Tolerance

Historical and Philosophical Background

Eurocentric historiographies of tolerance attribute its origin to the Protestant movement or the age of Enlightenment, which respectively, invited religious pluralism and humanism. Arguments raised by natural law and social contract theorists, such as John Locke (1632–1704) and Jean-Jacques [Page 2625]Rousseau (1712–1778), against the “divine rights of kings” or aristocratic privileges of the ancien régime and in favor of religious freedom or secularism constitute the core of liberal theories of tolerance. John Stuart Mill's (1806–1873) emphasis on liberty and utilitarian endorsement of nonconformity, deemed necessary for the creative mind to flourish and help advance the society, have been very influential as well.

However, the philosophy and practice of tolerance existed in both European and non-European societies since ancient times, and the latter ones were usually more advanced and informed the former. The Edicts of Ashoka, issued by the 3rd century BCE ruler of the Maurya Empire with the purpose of spreading his recently adopted religion of Buddhism, also included provisions of ethnic and religious tolerance. Islamic empires, in general, were known for respecting other major religions and protecting their followers. These protected people (the dhimmi) originally included “the people of the book” (the Abrahamic texts: the Old and New Testaments and the Koran), but the definition was expanded to include Hindus and Buddhists when the Mughal Empire expanded Islamic rule into the territories of some older Asian civilizations.

Andalusian Spain, ruled by the Moorish Muslims between the early eighth and late fifteenth centuries, was a hotbed of multiculturalism and collaboration of intellectuals of all creeds and cultures. Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198) and Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) argued not only for tolerance but also promoted the Stoic notions that there was an eternal and universal natural law that governed the entire universe, that all human beings were born with the ability to reason, and that human conduct therefore needed to be harmonized with this universal law. For Christian Europeans, Andalusia served as a door to new ideas; in addition to the Moorish philosophers' writings, their ancient Greek sources entered the European worldview, especially after the completion of the Christian conquest of Spain in 1492. However, this exposure had no immediate impact on discriminatory practices. In fact, the Inquisition and other mechanisms were employed more vehemently than before, and the persecuted “heretic” Christians and Jews sought refuge in the multicultural Islamic Empire of the Ottomans.

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