A History of Christian and Muslim Intolerance and Beyond

AC Grayling discusses with Selina O’Grady her ground-breaking new book In the Name of God: A History of Christian and Muslim Intolerance. Told through contemporary chronicles, stories and poems, Selina O’Grady explores the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish persecutors and persecuted.

From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who laid down the rules for the treatment of religious minorities in what was becoming the greatest empire the world has ever known, to Magna Carta John who seriously considered converting to Islam; and from al-Wahaabi, whose own brother thought he was illiterate and fanatical, but who created the religious-military alliance with the house of Saud that still survives today, to Europe’s bloody Thirty Years war that wearied Europe of murderous inter-Christian violence but probably killed God in the process.

Each faith has been thought of as intolerant and inherently violent; ossified religions that can never come to terms with the Enlightenment. How right or wrong are these assumptions? Selina O’Grady and AC Grayling asks how and why our societies came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are? Whether tolerance can be expected to heal today’s festering wound between Islam and the post-Christian West? Or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed.

Told through contemporary chronicles, stories and poems, Selina O’Grady takes the reader through the intertwined histories of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish persecutors and persecuted. From Umar, the seventh century Islamic caliph who laid down the rules for the treatment of religious minorities in what was becoming the greatest empire the world has ever known, to Magna Carta John who seriously considered converting to Islam; and from al-Wahaabi, whose own brother thought he was illiterate and fanatical, but who created the religious-military alliance with the house of Saud that still survives today, to Europe’s bloody Thirty Years war that wearied Europe of murderous inter-Christian violence but probably killed God in the process.

In the Name of God: A History of Christian and Muslim Intolerance will be available on the night to purchase and have signed.

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This event is in the Main Hall on the ground floor (Ground floor – accessible. Induction loop audio). For accessibility info: conwayhall.org.uk/about/visiting-us

It is part of Conway Hall Ethical Society’s charitable programme and is tax-exempt.