Many distinctive and strange faiths that took root in the Middle East alongside or even earlier than Christianity and Islam are now facing extinction due to surging religious intolerance at home and the ripple effects of foreign invasions and cultural influences. Among these religions is one that regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another that reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and still another that believes that their faithful are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. With the rise of militant, extremist sects of the predominant Islam faith since the early 20th century, these minority religions are now perilously on the wane, with more and more of their young adherents fleeing to the West in search of greater freedoms and job prospects.
The history, folkways, and plight of these minority religious groups are chronicled by former United Nations and British diplomat Gerard Russell in a soon-to- be-released book,
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East (Simon & Schuster UK, 400 pages, due this February). Russell has drawn material not only from his extensive travels and archival research but also from first-hand experience living alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and several other religious minorities.
Says Emma Sky, senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, in a pre-publication review of
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: “Gerard Russell’s beautifully written book provides wonderful insights into the Middle East and the beauty of the different cultures that have flourished there for centuries. It is a welcome respite from the usual portrayal of violence in the region, and at the same time a wake-up call of what will be lost if a perverse form of violent extremism is allowed to prevail. At a time when religion is so often seen as a cause of war, this book shows how lives can be enriched by maintaining rituals and beliefs through generations.”
Read Mohamad Bazzi’s review of Gerard Russell’s Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms in The New York Times Sunday Book Review now! ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Gerard Russell is a former United Nations and British diplomat. His 15 years with the British foreign service took him to Cairo, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Jeddah and Kabul, a very wide-ranging exposure in the Middle East that earned him a description as “the foremost expert on the Islamic world in his generation.” A member of the Order of the British Empire, he moved in 2009 to the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and is now working in a strategic communications consultancy in London. He is fluent in both Arabic and Farsi.
RELATED COMPANION READING:Draconian persecution of atheists, unbelievers grows across the worldErasmus,
The Economist’s religion and public policy blog, noted in the magazine’s December 15, 2014 issue that across the world, people who reject all religious belief or profess secular humanism are facing ever worse discrimination and persecution, even as the existence and legitimacy of their ideas are becoming more widely known and accepted. This observation is based on the latest report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, an umbrella body for secularist groups in 40 countries, which in 2012 began making annual surveys of how freedom of thought and conscience are faring worldwide.
According to the Union’s
The Freedom of Thought Report, many countries still prescribe draconian penalties for religious dissent, through laws that bar blasphemy against the prevailing religions or “apostasy” from Islam. Some 19 countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries it is punishable by death. In Pakistan, the death sentence can be imposed for blasphemy, for which the threshold is very low. In all, 55 countries had laws against blasphemy; the perceived offence could lead to prison terms in 39 countries and execution in six.
The report also detected a new trend—a “marked increase” in the specific targeting of atheists and humanists with the enactment of laws equating atheism with terrorism or with official declarations that label “humanism and secularism as well as liberalism” as deviant. Erasmus observed that this could be a negative side-effect of a “different, positive, parallel trend”—the fact that atheism and humanism were being recognized as cohesive world-views.
Read “Atheism, belief and persecution: The cost of unbelief” in Economist.com now!RELATED READING:In “Creativity for Creationists,” an article that came out in the December 24, 2014 issue of
Slate.com, national correspondent William Saletan writes about the brand of evangelism of Jeff Jardin, chairman of the University of Wisconsin’s zoology department, who espouses evolutionary creationism: the idea that Darwinian evolution and Christianity are compatible. Saletan observes: “Hardin’s first message to believers is that they don’t have to choose between mechanical explanation and teleology, the idea that things work toward a goal. You can recognize the ruthless dynamics of evolution, as Hardin does, while maintaining that it follows a divine plan.”
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK ALAN STAMATY FOR SLATERead William Saletan’s “Creativity for Creationists" in Slate.com now!
