Markup View

Author: Cider

Oct 17th 2013 at 4:35:33 PM

* In the Tanakh (Old Testament to Christian readers), worship of anything other than the one and only God was illegal according to many laws and decrees by the prophets and directly from God. But for much of Israel's history many rulers not only allowed worship of other things but actively facilitated it. They were okay with magi even in periods where they otherwise had officially banned all other forms of worship too since Cyrus The Great was viewed as God's servant foretold by Isaiah. Today Israel officially allows any religion to be practiced but accounts from self identified "pagans" claim they would be cut to pieces if they publicly admitted to worshiping something like Anat or Thor.
* In Christendom anything but Christianity was discouraged and was often made illegal. Martin Luther is known for initially catering to Jews but then ordering their expulsion later on. The Spanish Empire notably expelled all non Christians after the reconquering all the areas settled by the Muslim invaders.
*According to ''Sahih Muslim'', Muhammad Ibn Abdullah had all Jews and Christians expelled from the Arabian peninsula and fought against the Arab idolaters until the only ones left alive gave up and converted. Whatever the case there are no churches in Saudi Arabia to this day, because they are not allowed, and though most orthodox Muslim countries allow specific religious practitioners to live inside their boarders as dhimmis the list for eligible dhimmitude usually is not very long.