The Apostate

The Apostates is the first major study of apostasy from Islam in the western secular context. Drawing on life-history interviews with ex-Muslims from the UK and Canada, Simon Cottee explores how and with what consequences Muslims leave Islam and become irreligious. Apostasy in Islam is a deeply controversial issue and features prominently in current debates over the expansion of Islam in the West and what this means. Yet it remains poorly understood, in large part because it has become so politicized-with protagonists on either side of the debate selectively invoking Islamic theology to make claims about the 'true' face of Islam. The Apostates charts a different course by examining the social situation and experiences of ex-Muslims. Cottee suggests that Islamic apostasy in the West is best understood not as a legal or political problem, but as a moral issue within Muslim families and communities. Outside of Muslim-majority societies, ex-Muslims are not living in fear for their lives. But they face and must manage the stigma attached to leaving the faith from among their own families and the wider Muslim community.

Proceeding directly from an evaluation of the ancient sources--the testimony of friends and enemies of Julian as well as the writings of the emperor himself--the author traces Julian's youth, his command of the Roman forces in Gaul, and his emergence as sole ruler in the course of a dramatic march to Constantinople.

This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis in English of all the writings of Julian (r. AD 361-363), the last pagan emperor of Rome, noted for his frontal and self-conscious challenge to Christianity. The book also contains treatments of Julian's laws, inscriptions, coinage, as well as his artistic programme. Across nineteen papers, international specialists in the field of Late Antique Studies offer original interpretations of an extraordinary figure: emperor and philosopher, soldier and accomplished writer. Julian, his life and writings, are here considered as parts of the tumult in politics, culture and religion during the Fourth Century AD. New light is shed on Julian's distinctive literary style and imperial agenda. The volume also includes an up-to-date, consolidated bibliography.

The Roman emperor Julian (361-363) was raised as a Christian, but soon after apostatized, and, during his short reign, attempted to revive paganism. This provoked the anger of the Christians, who raised accusations against him as a persecutor. In The Last Pagan Emperor, these claims are carefully investigated.

On a snowy morning in 1908, Baltimore police try to identify the corpse of a teenage boy who has frozen to death. Hes not a Polack, one says, or a Heinie, or a Guinea. No, the other replies, hes an Izzy. Some forty years later, Jennifer Miller, a college junior, has no idea that this dead boy has been shadowing her life. Her father, Lee, a man of many talents, has long ago broken with his immigrant family; shed his religion; transplanted his wife and daughter; and decided to raise Jennifer a Protestant, exacting a pledge that she forget all about being Jewish. Lee has mentored her, indulged her, entertained her with wicked puns, and unintentionally strengthened her by forcing her to cope with his moods, rages, and elaborate schemes to substantiate his gentile identity. But now the obedient daughter has a new love in her life, a classmate, World War II veteran Cleve Hamilton, who one fateful day sat down next to her in church. She must decide whether to perpetuate the family lie or reveal the truth, as her father, reversing his past warnings, insists she must.

As Dame Frevisse and the nuns of St. Frideswide priory prepare for the end of Lent, their peaceful world is turned upside down by the arrival of Sister Cecely, a former nun who is seeking refuge, but her coming has also brought danger and possibly murder.