Persecution

views updated

Persecution. Adherents of virtually all religions have suffered persecution for their faith at some point in their history, and such persecution has generally been held to forge a more resilient faith. Thus the pressure on Muḥammad during the Meccan period made him more determined, so that martyrs (shahīd) became highly favoured and revered in Islam. That ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’ (see TERTULLIAN) arose as a belief from the early cents. of Christianity, when Christians were sporadically persecuted as a non-conformist minority: there was only formal imperial persecution under the Emperors Decius (250), Valerian (257–8), and Diocletian (304–11). The 20th cent. has seen persecution of Christians on an unprecedented scale—by atheistic communism, by fascism, and by militant Islam in certain countries. See also ANTI-SEMITISM; HOLOCAUST.

More From encyclopedia.com