Confessional Cousins and the Rest: The Structure of Islamic Toleration
Author(s)
Benthall, Jonathan
Abstract
Religious toleration is a topic addressed by several anthropologists, especially in the contexts of insular Southeast Asia. But toleration is not yet a standard topic in anthropology, or one on which other disciplines look to it for guidance. Toleration, in the strict and historical sense followed in this article, rests on a “double negation”: I negatively appraise something that others do, but decide not to interfere with it, and also on a relationship of dominance. It may be distinguished from cultural pluralism and relativism, with their egalitarian, anti-hierarchic leanings.
