and create an Islamic state. At first largely non-violent, a 2009 confrontation with police led to the execution of the group’s leader. This marked a turn towards terrorist violence, including a 2010 prison break and several bombings, including attacks on United Nations offices. Boko Haram has targeted Christians as well as sectarian Muslim rivals. The group has even attacked mosques whose Islamic teachings it considers too moderate.

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In 2012, Nigerian authorities declared a State of Emergency, as Boko Haram declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda, infiltrated state security forces, and stepped up their attacks. Part of their strategy has been to execute police officers in Nigeria’s northeast, allowing them to weaken state power and establish their own political authority. Clashes between the government and various pro-government militias and Boko Haram have left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. In 2014, Boko Haram gained global attention when it abducted 276 school girls. The girls were forced to marry Boko Haram soldiers and were subjected to repeated rape, with some trafficked to neighboring countries. Nearly one hundred girls have been rescued, although the survivors have faced social stigmas as victims of sexual violence. The group has also abducted dozens of boys to brainwash them into serving as suicide bombers. Global condemnation led to international pressure on Nigerian leaders, as well as military assistance to help combat the group. New military assaults have severely weakened Boko Haram’s control. Attacks destroyed remaining Boko Haram camps, leading some Nigerian leaders to claim victory, but the more difficult task of rooting them out of society remains. In July 2017, Boko Haram demonstrated its resilience, carrying out a series of attacks against government militia forces. The group has also expanded into neighboring Chad and Cameroon, attacking government offices and terrorizing civilians. Boko Haram has now expanded into several countries and has declared its allegiance to ISIS. Even if Boko Haram can be defeated, Nigeria and neighboring countries will still have to deal with religious radicalism and Christian-Muslim tensions, facing a continual threat of conflict between spiritual communities. Shane Joshua Barter See also: Islam: Boko Haram; State Violence: Indonesia: Maluku Conflict FURTHER READING Wiseberg, Laurie S. 1975. “Christian Churches and the Nigerian Civil War.” Journal of African Studies 2, no. 3: 297–331.

PAKISTAN: CHRISTIAN CRISIS With a total population of 192 million, Pakistan ranks as the sixth-most populous country in the world and the second-largest Muslim country. Pakistan was created from India as a Muslim homeland, and, as such, it should be no surprise that Muslims comprise over 96 percent of the country’s population, most of whom follow Sunni teachings. Pakistan is also home to small religious minorities, namely

State Violence: Pakistan

Hindus and Christians, each professed by about 2 percent of Pakistanis. With Pakistan’s shift towards Islamic orthodoxy, minority religions have faced intense pressures. Pakistani Christians have faced discrimination, strict religious laws, hate speech, forced displacement, and violent attacks. The deteriorating situation faced by religious minorities in Pakistan has no end in sight, with extremists bent on purging the country of other faiths. Pakistan’s Christian community features roughly equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants, found mostly in the Punjab region and around urban Islamabad. Their history dates back to the colonial period. Catholics are primarily the descendants of early Portuguese colonizers in Goa, and later Irish officials under the British Empire. In the late nineteenth century, Protestantism also grew, as natives, mostly those serving the colonial government, opted to convert. At the dawn of Pakistani independence, many Christians were closely aligned with the Muslim League, a movement responsible for the separation of Pakistan from India as a Muslim country. As Pakistan gained independence in 1947, independence leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) was keen to work with the Christian community, both because they possessed sorely needed expertise and also because this helped the new country maintain that it was a tolerant, modern state. Although Christianity carried colonial connotations for many Pakistanis, others sympathized with Christians as people of the book, more in tune with Islam than the polytheist Hindus. In 1956, Pakistan declared itself an Islamic Republic, reneging on promises of religious equality. This was the beginning of an Islamicization process that has had disastrous consequences for Christians and other religious minorities. In the 1980s, following trends from across the Muslim world, Pakistan shifted toward greater Islamic piety. This was a consequence of new forms of Islamic education and Saudi Arabian funding, as well as international events, such as the 1979 Iranian Revolution and resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan’s proximity to these events amplified their reverberations. The Islamic turn was also due to events within Pakistan. In the 1970s, leftist leaders, such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) faced Islamist opposition, and when General Muhammad Ziaul-Haq (1924–1988) led a coup against Bhutto in 1977, the general turned to Islam to help legitimize his power. Zia promoted Sharia Law and empowered clerics as part of his Islamization policies, the centerpiece of his regime. Zia died in a 1988 plane crash, leading to elections and the rule of the former prime minister’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto (1953–2007). Islamists rallied against female rule, leading to a decade of political tensions and a 1999 coup. The 9/11 attacks and the Western invasion of neighboring Afghanistan inflamed tensions further, and, in 2007, Bhutto was assassinated by al-Qaeda affiliates, rumored to be in coordination with Pakistani authorities.

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The growth of Islamic piety among the general public, as well as a growing minority of extremists and Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan, has greatly affected the country’s religious minorities. Islamic doctrinal minorities, namely Shia, Sufis, and Ahmadis, have faced new levels of persecution, as have the country’s Hindus. Christian minorities have been no different, facing legal persecution, strict laws, and violent attacks. Poorer Christian communities fear not only mass violence and terrorism but also forced displacement. In 2014, for instance, the Capital Development Authority of Pakistan planned to demolish the illegal slum of Islamabad, largely populated by Christians, ostensibly to “beautify” the city. The demolition was later suspended, but the community has, nonetheless, been pressured to relocate. Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws have been used to silence and intimidate religious minorities, punishing by death anything that is perceived to insult the Qur’an or the Prophet Muhammed. Many of the charges are used by Muslims against Christians to resolve personal disputes. In 1998, a Christian man was sentenced to death when his neighbor accused him of supporting controversial British author Salman Rushdie; the case was later dismissed, as lawyers proved the neighbor simply wanted to take over his land. In 2009, an illiterate Christian woman was accused of blasphemy after a dispute with Muslim women; sentenced to be hanged, the woman awaits execution through 2017. Human rights groups and many politicians have demanded that blasphemy laws be curtailed but have been met with intimidation. In 2011, a Catholic government official, Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, was killed by Islamists for demanding reforms of the blasphemy laws. State policies and laws have led to legal persecution, as well as violence against Pakistani Christians. In recent years, this has escalated into intense violence. Islamic clerics have openly called for the death of Christians, encouraging their followers to commit terrorist violence. In 2002, Islamists opened fire in a Christian Hospital, killing three and injuring twenty-five people, and months later, another group executed six people at the offices of a Christian charity. A 2005 riot of three thousand Muslims led to the destruction of several churches, an event that was repeated in 2006. In 2013, an Islamist mob destroyed more than 150 Christian houses; in the same year, a suicide bomber attacked All Saints Church in Peshawar, killing more than seventy-eight people. Similarly, in 2016, a suicide attack carried out by the Pakistani Taliban killed more than sixty-nine people while they were celebrating Easter at a park in Lahore. Later the same year, about thirteen people were killed in suicide bombings that targeted Christians areas. It is not just that Christian homes, churches, and people have been attacked but also that the government has turned a blind eye, refusing to punish inflammatory clerics, provide compensation, or protect minorities. Despite the efforts of international human rights organizations, activists, and some political parties to protect Christians and other non-Muslim minorities,

State Violence: Philippines

Pakistan remains increasingly marked by intolerance. It remains to be seen whether the country’s more democratic traditions can help push back against this trend. Shane Joshua Barter and Mahesh Kushwaha See also: Hinduism: Kashmir; Islam: Blasphemy; Kashmir and Global Jihad; State Violence: Egypt: Coptic Church Conflict FURTHER READING Gabriel, Theodore P. C. 2007. Christian Citizens in an Islamic State: The Pakistan Experience. London: Ashgate.

PHILIPPINES: MORO CONFLICT The southern Philippine island of Mindanao has been home to a series of conflicts between the Philippine government and Filipino Muslims (Moros). The Philippines is a majority Catholic country located in Southeast Asia. Approximately 5 percent of its one hundred million people are Muslim, concentrated in the southern part of Mindanao. Due to the marginalization of Muslim communities and the colonization of Mindanao by Christian settlers, Moro rebels have fought for independence. As Christians became a regional majority, Moros shifted to demand political and cultural autonomy, although the presence of militias have made peace elusive. By the time the Spanish arrived in the Philippines in the sixteenth century, several local sultanates existed, connected to Southeast Asian trade. The Spanish had just finished their own bloody purge of Muslims and arrived with missionary zeal to convert locals and combat Asian Muslims, referred to as “Moros.” Muslim kings and pirates resisted Spanish control, with Spain only asserting control of Mindanao by the late nineteenth century, just prior to U.S. colonial rule over the Philippines from 1898. Recognizing the underdeveloped nature of Mindanao and its distinctive cultures, the Americans ruled the Mindanao separately. Mindanao’s U.S. experience was complex, home to some sporadic resistance but also economic development. In 1935, Philippine politicians lobbied to have Mindanao ruled as part of the Philippines, ushering in a new era of Catholic Filipino power in Mindanao. Within a decade, Moros went from being a majority to comprising one third of Mindanao’s population. Christian migration expanded further, as the Philippines achieved independence, with settlers gaining access to land and infrastructure projects. By 1960, the share of Mindanao’s Muslim population dropped to under 20 percent (Abinales 2004, 159). Tensions came to a head in the late 1960s, when it came to light that the Philippine army had been training a group of Moros to invade neighboring Muslim-majority

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Malaysia. When their plans changed, Philippine leaders killed off their Muslim recruits. This sparked widespread conflict, including the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) to demand independence. The MNLF expanded quickly against the Philippine army and Christian militias. The MNLF was dominated by ethnic Tausug Moros from the island of Sulu. When the MNLF took part in early peace talks with Philippine President Marcos (1919–1989), ethnic Maranao and Maguindanao Moro leaders defected. By the early 1980s, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) emerged as the chief rival of the MNLF against the Philippine government. Whereas the MNLF was influenced by communism, the MILF was formed by Islamic teachers. While the MNLF was based in Sulu, where Christian migration was not a major issue, the MILF considered Moro land rights to be its primary concern. After the fall of Philippine dictator President Marcos (1917–1989) in 1986, Philippine leaders granted Mindanao some political autonomy and began peace talks. During this time, the MILF grew considerably, aided by a powerful civil society movement and networks of Islamic schools (McKenna 1998). In 1996, President Fidel Ramos (1928–) signed a peace agreement with the MNLF. Ramos’s successor, President Joseph “Erap” Estrada (1937–), broke off talks with the MILF and led an “all-out war” against Moro rebels. Meanwhile, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) formed among ethnic Tausug in Sulu. The ASG bragged about ties to international Islamic jihadists, although it also maintained deep criminal ties. As U.S. advisors began working with the Philippine army against the ASG, MILF leaders were careful to distance themselves from jihadist rhetoric. After 9/11, the MILF voiced its support for the West, emphasizing that the armed group is a legitimate political organization, not criminal or jihadist. ASG reached out to Southeast Asian Islamists, with parts of Mindanao becoming home to training camps for Jemaah Islamiyah radicals. In 2004, ASG attacked a passenger ferry, killing over one hundred people, including many children. For the next decade, Abu Sayyaf carried out dozens of deadly attacks and, in 2014, pledged its allegiance to ISIS. ASG has abducted several dozen foreigners and held them for ransom. In response, Philippine soldiers, along with U.S. advisors and MILF rebels, have launched combined assaults on Islamist terrorists. The presence of ASG and other Islamist terrorist groups have complicated ongoing peace talks between the government and the MILF. Other barriers include the presence of a sometimes hostile Christian majority and settlement patterns in which Moros are minorities in most districts. Another complication is the position of indigenous Lumad, whose Christian faith connects them to settlers, but indigeneity and loss of land connects them to the MILF. A final complication is the presence of militias controlled by local politicians with unclear loyalties. In 2009, a Moro politician with ties to the Philippine government massacred his political opponents to maintain local political power. The presence of political rivalries and

State Violence: Religious Nationalism

personal militias complicates efforts to create peace between the Philippines and Moro communities. Too often, criminal and personal violence is interpreted as religious violence, threatening a return to wider conflict. This is why it has been so important for high-level talks to be supported by community processes. Mindanao has been home to several interfaith initiatives, such as the Bishops-Ulama forum, as well as civil society movements supporting cease-fires and violence-free zones. In 2014, the Philippine government and MILF signed a peace agreement, an important step forward, but interfaith relations and the presence of ASG remain major challenges. In 2017, the town of Marawi was seized by armed groups pledging allegiance to ISIS. Islamist forces burned down several churches and Christian schools, as well as occupied the local university. The Philippine army soon arrived but has struggled to take back the city. Urban warfare in Marawi has left nearly one thousand people dead, yet another example of deadly Christian-Muslim tensions in the southern Philippines. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Abinales, Patricio N. 2004. Making Mindanao: Cotabato and Davao in the Formation of the Philippine Nation-State. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. McKenna, Thomas M. 1998. Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines. Berkeley: University of California Press.

RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM For some, the concept of nationalism—a feeling of pride in a given political community and its traditions—exhibits some tension with religion. Many faiths are transnational, uniting believers regardless of their country, language, or skin color, and are primarily concerned with transcendent issues. Despite important differences, however, religion and nationalism are increasingly intertwined. Many faiths have become nationalized, focusing on localized religious traditions, working alongside a given state, and sometimes even sacralizing a given people or territory. At the same time, nationalisms often include religious traditions and markers of culture. Far from being in tension, religion and nationalism work together to inform self-identities. For some, this provides a moral anchor and common identity. For others, this divides humanity and stokes conflict. Nationalism is notoriously difficult to define and is subject to competing understandings. It is important to differentiate the idea of a nation from that of a

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country or state; a nation refers to people, the inhabitants of a country ruled over by a state. There exist nation-states, in which the borders of a given nation approximate those of the state, such as the relatively homogenous countries of Japan and South Korea. There are also multinational states, in which multiple self-identified nations coexist within a given state, which often forms a shared layer of identity; for example, Canada contains First Nations and the Québécois nation alongside the English-speaking majority. For Benedict Anderson (1936–2015), a nation is an “imagined community” in which members perceive a common identity, a myth of common descent, common political allegiances, and a shared future (Anderson 1991). Nationalism is often tied to a particular homeland, typically the territory of a modern state, although there are also stateless nations, such as the Kurds. Nationalism, then, is a feeling of pride and love of one’s own nation, and perhaps a sense of superiority over other nations. Scholars have differentiated among different forms of nationalism, namely ethnic and civic models. In ethnic nationalism, the nation is defined by blood, race, and birth, representing a form of kinship across a common culture. For some scholars, nationalism necessarily contains ethnic ties, making the two terms synonymous (Connor 1994). Ethnonationalism is a nationalism that is bred in the bone—one is born into a group, making it difficult for others to join. Other forms of nationalism downplay primordial relations and prioritize shared ideals and history. Civic nationalism allows for the entry of new groups into a given nation, provided they share common perspectives and culture. This is common in Western settler societies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand but is also found in countries, such as Indonesia and India, that identify as multinational states. Another form of nationalism, one that seems to be growing, is religious nationalism. Mark Juergensmeyer (1940–) defines religious nationalism as “the attempt to link religion and the nation-state,” thus connecting faith to a specific territory, community, and state (Juergensmeyer 2008, 36). Religious nationalism is, in some ways, like ethnic nationalism, with people bonded by a deep sense of shared belief, sometimes rejecting those of other faiths. This said, religion may be more permeable than common ancestry or race, with the possibility of joining as a convert or leaving as an apostate. In some ways, religion and nationalism should be at odds with one another. Religion is, for many, transcendent and transnational. It is transcendent by being beyond worldly concern and man-made divisions and is not concerned with physical territory. Religion is transnational in the ways it connects people around the world, regardless of race, language, or region. For instance, Jews in New York may possess a bond with Jews in Israel, as may Thai and Sri Lankan Buddhists or Irish and Filipino Catholics. In Islam, the Ummah refers to the transnational community of believers, representing a sense of common identity, regardless of national borders. Events such as the pilgrimage to Mecca (the

State Violence: Religious Nationalism

Hajj) involve a diverse range of cultures, languages, and nationalities, as Islam is a highly globalized faith. In Catholicism, the Holy See commands the loyalty of Catholics around the world; even within recent memory, Protestant-majority countries feared that Catholics could not be loyal to their countries so long as they were loyal to the Pope. Religions may also be against primordial sentiment, as all humanity is sometimes seen as a total sum, created by God or sharing a plain of existence. There are serious tensions between nationalism and religion, representing different views of human identity. Despite these differences, religion and nationalism are increasingly interconnected, perhaps even inseparable. In the early twentieth century, many observers saw religion as backward, while they believed that nationalism, especially its civic variety, was more progressive. This was affirmed by many postcolonial leaders, who shared the emphasis on nationalism and downplayed religious identity. However, the postcolonial world would soon see the rise of more religious counterelites, those not steeped in Western education and who did not identify with ethnic nationalism. For some, modern nationalism represents a Western invention of limited use in their countries and faiths. Many postcolonial nationalisms failed to take root, especially in the Muslim world and throughout Africa, where colonial borders sometimes lacked a clear logic, and nations lacked cohesion. There was also a view that nationalism was always religious. Many Islamic leaders saw nationalism as steeped in Christian concepts of equality, justice, and identity. Others saw nationalism as a new form of religion. After all, nationalism features sacred symbols, a sense of identity, origin myths, rules for proper behavior, and sometimes expansionist fervor. For religious leaders, if nationalism is a type of religion, then it represents a competing faith and may even be heretical. Some religious leaders saw nationalism as a competing form of identity, fragmenting transnational believers. Others saw potential for the two to work together. Almost all nations, even self-styled civic ones, contain religious values, histories, and symbols. The United States is a secular democracy but, nonetheless, has a clear Christian identity, one that pervades civic symbols and rituals. Many Western countries feature “heritage Christianity,” in which holidays, ceremonies, and laws have Christian roots, even though the state seeks to be areligious in contemporary matters. In a variety of ways, religion pervades any form of nationalism. It is equally true that nationalism has influenced religion. States have sought to make religion work for their nations, developing national councils and boards to help shape religious identity. Borders are powerful factors in shaping thought, as even somewhat arbitrary lines can slowly take on meaning to those living within them. As a result, religious nationalism intertwines faith and collective identities. Religious nationalism exists, in some degree, in every country. It is perhaps most marked in the Muslim world, where it is also in the most precarious position.

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Many Muslim countries have tried to nationalize the Islamic faith, creating statemanaged systems of clerics, Islamic charity (zakat), the pilgrimage, courts, and advisory boards. Several Muslim countries have made Islam the state religion, feature Islam on their flags, and have used Islam to gain legitimacy. This represents an effort to nationalize Islam and to Islamize their nation. However, incorporating Islam into the nation also undermines it, as Islam features strong transnational ties. Opposition forces in Islamic countries tend to rally around religion and to have important transnational ties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, what one often sees is a competition between a state brand of religious nationalism, one emphasizing local Islamic practices and thinkers, competing with a more transnational brand of Islam, which may call into question the relevance of national borders. It is not that international Islamist groups reject borders though; they simply prioritize religious divisions over national ones, often suggesting that Islam is itself a type of nation. Other religions feature similar trends. Israeli national identity is, of course, deeply tied to Judaism. Israel is a Jewish state in a Muslim-majority region, with citizenship available to any Jewish person around the world, regardless of his or her nationality. Israeli Jews come from a range of national backgrounds, speaking Russian, Arabic, German, and a host of other languages. It is also common to speak of the Jewish people as a type of nation, united by blood, language, culture, and faith. This said, important debates exist regarding the importance of nationality and the extent to which Judaism as a faith should inform national identity. Beyond the Abrahamic world, India has seen a growing sense of Hindu nationalism. While independence leaders were avowedly secularist and more concerned with ethnic differences, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gained power through its emphasis on Hindu nationalism. In doing so, the BJP has stoked tensions with its many religious minorities, generating instability. In the Buddhist countries of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar, strong connections between religious and ethnic identities exist. All three consider themselves to be Buddhist nations, and, in all three, we find tensions with non-Buddhist minority groups. Religious nationalism can be beneficial in many ways. It can provide a sense of unity and belonging, promoting public and private ethics, as well as a sense of mission. Religious nationalism may motivate groups to help the poor or fight corruption. For many countries, nations are ongoing political projects, with the people beset by tribal, regional, and ethnic differences. Religion can be the glue for many countries that are otherwise torn by divisions. This said, religious nationalism has the clear disadvantage of pushing religious minorities even further away from national projects. Like ethnic nationalism, those outside the majority faith may not only lack a sense of belonging, they may also be persecuted as outsiders. The marriage of religion and nationalism amplifies some of the deleterious effects between

State Violence: Russia

majorities and minorities, leading the majority to seek assimilation and conversion of minorities, but also stoking calls to clean the lands and make for a homogenous nation of believers. The potential for religious nationalism to stoke ethnic nationalism is one of many reasons that a more or less civic sense of nationalism can be so important, providing a sense of unity for various peoples and not threatening their core identities. However, civic nationalism is never free of religious traits and takes considerable time to develop, as it is not a cure for deep tensions. Modern religious politics feature few movements that entirely reject nationalism. The potential exceptions are Islamists demanding a transnational Islamic caliphate. And few modern nationalisms totally reject religious identities, the major exception being France and its ultracivic laïcité. Most faiths have become nationalized, just as nationalisms incorporate many elements of religion. Religious nationalism demonstrates the staying power of religion in modern politics, as well as the power of national borders and identities even among the most pious. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Secularism FURTHER READING Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Connor, Walker. 1994. Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2008. Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to al Qaeda. Berkeley: University of California Press. Van der Veer, Peter. 1994. Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

RUSSIA: CHECHNYA CONFLICT Chechnya is a quasi-independent Russian Republic located in the northern Caucasus. The Muslim-majority region is known for its long-standing separatist conflict with the Russian government. Chechnyan leaders demanded independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leading to a decade-long civil war, followed by a violent insurgency movement led by various Islamist groups. After 2009, the Chechnyan conflict subsided, as Russia empowered Ramzan Kadyrov (1976—), whose father was assassinated in 2004 after switching from rebel to Russian forces. The young Kadyrov increasingly rules Chechnya with an iron first, promoting his brand of Chechnyan Islam and culture alongside loyalty to Vladimir Putin.

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The Chechen Republic is home to approximately 1.3 million people. It is estimated that 95 percent of the population identifies as ethnic Chechnyan and Muslim, especially since the wars of the 1990s drove out many Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, and other minority groups. Within Russia, Muslims represent about 10 percent of the population, located in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, and the North Caucasus Federal District, where the Chechen Republic is located. Historically, Chechnya was inhabited by tribal groups. Christianity was introduced in the fifth century but failed to make a deep impression, with locals continuing to practice folk religions. In the sixteenth century, Russian czars became involved in the region at a time when Islam was spreading. Islam was, in some ways, a method of resisting Russia, which was associated with Orthodox Christianity. In the eighteenth century, Russians fought a series of wars against Persia for control over the Caucasus, leading to a Russian occupation. For the next few decades, Chechnya saw tribal opposition to Russia as well as the spread of Sufi Islamic Orders, deepening Islamic practice in the region. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Chechnya and its surrounding territories enjoyed some independence before being invaded by the Red Army. As Communist Russia attacked religion in general, Soviet forces demolished Chechnyan mosques and arrested Islamic teachers. Toward the end of World War II (1939–1945), Chechnya suffered a dramatic depopulation, as Soviet leaders deported half a million of its people to Central Asia due to fears of Chechnyan disloyalty. Over one hundred thousand Chechnyans died during the relocations, which revived their enmity toward Moscow. After the death of Joseph Stalin (1878–1953), Chechnyans in Central Asia returned to their homeland but still faced Russification policies, with communities relocated from the hills to towns and forced to learn Russian. Chechnyan resistance continued throughout the Soviet era, especially with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which attracted many Chechnyans to fight alongside Islamic forces. Chechnyan nationalism would be unleashed with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which provided Chechnyan leaders with the opportunity to once again declare independence under the leadership of Dzhokhar Dudayev (1944–1996), a former Soviet Air Force general. Chechnyans were hardly unified though, with Islamists rivaling nationalist forces. Reeling from the loss of other republics, Russians rejected Chechnyan independence, leading to the First Chechnyan War (1994–1996). Russians faced intense battles with Chechnyan rebels, assassinating Dudayev and further fragmenting Chechnyan forces. Chechnya remained unstable, with a series of hostage crises and the growth of Islamist forces leading to the Second Chechnyan War (1999–2009). One of the leading rebel groups at this time was the Arab Mujahideen of Chechnya, an international group of Islamists, many of whom had fought Russian forces in Afghanistan. Early in the war, rebel leader Akhmad Kadyrov (1951–2004) opted to switch sides and pledge loyalty to Russia. Kadyrov justified this defection on the grounds

State Violence: Russian Orthodox Resurgence

that the First Chechnyan War was a struggle for Chechen nationalism, while the Second Chechen War was more about Arab-style Salafi Islam, which was a threat to Chechnyan identity. He was rewarded by Russia for his loyalty, which shifted the political tide in Chechnya toward Moscow. However, in 2004, Kadyrov was assassinated by Islamist groups. For the next five years, Islamist militias faced the coalition of Russian and Chechnyan forces, responding with terror attacks and deepening ties to global jihadists. With Akhmad Kadyrov’s death, his son Ramzan was promoted by Putin. This marked the beginning of a peculiar political relationship. Ramzan Kadyrov has worked with Russia to ruthlessly exterminate Islamist rebels, avenging his father and ending the war. He is intensely loyal to Putin, who has empowered the young Kadyrov to serve as a loyal dictator in Chechnya. Kadyrov has framed himself as a warrior, a humanitarian, a scholar, a celebrity, and an Islamic leader. Kadyrov is essentially a king, infamous for lavish parties involving Hollywood celebrities, his personal zoo, and the silencing of his critics. He is known for his active social media accounts featuring the dictator’s love of cats, martial arts, Putin, and Islam. The strong man is also thought to take a personal role in torturing political enemies in gruesome acts of violence. Meanwhile, Kadyrov has also solidified his brand of Islamism, partly a strategic move to undermine Islamist rebel forces. He promoted Islamic dress, the hijab for women, polygamous Islamic marriages, mosque construction, the pilgrimage (Hajj), various Sharia laws, honor killings against allegedly adulterous women, and attacks on homosexuals. In 2017, the United States placed sanctions on Kadyrov and his allies in response to ongoing widespread human rights abuses, most notably the ongoing “gay purge” throughout the region. His rule meant the end of the separatist conflict; however, continued human rights abuses and warlordism ensures that the region is still not at peace. Shane Joshua Barter and Jaroslav Zapletal See also: State Violence: Russian Orthodox Resurgence FURTHER READING Jaimoukha, Amjad. 2005. The Chechens: A Handbook. Abingdon: Taylor and Francis. Smith, Sebastian. 2006. Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya. London: I. B. Tauris. Tishkov, Valery. 2004. Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX RESURGENCE With 104 million adherents, Russia features the world’s largest Orthodox Christian population. For centuries, Russian czars worked closely with Orthodox Church

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leaders due to the church’s strong support for their power. The Soviet era (1917– 1991) saw intense persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the Cold War (1947–1991), Vladimir Putin (1952–) encouraged a resurgence in religious sentiment across Russia, embodied in the return of the Russian Orthodox Church to its traditional role. Russian leaders have portrayed the church as the nation’s moral compass, while the church has served as a legitimizing force for Russian leaders amid the decline of democracy. The relationship between Russia and the Orthodox Church illustrates key themes in state-religion relations. It also demonstrates the danger of violence toward minorities, in this case, the ongoing persecution of Russian LGBTQ communities. The Russian Orthodox Church is part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, seeking to practice the faith as it was during the time of Jesus Christ. Orthodox churches were in full communion with Western Catholicism until 1054 BCE, when the two split in an event known as the Great Schism, mostly over disagreements over the pope’s authority. Instead of a papal hierarchy, Eastern Orthodox Churches are more decentralized, with fourteen self-governing church bodies. This means that Orthodox churches such as Russia’s are autocephalous (self-governing), usually delineated by national borders and a close association with their home states. Christianity was officially introduced to Russia in 988, when Prince Vladimir of Kiev and his subjects were baptized by Byzantine priests. As their kingdom came under increasing pressure from invading Mongols and Tatars, the church became crucial in maintaining the Russian cultural identity. The rule of Peter the Great (1682–1725) saw a massive change in religious organization, as the modernizing king held faith in low esteem and worked to ensure government supremacy. In 1721, Czar Peter replaced the powerful patriarch with a council of bishops that the czar appointed and controlled. This effectively absorbed the church into the Russian state. Later Russian leaders seized church lands and provided church officials with a government salary. This absorption, however, also provided the church with some opportunities, using state power to expand its influence. In rural Russia, the Orthodox Church represented the state’s primary face at the village level, utilizing traditions and icons to influence the largely illiterate, pious peasant population. The 1917 Soviet Revolution fundamentally reshaped the church’s role in society. Communists saw religion as an “opiate of the masses,” a distraction from their material needs. Since the Orthodox Church was closely identified with czarist power, both were targeted by communist forces. The Soviets destroyed thousands of churches and monasteries, reducing the power of the church immensely. Aside from a brief resurgence under Stalin, part of an effort to stoke patriotism during World War II (1939–1945), the Russian Orthodox Church remained weak, dominated by antireligious communist forces. In the decades that followed, many Orthodox priests were jailed or killed for promoting religious freedom.

State Violence: Russian Orthodox Resurgence

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a turbulent time for Russian society. For seventy-five years, cultural symbols and religion had been replaced by a sense of communist modernity. This gradually eroded in the 1980s and ended categorically in 1991, leaving a cultural and spiritual vacuum. This chasm was deepened by chronic economic instability, corruption, organized crime, and alcoholism. Many Russians at the time looked to cultural traditions for meaning and stability, specifically the Orthodox Church, seen as a central pillar of Russian cultural heritage. At the elite level, Russia saw a brief period of liberalized democracy, but growing corruption, crime, and instability led to a more authoritarian political system. Former intelligence officer Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000, basing his authority on promises of political stability, economic growth, and Russian nationalism. A core part of this national identity has been the Russian Orthodox Church, which, in many ways, has returned to its historical political role alongside a powerful, king-like figure. The Russian government has provided funds for church restoration, created laws prohibiting missionary work by other faiths, and looked to Orthodox leaders for advice. In exchange, the church has provided Putin’s regime with legitimacy and open support. In late 2008, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexy II, passed away at the age of eighty. Although conservative and tied to the government, the patriarch was also sometimes critical of Russian leaders and a critic of religious intolerance, specifically antisemitism. In 2009, Kirill of Moscow (1946–) became the new patriarch, auguring a new era of state-church relations. For some, Kirill was a controversial choice, as he had many connections to Russian leaders and was suspected of black-market economic activities. Patriarch Kirill has been a strong Putin supporter, endorsing Russian expansion into Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, campaigning for Putin allies, framing Putin’s policies as “miracles of God,” dubbing human rights as heretical, and condemning antigovernment critics. Patriarch Kirill has been especially critical of the dissident group Pussy Riot, who he has called agents of Satan. Simultaneously, Putin has framed himself as a devout believer, staging pubic consultation sessions and attending church services. The resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church has benefitted many ordinary Russians. The church was long a symbol of anticommunist resistance, and spirituality has been an important pillar of strength to those enduring political and economic instability. On the other hand, church leaders have supported a nondemocratic state, promoting a conservative idea of Russian culture and society. The Russian state and Orthodox Church have worked together to promote “traditional family values,” targeting LGBTQ communities throughout Russia and enacting laws against “gay propaganda.” Patriarch Kirill has dubbed same-sex marriages as a form of Soviet totalitarianism, undermining religious freedom and corrupting children. Although a resurgent Orthodox Church has been of great cultural benefit

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to many Russians, deepening ties with the government have threatened marginalized groups. Shane Joshua Barter and Vassil Yorgov See also: State Violence: Religious Nationalism; Russia: Chechnya Conflict FURTHER READING Knox, Zoe. 2005. Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism. London: Routledge.

SECULARISM There is a saying in Indonesia: taking Islam out of politics is like removing sweetness from sugar. The idea here is that Islam, and perhaps religion in general, is inherently political, dictating laws, proper behavior, and conceptions of power. Efforts to purge politics from religion, and religion from politics, would thus transform and even oppress faith. For some, secularism means no politics in religion and no religion in politics—a total separation between church and state. For others, secularism means no established religion as part of the state. Here, religious organizations can take part in politics, but the state does not prioritize any one faith. A great range exists in between, where faiths are recognized by the state, but religious freedom is guaranteed. Other countries reject the concept of secularism completely, arguing that faith is best realized through political power and that political legitimacy comes from faith. There is no one understanding of the proper relationship between religion and the state, as secularism is a hotly contested term.

UNDERSTANDING SECULARISM There are many reasons why some form of separation between church and state is beneficial to both. For some, state ties to religion can also mean state control. For those who profess the same faith as the state, this can mean debasing their faith with this-worldly matters, with some interpretations supported—often those that benefit rulers—while others are sidelined. For religious minorities, established state religion can mean persecution and discrimination. As one expert wrote, “Only a secular legal constitution (so it is argued) can restrain, if not eliminate altogether, religious violence and intolerance towards minorities” (Asad 2003, 100). Religious influences can lead to disastrous policies, leading to unnecessary wars or

State Violence: Secularism

poor governance more broadly. Even if leaders can discern how gods want us to govern, implementing these policies may fall short. Religious politics can also raise the stakes to cosmological levels, where opponents are said to represent evil and spiritual threats, not just different opinions. Religion may also serve to undermine nationalism or the public will, as believers may help coreligionists in place of fellow citizens. For this reason, many countries promote a more or less secular form of nationalism, as more religious national identities may exclude religious minorities with their borders. Religious political parties may undermine democracy by suggesting that followers have a spiritual duty to vote for them. These are only some of the reasons why secularism represents an important goal. Then again, there are good reasons for religion to influence politics. If a given society’s identity is informed by religion, it seems reasonable, and even democratic, that politics should reflect this to some degree. Religions have a right to pursue their interests, like any other group. Many religions possess rules and beliefs that require public support or at least laws to allow their pursuit. Faith can guide the moral compass of political leaders. It is important to recognize that efforts to purge religion from politics may end up being as authoritarian as potential religious rulers. Finally, any country’s laws and customs will be rooted in religious traditions, making efforts to cleanse the public sphere of religion fraught with difficulties. A further complication stems from the fact that “secularism” is a contested concept, lacking a single, common meaning. The term is a nineteenth-century invention, but refers to a long-standing, opaque idea. Greek and Roman philosophers, as well as leaders recognized that governments based on religion are sometimes misguided. For centuries, religious and political power were fused, resulting in poor governance, wars, and little development. Christian and Islamic leaders clearly understood divisions between religious and this-worldly concerns, but the idea of secularism as a political doctrine took time to evolve. Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke (1632–1704). approached the idea based on principal, that government should not dictate spirituality. This said, the 1689 English Bill of Rights restricted Catholicism, tacitly promoting Protestantism. Several Protestant countries went on to create state churches, often in the name of religious freedom. The 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’s Article Ten guaranteed freedom of religion, inspiring the U.S. separation of church and state. This did not mean that politics and religion should be separated, but instead demanded the disestablishment of any specific state religion. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution read that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In the centuries to come, countries around the world adopted a right to free worship, as well as the disestablishment of state religions.

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A SPECTRUM OF POLITICS AND FAITH Although the meaning of secularism remains debated, some form of church/state separation is increasingly accepted as part of normal politics. This said, many developing and Islamic countries have rejected any division between political and spiritual authority. They may, however, base this rejection on the mistaken impression that secularism entails a total purge of religion from the public sphere. A wide spectrum of church and state relations exists, spanning from French efforts to totally eliminate religion from the public sphere to creating an Islamic Republic in Iran, with all countries falling between these extremes. Some countries have gone to great lengths to eliminate religion from politics. The clearest cases, although they are strange bedfellows, are North Korea and France. Like many communist countries, North Korea has long been hostile toward religion. While communist Cuba, Vietnam, and China have moderated somewhat, North Korea remains steadfastly opposed to religions such as Buddhism and Christianity. Instead, leaders promote an ideology of Juche, which is basically a political religion. Meanwhile, France is also known for its hostility toward public religion. This is embodied in the concept of laïcité, in which religion is to have no involvement in politics, and government shall not influence religion. Laïcité has far-reaching implications in French society, banning students from displaying religious symbols in public schools and offices. Part of the controversy has related to Muslim immigration and its effects on French national identity. French lawmakers have made efforts to outlaw Muslim clothing, separating religion not only from politics, but from society more generally (Roy 2007). For many years, Turkey followed the French model, with a total ban on religion and religious symbols in politics. Having been the center of the Ottoman Empire (1229–1922), and thus of Islamic politics, Turkish leaders embraced secular nationalism in the 1920s under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938). The 1937 Constitution enshrined laïcité and later repeated that Turkey has no official religion, despite being 99 percent Muslim and many Turks being increasingly observant. Secularism allowed Turkish authorities to maintain power and arrest the Islamic political opposition. Turkey also outlawed the head scarf for women in state and some nonstate offices, including banning parliamentarians from holding office unless they are willing to uncover. The authoritarian enforcement of secularism, while popular among some Turks, also encouraged opposition. In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected to power after decades of opposition and persecution. Since this time, Turkish leaders have rolled back the country’s ultrasecularist policies, representing new freedom for the pious and new authoritarianism for secularists.

State Violence: Secularism

Few countries have followed the ultrasecularist laïcité model. More have pursued an understanding of secularism as having no established state religion. The United States stands out as a clear example of this model. Since its founding, the United States has emphasized a separation between church and state, partly because it was founded by peoples fleeing religious persecution and was immediately home to many different sects. However, as critics are quick to point out, the U.S. government has always featured religious influences; many U.S. states were created with official religions, the Declaration of Independence speaks of being endowed by the creator, leaders swear oaths on bibles and utter “so help me God,” many holidays are Christian celebrations, and more. Much of this is what U.S. courts refer to as “ceremonial deism,” part of customary usage and no longer religious in meaning. But it is not as though religious politics existed early on and have since declined. The United States witnessed a shift toward religion during the Cold War (1945–1991), partly as a criticism of communist atheism. This is when the national motto became “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance incorporated “under God.” This said, court rulings have also rolled back public Christianity, with a 1962 ruling against prayer in public schools and a 1968 ruling striking down state laws against teaching evolution. The United States sees frequent debates over government-linked Christmas celebrations, with some Christian groups outraged over the lack of Christianity, while secularists are equally outraged by Christian excesses. The U.S. model is not to eliminate faith from politics, but instead to not promote any particular church as an established religion. Many U.S. leaders, of several political perspectives, have strong religious backgrounds: Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, and others. Further, Christian organizations have long-standing relationships with political parties, with the Christian Coalition and other conservative groups supporting the Republican Party. U.S. secularism does not purge faith from politics, but instead seeks to avoid established, official religious ties. Many countries feature official, established religions, but also guarantee religious freedom. This is the case in England, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Greece, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, and others. Each features an official faith, sometimes enshrined in law, but also ensures that minorities may worship freely, and, in many of these cases, the presence of an established faith is more of an historical legacy than an everyday reality. Sweden represents an interesting case, as the Lutheran Church represented a state religion until the year 2000. Prior to this, all children were made members of the church from birth unless their parents opted out, all members paid a mandatory 3 percent church tax, and many government officials had to identify as Lutheran. Swedes finally voted to disestablish faith, as the relationship was deemed by some to be archaic. Related to this are cases where

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there is no official religion, but still constitutional recognition of a specific faith. The Argentinian Constitution states that the country follows Roman Catholicism, but Catholicism is not a state religion. Israel represents another complex case, as the country is draped in religious symbols and meaning, some political parties are religious, and state enterprises observe the Sabbath, but the state lacks any official faith and guarantees religious freedom. One cannot see Israel as a totally secular state, nor are its politics dominated by religion. There are also countries that recognize several official faiths, while not promoting one in particular. In Indonesia, the state recognizes six faiths and demands belief in God, but has resisted identifying too closely with Islam. In Lebanon, religious divisions have been accommodated through providing Sunni, Shia, Catholic, and Orthodox leaders with guaranteed government posts, thus recognizing four faiths. Moving away from secularism, some countries differentiate between religion and politics but recognize and actively promote an official religion. Many Theravada Buddhist countries follow this model. Cambodia and Sri Lanka are officially Buddhist countries, while Thailand and Myanmar recognize the primacy of Buddhism. Each has close state ties with the Buddhist Sangha, political leaders take part in Buddhist ceremonies, and Buddhist leaders often enter politics. Not coincidentally, all of these countries have witnessed tensions with religious minorities. The Sri Lankan Constitution says that the duty of the state is to protect and foster Buddhism while assuring rights of non-Buddhists. The Thai Constitution not only recognize Buddhism, but also promise to take measure to “prevent Buddhism from being undermined in any form.” The Thai king is seen as the protector of Buddhism. Other countries that actively promote and defend an official religion include Bhutan (Vajrayana Buddhism) and Armenia (Armenian Orthodox Church). Some of the strongest ties between politics and religion are found in the Muslim world. Islam is, in some ways, distinctively political, with a range of laws and a long history of religious politics. Most Muslim-majority countries recognize Islam as the official state religion and provide some power to clerics. Even multiethnic Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, although it provides guarantees to nonMuslims. A key component of Islam’s rejection of secularism is the implementation of Sharia Law and, more specifically, the use of Sharia as the foundation of criminal law, since many countries allow religious laws in family matters. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Oman, Yemen, Mauritania, and Sudan define themselves as Islamic states, with courts dominated by clerics and enforced by religious police. In Saudi Arabia, the country’s constitution is said to be the Qur’an and Sunnah (ways of the Prophet). Even further toward theocracy, with a total rejection of secularism, as well as divisions between faith and politics, is the Islamic Republic of Iran. While Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia feature Islamic politics, political leaders tend to not have religious backgrounds. Iran has

State Violence: Singapore and Religious Diversity

been ruled in large part by religious leaders since the 1979 Revolution. The country is dominated by the supreme leader, an Islamic cleric who is selected by a panel of clerics. The supreme leader controls the judiciary, armed forces, state media, and more. However, Iran is only a partial theocracy, with an elected president in charge of day-to-day governance, although presidential candidates must be vetted by the supreme leader. Iran is the lone country that is led by religious figures—one of the few countries in the world that rejects some sort of division between state and religion. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: Religious Nationalism FURTHER READING Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. McCutcheon, Russell T. 2007. “‘They Licked the Platter Clean’: On the Co-Dependency of the Religious and the Secular.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 19: 173–99. Roy, Olivier. 2007. Secularism Confronts Islam. New York: Columbia University Press.

SINGAPORE AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY In 1964, the island of Singapore was rocked by a series of riots by different ethnic/religious communities. They began with a large Muslim gathering to celebrate Mawlid (the birth of the Prophet Muhammed). Speeches became political, inciting tensions with Chinese communities. Arguments and taunts turned into fights and soon spiraled into riots. The result was at least twenty-two dead and 454 injured. Despite, and perhaps because of this tragic violence, the story of Singapore’s ethnic and religious diversity is not primarily one of conflict, but instead management. Since the riot, the government has worked to ensure religious harmony. Although its approach is hardly liberal and there are always risks of future violence, Singapore mostly represents a successful case of managing religious tensions. The island of Singapore is located at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, a strategic point along the maritime trade, passing through the Straits of Malacca. In 1819, British administrator Thomas Stanford Raffles (1786–1826) was permitted by the Sultan of Johor to create a settlement in Singapore. Singapore grew immediately due to open migration policies and abundant trade. Already home to some indigenous Malay communities, Singapore featured incredible diversity from day one, attracting Indian Hindus and Muslims, various Malay groups such as Bugis,

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Christian communities such as Armenians and Portuguese, and various Chinese dialect groups. The British managed this diversity through segregation, with the famous Singapore Town Plan delineating areas for European, Chinese, Indian, Malay, Arab, and other communities to live and work. The result was that Singapore’s communities were largely separate, with different languages, schools, vocations, and faiths keeping residents apart. After World War II and the Japanese Occupation, Britain regained control of Singapore in 1945, ostensibly to help rebuild the profitable port city and to combat communist influence. The first major race riot occurred in 1950. The 1950 Maria Hertogh Riots were sparked by a custody battle over a girl who had been separated from her European parents during the war and was raised by a family friend in Malaysia. Identifying as a Malay Muslim, the now thirteen-year-old’s parents sought custody, with courts ultimately siding with her European birth-parents. The verdict angered Muslim communities, as did ensuing photographs of the child in a Catholic Church. Muslims took to the streets to attack Europeans, leading to eighteen dead and hundreds injured. In 1954, another riot occurred, this time among Chinese students protesting mandatory national service, with another riot among Chinese students unfolding in 1956. Singapore merged with Malaysia in 1963, which had a destabilizing effect in both regions, as it emboldened Malaysia’s Chinese minorities as well as Singapore’s Muslim minorities. The 1964 race riot in Singapore and riots in Malaysia led to Singapore being pushed out of Malaysia, reluctantly gaining independence in August 1965. The new country of Singapore featured a complicated ethnic and religious tapestry. Nearly 75 percent of its residents identify as Chinese, 13 percent as Malay, 9 percent as Indian, and over 3 percent “other” groups. This demographic breakdown is known as CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Other). Religion partially overlaps with ethnic divisions. Chinese mostly identify as Buddhist, traditional Chinese, or Christian. Malays are uniformly Muslim, while Indians are Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. Given this ethnoreligious diversity and a history of riots, as well as a lack of natural resources, many observers expected the country to fail. The government of Lee Kwan Yew (1923–2015) and his People’s Action Party (PAP) responded immediately to the many crises that came with sudden independence, including ethnic tensions. The government soon created massive Housing Development Boards (HDBs), a response to crowding and homelessness, but also ethnic tensions. HDBs were an attempt to break up ethnic enclaves, and, by the 1980s, each block was required to feature a balance of ethnic communities. The government also created a far-reaching education program. Most schools worked to integrate different ethnic communities, or at least teach students about Singapore’s diverse population and the dangers of ethnic tension. Although Chinese is the language of the ethnic majority and Malay is the official national language,

State Violence: Singapore and Religious Diversity

English was promoted as the language of education in an effort to create unity without one group gaining at the expense of others. This was not to be carried out at the expense of traditional languages though, as students must declare a “mother tongue” and received secondary instruction in Chinese, Tamil, or Malay. Along with policies to develop a national identity, the government also implemented strict laws to maintain public order. This was used to undermine political opposition and to outlaw speech or actions that might threaten intergroup harmony. These policies have resulted in declining ethnoreligious tensions and a growing sense of unity. Singapore has witnessed impressive levels of development, with all ethnic groups benefitting from access to education and employment. The PAP government has featured a number of influential minority leaders and consistently strives to include minority representation. Although Malay Muslims still face some exclusion (they alone are exempt from military service due to concerns over their loyalty), in 2016, it was announced that the largely ceremonial office of the president of Singapore would be reserved for Malays. Signs throughout the island feature the four languages of Singapore, and all of the island’s residents are able to communicate in English. Although intermarriage remains low, nearly all Singaporeans tend to have friends from other communities, an important step in overcoming misunderstandings and developing a common identity. Despite important steps toward maintaining peace and harmony, there remain many criticisms and tensions. Singapore has managed ethnic tensions at the expense of personal freedoms, and, in some way, at the expense of communal identities as well. Government policies essentialize Singapore’s ethnoreligious communities, downplaying the diversity of dialects and regional cultures to create four standard identities. And, in some ways, Singapore remains a Chinese state, with Chinese language, values, and education permeating the island. There have also been tensions concerning immigration. Singapore has a very large migrant population, with some 1.5 million of its 5.7 million people being nonresidents. Many migrants are low-paid workers, namely maids and construction workers, with both groups vulnerable to exploitation. For many Singaporeans, these shortcomings and criticisms are tolerated, as long as development continues and the island does not descend back into communal conflict. Singapore’s government has helped ensure that the small, diverse country maintains harmony among its ethnoreligious communities. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Tan, Eugene K. B. 2008. “Keeping God in Place: The Management of Religion in Singapore.” In Lai Ah Eng, ed. Religious Diversity in Singapore. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 55–82.

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SRI LANKA: MUSLIM CRISIS Sri Lanka is a Buddhist-majority island just south of India known for its longstanding conflict between Buddhist Sinhalese and Hindu Tamils that ended in 2009. Since the Sinhalese government victory over Tamil LTTE rebels, not only do tensions remain between these groups, but new forms of religious conflict have developed. Victorious Buddhist forces have targeted the country’s Muslim minorities, even though Muslims generally supported the government during the civil war. Conservative Buddhist groups continue to attack Muslim communities, while the government has done little to curb increasing attacks. Sri Lanka’s Muslims represent nearly 10 percent of the island’s population, while Buddhist Sinhalese are about 70 percent (Hindus are about 13 percent and Christians 7 percent). Muslims have lived in Sri Lanka for centuries, since Arab traders settled along the coasts. Dubbed “Moors” by the Portuguese, the island’s Muslim community flourished, conducting lucrative trade in spices and gemstones, while also supporting Sinhalese kings economically and politically. For this, Muslims were permitted to worship freely, living alongside Buddhist communities. This changed with the arrival of Portuguese colonizers, whose attacks on the Moors pushed many from the island, while others fled to the interior. Then known as Ceylon, Sri Lanka’s Muslim communities were transformed with eighteenthcentury Dutch and nineteenth-century British colonial influence. Muslim Tamils began migrating from South Asia, intermarrying and, in some ways, absorbing the island’s Arab communities. Muslim Malay communities also arrived from Southeast Asia, leading to a diverse Muslim faith. Many Muslims benefitted under British colonial rule, gaining access to trade and education, while Sinhalese Buddhists enjoyed fewer advantages. As Sri Lanka gained independence, the native Sinhalese majority immediately dominated the government and began elevating their group’s identity. Sinhalese language policies and the promotion of Buddhism led to communal riots across the island, eventually leading to a bloody civil war between the government and violent LTTE rebels. Despite connections to Hindu communities and a shared Tamil language, many Muslims sided with government forces, hoping to demonstrate loyalty to Buddhist rulers. This was especially important because Muslims are spread across the island, leaving them more vulnerable to attacks than the Hindu enclaves. Hindu rebel groups frequently attacked Muslims, pushing them further toward the government. When the civil war ended, many Muslims hoped for a more peaceful Sri Lanka and cordial relations with the Buddhist majority. This has not been the case though, as the victorious Buddhists have since turned on their former Muslim allies.

State Violence: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism is an intense, often conservative social force. Many Buddhists see Sri Lanka as holy land, the last remaining pillar of South Asian Buddhism after Hinduism and Islam expanded in India. A number of Buddhist monks and laity see Sri Lanka as a bastion against the global growth of Islam, demanding political mobilization to save their faith. Sinhalese Buddhists have organized a range of right-wing parties and organizations. The political party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) was created in 2004, largely in opposition to peace talks with LTTE rebels, who they felt needed to be wiped out. The JHU is part of a social movement, banning smoking and alcohol, as well as restricting the sale of meat. In 2012, several ranking JHU monks branched off to create the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS, Buddhist Power Force), a purely activist organization outside of electoral politics. The BBS focuses largely on the threat of Islam, although it has also attacked Hinduism and Christianity, framing other faiths as threats to Buddhism. BBS rallies attract thousands of followers, with speakers warning of Islamic terrorism and highlighting the plight of Buddhists in Muslim countries. Speakers have lashed out against Muslim economic influence, demanding a boycott of Muslim businesses. BBS has also stoked fears of large Muslim families, demanding legal limitations on Muslim birthrates. BBS has also promoted various “Buddhist social issues,” such as limiting contraception, university preference for Buddhist students, and limiting mosque construction. The most visible BBS activity has been the anti-Halal campaign. Halal certification has been framed by BBS leaders as the beginning of Sharia Law and as polluting Buddhists. At the same time, the BBS has been accused of inflaming Hindu-Muslim tensions by claiming that calves have been tortured and slaughtered by Muslim food vendors. Conservative Buddhists have also used social media to spread rumors of false conversion and inflame religious tensions. Buddhist businesses have removed Halal food from stores, followers throw pork products at Muslim houses, and some businesses have demanded that women remove head coverings. Sinhalese Buddhist rallies have incited mobs, leading to a series of violent attacks on Muslim stores, homes, schools, and mosques. In southeastern Sri Lanka, BBS rallies exploded into communal violence in 2014. Rumors had spread about Muslims attacking a monk, leading BBS leaders to organize rallies and shout anti-Muslim slogans. The mob soon attacked Muslims on the street, looted and destroyed Muslim shops, and displaced entire communities. The incident left eight dead, a hundred injured, and ten thousand displaced. Consequently, many Sri Lankan Muslims, especially those living in coastal areas, live in constant fear of attacks. In many communities, Sinhalese mark their houses with Buddhist flags in order to be spared during raids, while Muslims are too afraid to return home and choose to relocate. Buddhist attacks on Muslims have evolved a transnational

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dimension as well, with BBS leaders working with the similar 969 Movement in Myanmar and applauding attacks on Rohingya Muslims. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government has been reluctant to control Buddhist groups and protect Muslim citizens. Police officers have been accused of turning a blind eye to attackers, and courts have failed to prosecute those responsible for attacks on Muslims. Many government leaders have ties to the JHU and BBS, speaking at rallies, receiving campaign contributions, and gaining electoral support. Sri Lanka’s state-run media has neglected to cover anti-Muslim riots, partly to limit the spread of riots but also to limit criticisms of the BBS. The current Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe (1949–), claims that the government cannot afford to be seen as helping Muslims and acting against Buddhist monks. It appears that Buddhist nationalists hold some degree of impunity. The international community urges the government to stand for minority rights and stop hate crimes, but the wish to retain the government’s reputation as dominantly Sinhala and Buddhist remains an obstacle. Shane Joshua Barter and Amanda Boralessa See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); 969 Movement; State Violence: Sri Lankan Civil War FURTHER READING Imtiyaz, A. R. M., and Amjad Mohamed-Saleem. 2015. “Muslims in Post-War Sri Lanka: Understanding Sinhala-Buddhist Mobilization against Them.” Asian Ethnicity 16, no. 2: 186–202.

SRI LANKAN CIVIL WAR The island country of Sri Lanka lies just thirty kilometers from the Indian coast. It is primarily known for a divisive, bloody civil war that raged for nearly three decades. The conflict featured the Sri Lankan Army, which principally represents the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, against largely Hindu Tamil rebels. The conflict lasted from 1983 until 2009, but the religious tensions that fueled it remain unaddressed. The government has made few efforts to promote reconciliation; if anything, it has strengthened Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism at the expense of religious minorities. Sri Lanka features deep ethnic and religious divisions, although the civil war was primarily fought between Hindu Tamils and Sinhalese Buddhists. Approximately 75 percent of its twenty-one million people are ethnic Sinhalese, the vast majority of whom are Theravada Buddhist (along with a Christian minority). About

State Violence: Sri Lankan Civil War

22 percent of Sri Lankans are ethnic Tamils, a group divided between Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, as well as between Hindus, Christians, and Muslims. Sri Lankan Tamils mostly inhabit the country’s north, having migrated from nearby India over a millennium ago. Indian Tamils, as well as most Muslim Tamils, are more recent colonial arrivals, concentrated in the island’s central highlands. Finally, Sri Lanka is home to several other minorities, including Malay Muslims, indigenous Vedda, and Portuguese Eurasians. These ethnic dynamics are partly rooted in European colonial rule. Historically known as Ceylon, the island was already home to diverse ethnic groups prior to Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial rule. The British imported over one million Indian Tamils to work in tea and rubber plantations, with hundreds of thousands returning to India at the end of the colonial era. The British disproportionately favored Tamils in employment and education, generating resentment among the native Sinhalese majority. Immediately after its independence in 1948, Sri Lanka saw the rise of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. The government sought to overcome colonial exclusion by promoting Buddhism, the Sinhalese language, and giving preference to the Sinhalese in employment. The 1948 Citizenship Act prevented many Indian Tamils from gaining citizenship, leaving hundreds of thousands stateless. The 1956 Sinhala Only Act made Sinhalese the official language of government and commerce. The shift to Sinhalese shocked the country’s Tamils, leading to riots. Prime Minister Bandaranaike (1899–1959) moderated the bill to appease Tamils in 1958, only to be assassinated by a Buddhist monk for betraying the Sinhalese. Sri Lanka saw a series of riots throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the creation of a number of militant rebel groups. Having defeated its rivals, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rose to prominence in the late 1970s after assassinating a series of Sinhalese politicians. In 1983, the LTTE killed several Sinhalese soldiers, leading to ethnic reprisals against Tamil communities and the ensuing civil war. Although comprised of Hindus, the LTTE was an avowedly secular group, one that contained numerous Catholic as well as some Muslim fighters. The Sinhalese Army and LTTE were both ruthless in their tactics. The LTTE was vicious toward rival Tamil organizations, recruited through kidnappings, and utilized child soldiers. The LTTE used suicide bombings, land mines, and assassination to expand its power. By the 1990s, the LTTE was essentially a proto-state, operating its own courts, postal system, and air force (Mampilly 2011). It committed several horrific abuses, including the massacre of hundreds of captured police officers and the destruction of Sinhalese and Muslim Tamil villages. The Sri Lankan military, meanwhile, utilized aerial bombardments and torture against Tamil communities. Neighboring India intervened in the conflict in the 1980s and encouraged peace talks, however the Sri Lankan government saw India as supporting ethnic Tamils, and eventually the LTTE attacked Indian forces, killing Indian

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Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The conflict is thought to have killed nearly one hundred thousand people and displaced nearly half a million, with thousands remaining displaced long after the war’s conclusion. To understand the intensity of the conflict, it is important to understand the nature of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Many monks and other leaders believe that as Buddhism once reigned in India but was overcome by Hinduism and Islam, Sri Lanka remains the last Buddhist stronghold in South Asia. Buddhists must be as aggressive as their competitors, and the government must support the faith if it is going to survive in the region. It is also important to note that the LTTE organized terrorist strikes against religious targets to help stoke these fears. The 1998 LTTE bombing of the Temple of the Tooth, one of Buddhism’s holiest sites, led to widespread unrest among the Sinhalese. Some of the most vocal opponents of peace talks have been Buddhist monks, who organized their own nationalist political party to pressure the government not to compromise with the enemy. In 2002, peace talks saw both sides make some compromises. The LTTE remained a powerful organization, leading to a 2004 split between its northern and eastern wings. Suddenly, the LTTE saw open revolts, with the eastern wing working with the government. By 2006, the Sri Lankan Army was coordinating with the LTTE’s eastern wing against the LTTE’s main force. Given LTTE brutality, even against Tamil civilians, many abandoned the group at the first opportunity, leading to the LTTE’s dramatic collapse. In 2009, the government claimed victory, and the remnants of the LTTE conceded defeat. Following the war, the United Nations Commission of Human Rights and several other international organizations accused both sides of war crimes, which remain unacknowledged and uninvestigated to this day. The 2011 state-led Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission Report was roundly criticized as insufficient and biased, a token effort to appease victims and foreign critics. Scores of displaced people remain, and there has been no compensation for the victims of violence. Far from healing, growing Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism has stoked tensions, not only with Hindu Tamils but also with Sinhalese Christians and Muslim Tamils. This said, Sri Lanka has seen considerable economic growth and some concessions to Tamil language groups, providing some hope for reconciliation. Shane Joshua Barter and Amanda Boralessa See also: Buddhism: Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); State Violence: Sri Lanka: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Mampilly, Zachariah. 2011. Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

State Violence: Tunisia and Religious Freedom

TUNISIA AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM In 2011, the small African-Arab country of Tunisia saw a mass uprising against a corrupt regime. Led by labor unions and Islamic groups, the democracy movement successfully ousted the dictator and held elections, with the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party voted into office. Since this time, Tunisia has faced numerous challenges, both in terms of reconciling its nondemocratic past, as well as handling religious tensions. But the Arab world’s sole democracy has maintained its newfound freedoms, making Tunisia an imperfect, but important model. Located at the northern tip of Africa, facing the Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia has always been part of the Mediterranean world. The country has long been noted for its northern ports and fertile soil leading up to its southern mountains. Tunisia gains its name from its most notable city, Tunis. Historically, native Berber tribes and Phoenician migrants lived together in the famed city of Carthage, providing grains for regional markets. Rome defeated Carthage in 146 BCE, with Christianity and Judaism arriving shortly thereafter. The seventh century saw Arab invasions, with Carthage falling to the Umayyad Caliphate in 697 CE. At the periphery of far-off caliphates, Carthage was ruled by Bedouin tribal leaders. Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and local leaders began modernization efforts in the nineteenth century. Mired in debt, Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881. Tunisia gained independence in 1956 under President Habib Bourguiba (1903–2003), who became a dictator until 1987, when his failing health led Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1936–) to become president. Authoritarian Tunisia was known for exorbitant corruption and inequality but also some development, basing its economy on tourism, agriculture, and light manufacturing. The regime attacked dissidents, cracking down on Islamist and labor opposition groups through killings, torture, imprisonment, and exile. The Arab Spring began in December 2010, when a poor street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest continued police harassment and corruption. This sacrifice sparked protests in Tunisia and throughout the Arab world, capturing global attention. President Ben Ali was forced to flee the country in January 2011, taking refuge in Saudi Arabia. The interim government banned the former dictator’s party and disbanded abusive special police forces. In October, Tunisia’s first democratic elections were a success, and Ennahda won a plurality of seats. Ennahda had grown from the 1980s as a powerful opposition movement, with its members beaten and imprisoned under authoritarian rule. It was also known for its educated, moderate leadership that saw Islamism and democracy as compatible. Upon its election, Ennahda shared power with other major parties to help create national unity. It also promised that it would not implement Sharia Law, angering its more Islamist rivals. It is notable that Tunisia, which already stood out among

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Arab countries for its high status for women, saw the election of many female leaders, and later passed laws demanding equal numbers of female candidates in local elections. In 2013, Tunisian leaders formed the Truth and Dignity Commission, tasked with exposing past human rights violations, and the National Dialogue Quartet, comprised of labor unions, human rights activists, and lawyers, to help create a road map for democracy. The Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for its work to limit religious violence. The 2014 elections saw Ennahda place second behind a new secular nationalist party, Nidaa Tounes. Ennahda was gracious in defeat and was offered cabinet positions in the new government for the sake of national unity. In many ways, the Tunisian democracy has been a great success. But Tunisian minorities, secularists, moderate Islamists, and foreign tourists have faced intense pressure from hard-line Islamists. Tunisia is 98 percent Muslim, with small Jewish and Christian minorities of Arab and European descent. The Tunisian Constitution guarantees freedom of religion but also says that the country follows Islam. Reports suggest that Tunisia’s religious minorities have enjoyed relative freedom of worship and speech. The government describes itself as the defender of all faiths, regularly monitoring and punishing Islamic leaders who preach intolerance. In a sense, state regulation of mosques itself represents a limit on religious freedom and is seen by Islamists as an example of the country’s leaders supporting rival faiths over Islam. The government has worked closely with Catholic and Jewish leaders, working hard to follow through on promises of religious freedom in Tunisia. This said, minority faiths have faced numerous threats from a new radical Islamic fringe. These Salafi movements have ties with global jihadists and have primarily targeted Muslim politicians. In 2013, radicals assassinated leftist leader Chokri Belaid (1964–2013) and, shortly afterward, his colleague Mohamed Brahmi (1955–2013). The killings were attributed to Ansar al-Sharia, a group known for attacks on local artists and foreign embassies. The killings led Tunisian leaders to denounce terrorism, demonstrating the division between mainstream political Islam and radical Salafism. In 2015, terrorists committed two major attacks, including a March attack at a museum that left twenty-two dead, and a June attack at a tourist resort that left thirty-eight dead. Both attacks primarily targeted tourists, with ISIS claiming responsibility. Tunisian authorities blamed a group known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group based mainly in Algeria. Violent Islamist groups lack a clear, public organization; they represent a major threat but also seem to lack widespread support. Despite these challenges, Tunisia continues to make steps forward. Ennahda announced in 2016 that it renounces the term “Islamist,” focusing on more pragmatic issues, such as legal reform and economic growth. One of the country’s greatest challenges relates to its neighbor Libya, whose ongoing violence threatens

State Violence: Turkey

to destabilize the region. This said, Tunisia remains the only fully democratic Arab country and one of the few Muslim democracies, potentially serving as a model for other Arab countries. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Wolf, Anne. 2017. Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

TURKEY: ARMENIAN CHRISTIAN CONFLICT Muslim-majority Turkey and Christian-majority Armenia share a long, often violent rivalry. Much of the tension between the two countries dates back to 1915, when the dying Ottoman Empire (1299–1922) took part in a massive ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Turkey and the wider region. Turkish attacks saw the death of hundreds of thousands, mostly young men, and then the deportation of many more. As Armenia emerged as an independent country in the wake of the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991, it has been locked in bitter disputes with an increasingly Islamic Turkey, as well as the ethnically Turkish country of Azerbaijan. Turkey has refused to label the event a genocide, while Armenia seeks international support for its claim. Turkey and Armenia are part of a region known as the Caucasus, located between Russia and the Middle East. The Caucasus is home to a diverse range of faiths, with Islam and Orthodox Christianity being predominant. Armenian ­identity is deeply tied to Christianity, which was introduced to the region in 40 CE. Armenia claims to be the world’s first Christian country, adopting it as the state religion in 301 CE. Mount Ararat, thought to be the biblical landing place of Noah’s Ark, is also a prominent national symbol. Over the centuries, the region was contested among various empires, until the Muslim Turkish Ottomans began to more strongly assert their dominance. Armenia struggled to maintain its identity, as Shia Persians, Sunni Ottomans, and Christian Russians fought numerous wars in and around its territory. The largely mountainous region in which Armenians resided (modern-day eastern Turkey and Armenia) was eventually split largely in half between the Ottomans and Persia. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire enjoyed considerable autonomy and economic success but also suffered from periods of persecution, especially as the empire declined. The Ottoman Empire weakened in the late nineteenth century, largely due to the rise of Christian Europe, declining trade revenue, and a series of critical

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military defeats. Russia, considering itself the protector of Orthodox Christianity, interceded in multiple rebellions in Christian territories within the Ottoman Empire. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro all gained their independence, while Bulgaria asserted its autonomy, and Bosnia was occupied by Austria-Hungary. After independence, many of these territories took part in the expulsion of their Muslim communities, seen as a symbol of the former oppressors. Russia’s subsequent continued support of Christian rebels throughout Ottoman territories eroded the sultanate’s traditional religious tolerance. As the Ottomans lost territory and power, rulers increasingly clung to Islam for legitimacy, influenced, in part, by more puritanical Saudi Islamic thought. In 1894, the Ottomans took part in a massacre of Christians in Turkey’s interior, killing Armenian, Assyrian, and other Christian minorities in an effort to build a more homogenous Islamic territory. By World War I (1914–1918), the Ottoman Empire was in its death throes, and a new wave of nationalism spread from within the heart of the sultanate. As young military officers and politicians rose to power, they took steps to establish an ethnically Turkish state. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Russian support for Christian independence movements, and a growing sense of Turkish nationalism culminated in the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Turkish forces took part in the systematic cleansing of Greek, Assyrian, and Armenian minorities, who were seen as sources of disunity and rebellion. Even today, the number killed is subject to intense debate. Approximately five hundred thousand Armenian men were directly killed by Turkish soldiers; hundreds of thousands died of starvation and disease, and hundreds of thousands were deported to the Syrian desert, where many died of famine (Melson 1992). The death of approximately 1.5 million Armenians, including intellectual and cultural leaders, devastated the minority. Many survivors fled abroad, joining an already sizeable Armenian diaspora. Today, it is estimated that more Armenians live abroad (close to ten million), than in Armenia itself (three million). In 1918, the short-lived Republic of Armenia formed, although was annexed by the Soviet Union within two years. Although losing its autonomy, the Soviets occupation also ensured the integrity of Armenian territory against Turkey. Although the genocide remained vivid in the national psyche, Soviet control of foreign policy meant that Armenia was largely insulated from Turkey. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia regained its independence. But even though it shared a border with Turkey, the unaddressed animosity caused by the genocide meant that no formal diplomatic ties were established between the two countries. Turkey continues to refuse to acknowledge the genocide, arguing that Armenians were simply victims of the war, as were many other groups of people. This escalating rhetoric peaked with the 1993 Nagorno-Karabakh War. The conflict pitted Armenia against its predominantly Muslim neighbor, Azerbaijan,

State Violence: United States: Muslim Crisis

a former Soviet Republic with cultural ties to Turkey. Turkey provided aid to Azerbaijan and cut off Armenia’s land border in an attempt to cripple the Armenian economy. However, Armenian forces enjoyed Russian military aid, successfully occupying the ethnic-majority Armenian Karabakh territory. Today, Nagorno-­ Karabakh remains a disputed territory, with Russia and its allies recognizing Armenian sovereignty, while the rest of the world (including the United Nations) refuses to legitimize the invasion. On the ground, the region is a de jure part of Armenia, with the government moving settlers to the region to entrench its claims. Today, Armenia and Turkey have minimal diplomatic ties, to the detriment of both countries. Turkey’s access to natural gas and oil from Azerbaijan is severely restricted, while Armenia relies almost entirely on Russia for trade and energy. Armenia faces domestic pressure, as well as pressure from its diaspora, to oppose Turkey and to lobby international agencies regarding the 1915 genocide. After a brief and promising thaw in relations in 2008, talks fell apart. Turkey has repeatedly protested the desecration of Turkish flags during Armenia’s Genocide Remembrance Day. In 2015, the Armenian Church announced that it had made all 1.5 million genocide victims into saints, deepening the Armenian narrative of martyrdom. Shane Joshua Barter and Vassil Yorgov See also: State Violence: Russian Orthodox Resurgence FURTHER READING Melson, Robert. 1992. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

UNITED STATES: MUSLIM CRISIS The relationship between the United States and the Islamic world has long been in a state of crisis. This is the case not only for the U.S. government and Muslim countries but also within U.S. society. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Americans have become especially hostile to Islam and Muslims, although it is also true that Muslims have been disproportionately involved in terrorist events. Islamophobia in U.S. society led to attacks on Muslims and anxieties within the wider Muslim-American population, threatening to push more Muslims toward radicalism. This said, there is also potential for tolerance and cooperation, as U.S. Muslims are an especially diverse group, and the United States stands out as more open to public religiosity than other Western countries. There were approximately 3.5 million Muslims living in the United States in the late 2010s. This population is growing, in part due to U.S. engagements in

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the Muslim world. Muslims in the United States are an incredibly diverse group. About 25 percent are African American Muslims, who tend to practice the faith very differently than other Muslims, often standing apart from immigrant Muslim communities. An estimated 30 percent of U.S. Muslims are of South Asian descent, namely Pakistani and Indian. About 25 percent of Muslim Americans are of Arab descent. The remaining 15 percent are Persian, Southeast Asian, and Turkish. Muslims are also diverse in terms of class, with Pakistani and Persian communities being the most educated, while many African American Muslims live in poorer communities. Muslims in the United States, whatever their ethnicity, are overwhelmingly urban and tend to be found in central and eastern states, such as New York, Illinois, Virginia, and New Jersey. The U.S. experience with Islam is largely recent, although there were small Turkish and African Muslim populations in the United States at its very beginning (Hussein 2016). It is worthwhile noting that the U.S. founding fathers spoke favorably of Islam and religious tolerance. Jefferson rejected government references to Jesus Christ on the grounds that it would be unfair to Americans of other faiths, including Muslims. The U.S. government had some early diplomatic relations with Muslim countries, and, in 1898, the U.S. Army established colonial rule over the Philippine Muslim island of Mindanao. The twentieth century saw new patterns of Muslim immigration to the United States. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922) after World War I (1914–1918), thousands of Turks and Bosnians migrated to the United States, and, after World War II (1939–1945), many Arabs followed suit. U.S. involvement in the Muslim world deepened during the Cold War (1947–1991), with the United States supporting Muslim dictators against communist influences. In 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s socialist-leaning Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882–1967), assisting in the placement of the corrupt Shah (1919–1980) into power and later supporting his brutal regime against communists and Islamists. With the 1979 Iranian Revolution, many educated Iranians moved to the United States. The United States supported Islamists in Afghanistan against the Soviets, forces that later evolved into the Taliban and al-Qaeda. During the 1980s, the United States fueled the IranIraq War (1980–1988) by selling weapons to both sides and, in the 1990s, fought its former ally Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) after Iraq invaded Kuwait. And of course, the United States has shown unfettered support for Israel, an affront to much of the Muslim world. The September 11 al-Qaeda attacks transformed the landscape of U.S.-Muslim relations. Al-Qaeda evolved from anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan. Already critical of U.S. support for Israel, al-Qaeda became anti-American in the 1990s during the Gulf War. Fighting Iraq, Saudi leaders allied with the United States, a partnership that put U.S. troops on Saudi soil and displaced potential Islamic

State Violence: United States: Muslim Crisis

resistance to Saddam Hussein. This led al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi oil magnate, to begin targeting the United States. The 9/11 attack did not come out of nowhere, as al-Qaeda had long criticized the United States and was responsible for a 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and U.S. intelligence had warned of coordinated terrorist attacks involving hijacked airplanes. On September 11, al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four airplanes, planning to fly two into the World Trade Center in New York and two into targets in Washington, D.C. One of the Washington-bound planes crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off the attackers, while the other crashed into the Pentagon. Al-Qaeda’s devastating attack collapsed the World Trade Center towers in a shocking, global display of violence. An estimated three thousand people died in the attacks, with many more injured. The United States and its allies responded one month later by invading Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban. International forces captured the country quickly but failed to build a stable, peaceful Afghanistan, engaging with Islamist resistance for the next two decades. The United States also invaded Iraq in 2003, partly due to suspected ties to al-Qaeda. Such engagements have led many of the world’s Muslims to see the United States as hostile towards Islam, while many Americans see Islam as similarly belligerent. The United States has struggled in its relationship with foreign Muslim countries and societies. U.S. support for Israel had already strained these relationships, with Iran dubbing the United States as a “Great Satan” during the 1980s. NATO ally Turkey has had strained relations with the United States, as the Turkish government moved toward Islam and the United States supported Kurdish leaders. Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally, but the country has sympathies with anti-U.S. Islamist groups and has given shelter to terrorist leaders, such as Osama bin Laden. The strongest U.S. ally in the Muslim world is Saudi Arabia, even though the Saudis have long promoted an extremely conservative, antidemocratic brand of Islam around the world. In 2010, the United States announced the largest arms deal in history, with over $60 billion in equipment to the Saudis. The complex relations between the United States and the Islamic world were shown during the 2011 Arab Spring, in which Muslim populations challenged various dictators. In many cases, these dictators were U.S. allies, such as Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak (1928–). Wanting to support its allies and stem the growth of violent Islamists but also wanting to promote democracy and human rights, President Barrack Obama (1961–) provided reluctant support for resistance groups. Egyptians overthrew Mubarak and elect Mohamed Morsi (1951–), but, in 2013, the United States turned a blind eye to a military coup. Syria and Libya have been major tests for the United States, which is caught between supporting dictators for the sake of stability and helping resistance forces, which are largely Islamist in their outlook. As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) expanded in 2013, the United States has fought Islamists

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in Iraq but seems unsure of how to approach resistance to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad (1965–). As the United States struggles in its relations with the Muslim world, it also struggles with Islam at home, with considerable Islamophobia among society and political leaders. It is important to recognize that Muslims have been disproportionately involved in terrorist attacks within the United States. Since 9/11, there have been a spate of Muslim terrorist strikes, including the 2009 Fort Hood Shooting carried out by a Muslim U.S. Army major, the would-be “underwear bomber” in 2009, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, and several 2015 attacks such as San Bernardino and Merced. This is not to mention Muslim terrorist attacks in other Western cities, such as Barcelona, Paris, London, and more. Of course, the vast majority of Muslims in the United States have no ties to violent attacks. Further, persons from a variety of faiths have been involved in terrorist violence within the United States. Many domestic terrorist acts have been carried out by Christians, such as the Army of God’s attacks on abortion clinics, neo-Nazi attacks on Jewish groups and symbols, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, far-right Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, far-left attackers such as the Weatherman, and countless high school shootings. There is a danger of attributing violence by Muslims as part of a religious pattern, while attacks by Christians are seen as isolated, random incidents. The perception of a Muslim terrorist threat to the United States has led to surveillance, suspicion, and considerable Islamophobia. Security officials have worked to infiltrate mosques and uncover terrorist plots. This has eroded trust within Muslim communities, and some intelligence operatives have gone to excessive lengths. In Irvine, California, an FBI plant continually spoke of Islamist violence, leading the Muslim community to seek police protection against the radical FBI operative. In 2010, a Somali-born man living near Portland, Oregon, was under surveillance by the FBI, whose operatives encouraged him to plan violent attacks, helped him create a bomb, and then arrested him. As the arrest was made public, the suspect’s mosque was subjected to various hate crimes and violence. There is a danger that, in trying to weed out radicals, security forces may end up encouraging terrorists and committing entrapment. Islamophobia has spread to several parts of U.S. society, creating new threats to religious freedoms and perhaps deepening the exclusion that helps fuel violent attacks. Polls consistently show that Americans hold prejudiced views of Islam. State legislatures have passed a variety of laws against Islam, mosques, and Sharia Law. The American Civil Liberties Union (2017) has catalogued hundreds of antimosque activities, including arson, vandalism, and physical attacks. There have been countless armed protests against mosque construction, with some Americans limiting religious freedoms in ways similar to how Muslims restrict Christians in Egypt, Indonesia, and elsewhere. On an everyday level, countless acts of violence,

State Violence: United States: Muslim Crisis

exclusion, and harassment have been reported by Muslim Americans. Muslims are racially profiled at airports and by other security officials. Islamophobia has also been visible in national politics. The United States has been reluctant to accept Syrian refugees, and, in 2017, President Donald Trump (1946–) not only worked to block refugees from the United States but also worked to remove many who had already arrived. President Trump campaigned on a promise of banning Muslim immigration and was cheered for the idea of banning people entry based on their professed faith. As his administration clumsily worked to implement the ban, several families, Muslim American soldiers, and Iraqis who had risked their lives helping the United States were denied entry. Weeks into his presidency, Trump banned immigrants from several Muslim countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen), regardless of their visa status. The move caught the Department of Homeland Security by surprise, leaving authorities with little sense of what to do. The ban was struck down by courts, reapplied, and was struck down again, affecting thousands of people and creating new uncertainties. It led some officials to ignore the ban, thus breaking the law, while others enforced it, thus breaking other laws and undermining the legitimacy of the country’s legal order. In some way, the ban will achieve its goal, not by blocking Muslim immigration, but by inflaming Islamophobia, making life difficult for Muslim American families and pushing new Muslim migrants to look to more tolerant countries. American tensions with the Muslim world beyond, as well as within its borders, helps to encourage the very phenomena of radical Islam that Americans fear. Terrorist strikes tend to be carried out with the goal of creating a gulf between Christians and Muslims, leading to religious war. Responding to this by persecuting Muslims and their faith is, in many ways, playing into the hands of extremists, creating fertile ground for continued struggle. This said, there are some reasons for optimism. Unlike in Europe, where many societies are hostile toward religion, the United States is more comfortable with public religiosity and prides itself on freedom of worship. The United States has a long history of tensions with new immigrant groups, including Catholics and Asians, but later integration and acceptance. The United States has nothing short of a crisis regarding Islam, but there are reasons to hope that the best of U.S. traditions can overcome it. Shane Joshua Barter See also: Islam: ISIS (Islamic State); Islamophobia; 9/11 and al-Qaeda; State Violence: United States: Standing Rock Crisis FURTHER READING American Civil Liberties Union. 2017. “Nationwide Anti-Mosque Activity.” ­https://​­www​ .­aclu​.­org​/­issues​/­national​-­security​/­discriminatory​-­profiling​/­nationwide​-­anti​-­mosque​ -­activity.

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UNITED STATES: STANDING ROCK CRISIS People residing in settler countries must never forget that their territories once belonged to indigenous peoples. Settler control of land was a consequence of negotiations and treaties but also manipulation, wars, and deceit, leaving a legacy of injustice. In Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, indigenous politics are highly visible (Lightfoot 2016), although this is less true in the United States. After some public activism in the 1970s, U.S. leaders have largely overlooked native issues. This is beginning to change, with ongoing protests against oil pipeline projects, namely Sioux resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline project in the Standing Rock Reservation. The pipeline threatens to contaminate the local environment, which is crucial to the material and spiritual lives of the Sioux people, while the pipeline’s profits would go to oil companies. Resistance against oil companies is likely a losing battle, but it has successfully mobilized a new wave of indigenous activism. Prior to European colonialism, the Americas were home to an estimated fifty million people. Indigenous communities created sophisticated networks for trade and faith. They were hardly homogenous or peaceful though, with many tribes warring with one another. The arrival of European colonizers proved calamitous. Eurasian diseases devastated native populations—plagues that were sometimes encouraged by settlers. As European settlement grew, natives were violently removed from their lands. The 1830 Indian Removal Act forcibly relocated nearly one hundred thousand natives to provide land for white settlers. Those removed included the “Five Civilized Tribes,” those that had adapted to Western society and supported the U.S. Government. This event showed that even those loyal to the United States would be betrayed when it was convenient. The Trail of Tears (1839–1850) killed an estimated 20 percent of those being relocated. Learning from this betrayal, other tribes opted for open resistance, including the Apache War (1849–1924) in the southwest and the Sioux Wars (1854–1891) in the central plains. The Sioux, whose ranks include the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota peoples, had a proud history of resistance but were ultimately overwhelmed by the U.S. military. Despite continued U.S. expansion, indigenous resistance continued into the next century. In the Civil Rights era, natives created the American Indian

State Violence: United States: Standing Rock Crisis

Movement (AIM) to promote indigenous rights. AIM realized that part of the challenge was that Native Americans had been removed to the periphery of U.S. society, so their plight was invisible to most Americans. In response, AIM organized several dozen high-profile actions across the United States, such as occupying Alcatraz Island and Mount Rushmore. In 1973, Sioux leaders invited AIM to Wounded Knee to mediate a dispute between rival chiefs. The presence of armed activists led to the arrival of U.S. authorities, leading to a standoff, gunfight, and manhunt for AIM leaders. From this time, indigenous issues have not been central to U.S. politics, or at least not compared to other settler countries. In Australia, Aboriginals and Torres Straits Islanders have demanded justice, most notably in the Mabo Case (1982– 1992), recognizing native land title. In New Zealand, the Maori Renaissance has involved cultural and political development, including the electoral success of the Maori Party and a new treaty process. In Canada, First Nations have been involved in high-profile activism, including the 1990 Oka and 1993 Gustafsen Lake standoffs, treaty renegotiations in British Columbia, the 1998 Nisga’a Treaty, and the 2012 Idle No More movement. In Latin American countries, movements to defend the Amazon, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the Guatemalan peace processes, and protests over privatized water have elevated indigenous activism. Native politics in the United States have been less visible, perhaps because U.S. politics is typically preoccupied with wars, political turmoil, and African American rights, but also because Native Americans remain geographically peripheral to most cultural and economic activities. The expansion of pipeline projects has triggered a new wave of native activism. Sioux peoples never ceased their political activism, with Lakota groups declaring independence and challenging historical treaties. But the arrival of pipelines and potential ecological threats have allowed Sioux activism to gain mainstream attention. This developed with protests against the Keystone XL Pipeline connecting Canadian tar sands to U.S. markets. Resistance to the pipeline, which would pass through many native lands, provided an occasion for Canadian and U.S. indigenous cooperation. The Dakota Access Pipeline, though less known, has been especially important for native activism and spirituality. The project would bring oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Like most pipeline projects, the profits would go to major oil companies, with some economic benefits to the public. However, the costs, namely risks for leaks and ecological contamination, as well as pipeline construction, disproportionately fall on poorer native communities. The Dakota Access Pipeline would threaten to contaminate the local ecosystem, including the Missouri River, a sacred site for local Sioux and a vital resource for local communities. For many Lakota people, water is a sacred source of life, and the Missouri River is the site of native rituals. For some, rivers represent the blood of the Earth

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itself. Regional rivers have also demarcated tribal territories for centuries, and, for the Mandan people, two rival deities created the world on either side of the Missouri. As a result, ecological destruction of the river threatens to undermine many indigenous myths and beliefs. Sioux organizations have attempted to sue project leaders and delay construction, especially where the pipeline traverses sacred sites. Project developers have accommodated some demands, shifting the pipeline’s route, but it is clear that the pipeline will cut across their territories whether the Sioux like it or not. In response, activists created the Sacred Stone Camp and other protest settlements, but these have been removed by the government. A 2016 rally focused on spiritual resistance, with Catholic, Buddhist, and traditional native religious leaders demanding that we rethink ecological destruction in the name of profits. After President Barrack Obama equivocated on Dakota Access, Keystone XL, and other pipeline projects, President Donald Trump seems committed to their completion. In the end, the pipelines will be created, and native communities will add this to a list of times when the U.S. government put its interests ahead of indigenous peoples. Oil companies will win; however, native resistance slowed the process, sparked new debates, and helped mobilize transnational indigenous communities. Shane Joshua Barter See also: State Violence: United States: Muslim Crisis FURTHER READING Feraca, Stephen E. 1998. Wakinyan: Lakota Religion in the Twentieth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lightfoot, Sheryl. 2016. Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution. London: Routledge.

UZBEKISTAN: MUSLIM CRISIS For many, Central Asia represents a blind spot in terms of world events. Many people would struggle to identify “the stans” (Persian for “land of”) on a map, let alone discuss their contemporary politics. The region consists of five former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and sometimes Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang. The heart of the historic silk road, this underdeveloped Islamic region features clan feuds, authoritarian leaders, and Islamist resistance forces. The most populous Central Asian country is Uzbekistan, home to over thirty million people. For one quarter of a century, the country was ruled by the dictator Islam Karimov (1938–2016), whose death began a period of

State Violence: Uzbekistan

instability. Islamist forces, long persecuted by Karimov, have declared allegiance to ISIS and hope to take advantage of the succession crisis. Uzbekistan’s capital city is Tashkent, although its best-known city is Samarkand, a hub in the ancient silk road. The silk road brought Islamic, as well as Chinese influences, with Samarkand known for its paper-making. Samarkand has a fabled history of trade as well as war, conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BCE, Genghis Khan in 1220, and Tamerlane in 1370. Much of Central Asia was nomadic when Russian, Chinese, and British forces began making inroads in the early nineteenth century. By the 1870s, Russian influences had grown considerably. Russian farmers settled Central Asian lands, and after the 1917 Russian Revolution, the countries of Central Asia joined the Soviet Union under local party leaders. The Soviet era (1920–1991) saw significant religious suppression, closing mosques and cutting the region off from the Muslim world. This changed with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in which transnational Islamist forces resisted the Soviets with Western support. Central Asian countries were somewhat destabilized in the 1980s, with Soviet attacks on clan politics and the promotion of pro-Moscow cadres (Collins 2004). When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the leaders of Central Asian communist parties became leaders of independent countries. In Uzbekistan, this meant the presidency of Islam Karimov. Rising through the Soviet system in the 1980s until being promoted by Gorbachev in 1989, Karimov immediately became president of the new Republic of Uzbekistan. Having won undemocratic elections in 1992, Karimov led a referendum to extend his term in 1996, and again in 2000, when he again won reelection in a heavily criticized contest. Karimov warred with rival clans, also working with allied clans in a pact to control the country’s natural resources. Initially, Karimov’s regime courted Islam as a way to shore up legitimacy. But as pro-Western democracy activists were defeated, Islam came to represent the most powerful opposition movement. From 1999, the government imposed control over religious activities. On one hand, many Islamist groups were militant, tied to neighboring Afghanistan and the Taliban. On the other hand, some were more peaceful, critical of presidential corruption and human rights abuses. After 9/11, Uzbekistan welcomed U.S. forces to develop a large air base within its borders. In 2005, a major protest movement culminated in the 2005 Andijan Massacre, in which security forces killed hundreds of civilians who were protesting in front of a local courthouse. The government claimed that the dead were all radical Islamists, but this did not convince Western critics, and there has been no investigation of the incident. Many believe that Karimov was seeking to avoid a popular uprising, as Kyrgyzstan had just completed the 2005 Tulip Revolution, in which its dictator was overthrown. The Andijan Massacre led the United States to close its Uzbekistan military base and withdraw its support for Karimov.

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There are two major Islamist organizations that threaten Uzbekistan’s authoritarian government. The first is Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), a global Sunni organization that is seeking to create an Islamic caliphate. The ultraconservative organization operates through study circles and enforces strict social conservatism. Banned in many Muslim countries, it has thrived in the weak states of Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, HT is thought to be connected to a series of car bombings in 1999 and 2004. The group has called for the overthrow of the country’s corrupt leaders, leading security forces to crack down violently on suspected HT members. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) is the country’s most notable, violent opposition movement. Created by Soviet-trained Uzbek soldiers in the 1990s, the IMU gained experience during the Tajikistan civil war (1992–1997). Initially a domestic movement aiming to overthrow Karimov, IMU expanded connections to the Taliban in the early 2000s, claiming its allegiance to al-Qaeda and welcoming foreign fighters. The IMU has been classified as a terrorist organization by Western countries, and, in 2015, it claimed allegiance to ISIS. This revealed a split among the IMU, with some focusing on ISIS and Syria, while others remain aligned to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It appears that the IMU split may follow clan/regional lines, weakening the radical movement but also threatening to spark a civil war between Islamist groups. In 2016, Islam Karimov passed away, triggering a succession crisis in Uzbekistan. In personalist authoritarian regimes, succession is a perpetual problem. Karimov’s large family features extensive feuding, so Uzbekistan has looked to Karimov loyalist Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957–) as the president. Mirziyoyev has promised a more tolerant approach and has reached out to more moderate Islamists. However, the December 2016 elections were much like under Karimov, with the incumbent winning nearly 90 percent of a rigged vote under the banner of the Liberal Democratic Party. It is unclear if he will be able to keep the country together. The IMU is thought to control some parts of the country, as Central Asia threatens to become a new theater of Islamist conflict. Western leaders, meanwhile, face the dilemma of supporting a stable dictatorship against Islamists or criticizing dictators and ­allowing Islamist influence to grow further. Shane Joshua Barter FURTHER READING Collins, Kathleen. 2004. “The Logic of Clan Politics: Evidence from Central Asian Trajectories.” World Politics 56: 224–61.

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About the Editor and Contributors

EDITOR Michael Jerryson is distinguished professor of religious studies at Youngstown State University. He is the director of the James Dale Ethics Center and cofounder of the Comparative Approaches to Religion and Violence at the American Academy of Religion. Jerryson is the author or editor of numerous essays and books, which include Buddhist Warfare (2010), Buddhist Fury (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence (2013), Violence and the World’s Religious Traditions (2016), and If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence (2018). His forthcoming coedited volume is Buddhist-Muslim Relations in a Theravada World, due in 2020.

CONTRIBUTORS Luke Adams studies conflict and religion in Asia and has worked with the Religious Freedom Institute and the Institute for Global Engagement. Michael Anderson is a PhD student at Drew University in the theological and philosophical studies program. He previously earned a masters of arts at Claremont School of Theology, concentrating in ethics, politics, and society. At Claremont, he studied Jain philosophy and religion and was an attendee of the International School for Jain Studies’ summer program. Tejpaul Singh Bainiwal is a PhD student in the religious studies department at the University of California, Riverside. His research interests include Stockton 855

856

About the Editor and Contributors

Gurdwara, Ghadr Party, and early Sikh American history and immigration. Tejpaul also serves on the board of directors for Asian Pacific Islander Americans in Historic Preservation (APIAHiP) and has worked with the Smithsonian Museum and National Parks Service. Shane Joshua Barter is an associate professor (international studies) at Soka University of America, where he is the director of the Pacific Basin Research Center. His research focuses on Southeast Asian politics, conflict, and religion. He is the author of Civilian Strategy in Civil War: Insights from Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines (2014) as well as various articles and chapters. Amanda Boralessa is a graduate of Soka University of America. Her interest in the Sri Lankan civil war and its aftermath developed from a young age, as her family emigrated from the island. She currently connects recently arrived refugee and asylee job seekers to employers in the Boston area. Jennifer S. Bryson, PhD, is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. She has a PhD in near Eastern languages and civilizations from Yale University. She has taught at the U.S. Army War College and worked as a civilian for the U.S. Department of Defense. Kinda Chaib, PhD, is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, France. Aurélie Daher, PhD, is an assistant professor at Université Paris-Dauphine/PSL Research University, Paris, and at Sciences Po, Paris. Brianne Donaldson is an assistant professor and Shri Parshvanath presidential chair in Jain studies at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Creaturely Cosmologies: Why Metaphysics Matters for Animal and Planetary Liberation (2015) and the forthcoming Insistent Life: Foundations for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition (2020, coauthored with Ana Bajželj). She is the editor of Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature: A Common World for Animals and the Environment (2014), The Future of Meat without Animals (2016, coedited with Christopher Carter), and Feeling Animal Death: Being Host to Ghosts (2019, coedited with Ashley King). Tania Marie Ghazar is a student at the University of Virginia. Juli L. Gittinger is lecturer of south Asian religions at Georgia College. She received her PhD from McGill University in Montreal with emphasis on

About the Editor and Contributors

contemporary issues in Hinduism (nationalism, gender, and digital media). She has master’s degrees from University of Colorado in Boulder and from SOAS in London, both in the fields of Indian religions. Her areas of personal research interest include Hindu nationalism and religion in media/popular culture. Her book, Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism Online was published in October 2018. Harmen Grootenhuis is finishing two research masters at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), one in the faculty of philosophy and the other one in the faculty of theology and religious studies. He is interested in comparative philosophies, the study of Spinoza, and Japanese Buddhism. Mazhun Idris is a journalist with a focus on religion and society, and the founder of the Peace Panel Center in Kano, Nigeria. Steven Leonard Jacobs is a professor of religious studies and Aaron Aronov endowed chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Alabama. His primary research foci are the Hebrew Bible, Jewish-Christian relations, the Holocaust, and historical and contemporary genocides. He received his BA from Penn State and his MAHL, DHL, and DD from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Mahesh Kushwaha graduated from Soka University of America, with a concentration in international studies. Informed by growing up in southern Nepal, he is interested in the politics of identity, faith, ethnicity, nationalism, and power. Gang Li is doing a double-PhD at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), focusing on the relationship between Islamic law as living law with the state/official law in China. Erik Love, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology at Dickinson College and author of Islamophobia and Racism in America (2017). David May is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Rebecca Moore is emerita professor of religious studies at San Diego State University. She is currently reviews editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. Her most recent book is Beyond Brainwashing: Perspectives on Cultic Violence (2018). Justin Parrott is a fellow at the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and a librarian for acquisitions and Middle East studies at New York University in Abu Dhabi.

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About the Editor and Contributors

Christopher Rodrigues studied Uyghur and Uzbek at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ismail Royer is a research and program associate at the Religious Freedom Institute. Romany Shaker is an Arab media analyst and a researcher of political Islam. Pashaura Singh is a professor and Saini chair in Sikh studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of four monographs, including Life and Work of Guru Arjan (2006). He has coedited nine volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies (2014). His monograph, A Dictionary of Sikh Studies, was launched on Oxford Quick Reference in 2019. John Soboslai is an assistant professor in the department of religion at Montclair State University. His research centers on martyrdom and political theology, and he is the coauthor of the book God in the Tumult of the Global Square (2015), as well as multiple articles on self-sacrifice in various religious traditions. Arjan W. Sterken graduated from the research master in the faculty of theology and religious studies at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) in 2019. His research focuses on comparative mythology, languages, structuralism, and cognitive theory. Stefania Travagnin is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Culture in Asia at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). Her research focuses on Buddhism and Buddhists in modern and contemporary China and Taiwan. She is currently directing the three-year project Mapping Religious Diversity in Sichuan, funded by the CCKF (2017–2020). Aaron Michael Ullrey is a visiting professor at Youngstown State University and an affiliated professor at University of Denver. He completed his PhD in 2016 from University of California Santa Barbara. His dissertation “Grim Grimoires: Pragmatic Ritual in the Magic Tantras” was funded by Fulbright-Hayes and the American Institute of Indian Studies. He is currently revising his dissertation into a monograph on magic in Shaivism. Christian van Gorder is an associate professor of religious studies at Baylor University. He began teaching at the Yunnan University in Kunming, China, before teaching at Messiah College and Baylor University. Van Gorder is married to

About the Editor and Contributors

Vivian Ndudi Ezeife and has eleven children, including, in 2018, unexpected quadruplets. He is the author of Islam, Peace, and Social Justice; Violence in God’s Name: Christian and Muslim Relations in Nigeria; Christians in Persia and Muslim and non-Muslim Relations in Iran; Muslim and Christian Relations in Central Asia; and No God but God: A Path to Muslim-Christian Discussions. Steven M. Vose is the Bhagwan Mahavir assistant professor of Jain studies and director of the Jain studies program at Florida International University in Miami. His research focuses on Shvetambara Jain community formation in medieval and modern western India, examining Jain art and literature to understand their interactions with other religious communities and early Islamic empires in India. Vassil Yorgov is a graduate of Soka University of America, concentrating in international studies. He was born in Bulgaria and grew up the United States. This shaped his interest in how diaspora communities interact with their host societies, particularly in the local politics and growth of cities. Gates H. Young is a graduate student at the University of Virginia. Jaroslav Zapletal is a graduate of Soka University of America. Originally from the Czech Republic, he earned an MPhil in politics and international relations from the University of Cambridge, where he studied international political economy and specialized in Chinese politics and Sino-European relations.

859

Index

Note: Page numbers in bold indicate the location of main entries. Abortion. See Anti-abortion movement Afghanistan al-Qaeda training camps in, 382 jihadist training camps, 337 Soviet invasion of, 711, 743, 752, 774 Soviet withdrawal from, 368 and Taliban, 319, 401–402, 712–713, 781, 782 U.S. invasion of, 216, 385, 492, 565, 713, 775, 781 African religion, 1–11 African Traditional Religions (ATR), 2–3, 5, 6, 7 Afro-pessimism, 1 colonial history, 5–7 definition of religiously sanctioned violence, 2 definition of violence, 1–2 ethnoreligious violence, 3–4, 7–10, 16–17, 20–22, 23–24, 49–50 precolonial history, 4–5 precolonial period, 7–8 religions and violence in Africa, 8–10 Ahimsa (nonharm) (Buddhism), 61, 66–68 definition of, 67–68

differentiation of objects of harm, 68 and himsa (violence), 61, 66–67, 68, 242 and Japanese Pure Land tradition, 67 and Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, 67 and vegetarianism, 67, 128, 129 and Zen tradition, 67 Ahimsa (nonharm) (Hinduism), 246–248 in Bhagavad Gita, 246–247 definition of, 242–243, 246 and Gandhi, Mohandas, 242–243, 247–248, 265, 267 and global politics, 247–248 in Mahabharata, 243, 246 in Ramayana, 243, 246 in Vedas, 242, 246 Ahimsa (nonharm) (Jainism), 247, 419, 425–428 and abstention from killing, 426 definition of, 413, 425 and five vows of monks and nuns, 416, 426, 427 and four restraints, 426, 428 and samsara, 414 and seven practices, 427–428

861

862

Index

Ahimsa (nonharm) (Jainism) (cont.) as social good, 424 and vegetarianism, 427 Ahimsa (nonharm) (Sikhism), 247 Ahmadiyya, persecution of, 323–325 Ahmadi Islam declared illegal in Malaysia, 324 Ahmadiyya international reach and presence, 323–324 anti-Ahmadi riots (1974), 324 founding of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 323 government policies, 324–325 Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 323 in Indonesia, 324–325 in Pakistan, 324–325 social ostracization, 324 vigilante violence, 324 All India Sikh Students’ Federation. See International Sikh Youth Federation Alms (giving food to monks), 108, 115–116 and asceticism (Jainism), 433, 458 and Saffron Revolution, 108 and South Thailand insurgency, 115–117 and vegetarianism, 128 Al-Qaeda. See 9/11 and al-Qaeda Al-Shabaab, 325–328 allegiance to al-Qaeda, 327 ethnoreligious violence, 23, 319, 327–328 history and founding, 326 and Islamic Courts Union (ICU), 326 name of, 325 purpose and goals, 325 religious justification for violence, 327 World Cup soccer venue murders, xxiv, 327

Amalekites, 472–474 early history of, 473–474 modern movement, 473–474 and settler movement, 473 Analects, 137–140 and Confucianism, 137–140 and international relations, 138–139 Analects for Women, 155–156 Anekantavada, 428–430 and Gandhi, Mohandas, 429 history and development of, 428–429 influence and legacy of, 429 and King, Martin Luther, Jr., 429 principles of, 428–430 use of, 429 Anti-abortion movement, 184–186 Army of God (AOG), 185 attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, 184–185 background, 184 biblical invocations, 185, 229 Britton, John, murder of, 184, 185 and Catholicism, 185–186 and Christian fundamentalism, 185–186, 196 Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, 184–185 Tiller, George, murder of, 185 Anti-Christian attacks (Chinese religion), 140–142 and Catholicism, 141–142 and Communist Revolution, 141 history of Christianity in China, 140–141 Anti-Christian attacks (Hinduism), 248–251 attack on Graham Staines, 249 attacks in Gujarat, 248, 249–250 attacks in Orissa, 244, 248, 249, 250

Index

and Bharatiya Janata Party, 249–250 and Christian conversion, 248–249 forced “reconversion,” 250, 281 and Hindu nationalism, 248–250 history of Christianity in India, 248–249 murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, 249 Anticult Movement (ACM), 557–562 and brainwashing, 559–560 criticism and controversy, 559–560 groups identified as cults, 558–559 history and origins of, 557–558 and international cult activity, 561–562 and New Religious Movements, 550, 552, 553, 555, 557–562 North American ACM, 560 purpose and goals of, 557 use of news media, 560 Anti-Muslim attacks (Buddhism). See Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force); Ma Ba Tha; 969 Movement Anti-Muslim attacks (Chinese religion), 142–146 and Cultural Revolution, 142 cyberattacks, 143 history of Islam in China, 142 Shadian incident (1975), 142 and Uyghur independence movement, 143–144 Xinjiang “political reeducation camps,” xxiv, 143–144 Anti-Muslim attacks (Christianity), 186–189 and Crusaders (modern militia group), 188 and election of Donald Trump, 188 Minnesota Dar Al-Farooq mosque bombing (2017), 188

and 9/11 attacks, 186 normalization of, 188 North London mosque attack (2017), 188 and othering, 187–188 prosecution of, 188 Quebec City mosque shooting (2017), 188 targets of, 187 Anti-Muslim attacks (Hinduism), 251–253 destruction of Babri Masjid mosque (1992), 244, 252, 254, 273, 280, 299 and Hindu nationalism, 251–253 history of Islam in India, 251 and Partition of India, 251 See also Gujarat Riots (2002) Antisemitism, 474–477 and creation of Israel, 476 definition of, 474–475 early history of, 475 and Nazism, 476 present day, 476–477 See also Blood Libel; The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion Antisemitism in the Arab world, 477–479 books and popular media, 478 and Dar al Islam, 478 definition of antisemitism, 477, 477–479 early history of, 477 See also Blood Libel; The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion Anti-Zionism. See Antisemitism; Zionism and anti-Zionism Anup Mandal, 430–433 anti-Anup Mandal movement, 432 and caste-based resentment, 431–432

863

864

Index

Anup Mandal (cont.) history and founding of, 430–431 Jain ascetics targeted by, 431 and Prajapati, Amrut, 431–432 purpose and goals of, 430 Armageddon, 189–191 and Book of Revelations, 189–190 definition of, 189 and politics, 190–191 Seventh-day Adventists, 190 and World War I, 181 See also End Times Armenian Genocide (1915), 771, 772–773 Art of War (Sunzi), 146–148 legacy of, 147 practicality of, 147 purpose of, 146 Asceticism, 433–436 Paryushan (eight-day period of atonement), 435 practiced by lay people, 433–434 practiced by monks and nuns, 433 sallekhana (fasting to death), 428, 433, 434, 449–451 and violence, 435–436 women’s roles in religious piety and practice, 434–435 Ashoka (Asoka) (r. 268–232 BCE), 61, 69–71 biographical details, 69 conversion to Buddhism, 61, 69 Edicts of Tolerance, 61, 69 legacy of, 70 and Theravada Buddhism, 69–70 war with Kalinga, 69 Assam Bodo-Muslim conflict, 328–332 anti-Muslim attacks by Bodo, 330–331 background and history, 328–329

Bodo opposition to Muslims, 329 displaced persons, 330 ISIS recruitment of Assam youth, 331 key incidents, 330–331 Muslim opposition to Bodo, 329 peace negotiations, 330 Assault sorcery (war magic), 11–13 and divine kingship, 12 and Dogon of Mali, 12 in Mozambique, 12 principles and features, 11–12 secrecy of, 11 witchcraft versus sorcery, 12 Atheists, persecution by (New Religious Movements), 562–566 Chapel Hill murders (2015), 565 definition of atheism, 562–563 and French Revolution, 563 and New Atheism, 564–565 and People’s Republic of China, 563–564 and United States, 564 Atheists, persecution of (New Religious Movements), 566–569 definition of atheism, 566 and the Enlightenment, 566–567 legal protections, 566 and 9/11 attacks, 568 and religious right, 567 and Scopes Trial (1925), 567 and Torcaso v. Watkins, 568 and United States, 567–568 Aum Shinrikyo (Aleph and Hikari no Wa), 569–572 history and founding of, 569 recruitment, 571 theology of violence, 570–571 Tokyo sarin gas attack (1995), 551, 569–571 Aung San Suu Kyi (1945–), 71–73, 96

Index

family and background, 71 house arrest, 71, 73, 109 and 969 Movement, 102 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to, 71, 91, 392 and persecution of Kachin, 91 and persecution of Rohingya, 70–73, 104, 392, 738, 740 Ayodhya, 253–255 campaigns to build Ram temple, 252, 253–255, 258–259, 280, 297, 305, 673 destruction of Babri Masjid mosque (1992), 244, 252, 254, 273, 280, 299 history of, 253 Babbar Khalsa International, 642–644 death of Sukhdev Singh, 643 diaspora of, 643–644 and Golden Temple attack, 643 history and formation of, 642–643 murder of Nirankari Shaadi Lal by Sukhdev Singh and Kulwant Singh Nagoke, 642–643 purpose and goals of, 642–643 Babri Masjid mosque, destruction of (1992), 244, 252, 254, 273, 280, 299 Bahubali Hill affair (1980s), 436–439 background, 436–437 events of, 437–438 government intervention, 438 politicians’ involvement, 438 Bathani Tola massacre (Bihar, India), xxiii, 263 BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, 479–481 and antisemitism, 480 BDS Blacklist, 480 history and origins of, 479

purpose and goals of, 479–480 supporters of, 480 Bentiu massacre (South Sudan, 2014), 13–16 background and warnings, 13–14 events of, 14 and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), 14–15 victims, 14–15 Bhagavad Gita, 255–257 Ahimsa in, 246–247 contents of, 255–256 dharma in, 255 history of, 255 just war ideology in, 242, 243, 247, 257, 268 themes, 256–257 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 258–260 Advani, Lal Krishna, 254, 255, 258 and anti-Christian attacks, 249–250 and cow protection, 277 criticism and controversy, 259–260, 277, 280, 282 and destruction of Babri Masjid mosque (1992), 244, 252, 254, 273, 280, 299 and Gujarat Riots (2002), 259, 273, 275 and Hindu nationalism, 258–259, 280 history and origins of, 258, 280 Modi, Narendra, 250, 258, 259–260, 274–275 and Muzaffarnagar riots (2013), 287–288 Ram Janmabhumi temple project, 252, 253–255, 258–259, 280, 297, 305, 673 and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 298–300 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 258

865

866

Index

Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh (19471984), 644–647 and Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), 645, 662, 679–680, 691, 694, 702–703 arrest and imprisonment, 645 biographical details, 644–645 and Dal Khalsa, 647–648 and Dharam Yudh Morcha, 694 and International Sikh Youth Federation, 661–662 and Khalistan, 668 martyrdom of, 646, 685–686, 692 and Operation Blue Star, 692, 693 Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999), 702–703 Bhutanese Hindus, persecution of, 260–262 Bhutan Constitution, 260–261 discrimination against and deportation of Lhotshampas, 261, 262 history of Bhutan, 260–261 registration of religious groups, 261 sexual violence, 261–262 Black separatism, 572–575 Black Hebrew or Black Israelite religions, 574 Black Liberation Army, 573 Black Panther Party for SelfDefense, 572 civil rights era, 572–573 history and origins of, 572–573 killing of police officers, 573 Moorish Science, 573 Nation of Islam, 572, 573–574 purpose and goals of, 572 Blasphemy (Islam), 332–335 anti-blasphemy laws, 332–335

blasphemy laws in Pakistan, 333 Charlie Hebdo attacks, 334 and classical Islamic jurisprudence, 332–335 death penalty for, 333 definition of blasphemy, 332 murder of Theo Van Gogh, 334 post-colonialism, 333 Qur’an on, 332 and The Satanic Verses (Rushdie), 334 Blood Libel, 481–483 history and origins of, 481–482 incidents in the United States, 482–483 and Nazism, 482 ongoing presence of, 483 Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force), 73–76, 106 and ahimsa, 68 Aluthgam riots (2014), xxiv, 74 and anti-Muslim violence, 74 beliefs and purpose, 74–75 Colombo conference (2013), 74 and election of Mahinda Rajapaksa, 75 founding of, 74, 765 on halal certification system, 74–75 notable members, 73–74 views on the West, 75 Boko Haram, 335–338 growth of, 336–337 history and founding of, 335–336 kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls from Chibok, xxiv, 337 name of, 335 purpose and goals of, 335–336 and Shekau, Abubakar, 337 targets of violence by, 338 and Yusuf, Muhammad, 336, 337, 397

Index

Boston Marathon bombing (2013), 338–341 events of, 338–339 manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 339–340 trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 340 and Tsarnaev, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, 339–340 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. See BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement Branch Davidians, 575–578 The Branch: The Lord (YVHV) Our Righteousness, 577 End Times, 575–576, 591 history and origins of, 575–576 and Koresh, David, 199, 550, 575–577 Waco standoff and siege (1993), 575–576 Breivik, Anders Behring (1979–), 192–193 and Christianity, 192–193 manifesto, 192 2011 Norway attacks, 182, 192–193 Buddha biographical details, 61 and five global characteristics of Buddhism, 59–60 and gender and sexual orientation, 85–86 and history of Buddhism, 61, 62, 64 and Mahavamsa, 97–98 meaning of buddha, 58 nine supreme qualities of, 100 and soldier monks, 112 and Three Jewels, 77, 108, 122–125 title of Buddha, 59 and Upayakaushalya Sutra, 126–127 and vegetarianism, 128–129

See also Knowing Buddha Organization Buddhism, 58–66 branches of, 59 core principles and characteristics, 59–60 definition of violence, 61 diversity of, 59 ethical parameters to violence, 62–64 five moral precepts, 60, 62, 67, 129 Four Noble Truths, 60, 118, 128 global reach of, 58 historical examples of Buddhism and violence, 61–62 historical persecutions of Buddhists, 64–65 history of, 61–62 liturgical languages, 59 Mahayana (Great Vehicle), 59, 112, 120, 124, 126, 132, 133, 168, 169, 717, 733 origins and history of, 58–59 philosophical stance of dependence, 60 philosophical stance of impermanence (anitya/anicca), 60 Pure Land tradition, 62, 63, 67, 86, 123–124 terms and trends, 58–61 Theravada (Path of Elders), 59, 69–70, 86–87, 95, 105–107, 108, 110, 118, 120, 123, 133, 760, 766 Vajrayana (Thunderbolt Vehicle), 59, 126, 133, 760 Zen tradition, 62, 63, 67, 113 See also Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha)

867

868

Index

Buddhist End Times, 76–78 distinctions between Japanese and Chinese traditions, 77 doctrine, 76–77 and Knowing Buddha Organization, 94 markers for, 77 and violence, 78 Bush, George W., 180, 197, 232, 275, 384 Cambodia: truth and reconciliation process, 714–716 Cambodian culture and identity, 716 end of Cold War, 715 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, 715–716 Khmer Rouge and Killing Fields, 714–716 and Pol Pot, 715 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia (1979), 715 Cartel Saints. See Mexico: Cartel Saints Catholicism and African religions, 5–6, 14, 17, 30, 31, 47, 51 and anti-abortion movement, 185–186 and Bentiu massacre, 14 and Buddhism, xxiii and Central African Republic (CAR), 17, 21 in China, 564 and Chinese religion, 131, 140–142, 151 and colonization, 5–6 Crusades, 178, 485 and English Bill of Rights (1689), 757 and gender and sexual orientation, 205–206

and Guatemala, 208 and Holy Spirit Movement, 30, 31 and Ilaga, 210 Inquisition, 467 and Judaism, 466, 467, 482, 485 and just war doctrine, 215, 216 and Kachin, 90 and martyrdom, 221, 222–223 and narcoreligious movements, 223–225 in Nigeria, 741 and Order of the Solar Temple, 603 in Pakistan, 743, 744 in the Philippines, 745 Pope Eugene III, 485 Pope Francis I, 17, 193, 194, 195, 205, 220, 222, 223 Pope Innocent X, 708 Pope John Paul II, 21, 220, 711 Pope Paul VI, 186 Pope Urban II, 178, 484, 707 and religious nationalism, 748–749 responses to ethnoreligious violence in Africa, 21 Santeria influenced by, 47 Spanish Inquisition, 178, 179, 182, 183, 467, 707 and state violence, 708–709, 711– 712, 719, 733–737, 741, 743, 744, 745, 748–749, 757 Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), 179, 183, 708 See also Egypt: Coptic Church conflict; Liberation theology; Mexico: Cartel Saints; Mexico: Chiapas conflict Catholicism and sexual abuse, 193–195 in Chile, 194 laicization of priests, 194 reporting of, 193

Index

scope of, 193–194 in United States, 193–194, 195 Vatican’s response to, 194–195 and violence suffered by Christians, 183 Central African Republic (CAR), ethnoreligious violence in, 16–18 child soldiers, 16–17 displacement of Congolese (2018), xxv, 16–17 displacement of people and communities, 16–17 food insecurity, 16 International Criminal Court human rights abuses investigations, 17 interreligious tensions, 17 Charlie Hebdo attack (2015), 341–342 attackers’ defense of violence, 341–342 and blasphemy, 334 events, 341 and freedom of expression, 342 and persecution of atheists, 568 Chechnya conflict. See Russia: Chechnya conflict Chiapas conflict. See Mexico: Chiapas conflict Child soldiers, 18–20 in Central African Republic, 16–17, 18 definition of child, 18 in Democratic Republic of the Congo, 18, 19 humanitarian efforts and rehabilitation centers for, 19–20 and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka), 286, 767 and Lord’s Resistance Army, 18, 19, 36 and Mai-Mai rebels, 40

ransom for, 20 recruitment, 19 in South Sudan, 19 in Sudan, 18 use of witchcraft rituals by captors, 18 China: Taiwan conflict, 716–719 and Communist Revolution, 717–718 current tensions and understandings, 718 democratization of Taiwan, 718 history and origins of, 716–717 Chinese atheism, 148–150 definition of religion, 149 and religious freedom, 148–149 and secularism, 149 and zhongguo hua, 149 Chinese religion, 131–137 “appropriate” versus “inappropriate” violence, 135 borrowings and boundaries, 134 defining China and Chinese, religion, and philosophy, 132–133 divine soldiers, demonic soldiers, and battle against “evil,” 136 history, politics, and violence, 131–132 native and foreign beliefs and the discourse of ethnicity, 133 nature, body, and state, 134–135 rhetoric of violence, 136 Chittagong Buddhists, persecution of, 78–81 history of, 79 and persecution of Rohingya, 79–80 2012 Ramu Violence, xxiv, 80 Christian and Muslim responses to ethnoreligious violence in Africa, 20–22

869

870

Index

Christian and Muslim responses to ethnoreligious violence in Africa (cont.) African Synod of Bishops, 21 Catholicism, 21 Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, 22 interfaith partnerships, 21–22 in Liberia, 21 in Nigeria, 21 rhetoric’s influence, 21 Christian fundamentalism, 195–198 biblical invocations, 197 definition of, 195 The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, 196 history of, 195–196 and militant neoconservatism, 196–197 notable leaders, 196 and public opinion, 196–197 and Scopes “monkey” trial (1925), 196 Christian Identity Movement, 198–200 Aryan Nations compound (Idaho, U.S.), 199 British Israelism, 198 Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord, 199 Creativity Movement, 198–199 diversity within, 198 history and founding of, 198 and militia movements, 199 Oklahoma City bombing (1995), 199 Ruby Ridge siege, 199 “Unite the Right” protests (Charlottesville, U.S.) (2017), xxv, 199–200, 599, 631, 632 Waco siege (1993), 199 World Church of the Creator (WCC), 198

Worldwide Church of God (WCG), 198 Christian reconstructionism, 200–202 Christian dominion, 201 history of, 200–201 post-millennialist eschatology, 201 presuppositionalism, 201 principles and goals of, 200–201 and violence, 202 Christianity, 176–184 apocalyptic violence, 182 colonialism and slavery, 179–180 Crusades, 178–179, 192, 309, 343, 360, 484–486 defensive violence, 182 definition of Christian violence, 181 End Times, 182, 189–191 gospels, 177, 190, 228–229, 235–236 Holy Roman Empire, 177–179, 192 life of Jesus, 176–177 monotheism, 176 Old Testament and New Testament, 177 pacifism, 177, 181, 231, 600 Protestant Reformation, 179, 505, 541, 592, 610, 708 religious nationalist violence, 182–183 Spanish Inquisition, 178, 179, 182, 183, 467, 707 Thirty Years’ War, 179, 183, 708 Treaty of Westphalia, 179, 708, 710 violence suffered by Christians, 183 World War I, 180–181 “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Huntington, 1993), 342–345 argument in, 342–343 criticism of, 343–344 eight modern civilizations identified in, 343

Index

and 9/11 attacks, 343 Coptic Church conflict. See Egypt: Coptic Church conflict Cow protection, 244, 252, 263, 268, 276–277, 280, 298 Crusades, 484–487 First Crusade (1096–1099), 484–485 Second Crusade (1145–1147), 485 Third Crusade (1189–1190), 485–486 Dal Khalsa, 647–650 and Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh, 647–648 and cow slaughter, 648 history and origins of, 647, 648 purpose and goals of, 647–648 Dalai Lama. See Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) Dalits, violence against, 262–265 Bathani Tola Massacre (1996), xxiii, 263 and casteism, 244, 264 and cow protection, 244, 263–264, 280 and Dalit conversion, 248–249, 263, 281 and Dalit identification as nonHindu, 262–263 and Gandhi, Mohandas, 263 Gujarat beatings (2016), 263–264 Karnataka violence (2000), xxiii Mahad satyagraha (nonviolent demonstration) (1927), 263 rape, 245, 264 satyagraha movements, 263 and student suicides, 264 Daodejing, 150–153 and Daoism, 150–152 influence of, 150 on violence, 150–151

Delhi gang rape. See Singh, Jyoti (1989–2012), gang rape of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 17. See also Child soldiers; Mai-Mai rebels Deprogramming, 578–580 coercive techniques, 578–579 criticism and backlash, 579 definition of, 578 turn toward noncoercive interventions, 579–580 Dharma. See Three Jewels Digambara-Shvetambara conflict, 439–442 Bahubali Hill affair (1980s), 436– 439, 442 and celibacy, 441 and devotional practice, 441–442 Digambara rejection of women’s ability to attain moksha, 441 Keshariyanatha Temple dispute, 442 and Mahavira, 440 and mendicant nudity, 439–440 origins of, 440 and tirthankaras, 439, 441 and worship, 442 Egypt: Coptic Church conflict, 719–721 Christianity in Egypt, 719–720 Coptic diaspora, 721 coup against Mohammed Morsi (2013), 720 history and origins of, 719–720 and ISIS, 720 and Islamic Resurgence, 720 End Times Branch Davidians, 575–576, 591 Christianity, 182, 189–191 Islam, 349, 358

871

872

Index

End Times (cont.) Judaism, 490–491, 492, 513 See also Armageddon; Buddhist End Times Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: ethnoreligious violence in the Horn of Africa, 23–24 and Al-Shabaab, 23, 319 conflicts between Orthodox Coptic Christians and Sunni Muslims, 23 roles of drought, food insecurity, and war, 23–24 Ethiopia, 5, 9 child soldiers in, 18 invasion of Somalia, 326, 327 Orthodox Christianity in, 740, 741 See also Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: ethnoreligious violence in the Horn of Africa Ethnic cleansing against Armenians, 771 and Assam Bodo-Muslim conflict, 331 deportation of Lhotshampas from Bhutan, 261 and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 285 against Rohingya, 394, 740 in Rwanda, 8 against Yazidis by ISIS, 725 and Zionism, 544 Ethnoreligious violence African Religion, 3–4, 7–10, 23–24 Buddhism, 114–115, 391 in Central African Republic, 16–17 Christian and Muslim responses in Africa, 20–22 in Horn of Africa, 23–24 and religious diversity, 762–763 in South and South Sudan, 49–50 Eugenics, 202–205

biblical invocation, 204 and Christianity, 203–204 definition of, 202 and Galton, Francis, 202–203 history of, 202–203 and Malthas, Thomas Robert, 203 modern eugenics, 204 origins of the term, 202 and Sanger, Margaret, 203 Falun Gong, 153–155 anti-Falun Gong campaign, 153–154 banning of in China, 132, 153 founded by Li Hongzhi, 153 principles and history, 153 Female genital mutilation (FGM), 26 Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) (1935–), 81–85 and ahimsa, 67 biographical details, 81 and Buddhist self-immolation, 61, 83, 168 criticism of, 83 on homosexuality, 87 and Mao Zedong, 159 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to, 83 patron of International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88 and Sulak Sivaraksa, 118 and Tibetan Buddhism, 81–82 and Tibetan uprisings (1959), 82 title of dalai lama, 82 and U.S. aid, 82 on violence, 83–84 The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy (Strauss and Howe, 1997), 580–583 contents of, 580–582 and election of Donald Trump, 582 initial reception, 581

Index

key ingredients for Fourth Turning, 582 legacy of, 581 Francis I, Pope, 17, 193, 194, 195, 205, 220, 222, 223 Gandhi, Mohandas (1869–1948) (Mahatma, Gandhianism), 265–269 assassination of, 268 biographical details, 265 and celibacy, 265, 268 education and law practice, 266 and Indian Relief Bill (1920), 266–267 influences on, 266 and Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 267 legacy of, 265, 268 non-cooperation movement, 267 political activities, 267 Quit India Movement, 248, 267– 268, 276, 299 Quit India Speech, 267–268 Salt Satyagrah (Salt March) (1930), 267 and satyagraha (“truth is god” or “truth force”), 71, 83, 266, 267, 268, 299 swaraj and swadeshi, 267 Tolstoy Farm created by, 266 and vegetarianism, 266, 268 Gender and sexual orientation (African religion), 24–29 Anti-Homosexuality Act of Uganda, xxiv, 27–28 Christianity, 25, 27–28 female genital mutilation, 26 and HIV/AIDS, 28 homophobia, 26–29 persecution of transgender people, 26, 28

and politics, 26–27 second-class status of women, 25 wartime, 26 Gender and sexual orientation (Buddhism), 85–88 and Buddha, 85–86 and Buddhist scriptures, 85–86 female monastics, 86–87 female ordination, 85 homosexuality, 87 transgender people, 87 Gender and sexual orientation (Chinese religion), 155–157 and Buddhism, 156 and Confucianism, 155–156 and Daoism, 156 homosexuality, 156 Gender and sexual orientation (Christianity), 205–207 biblical invocation, 205 and Catholic Church, 205–206 conversion (reparative) therapy, 206 and Genesis creation story, 205 Pulse nightclub shooting (Orlando, U.S.), xxv, 206–207 same-sex marriage, 206 and transgender people, 205 Gender and sexual orientation (Hinduism), 269–273 discrimination and violence against LGBT people, 272 dowry deaths, 272 gender- and sexuality-related violence, 272 hijra (third gender), 270–272 and Kama Sutra, 270 and karmic system, 269 and legal texts, 270 and Mahabharata, 269 and Ramayana, 269

873

874

Index

Gender and sexual orientation (Hinduism) (cont.) and Rigveda, 269 sati (burning a widow on husband’s funeral pyre), 272 shakti (female power), 270 traditional gender roles, 269 and transgender people, 270–272 Gender and sexual orientation (Islam), 345–347 death penalty for same-sex acts, 345, 346 and ISIS, 345–346 persecution of homosexuals, 345–346 Pulse nightclub shooting (2016), 346 sexual violence against women, 345 Gender and sexual orientation (Jainism), 443–446 female mendicancy and salvation, 444–445 gender-based violence, 445 nudity, 443–444 sexual difference, 445–446 third sex, 443, 444–445 Gender and sexual orientation (Judaism), 487–490 Conservative Judaism, 488 Jewish Renewal, 489 Kukla, Elliott (first openly transgender person ordained by the Reform Jewish seminary), 489 Orthodox Judaism, 488 Reconstructionist Judaism, 489 Reform Judaism, 488–489 Gender and sexual orientation (Sikhism), 650–652 body as holy gift from God, 652 feminism, 651–652 LGBTQ+ rights, 652

patriarchy, 650–651 sati (burning a widow on husband’s funeral pyre), 650, 651 Genocide and antisemitism, 475 Armenian Genocide (1915), 771, 772–773 of Buddhists in Mongolian People’s Republic, 65 and eugenics, 203 and Gujarat Pogroms, 275 and the Holocaust, 203, 468, 507 by Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, 715 against Muslims in Bosnia, 309, 311 and Purim, 473, 493 of Rohingya in Myanmar, 72–73, 90, 394 Rwandan Genocide, 8, 39 against Sikh by Punjab police, 643, 663 against Sikhs in India (1984), 643, 663, 665, 695 in the Torah, 464, 497 and white nationalist groups, 631 Ghadr movement, 652–655 declaration of war against Britain, 653–654 Ghadr Revolution, 654 history and origins of, 652–653 and World War I, 653–654 Global jihad. See Kashmir and global jihad Gog and Magog, 490–492 in Book of Ezekiel, 490–491 and Cold War era, 492 in Islamic tradition, 491–492 and present-day violence, 492 Goldstein, Baruch (1956–1994), xxiii, 493–494 biographical details, 493

Index

and Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, 493–494 condemnation of murders, 494 disciple of Meir Kahane, 493 Granth-Panth, 655–658 in diaspora setting, 658 in eighteenth century, 657 Guru-Granth, 655–658 Guru-Panth, 588, 655, 657–658 history and origins of, 655–656 meaning of the term, 655 “Panth” (community), 656–657 and Sikh Gurdwaras Act (1925), 657–658 Singh Sabha period (1873–1925), 657 Guatemalan predatory pastoralism, 207–210 biblical invocation, 208–209 causes of, 208 definition of, 207–208 history of, 208 Pentecostal rehabilitation centers, 208–209 teoterapia (theological therapy), 209 Gujarat Riots (2002), 273–275 and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 259, 273, 275 criticism and controversy, 252, 259, 273–275 events, 252, 273–274 and misinformation, 273–274 number of deaths, xxiii Tehelka investigation, 275 Gurdwara Massacre. See Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre Guru Amardas (Amar Das) (Sikhism), 637–638, 651, 660 Guru Angad (Sikhism), 660 Guru Arjan (Sikhism), 675

and Adi Granth (“Original Book”), 659–660 martyrdom day (June 3), 692–693 martyrdom of, 638, 639, 683–684, 685, 687, 692–693, 694 on the true hero, 638 Guru Gobind Singh (Sikhism) Bachitar Nāt. ak, 680–681, 687 . and battle of Bhangān.ī, 641 Dasam Granth, 639, 656, 660, 680– 681, 687 death of, 651, 659 founder of Damdami Taksal (Sikh school), 644 founder of Khalsa, 674, 675, 676, 677, 683, 685, 687–688 and Granth-Panth, 655, 656, 657, 659 and Guru Granth Sahib, 656 Jāp Sāhib (“Master Recitation”), 640 on just war, 639–640, 641 justice for wartime deaths of family of, 664 and khanda, 677–679 and kirpān, 680–681 and miri-piri, 687 and Rahit-nāmā (“Code of Conduct”), 640–641, 676 transfer of authority to Cherished Five, 657, 674, 675, 683 wearing of five weapons, 676, 702 Guru Granth Sahib, 658–661 Adi Granth (“Original Book”), 659–660, 688 destruction of final version, 693 foundational Sikh text, 635, 658–661 and Granth-Panth, 656, 658 history and origins of, 658–659 on the true hero, 637 on violence, 635

875

876

Index

Guru Granth Sahib (cont.) on weapons, 638 Guru Har Rai (Sikhism), 639 Guru Hargobind (Sikhism), 638–639, 687, 702 Guru Harkrishan (Sikhism), 676 Guru Nanak (Sikhism) activism of, 699 and Bhindranwale, 702 founder of Sikhism, 633–637 and free community kitchen, 678 and Granth-Panth, 655, 656–657 and Guru Granth Sahib, 659–660 on honor and self-respect, 702 and miri-piri, 686 Nanak Panth, 634, 657 on sacrifice, 683 on the true hero, 637 on violence, war, and suffering, 635–637, 676 on women, 650 Guru Ram Das (Sikhism), 660 Guru Tegh Bahadur (Sikhism), 639, 660, 684, 685, 688, 694 Guru-Granth (Sikh doctrine), 655–658. See also Granth-Panth Guru-Panth (Sikh doctrine), 588, 655, 657–658. See also Granth-Panth Gush Emunim, 494–496 history and founding of, 494–495 ideological foundations of, 495–496 and Kach (political party of Meir Kahane), 496 and Kook, Zvi Yehuda, 495 and Levinger, Moshe, 495 purpose and goals of, 494–495 and violence, 495–496 Hadith, 347–350 and bin Laden, Osama, 348

contents and interpretations, 347–348 and justification of violence, 348–349 Muslim scholars’ responses to extremist interpretations, 349 on warfare, 348 Hamas, 350–353 charter (1988), 351, 352 and destruction of Israel, 351 Gaza War (2008–2009), 352 history and founding, 350–351 and Palestinian elections, 351–352 Second Intifada, 351 and social services, 350–351 suicide attacks, 352 Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh), 497–501 five books of Moses, 498 major prophets, 498–499 minor prophets, 499 non-wisdom books, 499 pre-literary “prophets,” 498 wisdom books, 499 Hezbollah, 353–356 history and founding, 353 and Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (IRL), 353–356 and Lebanese politics, 356 martyr operations (suicide attacks), 355 prisoner exchange with Israel (2004), 355 propaganda and social institutions, 354 public support, 354–355 and Syrian conflict, 355–356 Himsa (violence), 61, 66–67, 68, 242. See also Ahimsa (nonharm) (Buddhism); Ahimsa (nonharm) (Hinduism)

Index

Hindu Mahasabha, 275–277 and assassination of Mohandas Gandhi, 277 and cow protection, 277 and Direct Action Day (Great Calcutta Killings of 1946), 276–277 and Hindu nationalism, 276 history of, 275–276 positions of, 276 purpose and goals, 275–276 and Quit India Movement, 276 Hindu nationalism and anti-Christian attacks, 249, 250, 281 and anti-Muslim attacks, 251–252 and Bajrang Dal, 275 and Bhagavad Gita, 257 and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 249, 258–260, 288, 330, 423, 750 and Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh, 645 and campaigns to build Ram temple, 252, 253–255, 258–259, 280, 297, 305, 673 and cow protection, 263, 268 and forced conversion, 250 and Hindu Mahasabha, 251, 275–277 and Hindutva ideology, 252, 279 and Jammu-Kashmir issue, 283 and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 251, 298 and Saffron terrorism, 300, 301 and Shiv Sena, 251 and use of term “saffron,” 300 and violence, 244–245 and Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), 251, 304–306 Hinduism, 240–246 “authentic” Hinduism, 242, 244–245

and colonialism, 241–242, 248–249, 262, 270, 272, 280, 292, 295 cow protection, 244, 252, 263, 268, 276–277, 280, 298 diversity within, 240–241 Hindu deities, 241 size and membership, 240 violence against Hindus, 242, 245–246 violence as result of social or political influences, 242, 243–245 violence/nonviolence as scripturally supported, 242–243 Hindutva, 277–281 and Hindu nationalism, 279–280 Hindutva—Who Is a Hindu? (Savarkar), 277–280 ideology of, 278–280 and legitimization of violence, 280 name of, 277 Holocaust and World War II, 501–508 dates of Holocaust, 504 and definitions, 501–505 global purpose of Holocaust, 503 goal and victims of Holocaust, 504 historical context(s), 505 historical validation of Holocaust, 502 locales, 505–506 methods and scale of murders, 506–507 number of deaths, 504–505 role of bureaucracy and technology, 503 role of law, 502–503 role of non-German allies, 503 Holy Spirit Movement, xxiii, 29–33 founder Alice Lakwena (Alice Auma), 30–32, 36 legacies of, 32 and millenarianism, 43

877

878

Index

Holy Spirit Movement (cont.) mission of, 31 purification rituals, 31–32 Homosexuals. See under Gender and sexual orientation Horn of Africa. See Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: ethnoreligious violence in the Horn of Africa Hunters’ militias, 33–35 definition of, 34 fetish medicine, 34 and gender exclusivity, 34 history of, 34 hunters’ brotherhoods in Guinea, 33–34 Kamajors, 33–35 and “norms of right conduct,” 34–35 and Sierra Leone Civil War, 33–34 Huntington, Samuel. See “The Clash of Civilizations?” (Huntington, 1993) Ilaga, 210–212 and Duterte, Rodrigo, 211 history of, 210 and Manero, Norberto, Jr. (Kumander Bucay), 210–211 and Moro people, 210–211 name of, 210 New Ilaga, 211 principles and goals of, 210 and religious national violence, 183, 210 Indonesia: Maluku conflict, 721–723 areas of peace, 723 fall of Suharto, 722 history and origins of, 721–722 Malino Accord (2001), 723 violence and protests, 722–723 International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88–90

founded by Sulak Sivaraksa, 88, 89, 118 membership and notable patrons, 88 name of, 88–89 scholarship on, 89 International Raëlian Movement, 583–585 and cloning, 584 history and origins of, 583–584 purpose and goals of, 583–584 views on sexual intercourse, 584–585 International Sikh Youth Federation (All India Sikh Students’ Federation), 661–664 branches and activities, 663 history and origins of, 661–662 purpose and goals of, 661 Walsall conference (1985), 662 Iran proxy conflict. See Israel: Iran proxy conflict Iraq: Muslim crisis, 723–726 creation of Iraq, 724 Gulf War (1991), 725 history and origins of, 723–724 and ISIS, 725 Sunni/Shia division, 724 U.S. invasion of Iraq, 725 ISIS (Islamic State), xxiii, xxiii, 356–359 and al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr, 357, 379 and al-Qaeda, 357 and al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 356–357 declared terrorist organization, 359 history and founding, 356–357 ideology, 358 and Islamic prophecy, 358–359 “Letter to al-Baghdadi” (Sunni Muslim scholars), 357–358

Index

Islam, 307–322 brigandage (hiraba), 315 criminal justice, 313–314 domestic violence, 316–317 End Times, 349, 358 estimated number of active Salafijihadist fighters (1980–2018), 321 history and origins, 307–308 “honor killings,” 317 jihad, 311–312 military expansion, sectarianism, and violence against Muslims, 308–309 Muslim in today’s world, 318–322 Muslim scholars and their views on violence, 309–310 number of Salafi-jihadist and allied groups (1980–2018), 320 rebellion (baghy), 315 self-defense, 317 takfir, 312–313 use of force by government authorities, 310–314 use of force by nonstate actors, 314–317 vigilantism, 316 world Muslim population, 307 Islamic State of Lanao. See Maute Group Islamophobia, 359–362 causes of, 360 criticism of concept of, 361 definition of, 359 and European colonization, 360 and fall of Soviet Union, 361 in North America, 360 in twenty-first century, 361 Israel: Iran proxy conflict, 726–728 creation of Israel, 726 definition of proxy war, 727 Hamas, 727–728

Hezbollah, 727 history and origins of, 726–727 Iranian Revolution (1979), 726 Jundallah, 728 Israel: Palestinian conflict, 728–733 Arab-Israeli War (1948), 730 history and origins of, 728–730 holy places in Israel, 729 Muslim population in Israel, 729 Palestine Liberation Organization, 731 peace talks, 731 relocation of U.S. Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, 732 two-state solution, 732 World War II and creation of Israel, 730 Yom Kippur War (1973), 731 Jainism, 413–425 five vows, 415–416 Jain ethics, 416–418 Jains as victims of violence, 420–424 Jains in history, 418–420 moksha (liberation), 414, 415, 417, 419, 423, 424, 426, 441, 443, 454 renunciation, 415–416 sadhus (monks), 415–417 sadhvis (nuns), 415–417 samsara (cycle of death and rebirth), 414, 415–416, 417, 418, 424– 426, 443, 447, 451, 453–454 tapas (inner heat), 414, 433, 448 terms and trends, 414–416 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. See Saffron Army Jehovah’s Witnesses and Armageddon, 190 and González, Nazario Moreno, 734 history and founding of, 212

879

880

Index

Jehovah’s Witnesses, persecution of, 212–214 in Azerbaijan, 213 in Belarus, 213 and Christian countercult movement, 558 and extremist label, 213 in Georgia, 213 legal cases and statutes, 214 public presence of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 212 Russia’s banning of, xxv, 212–213, 555, 561, 563 in Turkey, 213 and World War II, 502 Jihad, 362–367 basis for premodern doctrine of, 363 humanitarian-defensive jihad, 365 missionary jihad, 365–366 modern views on, 365 political ideologies, 365 theory of, 363–364 Wahhabi, 365 John Paul II, Pope, 21, 220, 711 Judaism, 463–472 End Times, 490–491, 492, 513 Middle Eastern manifestations of violence, 469–471 twentieth and twenty-first centuries, 468–469 violence in postbiblical period, 465–468 violence in the Torah, 463–465 Just war ideology in Bhagavad Gita, 242, 243, 247, 257, 268 Buddhism, 98, 99 Hinduism, 242, 243, 246–247, 257, 268 Islam, 365, 380–381

in Mahavamsa, 98, 99 Just war ideology (Christianity), 214–216 and Augustine of Hippo, 214–215 and Catholicism, 215, 216 and Crusades, 216 and Thomas Aquinas, 215 and twenty-first century war technologies, 215–216 and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 216 and World War II, 216 Justice, Sikh concern for, 664–666 and arrest of Jagtar Singh Johal, 665 history of, 664 present day, 665–666 and Sikh code of conduct, 666 in the United States, 665–666 Kachin, persecution of, 90–93, 391 and Kachin Independence Army, 91 Kachin population and subgroups, 90 Kachin refugees, 91 and language, 92 Kahane, Meir founder of Kach political party, 496 and Goldstein, Baruch, 493, 494 and Lehava, 508–509 Kandhamal Riots (2007, 2008), 281–283 and conversion, 281–282 death tolls and damage, 249, 282 and Hindtuva, 280 murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, 282 Karma (Buddhism) and ahimsa, 67 and blasphemy, 124 and reincarnation, 123

Index

in Upayakaushalya Sutra, 127 Karma (Hinduism) in Bhagavad Gita, 256 definition of, 240, 242 and gender and sexual orientation, 269 karma-yoga, 256 karmic merit, 242, 269, 271 Karma (Jainism), 413–418, 424, 425, 426 and ahimsa, 458–459 and asceticism, 433–434 karmic merit, 417, 433, 435, 438, 459 and Mahavira, 447, 448 and Tirthankaras, 455, 457 and vegetarianism, 458 and worship of images, 441–442 Karma (New Religious Movements) and Aum Shinrikyo, 570 and millennialism, 591 Kashmir, 283–285 contested territory, 283 geography and borders, 283 Indo-Pakistani War (1965), 283 Kargil War (1999), 283–284 2016–2017 violence, 284 Kashmir and global jihad, 367–369 and al-Qaeda, 368 and Islamic State, 368 and Islamist jihadi fighters, 368–369 local focus of Kashmir dispute, 367 question of Muslim rule, 367 and Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, 368 Khalistan, 666–669 and Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh, 668 in colonial era, 667 definition of, 666

and Gandhi, Indira, 667 history of, 666–667 in post-colonial era, 667 rhetoric and propaganda, 668–669 Khalistan Commando Force, 669–672 arrest of Wassan Singh Zaffarwal, 670–671 death of Gurjant Singh Rajasthani, 671 history and founding of, 669–670 international connections of, 669–670 organization and subgroups, 669–670 and Panjwar, Paramjit Singh, 670 Khalistan Zindabad Force, 672–674 arrest of Ravinder Kaur, 672 history and origins of, 672 and Neeta, Ranjit Singh, 672 and Pakistan, 673 and violence, 673 Khalsa, 674–677 and Cherished Five, 657, 674, 675, 683 and five mandatory physical symbols, 676 founded by Guru Gobind Singh, 674, 675, 676, 677, 683, 685, 687–688 Khalsa Panth, 668, 675 and khanda (double-edged sword), 675, 677–680, 681 original amrit ceremony, 675 and Rahit (“Code of Conduct”), 676 Khanda, 677–680 as double-edged sword used in Khalsa initiation, 677–680 modern insignia, 677, 678, 679–680 symbolism of, 679–680 uses of the term, 677

881

882

Index

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 340, 759 and ahimsa, 67, 248 influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, 248, 265, 268, 429 nomination of Thich Nhat Hanh for Nobel Peace Prize, 120, 121 Kirpan, 680–682 definition of, 680 and freedom of religion, 681–682 history of, 680–681 right to wear kirpans in India versus diaspora, 681–682 symbolism of, 682 Knowing Buddha Organization, 93–95 history and founding of, 93 international petitions, 94 membership, 93 purpose of, 93–94 Kony, Joseph, 32, 35–38. See also Lord’s Resistance Army Koran. See Qur’an Koresh, David, 199, 550, 575–577. See also Branch Davidians Ku Klux Klan, 217–219 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (1963), 217 and Christian defense of slavery, 180, 229 Christian symbolism used by, 217 and confederate statue controversy, 218 and election of Donald Trump, 218 Freedom Summer murders (1964), 217 and hate groups, 217–218 history and founding of, 217 Kloran (handbook), 217 and Metzger, Tom, 574, 610, 629–630 and nativist extremism, 594

Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting (2014), 217 principles and goals of, 217 Lehava, 508–509 founding of, 508 goals of, 508 and Kahane, Meir, 508–509 notable leaders, 508 and violence, 508–509 LGBTQ persons. See under Gender and sexual orientation Liberation theology, 219–221 and Francis I, Pope, 220 global spread of, 220 history of, 219–220 purpose and goals of, 219 and religious resurgence, 711 and Zapatistas (Chiapas, Mexico), 736–737 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 285–286 campaign for separate Tamil state, 286 and child soldiers, 286, 767 history and founding of, 285 massacre of Sri Lankan police officers (1990), 285–286 political assassinations, 285 and Saffron Army, 105, 106 secular ideology, 285 suicide missions, 285 Lord’s Resistance Army, 35–39 child soldiers, 18, 19, 36 founder Joseph Kony, 32, 35–37 history of, 35–36 International Criminal Court investigation, 37 and Invisible Children advocacy campaign, 36

Index

and Operation Iron Fist, 37 reliance on religious rituals for protection, 36–37 search for Kony, 38 violence against women, 36 Luther, Martin, 179, 708 Ma Ba Tha dismemberment of, 95–96, 96 and 969 Movement, 95, 102 and persecution of Rohingya, 392 political support of, 96 popular support of, 96 purpose of, 95, 104, 124 and Race and Religious Protection Laws, 95–96, 104 and rise in conservatism, 109 Mahavamsa, 97–100 contents, 97–98 and himsa, 68 and just-war doctrine, 98, 99 and persecution of Rohingya, 99 political framing and use of, 99 Mahavira (fifth century BCE), 446–449 biographical details, 418–419, 446–448 celebrations of, 448–449 childhood name (Vardhaman), 447 and Digambaras, 439, 440–441, 448 final tirthankara, 426, 455, 456 and naked asceticism, 439, 441, 443, 447–448 and Shvetambaras, 439, 440–441, 447 twenty-two painful “endurances,” 449 wizard battle with Makkhali Gosala, 448 Mahayana Buddhism (Great Vehicle) and blasphemy, 124

in China, 132, 133, 717 Lotus Sutra, 123, 126, 168 and sainthood, 733 and self-inflicted violence, 168, 169 and soldier monks, 112 tenets of, 59 and Thich Nhat Hanh, 120 Upayakaushalya Sutra, 126–127 Mai-Mai rebels, 39–42 history and founding of, 39 objective of, 40 recruitment of child soldiers, 40 sexual violence and sex trafficking, 40–41 use of traditional religious rituals to enhance authority, 40 Maimonides (1135–1204), 510–512 biographical details, 510 Iggeret Temen (“Epistle to Yemen”), 511 Mishneh Torah (“Second Torah/ Second Law”), 510, 511 Moreh Nevukhim (“Guide for the Perplexed”), 510 Sefer Ha-Mitzvot (“Book of the Commandments”), 510–511 topics and themes of, 511 Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, occupation of (2016), 585–588 background and causes, 585–586 and Bundy family, 586–588 criminal charges and trial, 587–588 events of, 585–587 and Sovereign Citizen Movement, 621 Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 157–159 biographical details, 158 cult of Mao, 153, 159 Cultural Revolution, 82, 142, 148, 149, 154, 157–158, 171, 227, 309

883

884

Index

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) (cont.) foundation of People’s Republic of China, 157, 158 Great Leap Forward, 82, 157, 171 persecution of Buddhists, 65, 158, 159 regulations on religious groups, 158 and Tibet, 65, 82, 159 and women warriors, 156 Martial arts, 160–162 and Buddhism, 160, 161 Chinese institutionalization of, 160–161 and Chinese media, 161 and Daoism, 160, 161 and People’s Republic of China, 161 terminology, 160 and war, 160 Martial deities, 162–165 definition of, 162 and gangs, 163–164 guises of, 163 Han-tan Ia (Handan Ye), 163–164 Jiajiang troupes (Taiwan), 164 in popular media, 164 Yellow Emperor, 162–163 Martyrdom (Christianity), 221–223 Acta Martyrum (stories of martyrs), 222 affirmed by popular sentiment, 221–222 affirmed by religious institutions, 221, 222–223 biblical examples, 221 controversy and criticism, 222–223 Coptic Christians, 222 early historical examples, 221 imitatio Christi, 222 in South Asia, 222–223 Martyrdom (Sanctifying the Name of God) (Judaism), 512–516

in biblical period and immediate aftermath, 513–514 liturgical sanctification, 514 problematics of Holocaust/Shoah, 515–516 rabbinic restrictions, 514 Martyrdom (Shia Islam), 369–372 and call to protest, 370 definition of martyr, 369–370 and Husayn (grandson of Prophet Muhammad), 369–370 and Israeli invasion of Lebanon (1982), 371 and Lebanese Hezbollah, 371–372 martial interpretation of martyrdom, 371 and national resistance, 372 types of martyrdom, 370–371 Martyrdom (Sikhism), 683–686 of Bhindranwale, Jarnail Singh, 685–686 and daily Sikh Ardas (“Prayer”), 685 of Guru Arjan, 683–684 of Guru Tegh Bahadur, 684–685 history of, 683–684 Martyrdom (Sunni Islam), 372–374 and Hadith, 373 and Hamas, 373–374 martial interpretation of martyrdom, 373–374 Martyr’s Day (UAE), 374 and Qur’an, 373 and recruitment by al-Qaeda and ISIS, 374 suicide attacks, 373–374 types of martyrdom, 373 Maute Group (Islamic State of Lanao), 375–376 and Abu Sayyaf, 375

Index

affiliation with ISIS, 375 history and founding, 375 violent takeover of Marawi, 375 McVeigh, Timothy, 199, 577, 620, 624, 631, 776 Mengzi (Mencius) (372–289 BCE), 165–168 on democratic society, 166–167 on human rights, 166 scholarship on, 166 Merit-making (Buddhism) alms (giving food to monks), 108, 115–117, 128 and Buddha, 126 compensation for Khru Se Mosque conflict, 116 and temporary ordination in Thailand, 86–87 in Upayakaushalya Sutra, 126 and vegetarianism, 128 Merit-making (Hinduism). See under Karma (Hinduism) Merit-making (Jainism). See under Karma (Jainism) Messianism/messiah, 516–520 in Ancient Israel, 517 and Chabad Hasidism, 518–519 definitions, 516 and founding of Israel, 519 Maimonides on, 518 “Messianic Jews,” 518 Mexico: Cartel Saints, 733–735 colonial conversion to Catholicism, 733–734 drug cartels’ use of folk saints, 734 and González, Moreno, 734–735 history and origins of, 733–734 Mexico: Chiapas conflict, 735–737 and Catholic Charismatic Renewal, 737

and Evangelical Christianity, 737 history and origins of, 735–736 and liberation theology, 737 Zapatistas and Zapatista uprising, 735–737 Millennialism (Africa), 42–43 factors hospitable to, 42 (See also Holy Spirit Movement) Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments (Choma), 42–43 See also Holy Spirit Movement; Lord’s Resistance Army Millennialism (New Religious Movements), 588–593 and charismatic leaders, 589 definition of, 588 examples of, 590 and The Fourth Turning, 590 history and origins of, 588–589, 592 imminent nature of, 589 key characteristics of, 589 miraculous nature of, 589 optimistic and pessimistic types of, 590–591 and religion, 589–590 revolutionary millennialism, 591–592 terrestrial aspect of, 589 in United States, 592 and violence, 591 Miri-Piri, 686–689 definition of mīr, 686 definition of pīr, 686 and execution of Guru Arjan, 687 and Guru Gobind Singh, 687–688 and Guru Hargobind, 687 history and origins of, 686–687 and Khalsa, 688 and power dichotomies, 688

885

886

Index

Miri-Piri (cont.) present day authority, 688 Modi, Narendra, 250, 258, 259–260, 274–275 Muslim Brotherhood, 376–380 and al-Banna, Hassan, 376–377 and al-Sadat, Anwar, 377 global reach of, 378–379 history and founding of, 376 ideology of, 379 and Morsi, Mohammed, 377–378 and Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 377 political activities, 377–378 and political violence, 376–377 purpose and goals of, 376, 377–378 and Qutb, Sayyid, 348, 365, 377 Special Apparatus (paramilitary group), 376 Muslim response to violence in Africa. See Christian and Muslim responses to ethnoreligious violence in Africa Muzaffarnagar riots (2013), xxiv, 286–289 background and origins, 287–288 death toll, 287 Jauli Canal riot, 288 Myanmar: Muslim crisis, 738–740 attack on Burmese soldiers (2016), 740 history and origins of, 738–739 (See also Rohingya, persecution of) Rakhine state riots (2012), 738–739 See also Aung San Suu Kyi; Rakhine state violence; Rohingya, persecution of Narcoreligious movements, 223–226 and Catholicism, 224 definition of, 223–224 and Knights Templar (cartel), 224–225

and La Familia (cartel), 224–225 purpose and goals of, 223–224 and Santa Muerte (la Flaca), 224 National Socialist Council of Nagaland, 226–228 Indian media on, 226–227 Manipur ambush (2015), 227 purpose and goals of, 226 and U.S. Baptist missionaries, 226 Nationalism, 258–259, 276, 279–280 African nationalism, 7 and al-Shabaab, 325–327 Arab nationalism, 719, 724 black nationalism, 572–573, 625–627 Burmese Buddhist nationalism, 95–96, 100–102, 390, 391 Chechen nationalism, 368, 752–753 Chinese nationalism, 132, 140, 157–158, 717 Han-ethnic nationalism, 143 Hindu nationalism, 248–250 and Nazism, 454 and Palestinian Authority, 374 and persecution of Chittagong Buddhists, 79 and Revolutionary United Front, 44 and Rodnoverie groups, 605–607 Russian nationalism, 212, 755 secular nationalism, 374, 757, 758 and Sikhism, 641 Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist, 73–76, 765, 766–768 Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism, 106 and state violence, 709–713 Thai nationalism, 117 Tunisian nationalism, 770 Turkish nationalism, 758, 772 See also Hindu nationalism; Religious nationalism; White

Index

nationalism; White nationalist groups Nativist extremism, 593–597 and ad hoc militias, 594 definition of, 593 ideology of, 593 against Latin Americans, 594 against Muslims, 594–595 and 9/11 attacks, 594–595 U.S. history of, 593–594 use of rumor, 594 The Neglected Duty (1981), 380–382 and assassination of Anwar el-Sadat, 380–381 background and purpose of, 380 contents and argument, 380–381 impact and legacy of, 381 and justification for violence, 381 targets of violence, 381 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 250, 252, 268, 289, 293, 299, 667, 703, 710 Neo-Nazis, 597–600 American Nazi Party, 598 history and origins of, 597–598 ideology and goals of, 597 National Socialist Movement, 598–599 present-day rise of, 599–600 and religion, 597–598 symbolism of, 597 Tree of Life Synagogue murders (Pittsburgh, U.S.), xxv, 599 use of conspiracy theories, 599 New Religious Movements, 547–557 benchmark cases, 550–552 definitions and considerations, 547–550 group encapsulation and violence, 552–553

internal pressures and violence, 552 oppositional groups and violence, 553 and popular culture, 547 predictors of violence, 552–554 relational aspect of violence, 554–556 New Testament, 228–231, 235 and anti-abortion movement, 185 Book of Revelation, 229–230 and Christian reconstructionism, 200–201 and gender, 25 history of, 177, 228 Peter and Paul, 228–229 synoptic Gospels, 228 and Westboro Baptist Church, 237, 238 Niebuhr, Reinhold (1892–1971), 231–233 biographical details, 231 Christian Realism of, 231–232 and irony, 232 and politics, 232–233 Nigeria: Christian-Muslim conflict, 21, 187, 740–742 and Boko Haram, 741–742 Christianity in northern Africa, 740–741 history and origins of, 740–741 9/11 and al-Qaeda, 382–386 and bin Laden, Osama, 382–385 bin Laden’s “Declaration of Jihad” against U.S., 383 and Bush, George W., 383–384 events of 9/11, 382 influences on bin Laden, 382 legacy of, 385–386 Muslim responses to, 384–385 post-attack framings and justifications, 382–383

887

888

Index

969 Movement, 100–102 anti-Muslim persecution, 68, 100– 102, 103, 104, 124, 392, 766 and Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), 75 history and purpose of, 100 and Ma Ba Tha, 95, 102, 124, 392 and numerology, 100 and persecution of Rohingya, 101, 103, 104, 392, 766 and Rakhine state violence, 103, 104, 392 and rise of conservatism, 109 use of social media, 102 and Wirathu, Ashin, 68, 96, 100– 102, 104, 392 Nonharm. See under Ahimsa Norway attacks (2011), 182, 192–193 Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012), xxiv, 631, 689–691 and creation of Serve 2 Unite, 690 events of, 689 media coverage of, 689–690 Waking in Oak Creek (documentary), 691 Obama, Barack, 28, 180, 199, 232, 275, 631, 775, 780 Odinism, 600–603 definition of, 600 14 Word Press, 602 history and origins of, 600–601 ideology and goals of, 600 Odinist Fellowship, 601 and patriarchy, 602 present day, 601 in prison culture, 602 Wotansvolk, 601–602 Oklahoma City bombing (1995), 199, 577, 620, 624, 631, 776

Operation Blue Star (1984), 691–694 and assassination of Indira Gandhi, 693 consequences of, 693 history of, 691–692 and martyrdom of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, 692 Operation Defensive Shield (2002), xxiv, 520–523 background and history of, 520–521 cities targeted by, 522 events and deaths, 521 lessons of, 522 and Operation Determined Path, 522–523 purpose of, 520 Order of the Solar Temple, xxiii, 603–605 history and origins of, 603 and International Chivalric Order of Solar Tradition, 603 mass murders and suicides, 604–605 membership, 604 Pacifism Buddhism, 67 Christianity, 177, 181, 231, 600 Confucianism, 138 Daoism, 150 New Religious Movements, 556, 607 Sikhism, 634 Pakistan: Christian crisis, 742–745 anti-Christian state policies and laws, 744 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, 743 Christianity in Pakistan, 743 history and origins of, 742–743 Islamic turn, 743

Index

resurgence in Islamic piety, 743 Pakistani Hindus, persecution of, 289–291 and blasphemy laws, 291 Ghotki riots (2016), 291 and Hindu Minority Bill, 290 history of Hindus in Pakistan, 289 “religious apartheid,” 290 Palestine. See Israel: Palestinian conflict Panth Gurmukh Panth, 651–652 Khalsa Panth, 668, 675 meaning and use of “Panth,” 651–652 Nanak Panth, 634, 657 See also Granth-Panth; Sikh Panth Partition of India (1947), 291–295 criticism and controversy, 292–295 history of, 291–292 and Lahore, 293–294 in popular culture, 295 Radcliffe Line (division line), 293 and violence against women, 294 violent consequences of, 292–295 Paul VI, Pope, 186 Peace of Westphalia, 179, 708, 710 Persecution of Sikhs (India), 694–696 and assassination of Indira Gandhi, 695 early history of, 694 and Operation Blue Star, 694–695 and Partition of India, 694 TADA Act, 695 Persecution of Sikhs (United States), 696–699 anti-Hindoo riots (1907), 696 history of Sikhs in U.S., 696–697 Immigration Act (1917), 698

and 9/11, 698 Page Act of 1875, 697 and Saund, Dalip Singh, 697 Stege, California, attacks, 696–697 and Thind, Bhagat Singh, 697 See also Oak Creek (Wisconsin) Gurdwara Massacre (2012) Philippines: Moro conflict, 745–747 Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 746 history and origins of, 745–746 and ISIS, 747 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), 746–747 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 746 seizure of Marawi (2017), 747 Spanish arrival in Philippines, 745 Pierce, William Luther Hunter, 623–624 and National Youth Alliance (NYA), 622–623 and racism, 623–624 The Turner Diaries, 622–624 Price-tag policy, 523–526 context and history, 523–524 definition, 523 and Ginsburg, Yitzchak, 525–526 and Melamed, Eliezer, 526 and Shapira, Yitzhak, 526 and Yosef, Ya’akov, 526 Protestant Reformation, 179, 505, 541, 592, 610, 708 The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, 527–528 and Antisemitism, 470, 476, 478 contents of, 527 influence and legacy of, 527 and neo-Nazism, 599 origins of, 527 translations of, 527

889

890

Index

Qur’an, 386–389 and casus belli (justifying religiously sanctioned war), 388 interpretation influenced by biography of Prophet Muhammad, 386–387 reconciliation of contradictions in, 387–388 textual analysis, 387 twenty-first century interpretations, 388–389 Rabin, Yitzhak (1922–1995), 528–530 assassination of, 529–530 biographical details, 528–529 forced resignation of, 529 Interim Sinai Agreement (1975), 529 minister of defense and First Intifada, 529 prime minister (first term), 529 prime minister (second term), 529 raid on Entebbe, Uganda (1976), 529 Raëlianism. See International Raëlian Movement Rakhine state violence (Myanmar), 103–105 first crisis (June 2012 attacks), 103 and Ma Ba Tha (Protection of Race and Religion), 103 persecution of Rohingya, 72, 80, 103–104, 389–392, 738–740 Race and Religious Protection laws, 95–96, 104, 392 second crisis (August 2017 attacks), 104 See also Aung San Suu Kyi Ram Janmabhumi temple project, 252, 253–255, 258–259, 280, 297, 305, 673

Ramayana, 295–298 authorship, 295 contents, 295–297 and ethics of war, 296–297 in popular culture, 297 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 298–300 and anti-British movements, 299 and anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks, 251, 298, 299 and assassination of Mohandas Gandhi, 277, 299 banning of, 299 history and founding of, 298 parent organization of BJP, 300 purpose and goals of, 298 and Vishva Hindu Parishad, 300, 306 Reagan, Ronald, 180, 582 Religious diversity in China, 134, 717 and New Religious Movements, 547 See also Singapore and religious diversity Religious freedom of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, 325 and anticonversion laws in India, 250 and anti-Muslim attacks in China, 143, 144 and Ashoka’s Edicts of Tolerance (Buddhism), 69 and blasphemy in Islam, 333–334 and Branch Davidian movement, 575 and cause of Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), 179 and Chinese atheism, 148–149 and collapse of Soviet Union, 563

Index

and Islamophobia in the United States, 776 in Japan, 571 and Jehovah’s Witnesses, 212, 214 and kirpan (Sikhism), 681–682 and New Religious Movements, 547, 552, 555, 562 and persecution by atheists, 563 and persecution of atheists, 568 and persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar, 391 and persecution of Sikhs in India, 694 of Punjabi Sikhs, 645 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (U.S.), 665 repeal of Haitian religious liberties law, xxiv, 51 and Russian Orthodox resurgence, 754, 755 and sallekhana (Jainism), 451 and Santeria in the U.S., 48 and Satanism, 609 and secularism, 756, 757, 759–760 and Sikhs, 665, 682, 694, 700 U.S. declaration of China as “country of particular concern,” 564 and Voodoo, 51 See also Tunisia and religious freedom Religious nationalism, 747–751 benefits and disadvantages, 750–751 challenge of definitions, 747–748 ethnonationalism, 748–749 and identity, 749 in Israel, 750 in Muslim world, 749–750, 751 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 43–46

civil war, 44 history and founding of, 43–44 International Criminal Court trial, 44 justification of violence, 44–45 Operation No Living Thing, 45 RUFP (political party), 44 sexual violence, 45 support for, 46 Rodnoverie, 605–608 ideology and goals of, 605–606 meaning of the term, 606 nationalistic orientation of, 606–607 and native faith ideologies, 606 and religion, 607 use of social media, 607 and violence, 606–607 Rohingya, persecution of, xxv, 389–395 Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), 80, 104, 393 and Aung San Suu Kyi, 70–73, 104, 392, 738, 740 and citizenship law, 391 “clearance operations” (2017), 72, 390, 393 history of Rohingya, 390 and nationalism narratives, 391 and 969 Movement, 101, 103, 104, 392, 766 Race and Religious Protection laws, 95–96, 104, 392 and Sunni Islam, 390 and World War II, 390 See also Rakhine state violence (Myanmar) Roof, Dylann (1994–), xxiv, 233–234 and confederate flag controversy, 234 Emanuel African Methodist Church shooting (2015), xxiv, 218, 233– 234, 628

891

892

Index

Roof, Dylann (1994–) (cont.) manifesto, 233, 628 trial of, 234 and white nationalism/supremacism, 233, 628 Russia: Chechnya conflict, 751–753 Christianity in Chechnya, 752 First Chechnyan War (1994–1996), 752 history and origins of, 751–752 and Kadyrov, Akhmad, 752–753 and Kadyrov, Ramzan, 753 and Putin, Vladimir, 751, 753 Second Chechnyan War (1999– 2009), 752 and World War II, 752 Russian Orthodox resurgence, 753–756 benefits and disadvantages for citizens, 755–756 Christianity in Russia, 754 collapse of Soviet Union, 755 history and origins of, 753–754 and Putin, Vladimir, 754, 755 Rwandan Genocide, 8, 39 Saffron Army (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna), 62, 105–107 history and founding of, 106 and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 105, 106 Marxist revolt of 1971, 106, 107 militant violence and activities, 106, 113–114 and politics, 107 recruitment of Buddhist monastic students, 106–107 and soldier monks, 113–114 and Sri Lankan civil war, 106, 124 and Theravada Buddhism, 106, 107

Saffron Revolution (2007), 107–109 background and causes, 70, 107–108 and Gandhian civil disobedience, 109 jailing of Buddhist monks, 109 protest of Buddhist monks, 108–109 removal of fuel subsidies from Buddhist monks, 108 Saffron terrorism, 300–302 and Abhinav Bharat, 300–301 Ajmer Dargah bombing (2007), 301 Gujarat Riots (2002), 301 Malegaon blast (2008), 301–302 Mecca Masjid bombing (2007), 301 Samjhauta Express bombing (2007), 301 use of term “saffron,” 300 Salafism, 395–398 decentralization of authority, 397 disdain of human government, 397–398 history of, 395 inflexibility, 396 intolerance, 396–397 principles and ideology, 395 Sallekhana (Santhara), 428, 449–551 as ascetic practice, 433, 434, 450 controversy regarding, 449–451 sanctioned in Jain scriptures, 450 Sangha. See Three Jewels Santeria, 46–49 in Cuba, 47–48 definition of, 46 history of, 46–47 in Miami, U.S., 47–48 persecution against, 47–48 and Satanism, 611 use of rituals, objects, and ceremony, 47

Index

Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, 109–112 and ahimsa, 67 and Ariyaratne, A. T., 67, 109–111 history and founding of, 110 influence of Gandhi and Dharmapala on, 109–110 mission of, 109–110, 111 and Theravada Buddhism, 110 units and programs, 110–111 Satanism, 608–612 Black Masses, 609 and Christian and Muslim traditions, 608 Church of Satan, 609 definition of, 608 ideology and goals of, 608 Left-Hand Path, 610 and National Socialism (Nazi Satanism), 610 Order of Nine Angles (ONA), 610 periods of present-day Satanism, 609 satanic (versus Satanist) movements and groups, 610–611 satanic panic (1980s–1990s), 609 Temple of Set, 609 use of internet and social media, 609 Scientology, 612–617 claims of health and healing, 613 culture of secrecy, 614 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (documentary), 616 and Hubbard, L. Ron, 612–616 Operation Snow White, 613–614 opposition to psychology and psychiatry, 615 spying on external enemies, 614 state interventions and their justifications, 615–616

use of legal system, 614–615 Secularism (state violence), 756–761 and Buddhism, 758, 760 challenge of defining secularism, 757 and Christianity, 757, 758–759 early laws and documents, 757 elimination of religion from politics, 758 having an official religion but guaranteeing religious freedom, 759–760 having no state religion, 759 and Islam, 756, 758, 760 politics and faith, 758–760 Self-inflicted violence (Chinese religion), 168–169 and Falun Gong, 154 in Lotus Sutra, 168 self-immolation, 61, 67, 83–84, 132, 136, 154, 168–169 in Tibet, 61, 67, 83–84, 169 September 11, 2001. See under 9/11 Sexual abuse. See Catholicism and sexual abuse Sexual orientation. See under Gender and sexual orientation Sikh activists, 699–701 Guru Nanak, 699 Jakara Movement, 700–701 Kaur, Valerie, 699–700 Khalra, Jaswant Singh, 699 and 9/11, 700 SALDEF, 700 Sikh Coalition, 700 Singh, Simran Jeet, 700 United Sikhs, 700 Sikh Panth, 651 and assassination of Indira Gandhi, 693

893

894

Index

Sikh Panth (cont.) consolidated after martyrdom of Guru Arjan, 638, 639, 685, 687 and Granth-Panth, 655, 687, 688 and khanda, 680 and martyrdom of Bhindranwale, 703 present-day power structure, 688 Sikhism, 633–642 Dasam Granth (DG), 639–640 discourse of excessive warfare, 634–635 distinction between violence and militancy, 633 “early pacifism versus later militancy” discourse, 634 execution of Guru Arjan, 638 Guru Granth Sahib, 635–639 media on, 633–634 “Panth” (community), 656–657 population of Sikhs, 633–634 and religious violence, 637–641 use and imagery of weapons, 638 Sikhs, persecution of. See Persecution of Sikhs (India); Persecution of Sikhs (United States) Sikrikim, 530–532 founding of, 530 meaning of the name, 530 membership, 530–531 purpose and goals of, 530–531 and Weissfish, Shmuel, 531 Singapore and religious diversity, 761–764 criticisms and tensions, 763 government of Lee Kwan Yew, 762–763 history of, 761–763 Singapore’s demographics, 762 Singh, Jyoti (1989–2012), gang rape of, xxiv, 302–304

arrests and trials, 303–304 events, 302–303 India’s Daughter (documentary), 303, 304 Sodom and Gomorrah, 235–237 and Christian theology on sexuality, 236 later biblical references to, 235–236 and sodomy laws, 236 story of, 235 Soft power and Confucius Institutes, 174 and Daoism, 151–152 and Mencian optimism, 173 religion as, 2 Soldier monks, 112–114 definition of, 112 in Japan, 113 and militancy, 113–114 in Thailand, 112, 113, 114–115, 117, 125 and Vinaya monastic guidelines, 112 Somalia anti-Muslim attacks against Somalians in U.S., 188, 595 ethnoreligious violence in, 9, 23, 319, 327–328 gender and sexual orientation policy, 345, 346 jihadist training camps, 337 political history, 326 Trump, Donald, immigration ban of, 777 See also Al-Shabaab; Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia: ethnoreligious violence in the Horn of Africa South Sudan. See Bentiu massacre; Sudan and South Sudan, ethnoreligious violence in

Index

Southern Thailand, 114–118 Civil War, xxiv, 115–117 definition, 114 history of, 115 and International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 89 Khru Se Mosque conflict, 116 killing of Buddhist monks, 117, 124–125 Malay Muslim separatists, 114–115, 116, 117 and martial law, 114, 115–116 Narathiwat province, 113, 114–116 Pattani province, 113, 114–116 and soldier monks, 112, 113, 114– 115, 117, 125 Yala province, 113, 114–116 Sovereign Citizen Movement (SCM), 617–622 and farm movement (1980s), 619 history and origins of, 619 ideology and goals of, 617–618 and Kahl, Gordon, 619–620 and Montana Freemen standoff (1996), 620–621 and occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (2016), 585–588, 621 race and racism, 621 repudiation of authority, 618–619 and Ruby Ridge standoff (1992), 620 and savings and loan crisis (1980s), 619 security threat of, 621 tactics used by, 617–620 use of false identities and identification documents, 618–619 use of “paper terrorism” or “paper warfare,” 617–618

views on common law, 618 and Waco Branch Davidian standoff (1992), 620 See also United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors Spanish Inquisition, 178, 179, 182, 183, 467, 707 Spirit medium (tang ki), 169–172 definition of, 169–170 and initiations, 170 as literary deities, 170 as martial deities, 170 relation between state and spirit, 171–172 sincerity of, 171 social status of, 171 and superstition, 171 Sri Lanka. See Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement Sri Lanka: Muslim crisis, 764–766 history and origins of, 764–765 Muslims in Sri Lanka, 764 (See also Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force)) Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, 765–766 Sri Lankan independence, 764 See also Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) Sri Lankan Civil War, xxiii, 766–769 history and origins of, 766–767 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 767–768 and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, 768 war crimes accusations, 768 Standing Rock crisis. See United States: Standing Rock crisis State violence, 705–714 historical orders, 706–708

895

896

Index

State violence (cont.) 9/11 and War on Terror, 712–713 religious resurgence, 711–712 state sovereignty, 708–711 violence and religion, 705–706 Struggle for Justice (Bhindranwale, 1999), 701–704 on Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR), 702–703 criticism and controversy, 703 history and compilation of, 701–702 on honor and self-respect, 702 influence of Guru Nanak on Bhindranwale, 702 on possession and use of weapons, 702 Sudan and South Sudan, ethnoreligious violence in, 49–50 background and history, 49 displaced people, 49–50 Sudan as “failed state,” 50 Sulak Sivaraksa (1933–), 118–120 arrest and imprisonment, 119 Conflict, Culture, Change, 89 criticism of Thai government, Thai monarch, and Burmese junta, 119 founding of International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88, 89, 118 Right Livelihood Award recipient, 118 Sunzi. See Art of War (Sunzi) Svastika (swastika), 451–455 in India, 452–453 and International Raëlian Movement, 583, 584 in Jainism, 435–454 meanings across cultures, 451–452 names for, 452

and neo-Nazism, 597, 598 origins, 451 Taiwan. See China: Taiwan conflict Takfir, 398–401 definition of term, 398 history of, 398–399 and ISIS, 399–400 Taliban, 401–403 attack on school bus (2012), 402 brutality of rule in Afghanistan, 401 history and founding of, 401 Islamic schools, 401 meaning of the term, 401 and 9/11, 402 and Pakistan, 402 and Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, 401 training camps, 402 and U.S. war in Afghanistan, 402 Tawadros II of Alexandria, Pope, 222, 719 Temple Mount, 532–535 and acts of violence, 534–535 history of, 532 significance of for Christians, 534 significance of for Jews, 532–533 significance of for Muslims, 534 Theravada Buddhism (Path of Elders) and Ashoka, 69–70 and blasphemy, 123 gender and sexual orientation in, 86–87 and Ma Ba Tha, 95 and Saffron Revolution, 108 and Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, 110 in Sri Lanka, 105–107 Sri Lankan civil war, 760 and Sulak Sivaraksa, 118

Index

tenets of, 59 and vegetarianism, 128 and Vietnamese Buddhism, 120 Thich Nhat Hanh (1926–), 119, 120–122 and “Engaged Buddhism,” 88–89, 110, 118, 120 exile of, 120–121 founding of Plum Village Buddhist Tradition, 120 on Gandhi, Mohandas, 268 influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, 248 legacy of, 121 patron of International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 88–89 stroke suffered by, 121 and vegetarianism, 128 Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, 120 Thirty Years’ War, 179, 183, 708 Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), 122–125 contemporary social and political power of, 124–125 Dharma, 60, 69, 70, 77, 85, 108, 110, 122–125 and Pure Land Buddhism, 123–124 Sangha, 60, 61, 77, 98, 100, 108, 112, 113, 119, 122–125 See also Buddha Tirthankaras, 455–458 attendant deities, 457 definition of, 455 devotion to, 457 as distinct from unliberated gods, 455 and gender, 441, 457 life pattern of, 456 Mallinatha, 441, 457 meaning of the term, 455 Neminatha, 423, 456

Parshvanatha, 426, 442, 446, 447, 448, 456 removed from the world, 457 renunciation of violence, 457 Rishabha, 441, 456 Simandhar, 457 See also Mahavira Tokyo sarin gas attack (1995), 551, 569–571 Torah, Tanakh. See Hebrew Bible (Torah, Tanakh) Treaty of Westphalia, 179, 708, 710 Tree of Life Synagogue murders (Pittsburg, U.S.) (2018), xxv, 599, 631 Trump, Donald and Anti-Muslim attacks (Christianity), 188 anti-Muslim rhetoric of, 188 and The Art of War, 147 and Bannon, Steve, 581, 582 and hate crimes, 632 immigration policy and Executive Order 13769 (Muslim ban), 698, 713, 777 and ISIS, 359 and Ku Klux Klan, 218 move of U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, 190–191, 732 and natural gas pipelines, 780 and normalization of bigotry, 207 pardon of Dwight and Steven Hammond, 588 Tunisia and religious freedom, 769–771 Arab Spring, 769–770 history of, 769–770 and Libya, 770–771 and National Dialogue Quartet, 770 Tunisian democracy, 770

897

898

Index

Turkey: Armenian Christian conflict, 771–773 Armenian genocide, 772–773 Armenian independence, 772 collapse of Ottoman Empire, 772 collapse of Soviet Union, 772 history and origins of, 771–772 Nagorno-Karabakh War (1993), 772–773 World War I, 772 The Turner Diaries (MacDonald, 1978), 622–625 authorship and publication of, 622–623 contents of, 622, 623–624 influence of, 622, 624 and murder of Alan Berg, 624 and Oklahoma City bombing (1995), 624 and Pierce, William Luther, 622–624 and racism, 623–624 Tutu, Desmond, 22, 28, 706 United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, 625–627 construction of Egyptian village (New York), 626 history and founding of, 625 raid and arrest of York, 625–627 and Sovereign Citizen Movement, 625 and York, Malachi Z., 625–626 United States: Muslim crisis, 773–778 history and origins of, 773–774 Islamophobia, 776–777 Muslim population in U.S., 773– 774, 776 and 9/11 attacks, 773, 774–775 U.S. military operations in Middle East, 774–775

United States: Standing Rock crisis, 778–780 Dakota Access Pipeline, 779–780 history and origins of, 778–779 indigenous population in U.S., 778–779 Keystone XL Pipeline, 779, 780 native activism, 779–780 Upayakaushalya Sutra (Skill-in-Means Sutra), 126–128 and compassionate violence, 63, 68, 126–127 contents, 126 and upaya, 126–127 Urban II, Pope, 178, 484, 707 Uyghurs, 403–406 and “Convenience Police Stations,” 405 discrimination against, 404 language and religion, 403 poverty of, 404 Reeducation Camps for, 403–405 and “Regulation on De-Extremification,” 404 resistance organizations, 404 and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 403–405 Uzbekistan: Muslim crisis, 780–782 history and origins of, 780–781 Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), 782 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 782 and Karimov, Islam, 781–782 and Mirziyoyev, Shavkat, 782 Uzbeks and Islamism, 406–409 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 407 terror attacks from Uzbek diaspora, 408

Index

Vajrayana Buddhism (Thunderbolt Vehicle), 59, 126, 133, 760 Vardhamana. See Mahavira Vegetarianism (Buddhism), 128–130 and ahimsa, 67, 128, 129 and Buddha, 128–129 and Buddhist scriptures, 128–129 geographical patterns, 129–130 and history of Buddhism, 128–129 veganism, 60, 63, 66, 67, 128, 129 Vegetarianism (Jainism), 458–461 and ahimsa, 427, 458 diet of one-sensed organisms, 459 food ethics, 459 in Jain texts, 458 origins of, 458 root vegetables, 459 source of conflict, 460 Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), 304–306 and Abhinav Bharat, 301 and anti-Muslim rhetoric and attacks, 251–252, 305, 306 and Ayodhya Ram temple dispute, 305 and Gujarat Riots (2012), 306 and Kandhamal Riots, 282 political activities, 305–306 purpose and goals, 304–305 and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, 300, 306 youth wings, 306 Voodoo (Vodun), 50–52 in Benin, 51–52 in Ghana, 51 in Haiti, 6, 51 history of, 6, 50–51 racialized use of the term, 50–51

repeal of Haitian religious liberties law, xxiv, 51 in Togo, 51–52 Wahhabism, 409–411 and Abd Al-Wahhab, Muhammad ibn, 409–410 controversial use of name of, 409 history and origins of, 409 practices condemned by, 409–410 principles and ideology of, 409–410 and Salafism, 409–411 and Saudi Arabia, 409, 410–411 War magic. See Assault sorcery Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, Kansas), 181, 237–239 biblical invocations, 237–238 history and founding of, 237 motto and purpose of, 237 and sexual orientation, 237–238 and Snyder v. Phelps (2011), 238 White nationalism and black separatism, 593, 594 and common law, 619 and millennialist movements, 592 and Odinism, 601 and Racial Holy War (RaHoWa), 553 See also Neo-Nazis White nationalist groups, 627–632 and alt-right, 632 and election of Donald Trump, 632 and “lone wolves,” 631 The Order, 601 and Southern Poverty Law Center, 631–632 and The Turner Diaries, 622–624 and “Unite the Right” protests (Charlottesville, U.S.) (2017), xxv, 199–200, 599, 631, 632

899

900

Index

White nationalist groups (cont.) See also Neo-Nazis Wirathu, Ashin, 68, 96, 100–102, 104, 392, 739 Witchcraft, 52–57 in Cameroon, 53, 56 and child soldiers, 18, 19 and gender, 54 in Ghana, 54 heritability of powers, 53–54 and Holy Spirit Movement, 30 and Hunters’ militias, 34 iconography of, 53 and Igbo people, 55–56 legal protection for, 56–57 and Mai rebels, 40 in Malawi, 56 misconceptions and propaganda concerning, 7, 52–53 in Nigeria, 55, 56 omnipotence of witches, 53 persecution of women accused of witchcraft, 54, 610 prosecution of women accused of witchcraft, 56 and Satanism, 610 in Sierra Leone, 54 sorcery as distinct from, 12 in South Africa, 56 witch finders and witch hunters, 54–55 in Zambia, 54 Women. See Gender and sexual orientation (African religion)

World War II. See Holocaust and World War II Xunzi (310–220 BCE), 173–175 compared with Mencius and Confucius, 173–174 on hegemony, 174 on human nature, 173–174 influence of, 173 renewed interest in, 173 scholarship and writings, 174 Zealots, 535–539 definition of, 535–536 early history of, 536–537 present day, 537–538 Zionism and anti-Zionism, 539–546 Balfour Declaration and Israeli statehood, 541–542 and Herzl, Theodor, 541, 730 and the Holocaust/Shoah, 542 modern period, 541–542 and neo-Nazism, 599 and Odinism, 601–602 past crises and Jewish people’s responses, 540–541 present and beyond, 542–544 and present-day violence, 543–545 and Rodnoverie, 607 and Security Fence of Wall, 543 and ultra-Orthodox Israeli political parties, 731 and white nationalism, 628