The resurgence of violent terrorist organizations claiming to act in the name of God has rekindled dramatic public debate about the connection between violence and religion and its history.   Offering a panoramic view of the tangled history of war and religion throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, War and Religion  takes a hard look at the tumultuous history of war in its relationship to religion. Arnaud Blin examines how this relationship began through the concurrent emergence of the Mediterranean empires and the great monotheistic faiths. Moving through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and into the modern era, Blin concludes with why the link between violence and religion endures. For each time period, Blin shows how religion not only fueled a great number of conflicts but also defined the manner in which wars were conducted and fought. "For those engaged in conflict and peace studies, Arnaud Blin has provided sheer pleasure in this book of historical, philosophical and linguistic clarity." ― Journal for the Academic Study of Religion "Arnaud Blin's book is a seminal contribution to the history of conflicts and the lasting impact of religions on politics through history and civilizations. It sheds new light on a very important topic with clarity and draws a superb panorama of the past two millenium without ideological bias."—Gérard Chaliand, A Global History of War: From Assyria to the Twenty-First Century " This book provides an impressive historical sweep that covers the entire range of Christianity and Islam. In provocative and engaging ways, it explores the problematic relationship between religion and war and challenges our understanding of both. Daring and controversial, this book will be much debated and long discussed."—Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence "Arnaud Blin's book is a seminal contribution to the history of conflicts and the lasting impact of religions on politics through history and civilizations. It sheds new light on a very important topic with clarity and draws a superb panorama of the past two millenium without ideological bias."—Gérard Chaliand, A Global History of War: From Assyria to the Twenty-First Century " This book provides an impressive historical sweep that covers the entire range of Christianity and Islam. In provocative and engaging ways, it explores the problematic relationship between religion and war and challenges our understanding of both. Daring and controversial, this book will be much debated and long discussed."—Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence Arnaud Blin is a French-American historian and biographer. His works are widely translated, and he is the author, coauthor, or editor of many on the history of conflict, including  The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to ISIS . Blin is a Research Associate with the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (Paris). He lives in upstate New York.   War And Religion Europe and the Mediterranean from the First Through the Twenty-First Centuries By Arnaud Blin UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Copyright © 2019 The Regents of the University of California All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-520-28663-4 Contents List of Illustrations, Chronology, Acknowledgments, Introduction, 1. The Rise of the Monotheistic Religions, 2. Christianity Becomes a State Religion, 3. The Emergence of Islam, 4. Toward a Clash of Civilizations, 5. The Middle Eastern Crusades, 6. The Crusading Spirit Lives On, 7. From Holy War to All-Out Religious War, 8. In the Name of God: Religious Warfare in Europe, 1524-1700, 9. Religious Violence in a Secular World, 10. Epilogue: Of Gods and Men, Notes, Suggested Readings, Index, CHAPTER 1 The Rise of the Monotheistic Religions It is the world religions which provoke the greatest historical crises. They know from the outset that they are world religions, and intend to be world religions. — Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History War and religion clearly predate the emergence of the Abrahamic faiths, but the history of wars in the name of religion only really started to take shape progressively during the first centuries of the first millennium, reaching a threshold in the seventh century with a clash of religions that lasted several hundred years. And while religious-political violence in the Middle East and the greater Mediterranean region involved four religions, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, the main enduring religious conflicts involved the latter two. Judaism, which lacked the universalistic message that characterized the other monotheistic religions and concerned a minority with little political power, was itself a marginal player in this game, even though Jewish minorities, particularly in the Christian West, became a recurrent target of religiously motivated political violence. Zoroastrianism, the