An Exploratory Study of Different Types of Violence Presented in Early Christian and Islamic Historical Documents

Abstract

Source documents for Islam and Christianity were analyzed for violent themes. The two religions both condemned criminal violence, and neither supported random violence. Nonviolence was more common in the Christian sources while active violence was much more common in the Islamic documents. Although violence themes are a very small proportion of the content of the documents of either religion, those who seek to justify active violence against perceived enemies may find more support for their actions in early Islamic sources than in early Christian sources. Results are interpreted from a perspective of symbolic interaction.