Table of contents Contents List of contributors Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction I. Takfīr Through Islamic History 1. The Early Period (First/Seventh-Fourth/Tenth Centuries) Self-defining through Faith: The walāya and barāʾa Dynamics among the Early Ibāḍis Ersilia Francesca Were the Umayyad-Era Qadarites Kāfirs? Steven Judd Denouncing the Damned Zindīq! Struggle and Interaction between Monotheism and Dualism István T. Kristó-Nagy Kufr et takfīr dans l’ismaélisme fatimide: Le Kitāb Tanbīh al-hādī de Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī Daniel De Smet 2. The Classical and Post-Classical Period (Fifth/Eleventh-Eleventh/Eighteenth Centuries) The Vocabulary of "Unbelief" in Three Biographical Dictionaries and Two Historical Chronicles of the 7th/13th and 8th/14th Centuries Sonja Brentjes Takfīr in Egypt and Syria during the Mamluk Period Amalia Levanoni Takfīr and Messianism: The Ḥurūfī Case Orkhan Mir-Kasimov The Qāḍīzādeli Movement and the Revival of takfīr in the Ottoman Age Simeon Evstatiev The takfīr of the Philosophers (and Sufis) in Safavid Iran Sajjad Rizvi 3. The Modern Period The Cost of Condemnation: Heresy and takfīr in a South Indian Community Brian J. Didier The Sum of its Parts: The State as Apostate in Contemporary Saudi Militant Islamism Justyna Nedza “The Kāfir Religion of the West”: Takfīr of Democracy and Democrats by Radical Islamists Joas Wagemakers On the takfīr of Arab Women Rights Advocates in Recent Times Roswitha Badry Apostasy in the West: A Swedish Case Study Göran Larsson II. Discussing Takfīr:Different Perspectives Essential Islam: The Minimum that a Muslim is Required to Acknowledge Hossein Modarressi Abandoning Prayer and the Declaration of Unbelief in Imāmī Jurisprudence Robert Gleave Society and Propriety: The Cultural Construction of Defamation and Blasphemy as Crimes in Islamic Law Intisar A. Rabb Literary Works as Evidence of Unbelief Zoltan Szombathy “Religions, Opinions and Beliefs Are Nothing but Roads and Paths … While the Goal Is One”: Between Unity and Diversity in Islamic Mysticism Michael Ebstein