This task may sound simple and easy, but you will have to study very early periods in human history, documented long before the beginning of the Christian era. You must look for traces of the first known division of religions and the oppression of the beliefs of minorities.

We will start with a preparatory assignment, as we need to know what we are talking about:

What is ‘religion’: when do we call a person religious? What does he/she do or think? Sate your opinion “at first sight”, afterwards you will research the facts.

Your next task is to search for civilisations where the first clashes between religions started.

1. What is the oldest instance of conflicting religions you can find? When did it happen? Who was involved? Were such conflicts common in that time?
2. Diaspora is a term often used to describe the oppression of a specific religion. It is a Greek word, it literally means: “to scatter about”. Search for information about the Diaspora: it affects a specific religious group, so who are they and why were they seen as enemies or people who deserved to be oppressed? Where did the Diaspora lead those people: can you name some countries (not the continents as mentioned in the picture?

Source:https://images.app.goo.gl/PvkVSyU7XfLWodTYA

3. Take one of the countries you found and give details about the situation of the dispersed people in that country. Describe developments and changes in their position or status.
4. There is also a process called “the African Diaspora”. Does this refer to a dispersion of people as a result form religious oppression?
   Look at the image below. Does this “ring a bell”?

Source:https://www.yukonyouth.com/the-african-diaspora-what-is-it/

5. Different religions ruled in Asia over the centuries. Practitioners of these beliefs had their conflicts at times. Look for examples in India or China and describe one of these.

1. The Roman civilisation seemed not very creative when it comes to the gods they worshipped: all gods were simply copied from Greek religion. Name at least five important Greek gods and their equivalents in the Roman state. These gods represent different aspects of life. You have named five gods, now tell what they stand for.
   
   

Source: https://mypodgrieksemythologie.jouwweb.nl/goden/zeus

2. One Northern-Western European religion had a division of roles between Gods that looked a little bit like the Greek-Roman version. Name five Germanic (Teutonic) Gods and explain their function. What did the Germanic belief say about people dying: what would happen to them? Name a Nordic people that took the Germanic religion all over Europe to places it had not reached before^[i].
3. In later ages the Christian Church became the predominant religious organisation all over Europe, resulting soon in violent conflicts with other expansive religions, like that of the Moors in Spain. What was the religious faith of the Moors? Who fought to end their presence in Spain?
4. In the early Middle Ages, a famous story tells about a decisive fight against the Moors; it was meant as a kind of report. Charles the Great (Charlemagne) plays an important role, but the star of the battle is a knight called Roland. Look for his story and summarize it in your own words. Here’s the story in a song. You may use it for the summary.
5. A few centuries after Charles the Great, the Catholic Church was even more powerful in Western Europe and it turned its focus to the Middle East: Israel was considered the cradle of the Christian faith, but it had been taken by Islamic rulers. Pope Urban II became a strong protagonist of the movement to send an army to the Promised Land that would conquer Jerusalem and expel the Muslims.
   In what year did the first Crusade start; you may actually name 2 subsequent years since the army of the farmers started earlier than the army of the knights. One army reached Jerusalem and the other not. Tell what happened.
6. A nobleman, whose name refers to a Belgian city, became the first king of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem. This kingdom lasted for 90 years Who is this Belgian knight and how long did he enjoy his victory?
7. How many crusades were there? When was the last one and what happened after its end?

Source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pope_Urban_II_Illustration.jpg

The last crusader.
 Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6052935

[i]The Vikings: they conquered land around the Mediterranean Sea (Sicily) and Travelled even as far as the Black Sea and the Russian mainland to settle there.

There are some dark periods in Western European civilisations when violence against people with a different faith was quite normal. Punishment of heretics and misbelievers could go as far as executions, some of which were extremely cruel. Inquiry procedures often involved torture for such a long time, that suspects would confess; not because they were guilty, but because they could no longer endure the torment and confessed, so they would die. In other cases, they got financial penalties, or they were forced to leave the country. We will look at some examples.

1. Roman Empire: persecution of Christians.
   Just a few years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the new Christian faith reached Rome, the capital of the Empire. Emperor Nero is believed to have ordered severe persecutions and punishments of Christians. Facts and interpretations are still the subjects of discussion between scholars, but many Christians today believe that their fellows in ancient times were executed, only for being Christian. Nero in particular has a bad name: he would have ordered the cruellest forms of capital punishment.

According to these stories, a Christian leader who came to Rome was one of the first victims of these persecutions. He was a leading apostle and is considered to be the first pope: what’s his name and what happened to him?

Abraham Janssens van Nuyssen: Nero (1620)
Source: https://www.wikiwand.com/nl/Nero

2. Inquisition: driving Sephardic Jews from Portugal to the Netherlands

Jews were also targeted by the Spanish-Portuguese Inquisition, many of them fled to the young Dutch Republic, renowned for its freedom of religion: “Amsterdam became one of the most favoured destinations for Sephardic Jews.

Because many of the refugees were traders, Amsterdam benefited greatly from their arrival. Many Jews supported the House of Orange and were in return protected by the “Stadhouder”. Migration to other places than Amsterdam allowed them to build a strong international trading network (like Brazil). Jews were among the founding fathers of the West Indian Company in the Dutch Republic. Their business and family relations helped to establish trading connections with the Levant (Middle East) and Morocco: immigrant Sephardic Jews were a driving force for the Dutch Golden Age. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews_in_the_Netherlands)

On Wikipedia, you can also find this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age#Migration_of_skilled_workers_to_the_Dutch_Republic

Look it up and tell as much as you can find about the influence of Jews on the Golden Age in the Netherlands.

1. 1. List all the advantages you can think of, related to admitting immigrants in a country.
   2. And now the same for the disadvantages of admitting immigrants in a country.

3. Inquisition: persecution of heretics, witches and sinners: The Roman Inquisition
   The Roman Inquisition was an initiative led by church institutions that originated in Spain and soon spread over a number of European countries. The aim was to find, interrogate and punish people who did not commit to the “True (Roman-Catholic) Faith”.
   Look for information about the Inquisition and answer (alone or with your team) the following questions:
   1. When did the Inquisition approximately end? You may find different years mentioned for different countries. Report these years and the countries they apply to.
   2. There are different kinds of Inquisition with different names (like the Spanish): make a list of these varieties of the Inquisition and state their specific goals or areas where they were active. You should also try to set up a timeline for the period during which these Inquisitions were active. Like:
      • Start in (year) in (country or area)
      • to achieve (goal),
      • most active or successful period (from .. to ..)
      • end of the initiative (year).
   3. Estimated number of people interrogated, convicted or executed.
4. What do you think when you see these facts and numbers? Discuss it in your group or write down the main lines of what the group expressed.
5. Some varieties of Inquisition targeted especially minorities, like the Jews in Europe. Name at least two other groups or minorities that were targeted more than others in the history of Inquisitions.
   Note: the Inquisition was also active in the colonies: every European country with a colony has extended the Inquisition to those overseas areas, such as Northern and Southern America, Africa, Asea etcetera.
6. Have a look at the picture on the right: tell as exactly and completely as you can what kind of scene is shown here. Where did this likely happen and why? The lady in the picture is Mariana de Carvajal; why would she be executed during the Inquisition?

Source: https://jwa.org/media/mariana-carvajal

Let us research some of the most important and recent instances of conflicts between religions: the perceived intolerance of the Islamic Faith against other religions, especially Christianity.

1. Is there a specific reason for the animosity between Islamic and Christian believers that you can think of^[i]?
2. Although in many Western civilisations (Europe, both America’s, Australia) adhering to a religion is a free choice of the people, in some countries a state religion is mentioned in their constitution. Name at least five states around the world that have a state religion.
3. Religions are not always related to a national constitution, also predominant groups may ensure that their religion is predominant in society, without posing legal restrictions on other religions. Can you think of a country where this is the case?^[ii]
4. Some countries are more or less explicitly against any religion at all, although they might tolerate these religions being practised by the people. In such cases, the state follows and promotes a dogma or the learnings of certain (previous) leaders and philosophers. Their position can be summarized as follows: “Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes“
   Who said this and when? What does it mean? Which political and social-economic system or form of government is related to or based on this statement?
   Name some states that have this specific political and social-economic system. Select one of these states: does it oppress or encourage religious freedom?
5. Several religious fundamentalist groups with extreme opinions about other religious beliefs than their own, are active today or were so recently. Name five of them (at least one in the USA), their place of origin or where they are most active now. In what way is their specific religion different from others and what makes them a fundamentalist or extremist movement?
   
   

[i]Conflicts between Islam and Christianity go back to the days that Spain was conquered by the Moors. Ever since, even in times of peaceful co-existence, there was always an underlying mistrust or envy and it led regularly to conflicts. But this observation offers no explanation of how it started.

[ii]Israel would qualify for this, because of the dominant status of the Jews in this country. Some even say that the Palestinian Islamic part of the population lives under severe oppression; some people call that oppression a new form of Apartheid (that was predominant decades ago in South Africa).