By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 11 June 2021
The numbers on the growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire are very uncertain, but there are enough data points to hazard a reasonable estimate. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 22 May 2021
Al-Naba 287, page three
The last two issues of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), had a number of interesting items, most obviously finally breaking its silence on the latest flare-up between Israel and HAMAS. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 1, 2016
The fifteenth issue of the Islamic State’s English-language magazine, Dabiq, released on 31 July 2016 contained an essay, “By the Sword,” a brief polemic that defends the Islamic State’s brutality on the basis that it is conducted according to the Word of God—laying open claim to genocide and slavery so long as it is undertaken by Muslims and not disbelievers, saying they would have felt no need to have apologized for the atomic bombing of Japan or the use of defoliants in Vietnam and would have been more thorough-going in the extermination of Native Americans and Jews, since these things are vouchsafed by the Creator. The Islamic State contends that the Jewish and Christian religious contain the same prescriptions for the forcible implementation of the Holy Law that the Qur’an does, but these monotheists have lapsed and pay more attention to the edicts of the United Nations. Continue reading
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 13, 2015
Richard Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an is, at less than 200 pages, a brief and easily-digestible explanation of the context in which Islam’s “holy” book arose, and the problems of reconciling theological orthodoxy with historical accuracy. More than six decades after publication, the book remains influential in scholarship of the Qur’an. Continue reading
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