Editing Forced conversion

{{Short description|Adoption of a different religion or irreligion under duress}}
{{for|conversion of data types|Type punning}}
'''Forced conversion''' is the adoption of a [[religion]] or [[irreligion]] under [[Coercion|duress]].<ref>{{cite web |title=International Standards on Freedom of Religion or Belief |url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/freedomreligion/pages/standards.aspx#3 |website=Human Rights |publisher=United Nations |quote="Freedom from coercion" section: 1981 Declaration of the General Assembly Art. 1 (2): "No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have a religion or belief of his choice."Human Rights Committee general comment 22 Para . 5: "Article 18.2 bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert...The same protection is enjoyed by holders of all beliefs of a non-religious nature." |access-date=2021-09-29 |archive-date=2022-02-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220202192438/https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/Standards.aspx#3 |url-status=live }}</ref> Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which were originally held, while outwardly behaving as a convert. [[Crypto-Judaism|Crypto-Jews]], [[Crypto-Christianity|Crypto-Christians]], [[Crypto-Islam|Crypto-Muslims]], [[Crypto-Hinduism|Crypto-Hindus]] and [[Crypto-paganism|Crypto-Pagans]] are historical examples of the latter.

== Religion and proselytization ==
The religions of the world are divided into two groups: those that actively  seek new followers (missionary religions) and those that do not (non-missionary religions). This classification dates back to a lecture given by [[Max Müller]] in 1873, and is based on whether or not a religion seeks to gain new converts. The three main religions classified as missionary religions are [[Christianity]], [[Islam]], and [[Buddhism]], while the non-missionary religions include [[Judaism]], [[Hinduism]], and [[Zoroastrianism]]. Other religions, such as Primal Religions, [[Confucianism]], and [[Taoism]], may also be considered non-missionary religions.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Rambo |first1=Lewis R. |url= |title=The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion |last2=Farhadian |first2=Charles E. |date=2014-03-06 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-971354-7 |pages=429 |language=en}}</ref>

== Religion and power ==
In general, [[anthropologists]] have shown that the relationship between [[religion and politics]] is complex, especially when it is viewed over the expanse of [[human history]].<ref name=Firth>Firth, Raymond (1981) [https://www.jstor.org/stable/676754 Spiritual Aroma: Religion and Politics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210505172158/https://www.jstor.org/stable/676754 |date=2021-05-05 }}. ''American Anthropologist'', New Series, Vol. 83, No. 3, pp. 582–601</ref>

While religious leaders and the [[State (polity)|state]] generally have different aims, both are concerned about power and order; both use reason and emotion to motivate behavior. Throughout history, leaders of religious and political institutions have cooperated, opposed one another, and/or attempted to co-opt each other, for purposes which are both noble and base, and they have implemented programs with a wide range of driving values, from [[compassion]], which is aimed at alleviating current suffering, to brutal change, which is aimed at achieving long-term goals, for the benefit of groups which have ranged from small [[clique]]s to all of humanity. The relationship is far from simple. But religion has frequently been used in a coercive manner, and it has also used coercion.<ref name="Firth" />

== Buddhism ==
People may express their faith through the act of taking [[refuge in Buddhism|refuge]], and conversions usually require people to recite their acceptance of the [[Three Jewels and Three Roots|Triple Gems of Buddhism]]. However, they may always practice Buddhism without fully abandoning their own religion.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebuddhagarden.com/how-convert-buddhism.html|title=How to Convert to Buddhism - the Buddha Garden|access-date=2021-10-18|archive-date=2021-10-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211018160210/https://www.thebuddhagarden.com/how-convert-buddhism.html|url-status=live}}</ref> According to Chin Human Rights Organisation (CHRO), Christians from the [[Chin people|Chin ethnic minority group]] in [[Myanmar]] are facing coercion to convert to Buddhism by state actors and programmes.<ref>{{cite book|title='Threats to Our Existence': Persecution of Ethnic Chin Christians in Burma|url=https://burmacampaign.org.uk/media/Threats_to_Our_Existence.pdf|publisher=Chin Human Rights Organisation|year=2012}}</ref>

== Christianity ==
{{See also|Christianization|Conversion to Christianity|History of Christianity|Spread of Christianity|Christianity and colonialism}}
[[Early Christianity|Christianity]] was a [[minority religion]] during much of the middle [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[Classical antiquity|Classical Period]], and [[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|the early Christians were persecuted during that time]]. When [[Constantine the Great and Christianity|Constantine I converted to Christianity]], it had already grown to be the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Already under the reign of Constantine I, [[Heresy#Christianity|Christian heretics]] were being persecuted; beginning in the late 4th century, the [[Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire|ancient pagan religions were also actively suppressed]]. In the view of many historians, the [[Constantinian shift]] turned Christianity from a persecuted religion into a religion which was capable of persecuting and sometimes eager to persecute.<ref>see e.g. John Coffey, ''Persecution and Toleration on Protestant England 1558–1689'', 2000, p.22</ref>

=== Late Antiquity ===
{{See also|State church of the Roman Empire}}
On 27 February 380, together with [[Gratian]] and [[Valentinian II]], [[Theodosius I]] issued the decree ''Cunctos populos'', the so-called [[Edict of Thessalonica]], recorded in the [[Codex Theodosianus]] [[:la:s:Codex Theodosianus – Liber XVI#I.2|xvi.1.2]]. This declared [[Trinitarianism|Trinitarian]] [[Nicene Christianity]] to be the only legitimate imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself [[Catholic (term)|Catholic]]. Other Christians he described as "foolish madmen".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/theodcodexvi.asp|title=Internet History Sourcebooks Project|website=sourcebooks.fordham.edu|access-date=2021-07-11|archive-date=2021-07-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210711002002/https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/theodcodexvi.asp|url-status=live}}</ref> He also ended official state support for the traditional [[polytheist]] religions and customs.<ref name="KaylorPhillips2012">{{citation|author1=Noel Harold Kaylor|author2=Philip Edward Phillips|title=A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B_secKlFKB0C&pg=PA14|access-date=19 January 2013|date=3 May 2012|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-18354-4|pages=14–}}</ref>

The ''[[Codex Theodosianus]]'' (Eng. Theodosian Code) was a compilation of the [[Roman law|laws]] of the [[Roman Empire]] under the [[Christians|Christian]] emperors since 312. A commission was established by [[Theodosius II]] and his [[Tetrarchy|co-emperor]] [[Valentinian III]] on 26 March 429<ref name=Oxf>"Codex Theodosianus" in ''[[Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium|The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium]]'', [[Oxford University Press]], New York & Oxford, 1991, p. 475. {{ISBN|0195046528}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Codex_Theodosianus.html|title=LacusCurtius • Roman Law — Theodosian Code (Smith's Dictionary, 1875)|website=penelope.uchicago.edu|access-date=2021-02-19|archive-date=2022-02-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215150614/https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA%2A/Codex_Theodosianus.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and the compilation was published by a constitution of 15 February 438. It went into force in the eastern and western parts of the empire on 1 January 439.<ref name=Oxf/>

<blockquote>It is Our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans.... The rest, whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative (Codex Theodosianus XVI 1.2.).<ref>{{cite book |title=The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions |year=1952 |translator-last=Pharr |translator-first=Clyde}}, qtd. in {{cite web |last=Grout |first=James|url=http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/paganism.html |title=The End of Paganism |date=1 October 2014 |access-date=9 May 2017}}</ref>
</blockquote>

[[History of Jewish conversion to Christianity|Forced conversions of Jews]] were carried out with the support of rulers during [[Late Antiquity]] and the early [[Middle Ages]] in [[Gaul]], the [[Iberian Peninsula]] and in the [[Byzantine Empire]].<ref name=soyer>{{cite book|author=F.J.F. Soyer|title=The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7)|date=2007|publisher=Brill|isbn=9789047431558|url= http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789047431558|url-access=subscription |pages=3–4}}</ref>

In [[Gregory of Tours]]' writing, he claimed that the [[Vandals]] attempted to force all Spanish Catholics to become [[Arian Christians]] during their rule in Spain. Gregory also recounted episodes of forced conversion of Jews by [[Chilperic I]] and [[Avitus of Clermont]].<ref>Gregory of Tours, A history of the Franks, Pantianos Classics, 1916</ref>

=== Medieval western Europe ===
During the [[Saxon Wars]], [[Charlemagne]], [[King of the Franks]], forcibly converted the [[Saxons]] from their native [[Germanic paganism]] by way of warfare, and law upon conquest. Examples are the [[Massacre of Verden]] in 782, when Charlemagne reportedly had 4,500 captive Saxons massacred for rebelling,<ref name="Barbero2018">{{cite book|author=Alessandro Barbero|title=Charlemagne: Father of a Continent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QON8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46|date=23 February 2018|publisher=Univ of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-29721-0|pages=46–}}</ref> and the ''[[Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae]]'', a law imposed on conquered Saxons in 785, after another rebellion and destruction of churches and killing of missionary priests and monks,<ref name="Frassetto2013">{{cite book|author=Michael Frassetto|title=The Early Medieval World: From the Fall of Rome to the Time of Charlemagne &#91;2 Volumes&#93;|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6feKDfRM9sYC&pg=PA489|date=14 March 2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-996-7|pages=489–}}</ref> that prescribed death to those who refused to convert to Christianity.<ref name="CHARLEMAGNE">For the Massacre of Verden, see Barbero, Alessandro (2004).</ref>

Forced conversion that occurred after the seventh century generally took place during riots and massacres carried out by mobs and clergy without support of the rulers. In contrast, royal persecutions of Jews from the late eleventh century onward generally took the form of expulsions, with some exceptions, such as conversions of Jews in southern Italy of the 13th century, which were carried out by Dominican Inquisitors but instigated by King [[Charles II of Naples]].<ref name=soyer/>

Jews were forced to convert to Christianity by the Crusaders in Lorraine, on the Lower Rhine, in Bavaria and Bohemia, in Mainz and in Worms<ref>{{cite book|author=Abraham Joshua Heschel |author2=Joachim Neugroschel |author3=Sylvia Heschel|title=Maimonides: A Biography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ki6a7WsZYwMC&pg=PA43|page=43|publisher=Macmillan|year=1983|isbn=9780374517595}}</ref> (see [[Rhineland massacres]], [[Worms massacre (1096)]]).

Though he strongly condemned and prohibited forced conversion and baptism by decree,<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2008-12-20 |title=POPE INNOCENT III, On the Jews and Forced Baptisms (1199, 1201, 1209) |url=https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/pope-innocent-iii-on-the-jews-and-forced-baptisms-1199-and-1201 |access-date=2024-11-14 |website=ccjr.us |language=en-gb |archive-date=2024-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240527102738/https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/pope-innocent-iii-on-the-jews-and-forced-baptisms-1199-and-1201 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Pope Innocent III]] suggested in a private letter to a bishop in 1201<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.laits.utexas.edu/bodian/pp-weMakeTheLaw.html | title=Hist/J ST/RL ST 235 | access-date=2023-04-02 | archive-date=2023-04-02 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402040125/http://www.laits.utexas.edu/bodian/pp-weMakeTheLaw.html | url-status=live }}</ref> that those who agreed to be baptized to avoid torture and intimidation might be compelled to outwardly observe Christianity:<ref>Chazan, Robert, ed., Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages, West Orange, NJ:Behrman House, 1980, p. 103.</ref>

<blockquote>[T]hose who are immersed even though reluctant, do belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction at least by reason of the sacrament, and might therefore be reasonably compelled to observe the rules of the Christian Faith. It is, to be sure, contrary to the Christian Faith that anyone who is unwilling and wholly opposed to it should be compelled to adopt and observe Christianity. For this reason a valid distinction is made by some between kinds of unwilling ones and kinds of compelled ones. Thus one who is drawn to Christianity by violence, through fear and through torture, and receives the sacrament of Baptism in order to avoid loss, he (like one who comes to Baptism in dissimulation) does receive the impress of Christianity, and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling ...</blockquote>

During the 12th–13th century [[Northern Crusades]] against the pagan [[Baltic Finns|Finnic]], [[Balts|Baltic]], and [[West Slavs|West Slavic]] peoples around the [[Baltic Sea]] forced conversions were a widely used tactic, which received papal sanction.<ref>Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. pg. 71</ref> These tactics were first adopted during the [[Wendish Crusade]] and became more widespread during the [[Livonian Crusade]] and [[Prussian Crusade]], in which tactics included killing hostages, massacre, and devastation of the lands of tribes that had not yet submitted.<ref>Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. London: Penguin Books. pg. 95</ref> Most of the populations of these regions were converted only after the repeated rebellion of native populations that did not want to accept Christianity even after initial forced conversion; in Old Prussia, the tactics employed in the initial conquest and subsequent conversion of the territory resulted in the death of most of the native population, whose [[Old Prussian|language]] consequently became extinct.<ref>''The German Hansa'', P. Dollinger, page 34, 1999, Routledge</ref>

=== Early modern Iberian Peninsula ===
{{main|Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain}}
{{further|Morisco|Marrano|Spanish inquisition}}
After the end of [[Al-Andalus|Islamic control of Spain]], Jews were [[Alhambra Decree|expelled]] from Spain in 1492.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lowenstein |first=Steven |title=The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions |year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EWToS3VyqVMC&q=jewish+cultural+tapestry|isbn=9780195313604 }}</ref> In [[Portugal]], following an order for their expulsion in 1496, only a handful of them were allowed to leave and the rest of them were forced to convert.<ref>{{cite book|author=F.J.F. Soyer|title=The Persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal King Manuel I and the End of Religious Tolerance (1496–7)|date=2007|publisher=Brill|isbn=9789047431558|url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789047431558|url-access=subscription |pages=182}}</ref> [[Muslims]] [[Expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Portugal|were expelled]] from Portugal in 1497, and they were gradually forced to convert in the constituent kingdoms of Spain. The forced conversion of Muslims was implemented in the [[Crown of Castile]] from 1500 to 1502 and it was implemented in the [[Crown of Aragon]] in the 1520s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harvey |first=L. P. |title=Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614 |url=https://archive.org/details/muslimsinspain1500lple/page/64 |url-access=registration |date=16 May 2005 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-31963-6 |page=64}}</ref> After the conversions, the so-called "[[New Christian]]s" were those inhabitants ([[Sephardi]]c Jews or [[Mudéjar]] Muslims) who were baptized under coercion as well as in the face of execution, becoming forced converts from Islam ([[Morisco]]s, [[Converso]]s and "secret Moors") or converts from [[Judaism]] ([[Converso]]s, [[Crypto-Judaism|Crypto-Jews]] and [[Marrano]]s).

After the forced conversions, when all former Muslims and Jews had ostensibly become Catholic, the [[Spanish Inquisition|Spanish]] and [[Portuguese Inquisition]]s primarily targeted forced converts from Judaism and Islam, who came under suspicion, because they were either accused of continuing to adhere to their old religion, or they were accused of falling back into it. Jewish conversos who still resided in Spain and frequently practiced Judaism in secret were suspected of being Crypto-Jews by the "Old Christians". The Spanish Inquisition generated much wealth and income for the church and individual inquisitors by confiscating the property of the persecuted. The end of [[Al-Andalus]] and the [[Alhambra Decree|expulsion of the Sephardic Jews]] from the Iberian Peninsula went hand in hand with the increasing amount of Spanish and Portuguese influence in the world, influence which was exemplified by the Christian conquest of the aboriginal Indian populations of the Americas. The [[Ottoman Empire]] and [[Morocco]] absorbed most of the Jewish and Muslim refugees, but a large majority of them remained in Spain and Portugal by choosing to be Conversos.<ref>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110108184056/http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/news-archive/tag/inquisition |title=3000 Years of Sephardic History |website=The Jerusalem Connection, International |url=http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/news-archive/tag/inquisition |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 January 2011 |last=Neese |first=Shelley |date=17 November 2008 |access-date=9 May 2017}}</ref>

===European wars of religion=== 
{{See also|European wars of religion}}
[[Image:Le Dragon missionnaire.jpg|right|thumb|A Protestant political cartoon satirising the ''[[Dragonnades]]'' in France]]
The [[Peace of Augsburg]] (1555), signed by [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor]], stated that [[List of states in the Holy Roman Empire|German princes]] could choose the religion (Lutheranism or Catholicism) of their realms according to their conscience (the principle of ''[[cuius regio, eius religio]]''). .Subjects, citizens, or residents were generally forced to convert to their prince's religion, through a principle called ''ius reformandi''. Those who did not wish to conform to the prince's choice were given a grace period in which they were free to emigrate to different regions in which their desired religion had been accepted. However, [[Serfdom|serfs]] were essentially excluded from this right to emigrate.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Ius emigrandi of the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555) {{!}} German History Intersections |url=https://germanhistory-intersections.org/en/migration/ghis:document-58 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=germanhistory-intersections.org}}</ref>

After the [[Bohemian Revolt|defeat]] of the rebellious Protestant Estates of the [[Kingdom of Bohemia]] by the [[Habsburg monarchy]] at the [[Battle of White Mountain]] in 1620, the Habsburgs introduced a [[Counter-Reformation]] and forcibly converted all Bohemians, even the [[Utraquism|Utraquist]] Hussites, back to the Catholic Church. In 1624, Emperor [[Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor|Ferdinand II]] issued a patent that allowed only the Catholic religion in Bohemia.<ref>{{cite news |title=April 1624: Re-Catholicisation of Czech lands begins |url=https://english.radio.cz/april-1624-re-catholicisation-czech-lands-begins-8813203 |work=Radio Prague International |date=7 April 2024}}</ref> In the 1620s, Protestant nobility, burghers, and clergy of Bohemia and Austria were expelled from the Habsburg lands or converted to Catholicism, while peasants were forced to adopt the religion of their new Catholic masters.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Counter-Reformation and Protestant rebellion |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Czechoslovak-history/The-Counter-Reformation-and-Protestant-rebellion |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref>

The ''[[Dragonnades]]'' was a policy implemented by [[Louis XIV]] in 1681 to force [[Protestantism in France|French Protestants]] known as [[Huguenots]] to convert to Catholicism. The ''dragonnades'' caused Protestants to flee France, even before the [[Edict of Fontainebleau]] of 1685 revoked the religious rights granted them by the [[Edict of Nantes]].

===Colonial Americas=== 
During the [[European colonization of the Americas]], forced conversion of the continents' indigenous, non-Christian population was common, especially in [[South America]] and [[Mesoamerica]], where the conquest of large indigenous polities like the [[Inca]] and [[Aztec]] Empires placed colonizers in control of large non-Christian populations. According to some South American leaders and indigenous groups, there were cases among native populations of conversion under the threat of violence, often because they were compelled to after being conquered, and that the Catholic Church cooperated with civil authority to achieve this end.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fisher |first1=Ian |title=Pope Concedes Unjustifiable Crimes in Converting South Americans |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/americas/24pope.html |website=New York Times |date=May 24, 2007 |access-date=August 9, 2020 |archive-date=November 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101120212/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/americas/24pope.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Russia===
Upon converting to Christianity in the 10th century, [[Vladimir the Great]], the ruler of [[Kievan Rus']], ordered Kiev's citizens to undergo a mass baptism in the Dnieper river.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus' to 1689|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|editor=Maureen Perrie|page=66}}</ref>

In the 13th century the pagan populations of the [[Baltics]] faced campaigns of forcible conversion by crusading knight corps such as the [[Livonian Brothers of the Sword]] and the [[Teutonic Order]], which often meant simply dispossessing these populations of their lands and property.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ef2cAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|title=Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland|publisher=Britannica Educational Publishing|page=48|isbn=9781615309917|date=2013-06-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Latvia: A Short History|author=Mara Kalnins|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHpeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT55|page=55|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2015|isbn=9781849046060}}</ref>

After [[Ivan the Terrible]]'s conquest of the [[Khanate of Kazan]], the Muslim population faced slaughter, expulsion, forced resettlement and conversion to Christianity.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 1, From Early Rus' to 1689|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|editor=Maureen Perrie|pages=319–320}}</ref>

In the 18th century, [[Elizabeth of Russia]] launched a campaign of forced conversion of Russia's non-Orthodox subjects, including Muslims and Jews.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 2, Imperial Russia, 1689–1917|editor=Dominic Lieven|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzR0cmnP3J8C&pg=PA186|page=186|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|isbn=9780521815291}}</ref>

=== Goa Inquisition ===
{{Main|Goa Inquisition}}
The Portuguese carried out the [[Christianisation of Goa]] in India in the 16th and 17th centuries. The majority of the natives of Goa had converted to Christianity by the end of the 16th century. The Portuguese rulers had implemented state policies encouraging and even rewarding conversions among [[Hindu]] subjects. The rapid rise of converts in Goa was mostly the result of Portuguese economic and political control over the Hindus, who were vassals of the Portuguese crown.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mendonça |first1=Délio de |title=Conversions and Citizenry: Goa Under Portugal, 1510-1610 |date=2002 |publisher=Concept Publishing Company |isbn=978-81-7022-960-5 |page=397 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mh3kKf0VSfQC&pg=PA397 |language=en}}</ref>

In 1567, the conversion of the majority of the native villagers to Christianity allowed the Portuguese to destroy temples in [[Bardez]], with 300 Hindu temples destroyed. Prohibitions were then declared from December 4, 1567, on public performances of Hindu marriages, sacred thread wearing and cremation. All persons above 15 years of age were compelled to listen to Christian preaching, failing which they were punished. In 1583, Hindu temples at [[Assolna]] and [[Cuncolim]] were also destroyed by the Portuguese army after the majority of the native villagers there had also converted to Christianity.<ref name="Machado">{{cite book
|title=Sarasvati's Children: A History of the Mangalorean Christians
|first=Alan
|last=Machado Prabhu
|publisher=I.J.A. Publications
|date=1999}}</ref>{{verify source|date=February 2024}}
"The fathers of the Church forbade the Hindus under terrible penalties the use of their own sacred books, and prevented them from all exercise of their religion. They destroyed their temples, and so harassed and interfered with the people that they abandoned the city in large numbers, refusing to remain any longer in a place where they had no liberty, and were liable to imprisonment, torture and death if they worshiped after their own fashion the gods of their fathers", wrote [[Filippo Sassetti]], who was in India from 1578 to 1588.<ref>{{cite book
|title=Essays in Goan History
|first=Teotonio
|last=de Souza
|date=1989
|publisher=Concept Publishing Company}}
</ref>

=== Papal States ===
{{Main|Papal States under Pope Pius IX#Protestants and Jews}}
In 1858, [[Edgardo Mortara]] was taken from his Jewish parents and raised as a Catholic, because he had been baptized by a maid without his parents' consent or knowledge. This incident was called the [[Mortara case]].

===Serbs during World War II in Yugoslavia===
During [[World War II in Yugoslavia]], [[Serbian Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] [[Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia|Serbs were forcibly converted]] to Catholicism by the [[Fascism|fascist]] [[Ustaše]] movement.<ref name="Ramet2011">{{cite book|author=Sabrina P. Ramet|title=Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gkiEDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA237|date=31 October 2011|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-0-230-34781-6|pages=237–}}</ref><ref name="Yeomans2013">{{cite book|author=Rory Yeomans|title=Visions of Annihilation: The Ustasha Regime and the Cultural Politics of Fascism, 1941–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yxv4-iqVe2wC&pg=PA21|date=April 2013|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre|isbn=978-0-8229-7793-3|pages=21–}}</ref>

== Hinduism ==

Hindu nationalist groups in southern [[Chhattisgarh]], namely the [[Bastar division|Bastar subregion]], have forced Christian converts to revert back to Hinduism.<ref>{{cite web | title=India: Hindu nationalists force religious conversions – DW – 08/11/2025 | website=[[Deutsche Welle]] | url=https://www.dw.com/en/india-hindu-nationalists-force-religious-conversions/video-73595938 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250821074632/https://www.dw.com/en/india-hindu-nationalists-force-religious-conversions/video-73595938 | archive-date=21 August 2025 }}</ref><ref name="revert">the word revert is used in this context; not convert; see [https://www.jstor.org/stable/4413900 Older than the Church: Christianity and Caste in The God of Small Things India] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326183522/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4413900 |date=2018-03-26 }} by A Sekhar;[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/11/proselytism-on-the-table Washington Times article] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100925055400/http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/11/proselytism-on-the-table/ |date=2010-09-25 }}</ref> [[Hindu nationalist]] groups at [[Agra, Uttar Pradesh]], have reportedly used allurements to convert poor Muslims and Christians to Hinduism against their will.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30429118|title=Indian Agra Muslim fear conversions to Hinduism|newspaper=BBC News|access-date=May 5, 2015|date=2014-12-11|archive-date=2015-05-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517172536/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30429118|url-status=live}}</ref>

Apart from the incidents above, there are other reports of forced conversions of [[Christians in India|Christians]] and [[Muslims in India]] to [[Hinduism]]. Some of them were converted under duress or against their will, specifically through the [[Ghar Wapsi#Reception|Ghar Wapsi]] ("returning home") scheme by [[Hindu extremists]], such as [[Shiv Sena (1966–2022)|Shiv Sena]], the [[Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP)]] & also by the [[political party]] of the [[Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.christiantoday.com/article/hindu.extremists.threaten.to.kill.christians.in.india.if.they.utter.the.name.of.christ/63567.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150902194718/https://www.christiantoday.com/article/hindu.extremists.threaten.to.kill.christians.in.india.if.they.utter.the.name.of.christ/63567.htm | archive-date=2 September 2015 | title=Hindu extremists threaten to kill Christians in India if they 'utter the name of Christ' | date=September 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://fsspx.news/en/news/india-accelerates-forced-conversions-42406 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240222204059/https://fsspx.news/en/news/india-accelerates-forced-conversions-42406 | archive-date=22 February 2024 | title=India Accelerates Forced Conversions &#124; FSSPX News | date=13 February 2024 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.ucanews.com/news/christians-face-conversion-threat-in-riot-hit-indian-state/101401 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524053837/https://www.ucanews.com/amp/christians-face-conversion-threat-in-riot-hit-indian-state/101401 | archive-date=24 May 2023 | title=Christians face conversion threat in riot-hit Indian state - UCA News }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.newsclick.in/Misuse-PESA-Act-Ghar-Wapsi-Chhattisgarh-Tribal-Christians-Report | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230222072516/https://www.newsclick.in/Misuse-PESA-Act-Ghar-Wapsi-Chhattisgarh-Tribal-Christians-Report | archive-date=22 February 2023 | title='Misuse' of PESA Act in Ghar Wapsi of Chhattisgarh Tribal Christians: Report | newspaper=Newsclick | date=21 February 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/19/orissa-violence-india-christianity-hinduism | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160408003257/https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/19/orissa-violence-india-christianity-hinduism | archive-date=8 April 2016 | title=Convert or we will kill you, Hindu lynch mobs tell fleeing Christians &#124; India &#124; the Guardian | work=The Observer | date=18 October 2008 | last1=Chamberlain | first1=Gethin }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-indias-christians-and-muslims-forced-to-become-hindus | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170605031925/https://www.thedailybeast.com/are-indias-christians-and-muslims-forced-to-become-hindus | archive-date=5 June 2017 | title=Are India's Christians and Muslims Forced to Become Hindus? | newspaper=The Daily Beast | date=29 January 2015 | last1=Thakur | first1=Udit }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://qantara.de/en/article/conversion-christians-and-muslims-india-homecoming-or-forced-conversion | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231224022213/https://qantara.de/en/article/conversion-christians-and-muslims-india-homecoming-or-forced-conversion | archive-date=24 December 2023 | title=Conversion of Christians and Muslims in India: Homecoming or forced conversion? &#124; Qantara.de | date=16 March 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30573796 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250614095530/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-30573796 | archive-date=14 June 2025 | title=India parliament uproar over conversions by Hindu groups | work=BBC News | date=22 December 2014 }}</ref> In 2014, Cardinal [[Baselios Cleemis]] protested the forced conversions to Hinduism, that happened through the Ghar Wapsi ("homecoming") scheme, in [[Uttar Pradesh|Uttar Pradesh (UP)]], [[Gujarat]] & [[Kerala]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/12/30/cardinal-protests-against-forced-conversion-of-christians-to-hinduism/|title=CatholicHerald.co.uk » Cardinal protests against forced conversions to Hinduism|newspaper=Catholic Herald |access-date=May 5, 2015|date=2014-12-30|archive-date=2015-05-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150506134936/http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/12/30/cardinal-protests-against-forced-conversion-of-christians-to-hinduism/|url-status=live}}</ref>  The Shiv Sena has said that [[India]] or [[Hindustan]] is not the homeland of Muslims and Christians.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Nationalist-party:-India-is-not-a-country-for-Christians-42188.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171030210925/https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Nationalist-party:-India-is-not-a-country-for-Christians-42188.html | archive-date=30 October 2017 | title=Nationalist party: India is not a country for Christians }}</ref> Some Hindu extremist groups like the [[Bajrang Dal]] and [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)]], have called for [[mass killing]]s of Christians<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/hindu-extremists-threaten-genocide-against-christians | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250614100851/https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/hindu-extremists-threaten-genocide-against-christians | archive-date=14 June 2025 | title=Hindu Extremists Threaten Genocide Against Christians | date=24 February 2025 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://politicstoday.org/the-hindutva-war-on-christians-in-india/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220112155521/https://politicstoday.org/the-hindutva-war-on-christians-in-india/ | archive-date=12 January 2022 | title=The Hindutva War on Christians in India | date=12 January 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Why India is witnessing spike in attacks on Christians, churches | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/2/india-christians-church-hindu-groups-bjp-conversion | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250711111142/https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/12/2/india-christians-church-hindu-groups-bjp-conversion | archive-date=11 July 2025 }}</ref> & the [[Hindu Mahasabha]] has called for the massacres or [[population control|forced sterilisation]]s of Muslims.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/asia/india-hindu-extremist-groups-intl-hnk-dst/index.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220115003438/https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/14/asia/india-hindu-extremist-groups-intl-hnk-dst/index.html | archive-date=2022-01-15 | title=India's Hindu extremists are calling for genocide against Muslims. Why is little being done to stop them? | website=[[CNN]] | date=15 January 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-01-18 |title=Hindu extremists in India escalate rhetoric with calls to kill Muslims |website=[[NBC News]] |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hindu-extremists-india-escalate-rhetoric-calls-kill-muslims-rcna12450 |access-date=2024-11-14 |archive-date=2022-01-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118095434/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hindu-extremists-india-escalate-rhetoric-calls-kill-muslims-rcna12450 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-27 |title=Has the Hindu majority developed a 'Nazi conscience' in India? - The Loop |url=https://theloop.ecpr.eu/has-the-hindu-majority-developed-a-nazi-conscience-in-india-nationalism/ |access-date=2024-11-14 |archive-date=2023-09-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230927013117/https://theloop.ecpr.eu/has-the-hindu-majority-developed-a-nazi-conscience-in-india-nationalism/ |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>

The monitoring or policing of conversions through [[anti-conversion law]]s, has undermined the [[freedom of religion]] in multiple [[states and territories of India]].<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20251218051006/https://ijlr.iledu.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/V5I875.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=December 2025}}</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20250428175431/https://ijrti.org/papers/IJRTI2502042.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=India Needs to Overhaul Laws on Interfaith Marriage and Religious Conversion &#124; NewsClick | work=NewsClick | date=30 May 2021 | url=https://www.newsclick.in/india-needs-overhaul-laws-interfaith-marriage-and-religious-conversion | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231004214956/https://www.newsclick.in/india-needs-overhaul-laws-interfaith-marriage-and-religious-conversion | archive-date=4 October 2023 }}</ref> Since 2024 in Gujarat, conversion from Hinduism to [[Buddhism in India|Buddhism]], [[Jainism]] & [[Sikhism]] require prior permission or approval of the state.<ref>{{cite web | title=Hindus need approval before converting to Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, says Gujarat government | date=11 April 2024 | url=https://scroll.in/latest/1066512/hindus-need-prior-approval-for-converting-to-buddhism-sikhism-jainism-says-gujarat-government | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251218051714/https://amp.scroll.in/latest/1066512/hindus-need-prior-approval-for-converting-to-buddhism-sikhism-jainism-says-gujarat-government28900976.html | archive-date=18 December 2025 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism separate from Hinduism; Gujarat govt asks Hindus to seek permission to convert &#124; Today News | date=11 April 2024 | url=https://www.livemint.com/news/india/buddhism-sikhism-jainism-separate-from-hinduism-gujarat-govt-asks-hindus-to-seek-permission-to-convert-11712828900976.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250611023353/https://www.livemint.com/news/india/buddhism-sikhism-jainism-separate-from-hinduism-gujarat-govt-asks-hindus-to-seek-permission-to-convert/amp-11712828900976.html | archive-date=11 June 2025 }}</ref> Also, the [[Rashtriya Sikh Sangat]] formed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has claimed that Sikhism is a "colonial construct" or "conspiracy" of [[British India]] & that Sikhs were "Hindu" during the Muslim period ([[Moghal Empire]]).<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20180416202953/https://caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/rss-dangerous-position-lingayat</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20191016022856/https://caravanmagazine.in/excerpt/akal-takht-rss-ban-hindu-sikh</ref>

== Islam ==
{{See also|History of Islam|Spread of Islam|Conversion to Islam|Takfiri|Apostasy in Islam#Punishment|Persecution of non-Muslims|Takfir|Islamic Statism|Islamic State|Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)|Taliban|Boko Haram|Al-Shabaab (militant group)|Kafir|Yazidi genocide|Persecution of Christians by the Islamic State|Coerced religious conversion in Pakistan}}

=== Against Christians ===
After the Arab conquests, a number of Christian Arab tribes suffered enslavement and forced conversion.<ref name="Le'Expansion Nestorienne en Asie">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=usPvoAEACAAJ|title=Le'Expansion Nestorienne en Asie|pages=106–13|isbn=9781611438321 |last1=Nau |first1=François |date=13 November 2013 |publisher=Gorgias Press, LLC }}</ref>

The [[Teaching of Jacob]] (written soon after the death of Muhammad), is one of the earliest records on Islam and "implies that Muslims tried, on threat of death to make Christians abjure Christianity and accept Islam.”<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IvPVEb17uzkC|title=Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests|date=30 March 1995 |page=109|publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-48455-8 }}</ref>

=== Jizya and conversion ===

Non-Muslims were required to pay the ''jizya'' while pagans were either required to accept Islam, pay the jizya, be exiled, or be killed, depending on which of the four main [[Madhhab|schools of Islamic law]] their conqueror followed.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Islam |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islam |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |location=New York |date=17 August 2021 |access-date=12 January 2022 |archive-date=4 May 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150504201633/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/295507/Islam |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928010649/http://www.islam-qa.com/index.php?ref=34770&ln=eng] - Islam Q&A (Archived), Fatwa No. 34770</ref> Some historians believe that forced conversion was rare in early Islamic history,<ref name="W53">Waines (2003) "An Introduction to Islam" ''Cambridge University Press''. p. 53</ref><ref name=bonner>{{cite book|author=Michael Bonner|title=Jihad in Islamic History|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2008|pages= 89–90|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qxq7eykoJgoC&pg=PA89|quote=To begin with, there was no forced conversion, no choice between "Islam and the Sword". Islamic law, following a clear Quranic principle (2:256), prohibited any such things [...] although there have been instances of forced conversion in Islamic history, these have been exceptional.|isbn=978-1400827381}}</ref><ref name="Ira">{{cite book|title=Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History|author=Ira M. Lapidus|page=345}}</ref> and most conversions to Islam were voluntary.<ref name="Ira" /> Muslim rulers were often more interested in conquest than conversion.<ref name="Ira" /> [[Ira M. Lapidus|Ira Lapidus]] points towards "interwoven terms of political and economic benefits and of a sophisticated culture and religion" as appealing to the masses. He writes that:<blockquote>The question of why people convert to Islam has always generated the intense feeling. Earlier generations of European scholars believed that conversions to Islam were made at the point of the sword, and that conquered peoples were given the choice of conversion or death. It is now apparent that conversion by force, while not unknown in Muslim countries, was, in fact, rare. Muslim conquerors ordinarily wished to dominate rather than convert, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary. (...) In most cases, worldly and spiritual motives for conversion blended together. Moreover, conversion to Islam did not necessarily imply a complete turning from an old to a totally new life. While it entailed the acceptance of new religious beliefs and membership in a new religious community, most converts retained a deep attachment to the cultures and communities from which they came.<ref>{{Cite book|title=A History of Islamic Societies|publisher=Ira M. Lapidus|year=1988|isbn=0521225523|pages=Lapidus, 271}}</ref></blockquote>[[Ulama|Muslim scholars]] like [[Abu Hanifa]] and [[Abu Yusuf]] stated that the ''[[jizya]]'' tax should be paid by [[Kafir|Non-Muslims]] (''Kuffar'') regardless of their religion, some later and also earlier [[Faqīh|Muslim jurists]] did not permit Non-Muslims who are not [[People of the Book|People of the Book or Ahle-Kitab]] (Jews, Christians, Sabians) pay the ''jizya''. Instead, they only allowed them (non-[[People of the Book|Ahle-Kitab]]) to avoid death by choosing to convert to Islam.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress|volume=9|title=Political conditions of the Hindus under the Khaljis|publisher=[[Indian History Congress]]|author=Kishori Saran Lal|pages= 232|author-link=Kishori Saran Lal}}</ref> Of the [[Madhhab|four schools of Islamic jurisprudence]], the [[Hanafi]] and [[Maliki]] schools allow polytheists to be granted ''[[dhimmi]]'' status, except [[Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia|Arab polytheists]]. However, the [[Shafi'i]], [[Hanbali]] and [[Zahiri]] schools only consider [[Christians]], [[Jews]], and [[Sabians]] to be eligible to belong to the ''dhimmi'' category.<ref name="Bowering">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zaqgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA128|editor= Gerhard Bowering|title=Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction|year=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|pages=127–128 |isbn= 9781400866427}}</ref>

[[Wael Hallaq]] states that in theory, Islamic [[religious tolerance]] only applied to those religious groups that [[Fiqh|Islamic jurisprudence]] considered to be monotheistic "People of the Book", i.e. Christians, Jews, and Sabians if they paid the ''jizya'' tax, while to those excluded from the "People of the Book" were only offered two choices: convert to Islam or fight to the death. In practice, the "People of the Book" designation and ''dhimmi'' status were even extended to the non-monotheistic religions of the conquered peoples, such as [[Hinduism|Hindus]], [[Jainism|Jains]], [[Buddhism|Buddhists]], and other non-monotheists.<ref name=hallaq>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVJsAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA327|author=Wael B. Hallaq|author-link = Wael Hallaq|title=Sharī'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations|year=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=327–328 |isbn=9780521861472}}</ref>

=== Druze ===

The [[Druze]] have frequently experienced persecution by different Muslim regimes such as the [[Shia]] [[Fatimid Caliphate|Ismaili Fatimid State]],<ref>{{cite book|title=The Druze between Palestine and Israel 1947–49| first=L.|last=Parsons|year= 2000| isbn= 9780230595989| page = 2|publisher=Springer|quote= With the succession of al-Zahir to the Fatimid caliphate a mass persecution (known by the Druze as the period of the ''mihna'') of the Muwaḥḥidūn was instigated ... }}</ref> [[Mamluk]],<ref>{{Cite book |title=Origins of the Druze People and Religion |first=Philip Khūri |last=Hitti |year=1924 |isbn=978-1-60506-068-2 |access-date=4 April 2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B_YJAvND0RwC |publisher=Forgotten Books}}</ref> [[Sunni]] [[Ottoman Empire]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]| first=Spencer C. |last= C. Tucker|year= 2019| isbn= 9781440853531| pages = 364–366|publisher=ABC-CLIO}}</ref> and [[Egypt Eyalet]].<ref>Taraze Fawaz, Leila. ''An occasion for war: civil conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860''. p.63.</ref><ref name=goren>Goren, Haim. ''Dead Sea Level: Science, Exploration and Imperial Interests in the Near East.'' p.95-96.</ref> The persecution of the Druze included [[massacre]]s, demolishing Druze prayer houses and holy places and forced conversion to Islam.<ref>{{cite book|title=Middle East Conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st Century: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]| first=Spencer C. |last= C. Tucker|year= 2019| isbn= 9781440853531| page = 364|publisher=ABC-CLIO}}</ref> Those were no ordinary killings and massacres in the Druze's narrative, they were meant to eradicate the whole community according to the Druze narrative.<ref>{{cite book|title= Middle Eastern Minorities: The Impact of the Arab Spring|first=Ibrahim|last=Zabad|year= 2017| isbn= 9781317096726|publisher=Routledge}}</ref>

=== Early period ===
{{main|Early history of Islam}}
{{further|Early Muslim conquests|Spread of Islam}}

The [[Ridda Wars|wars of the Ridda]] (lit. [[Apostasy in Islam|apostasy]]) undertaken by [[Abu Bakr]], the first [[caliph]] of the [[Rashidun Caliphate|''Rashidun'' Caliphate]], against [[Tribes of Arabia|Arab tribes]] who had accepted Islam but refused to pay Zakat and Jizya Tax, have been described by some historians as an instance of forced conversion<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Conversion|author=Richard W. Bullient|editor=Gerhard Böwering, Patricia Crone|encyclopedia=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2013}}</ref> or "reconversion".<ref name=lewis2002>{{Cite book|first=Bernard|last=Lewis| author-link = Bernard Lewis | year=2002 | title=Arabs in History|publisher=Oxford University Press (Kindle edition) | page=50}}</ref> The rebellion of these Arab tribes was less a relapse to the [[Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia|pre-Islamic Arabian religion]] than termination of a political contract they had made with [[Muhammad]].<ref name=lewis2002/> Some of these tribal leaders claimed prophethood, bringing themselves in direct conflict with the Muslim Caliphate.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ridda Wars|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Ridda_Wars/|access-date=2021-06-25|website=World History Encyclopedia|date=5 June 2020 |language=en|archive-date=2021-06-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625174127/https://www.worldhistory.org/Ridda_Wars/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Two out of the four schools of Islamic law, i.e. Hanafi and Maliki schools, accepted non-Arab polytheists to be eligible for the ''dhimmi'' status. Under this doctrine, [[Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia|Arab polytheists]] were forced to choose between conversion and death. However, according to perception of most Muslim jurists, all Arabs had embraced Islam during the lifetime of Muhammad. Their exclusion therefore had little practical significance after his death in 632.<ref name=Bowering/>

Arab historian [[Al-Baladhuri]] says that Caliph [[Umar]] deported Christians who refused to apostatize and convert to Islam, and that he obeyed the order of the prophet who advised: “there shall not remain two religions in the land of Arabia.”<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pN8TAAAAIAAJ|title=The Origins of the Islamic State, Being a Translation from the Arabic, Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitâb Fitûh Al-buldân of Al-Imâm Abu-l Abbâs Ahmad Ibn-Jâbir Al-Balâdhuri|date=1916 |page=103|publisher=Columbia university }}</ref>

In the 9th century, the [[Samaritans|Samaritan population]] of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] faced persecution and attempts at forced conversion at the hands of the rebel leader ibn Firāsa, against whom they were defended by [[Abbasid Caliphate|Abbasid caliphal]] troops.<ref>{{cite book|author=Moshe Gil|title=A History of Palestine, 634–1099|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tSM4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA822|publisher=CUP Archive|page=822|year=1992|isbn=9780521404372}}</ref> Historians recognize that during the [[Early Middle Ages]], the Christian populations living in the [[Early Muslim conquests|lands invaded by the Arab Muslim armies]] between the 7th and 10th centuries suffered [[religious discrimination]], [[religious persecution]], [[religious violence]], and [[Martyrdom in Christianity|martyrdom]] multiple times at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers.<ref name="Sahner 2020">{{cite book |last=Sahner |first=Christian C. |year=2020 |orig-year=2018 |title=Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World |chapter=Introduction: Christian Martyrs under Islam |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZqzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] and [[Woodstock, Oxfordshire]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |pages=1–28 |isbn=978-0-691-17910-0 |lccn=2017956010}}</ref><ref name="Runciman 1987">{{cite book |last=Runciman |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Runciman |year=1987 |orig-year=1951 |chapter=The Reign of Antichrist |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uDj9sNezWzEC&pg=PA20 |title=[[A History of the Crusades|A History of the Crusades, Volume 1: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem]] |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |pages=20–37 |isbn=978-0-521-34770-9}}</ref> As [[People of the Book]], Christians under Muslim rule were subjected to ''[[dhimmi]]'' status (along with [[Jews]], [[Samaritans]], [[Gnostics]], [[Mandeans]], and [[Zoroastrians]]), which was inferior to the status of Muslims.<ref name="Runciman 1987"/><ref name="Stillman 1998">{{cite book |last=Stillman |first=Norman A. |author-link=Norman Stillman |year=1998 |orig-date=1979 |title=The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book |chapter=Under the New Order |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bFN2ismyhEYC&pg=PA22 |location=[[Philadelphia]] |publisher=[[Jewish Publication Society]] |pages=22–28 |isbn=978-0-8276-0198-7}}</ref> Christians and other religious minorities thus faced [[religious discrimination]] and [[religious persecution]] in that they were banned from [[Proselytism|proselytising]] (for Christians, it was forbidden to [[Evangelism|evangelize or spread Christianity]]) in the lands invaded by the Arab Muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, undertaking certain professions, and were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs.<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Under ''[[sharia]]'', Non-Muslims were obligated to pay ''[[jizya]]'' and ''[[kharaj]]'' taxes,<ref name="Runciman 1987"/><ref name="Stillman 1998"/> together with periodic heavy [[ransom]] levied upon Christian communities by Muslim rulers in order to fund military campaigns, all of which contributed a significant proportion of income to the Islamic states while conversely reducing many Christians to poverty, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam.<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Christians unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the Muslim rulers as payment who would [[History of slavery in the Muslim world|sell them as slaves]] to Muslim households where they were forced to convert to Islam.<ref name="Stillman 1998"/> Many Christian martyrs were executed for defending their Christian faith through dramatic acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, [[Apostasy in Islam|repudiation of the Islamic religion]] and subsequent [[Conversion to Christianity|reconversion to Christianity]], and [[Islam and blasphemy|blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs]].<ref name="Sahner 2020"/>

===Umayyad Caliphate===
After the Arab conquests a number of Christian Arab tribes suffered [[slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate|enslavement]] and forced conversion.<ref name="Le'Expansion Nestorienne en Asie"/>

During the rise of the Islamic Caliphates, it was increasingly expected for all Arabs to be Muslims and pressure was put on many to convert.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EMvMCQAAQBAJ | title=Envisioning Islam: Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World|page=59 | isbn=9780812291445 | last1=Penn | first1=Michael Philip | date=5 June 2015 | publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press}}</ref> The Umayyad Caliph [[Al-Walid I]] said to Shamala, the Christian Arab leader of the Banu [[Taghlib]]: "As you are a chief of the Arabs you shame them all by worshipping the cross; obey my wish and turn Muslim." He replied, 'How so? I am chief of Taghlib, and I fear lest I become a cause of destruction to them all if I and they cease to believe in christ" Enraged Al-Walid had him dragged away on his face and tortured; afterward he commanded him again to convert to Islam or else prepare to "eat his own flesh." The Christian Arab again refused, and the order was carried out: Walid's servants "cut off a slice from Shamala's thigh and roasted it in the fire, and they thrust it into his mouth" and he was blinded during this as well. This event is confirmed by the Muslim historian [[Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani]]<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Sg5dDwAAQBAJ|title=Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World|page=257|isbn=978-0-691-18418-0 |last1=Sahner |first1=Christian C. |date=14 August 2018 |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yTGMAQAAQBAJ|title=Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of the Covenant of 'Umar|page=78|isbn=978-1-134-53790-7 |last1=Tritton |first1=A. S. |date=18 October 2013 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HgO2AAAAIAAJ|title=Journal of Indian History: Volumes 5-6|date=1926 |page=54}}</ref>

In the early eighth century under the Umayyads, 63 out of a group of 70 Christian pilgrims from [[Iconium]] were captured, tortured, and executed under the orders of the Arab Governor of Ceaserea for refusing to convert to Islam (seven were forcibly converted to Islam under torture). Soon afterwards, sixty more Christian pilgrims from [[Amorium]] were crucified in Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tSM4AAAAIAAJ|title=A History of Palestine, 634-1099|page=473|isbn=9780521599849 |last1=Gil |first1=Moshe |date=27 February 1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

=== Almohad Caliphate ===
{{main|Spain in the Middle Ages|Slavery in the Almohad Caliphate}}
There were forced conversions in the 12th century under the [[Almohad Caliphate|Almohad dynasty]] of [[North Africa]] and [[al-Andalus]], who suppressed the ''[[dhimmi]]'' status of Jews and Christians and gave them the choice between conversion, exile, and being executed. The treatment and [[Persecution of Jews|persecution]] of [[History of the Jews in Spain|Jews]] under Almohad rule was a drastic change.<ref name="Verskin 2020">{{cite book |author-last=Verskin |author-first=Alan |year=2020 |chapter=Medieval Jewish Perspectives on Almohad Persecutions: Memory, Repression, and Impact |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ph24DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA155 |editor1-last=García-Arenal |editor1-first=Mercedes |editor2-last=Glazer-Eytan |editor2-first=Yonatan |title=Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond |location=[[Leiden]] and [[Boston]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Numen Book Series |volume=164 |pages=155–172 |doi=10.1163/9789004416826_008 |isbn=978-90-04-41681-9 |s2cid=211666012 |issn=0169-8834}}</ref> Prior to Almohad rule during the [[Caliphate of Córdoba]], Jewish culture experienced a [[Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain|Golden Age]]. [[María Rosa Menocal]], a specialist in Iberian literature at [[Yale University]], has argued that "tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society", and that the Jewish ''dhimmi''s living under the Caliphate, while allowed fewer rights than Muslims, were still better off than in [[Christian Europe]].<ref>María Rosa Menocal, [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/473322183 ''The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval Spain'']</ref> Many Jews migrated to ''al-Andalus'', where they were not just tolerated but allowed to practice their faith openly. Christians had also practiced their religion openly in Córdoba, and both Jews and Christians lived openly in Morocco as well.

The first Almohad ruler, Abd al-Mumin, allowed an initial seven-month [[grace period]].<ref name="ugr">Amira K. Bennison and María Ángeles Gallego. "[http://www.ugr.es/~estsemi/miscelanea/57/3.Gallego.08,33-51.pdf Jewish Trading in Fes On The Eve of the Almohad Conquest] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303202838/http://www.ugr.es/~estsemi/miscelanea/57/3.Gallego.08,33-51.pdf |date=2016-03-03 }}."  MEAH, sección Hebreo 56 (2007), 33–51</ref> Then he [[#Islam|forced]] most of the urban ''dhimmi'' population in Morocco, both Jewish and Christian, to convert to Islam.<ref name= Viguera>M.J. Viguera, "Almohads". In ''Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World'', Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. First published online: 2010 First print edition: {{ISBN|978-90-04-17678-2}}, 2014</ref> In 1198, the Almohad emir [[Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur]] decreed that Jews must wear a dark blue garb, with very large sleeves and a grotesquely oversized hat;<ref name="Silverman 2013">{{cite book |last=Silverman |first=Eric |author-link=Eric Silverman |year=2013 |chapter=Bitter Bonnets and Badges |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nZYdAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA48 |title=A Cultural History of Jewish Dress |location=[[London]] and [[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |pages=47–48 |isbn=978-1-84520-513-3}}</ref> his son altered the colour to [[Yellow badge|yellow]], a change that may have influenced Catholic ordinances some time later.<ref name="Silverman 2013"/> Those who converted [[Jewish religious clothing|had to wear clothing that identified them as Jews]] since they were not regarded as sincere Muslims.<ref name= Viguera/> Cases of [[Martyrdom in Judaism|mass martyrdom of Jews]] who refused to convert to Islam are recorded.<ref name="ugr"/>

Many of the conversions were superficial. [[Maimonides]] urged Jews to choose the superficial conversion over martyrdom and argued, "Muslims know very well that we do not mean what we say, and that what we say is only to escape the ruler's punishment and to satisfy him with this simple confession."<ref name="Verskin 2020"/><ref name=Viguera/> [[Abraham Ibn Ezra]] (1089–1164), who himself fled the persecutions of the Almohads, composed an elegy mourning the destruction of many Jewish communities throughout Spain and the Maghreb under the Almohads.<ref name="Verskin 2020"/><ref>Ross Brann, ''Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain'', Princeton University Press, 2009, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ox7L8lO9YnMC&pg=PA123 pp. 121–122.]</ref> Many Jews fled from territories ruled by the Almohads to Christian lands, and others, like the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands.<ref name=frank>Frank and Leaman, 2003, pp. 137–138.</ref> However, a few Jewish traders still working in North Africa are recorded.<ref name="ugr"/>

The treatment and [[Muslim persecution of Christians|persecution]] of [[Christians]] under Almohad rule was a drastic change as well.<ref name="Wasserstein 2020">{{cite book |author-last=Wasserstein |author-first=David J. |year=2020 |chapter=The Intellectual Genealogy of Almohad Policy towards Christians and Jews |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ph24DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 |editor1-last=García-Arenal |editor1-first=Mercedes |editor2-last=Glazer-Eytan |editor2-first=Yonatan |title=Forced Conversion in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam: Coercion and Faith in Premodern Iberia and Beyond |location=[[Leiden]] and [[Boston]] |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |series=Numen Book Series |volume=164 |pages=133–154 |doi=10.1163/9789004416826_007 |isbn=978-90-04-41681-9 |s2cid=211665760 |issn=0169-8834}}</ref> Many Christians were killed, forced to convert, or forced to flee. Some Christians fled to the Christian kingdoms in the north and west and helped fuel the [[Reconquista]].

Christians under the Almohad rule generally chose to relocate to the [[Reconquista|Christian principalities]] (most notably the [[Kingdom of Asturias]]) in the north of the [[Iberian Peninsula]], whereas Jews decided to stay in order to keep their properties, and [[Crypto-Judaism|many of them feigned conversion to Islam, while continuing to believe and practice Judaism in secrecy]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia| author=Maribel Fierro | entry=The Almohads (524 668/1130 1269) and the Hafsids (627 932/1229 1526) |title=The New Cambridge History of Islam|volume=2 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |editor=Maribel Fierro|page=86}}</ref>

During the Almohad persecution, the [[Medieval Jewry|medieval]] [[Jewish philosophy|Jewish philosopher]] and [[rabbi]] [[Moses Maimonides]] (1135–1204), one of the leading exponents of the [[Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain|Golden Age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula]], wrote his ''Epistle on Apostasy'', in which he permitted Jews to feign apostasy under duress, though strongly recommending leaving the country instead.<ref name=fine>{{cite book|author=Lawrence Fine|title=Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages Through the Early Modern Period|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ohYOD34VlXEC&pg=PA414|page=414|isbn=978-0691057873|date=2001-11-18|publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> There is dispute amongst scholars as to whether Maimonides himself converted to Islam in order to freely escape from Almohad territory, and then reconverted back to Judaism in either the [[Levant]] or in [[Egypt in the Middle Ages|Egypt]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-great-rambam-joel-kramers-maimonides/86437/ |title=The Great Rambam: Joel Kraemer's 'Maimonides' – The New York Sun |publisher=Nysun.com |date=2008-09-24 |access-date=2012-11-13 |archive-date=2012-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121011232327/http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-great-rambam-joel-kramers-maimonides/86437/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> He was later denounced as an apostate and tried in an Islamic court.<ref>{{cite book|author= Bernard Lewis|title=The Jews of Islam|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c0S4lOyfKSYC&pg=PA100|page=100|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2014|isbn=9781400820290}}</ref>

===Seljuk Empire===
In order to increase their numbers in Anatolia, the newly arrived Seljuk Turks took Christian children and forcibly converted them to Islam and turkified them, acts specifically mentioned in [[Antioch]], around [[Samsat|Samosata]], and in western Asia Minor.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0lxHPgAACAAJ | isbn=978-1-59740-476-1 | title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century|page=181 | year=2008 | publisher=American Council of Learned Societies}}</ref>

===Danishmend's campaigns===
During his campaigns, Sultan [[Melik Danishmend|Malik Danishmend]] swore to forcibly convert the population of the city of [[Sisiya Comana]] to Islam and he did so upon capturing it. The governor of Comana forced its population to pray 5 times a day and those who refused to go to the mosque were brought to it by threat of physical violence. Those who continued to drink wine or do other things that Islam forbids were publicly whipped. The fate of the city of [[Euchaita]] was similar, with Malik giving the people the option of converting to Islam or death.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MSzjBAAAQBAJ|title=Religious Conversion: History, Experience and Meaning|page=73|isbn=9781472421494 |last1=Rubin |first1=Miri |last2=Katznelson |first2=Ira |date=28 July 2014 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vvMgAwAAQBAJ|title=The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950-1072|page=246|isbn=9781139560986 |last1=Ellenblum |first1=Ronnie |date=2 August 2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

===Yemen===
In the late 1160s, the Yemenite ruler [['Abd-al-Nabī ibn Mahdi]] left Jews with the choice between conversion to Islam or [[Martyrdom in Judaism|martyrdom]].<ref>The Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership, ed.:Abraham S. Halkin, David Hartman, Jewish Publication Society, 1982. p.91</ref><ref name=Festschrift/> Ibn Mahdi also imposed his beliefs upon the Muslims besides the Jews. This led to a revival of [[Jewish messianism]], but also led to mass-conversion.<ref name=Festschrift>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dk6hAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181|title=Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen|publisher=Brill Publishers|year=2014|page=181|isbn=9789004267848}}</ref> The persecution ended in 1173 with the defeat of Ibn Mahdi and conquest of Yemen by the brother of [[Saladin]], and they were allowed to return to their Jewish faith.<ref name=Festschrift/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ehlbFPJPPgQC&pg=PA489|title=Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works|author=Herbert Davidson|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=489|isbn=9780195343618|date=2004-12-09}}</ref>

According to two [[Cairo Genizah]] documents, the [[Ayyubid dynasty|Ayyubid]] ruler of Yemen, al-Malik al-Mu'izz al-Ismail (reigned from 1197 to 1202) had attempted to force the Jews of [[Aden]] to convert. The second document details the relief of Jewish community after his murder, and those who had been forced to convert reverted to Judaism.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d58QQocrWVkC&pg=PA21|title=The Jews of the British Crown Colony of Aden: History, Culture, and Ethnic Relations|author=Reuben Ahroni|publisher=Brill Publishers|page=21|isbn=978-9004101104|year=1994}}</ref> While he did not impose Islam upon the foreign merchants, they were forced to pay triple the normal rate of poll tax.<ref name=Festschrift/>

A measure listed in the legal works by [[Muhammad ash-Shawkani|Al-Shawkānī]] is of forced conversion of Jewish orphans. No date is given for this decree by modern studies nor who issued it.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Ahmad Dallal]] |title=History as Prelude: Muslims and Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean |date=16 November 2011 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=9780739168158 |editor=Joseph V. Montville |pages=75–76 |chapter=On Muslim Curiosity and the Historiography of the Jews of Yemen |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vjg1NuC_kr0C&pg=PA76}}</ref> The forced conversion of Jewish orphans was reintroduced under [[Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din|Imam Yahya]] in 1922. The [[Orphans' Decree]] was implemented aggressively for the first ten years. It was re-promulgated in 1928.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S-nu8Z6yNIMC&pg=PA67
|title=The Road to Redemption: The Jews of the Yemen, 1900–1950|author=Tudor Parfitt|publisher=Brill Publishers|pages=66–67, 69|isbn=978-9004105447|date=1996-01-01|author-link=Tudor Parfitt}}</ref>

=== Ottoman Empire ===
[[File:Janissary Recruitment in the Balkans-Suleymanname.jpg|thumb|Registration of boys for the ''[[devşirme]]''. [[Ottoman miniature]] painting from the ''Süleymanname'', 1558.]]
{{main|Devşirme}} 
{{see also|Christianity in the Ottoman Empire#Conversion|slavery in the Ottoman Empire}}

A form of forced conversion became institutionalized during the [[Ottoman Empire]] in the practice of [[devşirme]],<ref name="Wittek 1955">{{cite journal |last=Wittek |first=Paul |date=1955 |title=Devs̱ẖirme and s̱ẖarī'a |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=271–278 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00111735 |jstor=610423 |s2cid=153615285 |oclc=427969669}}</ref> a human levy in which Christian boys were seized and collected from their families (usually in the [[Balkans]]), [[History of slavery in the Muslim world|enslaved]], forcefully converted to Islam, and then trained as elite military unit within the Ottoman army or for high-ranking service to the sultan.<ref name="Wittek 1955"/><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first=Tijana |last=Krstić |year=2009 |editor1-last=Ágoston |editor1-first=Gábor |editor2-first=Bruce |editor2-last=Masters |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire |chapter=Conversion |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA145 |location=[[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Facts On File]] |pages=145–146 |isbn=978-0-8160-6259-1 |lccn=2008020716 |access-date=28 March 2021 |quote=As a part of their education, devşirme children underwent compulsory conversion to Islam, which is the only documented forced form of conversion organized by the Ottoman state.}}</ref> From the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, the [[devşirme]]–[[janissary]] system enslaved an estimated 500,000 to one million non-Muslim adolescent males.<ref>A. E. Vacalopoulos. ''The Greek Nation'', 1453–1669, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1976, p. 41; Vasiliki Papoulia, The Impact of Devshirme on Greek Society, in ''War and Society in East Central Europe'', Editor—in—Chief, Bela K. Kiraly, 1982, Vol. II, pp. 561—562.</ref> These boys would attain a great education and high social standing after their training and conversion.<ref>{{citation |author=David Nicolle |title=The Janissaries |date=1995-05-15 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Din4yAEACAAJ |publisher=Bloomsbury USA |isbn=9781855324138}}</ref>

The Byzantine historian [[Doukas (historian)|Doukas]] recounts two other cases of forced or attempted forced conversion: one of a Christian official who had offended Sultan [[Murad II]], and the other of an archbishop.<ref>{{cite book|title=Byzantium Between the Ottomans and the Latins: Politics and Society in the Late Empire|author=Nevra Necipoğlu|pages=142–143|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|isbn=9780521877381|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=li2hX2RqSlcC}}</ref>

[[Speros Vryonis]] cites a pastoral letter from 1338 addressed to the residents of [[Nicaea]] indicating widespread, forcible conversion by the Turks after it was conquered: "And they [Turks] having captured and enslaved many of our own and violently forced them and dragging them along alas! So that they took up their evil and godlessness."<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0lxHPgAACAAJ | isbn=9781597404761 | title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century | year=2008 | publisher=American Council of Learned Societies }}</ref>

After the [[Siege of Nicaea (1328–1331)]] The Turks began to force the Christian inhabitants who had escaped the massacres to convert to Islam. The patriarch of Constantinople John XIX wrote a message to the people of Nicea shortly after the city was seized. His letter says that "The invaders endeavored to impose their impure religion on the populace, at all costs, intending to make the inhabitants followers of Muhammad". Patriarch advised the Christians to "be steadfast in your religion" and not to forget that the "Turks are masters of your bodies only, but not of your souls.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wu0nAQAAMAAJ | title=Revista de istorie | year=1979 | publisher=Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România. }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5vTfAAAAMAAJ | title=Die altosmanischen anonymen Chroniken | last1=Giese | first1=Friedrich | year=1922 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ySYWbcNeIE0C | title=Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi Sacra et Profana | isbn=9781108044547 | last1=Miklosich | first1=Franz | last2=Müller | first2=Josef | date=22 March 2012 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

[[Apostolos Vakalopoulos]] comments on the first Ottoman invasions of Europe and Dimitar Angelov gives assessment on the Campaigns on Murad II and Mehmed II and their impact on the conquered native Balkan Christians:<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_ceAAAAMAAJ | title=Origins of the Greek Nation: The Byzantine Period, 1204-1461 | isbn=9780813506593 | last1=Vakalopoulos | first1=Apostolos Euangelou | year=1970 | publisher=Rutgers University Press }}</ref>
{{blockquote|From the very beginning of the Turkish onslaught [in Thrace] under Suleiman [son of Sultan [[Orhan]]], the Turks tried to consolidate their position by the forcible imposition of Islam. If [the Ottoman historian] [[Şükrullah]] is to be believed, those who refused to accept the Moslem faith were slaughtered and their families [[slavery in the Ottoman Empire|enslaved]]. "Where there were bells," writes the same author [Şükrullah], "Suleiman broke them up and cast them into fires. Where there were churches he destroyed them or converted them into mosques. Thus, in place of bells there were now muezzins. Wherever Christian infidels were still found, vassalage was imposed on their rulers. At least in public they could no longer say 'kyrie eleison' but rather 'There is no God but Allah'; and where once their prayers had been addressed to Christ, they were now to "Muhammad, the prophet of Allah."}}

According to historian [[Demetrios Constantelos]], "Mass forced conversions were recorded during the caliphates of Selim I (1512–1520),...Selim II (1566–1574), and Murat III (1574–1595). On the occasion of some anniversary, such as the capture of a city, or a national holiday, many rayahs were forced to apostacize. On the day of the [[circumcision]] of [[Mehmed III]], great numbers of Christians (Albanians, Greeks, Slavs) were forced to convert to Islam."<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yBhREAAAQBAJ | isbn=9789004470477 | title=Byzantium and Islam: Collected Studies on Byzantine-Muslim Encounters | date=22 November 2021 | publisher=BRILL }}</ref><ref name="ixtheo.de">{{cite journal | url=https://ixtheo.de/Record/1640780718 | title=The "neomartyrs" as evidence for methods and motives leading to conversion and martyrdom in the Ottoman Empire | journal=The Greek Orthodox Theological Review | year=1978 | volume=23 | issue=3/4 | page=216 | access-date=2022-12-11 | archive-date=2022-12-11 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221211070905/https://ixtheo.de/Record/1640780718 | url-status=live }}</ref> After reviewing the martyrology of Christians killed by the Ottomans from the fall of Constantinople all the way to the final phases of the Greek War of Independence, Constantelos reports:<ref name="ixtheo.de"/> 
{{Blockquote
|text=The Ottoman Turks condemned to death eleven Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople, nearly one hundred bishops, and several thousand priests, deacons, and monks. It is impossible to say with certainty how many men of the cloth were forced to apostasize.|}}

For strategic reasons, the Ottomans forcibly converted Christians living in the frontier regions of Macedonia and northern Bulgaria, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries. Those who refused were either executed or burned alive.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JFEeAAAAMAAJ|title=Histoire de la Bulgarie des origines à nos jours|pages=251, 259|isbn=9782717100846 |last1=Duĭchev |first1=Ivan |year=1977 |publisher=Horvath }}</ref>

The community budgets of Jews was heavily burdened by the repurchasing of Jewish slaves abducted by Arab, Berber, or Turkish pirates, or by military raids. The mental trauma due to captivity and slavery caused unransomed prisoners who had lost family, money, and friends to convert to Islam.<ref name="The Decline of Eastern Christianity">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=doeTXF9axosC | title=The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-twentieth Century | isbn=9780838636886 | last1=Yeʼor | first1=Bat | last2=Bat | first2=Ye'or | year=1996 | publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press }}</ref>

During his travels through the Salt lake region of central Anatolia, [[Jean-Baptiste Tavernier]] observed in the town of [[Mucur]], "there are numbers of Greeks who are forced everyday to become Turks".<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BT4PzgEACAAJ | title=The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier: Through Turkey into Persia and the East-Indies Finished in the Year, Giving an Account of the State of Those Countries | isbn=9783348019583 | last1=Tavernier | first1=Jean-Baptiste | last2=Starkey | first2=John | date=17 December 2020 | publisher=Hansebooks }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=December 2022}}

During the [[Greek genocide|genocide and persecution of Greeks in the 20th century]], there were cases of forced conversion to Islam<ref name="Persecution_of_the_Greeks_in_Turkey_1914_1918">{{cite book| title = Persecution of the Greeks in Turkey, 1914–1918| url = https://archive.org/details/persecutionofgre00consrich| publisher = Constantinople [London, Printed by the Hesperia Press]|date=1919}}</ref> (see also [[Armenian genocide]], [[Assyrian genocide]], and [[Hamidian massacres]]).

=== Iran ===
{{See also|Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam}}
[[Ismail I]], the founder of the [[Safavid]] dynasty, decreed [[Twelver Shiism]] to be the official religion of state and ordered executions of a number of Sunni intellectuals who refused to accept Shiism.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|author=Savory, R.M. |author2=Gandjeï, T.| year=2012 | title=Ismāʿīl I|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam| edition=2nd|publisher=Brill |editor=P. Bearman |editor2=Th. Bianquis |editor3=C.E. Bosworth |editor4=E. van Donzel |editor5=W.P. Heinrichs|volume=4|page=186}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia| author=H.R. Roemer| entry=The Safavid Period |title=The Cambridge History of Iran|volume=6|publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1986 |editor=William Bayne Fisher |editor2=Peter Jackson |editor3=Lawrence Lockhart|page=218}}</ref> Non-Muslims faced frequent persecutions and at times forced conversions under the rule of his dynastic successors.<ref>Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|0-691-00807-8}}. p.52</ref> Thus, after the capture of the [[Hormuz Island]], [[Abbas I of Persia|Abbas I]] required local Christians to convert to [[Twelver]] Shia Islam, [[Abbas II of Persia|Abbas II]] granted his ministers authority to force Jews to become [[Shia]] Muslims, and [[Sultan Husayn]] decreed forcible conversion of Zoroastrians.<ref>{{Cite book| last = Lapidus | first = Ira M. | author-link=Ira M. Lapidus | title = A History of Islamic Societies | publisher = Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition) | year = 2014| isbn=978-0-521-51430-9 | pages=385–386}}</ref> In 1839, during the [[Qajar]] era the Jewish community in the city of [[Mashhad]] was attacked by a mob and subsequently forced to convert to Shia Islam.<ref name="JadidAlIslam">{{cite web |first=Jaleh |last=Pirnazar |url=http://www.fis-iran.org/en/irannameh/volxix/mashhad-jewish-community |title=The "Jadid al-Islams" of Mashhad |work=Foundation for Iranian Studies |location=Bethesda, MD, USA |access-date=2012-11-13 |archive-date=2021-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224145329/https://www.fis-iran.org/en/irannameh/volxix/mashhad-jewish-community |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In Persia, instances of forced conversion of Jews took place in 1291 and 1318, and those in Baghdad in 1333 and 1344. In 1617 and 1622, a wave of forced conversions and persecution, provoked by the slander of Jewish apostates, swept over the Jews of Persia, sparing neither Nestorian Christians nor Armenians. From 1653 to 1666, during the reign of Shah Abbas II, all the Jews in Persia were Islamized by force. However, religious freedom was eventually restored. A law in 1656 gave Jewish or Christian converts to Islam exclusive rights of inheritance. This law was alleviated for the Christians as a concession to Pope Alexander VII but remained in force for Jews until the end of the nineteenth century. [[David Cazès|David Cazés]] mentions the existence in Tunisia of similar inheritance laws favoring converts to Islam.<ref name="The Decline of Eastern Christianity"/>

===Indian Subcontinent===
In an invasion of the [[Kashmir Valley]] (1015), [[Mahmud of Ghazni]] plundered the valley, took many prisoners and carried out conversions to Islam.<ref>{{cite book|title=The History and Culture of the Indian People: The struggle for empire|author=Ramesh Chandra Majumdar|author-link=R. C. Majumdar|year=1951|page=12}}</ref> In his later campaigns, in Mathura, Baran and Kanauj, again, many conversions took place. Those soldiers who surrendered to him were converted to Islam. In Baran (Bulandshahr) alone 10,000 persons were converted to Islam including the king.<ref>{{cite book|title=India 2001: Reference Encyclopedia, Volume 1|page=29|author=Catherine B. Asher|publisher=South Asia Publications}}</ref> Tarikh-i-Yamini, Rausat-us-Safa and Tarikh-i-Ferishtah speak of construction of mosques and schools and appointment of preachers and teachers by Mahmud and his successor Masud. Wherever Mahmud went, he insisted on the people to convert to Islam.<ref name=imwat-1>{{cite book| title=Indian Muslims:Who Are They| first=K.S. |last=Lal |chapter=1 |year=2004 | publisher=Voice of India |isbn=978-8185990101 }}</ref> The raids by [[Muhammad of Ghor|Muhammad Ghori]] and his generals brought in thousands of slaves in the late 12th century, most of whom were compelled to convert as one of the preconditions of their freedom.<ref name="imwat-1"/><ref>Habibullah, ''The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India'', (Allahabad, 1961), pp.69 and 334</ref><ref>Hasan Nizami, ''Taj-ul-Maasir'', II, p.216</ref><ref>Titus, Murray. ''Islam in India and Pakistan'', ([[Calcutta]], 1959), p.31</ref> [[Sikandar Butshikan]] (1394–1417) demolished Hindu temples and forcefully converted Hindus.<ref>{{cite book|title=Kashmir: Valley and Its Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_U1LEY1yWmagC|author=Shiri Ram Bakshi|publisher=Sarup & Sons|year=1997|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_U1LEY1yWmagC/page/n80 70]}}</ref>

[[Aurangzeb]] employed a number of means to encourage conversions to Islam.<ref>{{cite book|title=A History of Modern India, 1480–1950|author=Claude Markovits|publisher=Anthem Press|page=108}}</ref> The [[Sikh gurus|ninth guru]] of Sikhs, [[Guru Tegh Bahadur]], was beheaded in Delhi on orders of Aurangzeb for refusing to convert to Islam.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/sikhsofpunjab0000grew/page/72/mode/2up | title=The Sikhs of the Punjab | publisher=Cambridge University Press | author=Grewal, J. S | year=1998 | pages=72 | isbn=0521637643}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7YwNAwAAQBAJ&q=tegh+bahadur | title=The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies | publisher=Oxford | author=Pashaura Singh, Louis E. Fenech | year=2014 | pages=236 | isbn=9780191004117}}</ref> In a Mughal-Sikh war in 1715, 700 followers of [[Banda Singh Bahadur]] were beheaded.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ranjit Singh: Maharaja of the Punjab|page=22|first=Khushwant|last=Singh|publisher=Penguin UK|year=2017}}</ref> Sikhs were executed for not apostatizing from Sikhism.<ref name="Rachel Fell McDermott, Leonard A. Gordon, Ainslie T. Embree, Frances W. Pritchett, Dennis Dalton 2014 9">{{cite book|title=Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh|page=9|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2014 |author=Rachel Fell McDermott |author2=Leonard A. Gordon |author3=Ainslie T. Embree |author4=Frances W. Pritchett |author5=Dennis Dalton}}</ref> Banda Singh Bahadur was offered a pardon if he converted to Islam.<ref name="Kristen Haar, Sewa Singh Kalsi 110">{{cite book|title=Sikhism|author=Kristen Haar, Sewa Singh Kalsi|page=110|publisher=Infobase publishing}}</ref> Upon refusal, he was tortured,<ref>{{cite book|title=Banda Singh Bahadur and Sikh Sovereignty|page=226|author=Harbans Kaur Sagoo|publisher=Deep and Deep Publications|year=2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Singh|first=Ganda|title=Life of Banda Singh Bahadur: Based on Contemporary and Original Records|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.514005|year=1935|publisher=Sikh History Research Department|page=229}}</ref> and was killed with his five-year-old son.<ref name="Rachel Fell McDermott, Leonard A. Gordon, Ainslie T. Embree, Frances W. Pritchett, Dennis Dalton 2014 9"/> Following the execution of Banda, the emperor ordered to apprehend Sikhs anywhere they were found.<ref name="Kristen Haar, Sewa Singh Kalsi 110"/>

18th century ruler [[Tipu Sultan]] persecuted the Hindus, Christians and [[Malabar Muslims|Mappila Muslims]].<ref name="alexander">{{cite book|title=India: History, Religion, Vision and Contribution to the World, Volume 1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7GKwhuea9kC&q=tipu&pg=PA404|first=Alexander|last=Varghese|publisher=Atlantic Publishers|year=2008|isbn=9788126909032}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas|last= Paul|title= Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan: a general survey of the progress of Christianity in India from apostolic times to the present day|publisher=Allen & Unwin|year=1954|page=235|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0UegAQAACAAJ&q=tippu}}</ref> During Sultan's [[Mysorean invasion of Kerala]], hundreds of temples and churches were demolished and ten thousands of Christians and Hindus were killed or converted to Islam by force.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jain|first=Meenakshi|title=Flight of Deities and Rebirth of Temples: Episodes from Indian History|publisher=Aryan Books International|year=2019|isbn=978-8173056192|location=New Delhi}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sanjeev Sanyal|title=The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History|publisher=Penguin UK|page=188}}</ref>

=== Contemporary period ===

====South Asia====

===== Bangladesh =====
In [[Bangladesh]], the [[International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh)|International Crimes Tribunal]] tried and convicted several leaders of the Islamic [[Razakar (Pakistan)|Razakar]] militias, as well as Bangladesh Muslim Awami league (Forid Uddin Mausood), of [[war crimes]] committed against Hindus during the [[1971 Bangladesh genocide]]. The charges included forced conversion of [[Bengali Hindu]]s to Islam.<ref>{{cite news|title=Bangladesh Islamist's death sentence sparks deadly riots|author=Anis Ahmed|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-tribunal-idUSBRE91R0AN20130228|newspaper=[[Reuters]]|date=February 28, 2013|access-date=March 1, 2013|archive-date=April 5, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405111356/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-tribunal-idUSBRE91R0AN20130228|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Clashes Kill 35 in Bangladesh After Islamist Sentenced to Hang |author1=Arun Devnath |author2=Andrew MacAskill |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-28/bangladesh-sentences-islamist-leader-to-death-amid-dhaka-protest.html |newspaper=[[Bloomberg L.P.]] |date=March 1, 2013 |access-date=March 1, 2013 |archive-date=April 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404133005/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-28/bangladesh-sentences-islamist-leader-to-death-amid-dhaka-protest.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Death Toll From Bangladesh Unrest Reaches 44 |author1=Julfikar Ali Manik |author2-link=Jim Yardley |author2=Jim Yardley |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/asia/death-toll-from-bangladesh-unrest-hits-42.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 1, 2013 |access-date=March 1, 2013 |archive-date=December 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228182638/https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/asia/death-toll-from-bangladesh-unrest-hits-42.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===== India =====
In the [[1998 Prankote massacre]], 26 Kashmiri Hindus were beheaded by Islamist militants after their refusal to convert to Islam. The militants struck when the villagers refused demands from the gunmen to convert to Islam and prove their conversion by eating beef.<ref name="jk9">[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/20/world/gunmen-kill-25-hindus-in-kashmir-attacks.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120412024706/https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/20/world/gunmen-kill-25-hindus-in-kashmir-attacks.html|date=2012-04-12}} 26 Hindus beheeaded by Islamist militants in Kashmir</ref>
During the [[Noakhali riots]] in 1946, several thousand Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim mobs.<ref name="khan68-69">{{cite book |title=The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan |last=Khan |first=Yasmin |year=2007 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn= 978-0-300-12078-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan |url-access=registration |quote=Noakhali. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/greatpartitionma00khan/page/68 68]–69}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Fatal flaw in communal violence bill |url=http://www.rediff.com/news/column/fatal-flaw-in-communal-violence-bill/20110602.htm |newspaper=Rediff.com |date=July 2, 2011 |access-date=August 2, 2011 |archive-date=December 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225050739/http://www.rediff.com/news/column/fatal-flaw-in-communal-violence-bill/20110602.htm%20 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===== Pakistan =====
{{Main|Religious discrimination in Pakistan}}Members of minority religions in Pakistan face discrimination every day. This leads to socio-political and economic exclusion and severe marginalization in all aspects of life. In a country that is 96 percent Muslim, targeting of its religious minorities (3 percent), especially Shias, Ahmadis, Hindus and Christians, is widespread.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Religious Minorities in 'Naya Pakistan' |url=https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/religious-minorities-in-naya-pakistan/ |access-date=2023-09-02 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US |archive-date=2022-01-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119021454/https://thediplomat.com/2020/03/religious-minorities-in-naya-pakistan/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{See also|Freedom of religion in Pakistan|Human rights in Pakistan|Minorities in Pakistan|Persecution of Christians in Pakistan|Persecution of Hindus in Pakistan|Forced conversions in Pakistan|Forced conversion of minority girls in Pakistan}}
The rise of [[Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan|Taliban]] [[War in North-West Pakistan|insurgency]] in Pakistan has been an influential and increasing factor in the persecution of and [[Human rights in Pakistan#Discrimination against religious minorities|discrimination against religious minorities]], such as [[Persecution of Hindus#Pakistan|Hindus]], [[Christianity in Pakistan|Christians]], [[Sikhism in Pakistan|Sikhs]], and other minorities.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/world/asia/militants-in-pakistan-make-inroads-in-the-diverse-and-tolerant-south.html|title=Extremists Make Inroads in Pakistan's Diverse South|first1=Saba|last1=Imtiaz|first2=Declan|last2=Walsh|newspaper=The New York Times|date=July 15, 2014|access-date=July 11, 2021|archive-date=April 18, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418191258/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/world/asia/militants-in-pakistan-make-inroads-in-the-diverse-and-tolerant-south.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The [[United Nations Human Rights Council|Human Rights Council of Pakistan]] has reported that cases of forced conversion are increasing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.refworld.org/docid/51826ef842.html|title=Refworld – USCIRF Annual Report 2013 – Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan|author=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|work=Refworld|date=30 April 2013|access-date=May 5, 2015|author-link=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|archive-date=17 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217090031/http://www.refworld.org/docid/51826ef842.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada">{{cite web |url=https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2014/03/04/PAK104258.E.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516175009/https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2014/03/04/PAK104258.E.pdf |archive-date=May 16, 2016 |url-status=dead |title=Pakistan: Religious conversion, including treatment of converts and forced conversions (2009–2012) |publisher=[[Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada]] |work=Responses to Information Requests |date=January 14, 2013 |access-date=September 11, 2022}}</ref> A 2014 report by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace (MSP) says about 1,000 [[women in Pakistan]] are forcibly converted to Islam every year (700 Christian and 300 Hindu).<ref>{{cite web|title=1,000 Christian, Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam every year in Pakistan: report|url=https://www.indiatoday.in/world/pakistan/story/1000-christian-hindu-girls-forced-to-convert-to-islam-every-year-in-pakistan-report-188177-2014-04-08|website=[[India Today]]|date=April 8, 2014|access-date=January 19, 2018|archive-date=January 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180109063136/http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/1000-christian-hindu-girls-forced-to-convert-to-islam-every-year-in-pakistan-report/1/353608.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Anwar|first1=Iqbal|title=1,000 minority girls forced in marriage every year: report|url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1098452|website=Dawn|access-date=25 July 2014|date=2014-04-08|archive-date=2019-05-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513041454/https://www.dawn.com/news/1098452|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=India ruling party chief urges law against religious conversions |url=http://dunyanews.tv/index.php/en/World/251054-India-ruling-party-chief-urges-law-against-religio |website=[[Dunya News]] |date=20 December 2014 |access-date=20 December 2014 |location=New Delhi |agency=[[Agence France-Presse|AFP]] |archive-date=14 March 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314034021/http://dunyanews.tv/en/World/251054-India-ruling-party-chief-urges-law-against-religio |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2003, a six-year-old Sikh girl was kidnapped by a member of the [[Afridi]] tribe in Northwest Frontier Province; the alleged kidnapper claimed the girl was actually 12 years old, had converted to Islam, and therefore could not be returned to her non-Muslim family.<ref>{{cite book|title=Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, 2004|year=2005|publisher=[[United States Commission on International Religious Freedom]], [[State Dept (US)]], [[Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] (US)|page=667|chapter= Pakistan |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=04dlwzB2SvcC&pg=PA667|isbn=978-0-16072-552-4|title-link=Annual Report on International Religious Freedom}}</ref> In Pakistan's Sindh province, a distressing pattern of crimes has emerged, including the abduction, coerced conversion to Islam, and subsequent marriage to older Muslim men who are often abductors. These crimes primarily target underage girls from impoverished Hindu families.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jahangir |first=Sulema |date=2020-04-12 |title=Forced conversions |url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1548550 |access-date=2023-09-16 |website=DAWN.COM |language=en |archive-date=2023-12-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203014835/https://www.dawn.com/news/1548550 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rinkle Kumari, a 19-year Pakistani student, Lata Kumari, and Asha Kumari, a Hindu working in a beauty parlor, were allegedly forced to convert from Hinduism to Islam.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=151043 |title=SC orders release of Rinkle Kumari, others |work=[[Pakistan Observer]]|date= April 19, 2012|access-date=2012-06-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140221063358/http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=151043 |archive-date=2014-02-21 }}</ref> They told the judge that they wanted to go with their parents.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.deccanherald.com/content/237575/hindus-pak-happy-girls-statement.html|title=Hindus in Pak happy after girl's statement in SC|date=27 March 2012|website=Deccan Herald|access-date=11 February 2020|archive-date=15 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220115175910/https://www.deccanherald.com/content/237575/hindus-pak-happy-girls-statement.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Their cases were appealed all the way to the [[Supreme Court of Pakistan]]. The appeal was admitted but remained unheard ever after.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/1256767/curbs-forced-conversion/|title=Curbs on forced conversion|date=7 December 2016|website=The Express Tribune|access-date=11 February 2020|archive-date=30 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190430195714/https://tribune.com.pk/story/1256767/curbs-forced-conversion/|url-status=live}}</ref> Rinkle was abducted by a gang and "forced" to convert to Islam, before being head shaved.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/world/asia/pakistani-hindus-say-womans-conversion-to-islam-was-coerced.html|title=Pakistani Hindus Say Woman's Conversion to Islam Was Coerced|first=Declan|last=Walsh|date=25 March 2012|access-date=9 April 2019|website=[[The New York Times]]|archive-date=23 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190923234452/https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/world/asia/pakistani-hindus-say-womans-conversion-to-islam-was-coerced.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Sikhs]] in [[Hangu District, Pakistan|Hangu District]] stated they were being pressured to convert to Islam by Yaqoob Khan, the assistant commissioner of [[Tall Tehsil]], in December 2017. However, the Deputy Commissioner of Hangu Shahid Mehmood denied it occurred and claimed that Sikhs were offended during a conversation with Yaqub though it was not intentional.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/1585150/1-sikh-community-hangu-forced-convert/|title=Sikh community in Hangu 'being forced to convert'|date=16 December 2017|publisher=[[The Express Tribune]]|access-date=16 January 2018|archive-date=21 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121191413/https://tribune.com.pk/story/1585150/1-sikh-community-hangu-forced-convert/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/sikhs-in-pakistan-complain-of-pressure-to-convert/story-945AGLoXUjfEam6dZo2KBJ.html|title=Sikhs in Pakistan complain of pressure to convert|newspaper=Hindustan Times |date=16 December 2017|access-date=16 January 2018|archive-date=30 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180930115735/https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/sikhs-in-pakistan-complain-of-pressure-to-convert/story-945AGLoXUjfEam6dZo2KBJ.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rabwah.net/sikhs-told-convert-islam-pakistani-official/|title=Sikhs told to 'convert to Islam' by Pakistani official|website=[[Rabwah Times]]|date=December 16, 2017|access-date=16 January 2018|archive-date=30 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180930081204/https://www.rabwah.net/sikhs-told-convert-islam-pakistani-official/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-sikh-minority-forced-conversion/4177063.html|title=Authorities Investigate Cases of Forced Conversion of Sikh Minority in Pakistan|first=Madeeha|last=Anwar|publisher=[[Voice of America]]|work=Extremism Watch Desk|date=December 23, 2017|access-date=16 January 2018|archive-date=1 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401132941/https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-sikh-minority-forced-conversion/4177063.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Many Hindu girls living in Pakistan are kidnapped, forcibly converted and married to Muslims.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/forced-conversions-torment-pakistan-hindus-201481795524630505.html|title=Forced conversions torment Pakistan's Hindus &#124; India &#124; Al Jazeera|access-date=2019-03-08|archive-date=2019-06-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629081246/https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/forced-conversions-torment-pakistan-hindus-201481795524630505.html|url-status=live}}</ref> According to another report from the Movement for Solidarity and Peace, about 1,000 non-Muslim girls are converted to Islam each year in Pakistan.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.indiatoday.in/world/pakistan/story/1000-christian-hindu-girls-forced-to-convert-to-islam-every-year-in-pakistan-report-188177-2014-04-08|title=1,000 Christian, Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam every year in Pakistan: report|date=April 8, 2014|website=India Today|access-date=2019-03-08|archive-date=2018-01-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180109063136/http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/1000-christian-hindu-girls-forced-to-convert-to-islam-every-year-in-pakistan-report/1/353608.html|url-status=live}}</ref> According to the Amarnath Motumal, the vice chairperson of the [[Human Rights Commission of Pakistan]], every month, an estimated 20 or more Hindu girls are abducted and converted, although exact figures are impossible to gather.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/forced-conversions-torment-pakistan-hindus-201481795524630505.html|title=Pakistan, Hindus, Forced Conversions, Islam|access-date=2019-03-08|archive-date=2019-06-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190629081246/https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/08/forced-conversions-torment-pakistan-hindus-201481795524630505.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2014 alone, 265 legal cases of forced conversion were reported mostly involving Hindu girls.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.dawn.com/news/1170682|title=265 cases of forced conversion reported last year, moot told|first=Faiza|last=Ilyas|date=March 20, 2015|website=DAWN.COM|access-date=July 11, 2021|archive-date=January 16, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116072458/https://www.dawn.com/news/1170682|url-status=live}}</ref>

A total of 57 Hindus converted in [[Pasrur]] during May 14–19. On May 14, 35 Hindus of the same family were forced to convert by their employer because his sales dropped after Muslims started boycotting his eatable items as they were prepared by Hindus as well as their persecution by the Muslim employees of neighbouring shops according to their relatives. Since the impoverished Hindu had no other way to earn and needed to keep the job to survive, they converted. 14 members of another family converted on May 17 since no one was employing them, later another Hindu man and his family of eight under pressure from Muslims to avoid their land being grabbed.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tribune.com.pk/story/15970/57-hindus-convert-to-islam-in-10-days/|title=57 Hindus convert to Islam in 10 days|first=Abdul|last=Manan|date=25 May 2010|website=The Express Tribune|access-date=9 April 2019|archive-date=23 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423025030/https://tribune.com.pk/story/15970/57-hindus-convert-to-islam-in-10-days/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2017, the Sikh community in Hangu district of Pakistan's [[Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa]] province alleged that they were "being forced to convert to Islam" by a government official. Farid Chand Singh, who filed the complaint, has claimed that Assistant Commissioner Tehsil Tall Yaqoob Khan was allegedly forcing Sikhs to convert to Islam and the residents of Doaba area are being tortured religiously.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/punjab/sikhs-in-pakistan-being-forced-to-convert-to-islam-514699|title=Sikhs in Pakistan 'being forced to convert to Islam'|website=Tribuneindia News Service|access-date=2021-07-11|archive-date=2020-03-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314034134/https://www.tribuneindia.com/mobi/news/punjab/sikhs-in-pakistan-being-forced-to-convert-to-islam/514699.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/1585150/1-sikh-community-hangu-forced-convert|title=Sikh community in Hangu 'being forced to convert'|date=December 15, 2017|website=The Express Tribune|access-date=July 11, 2021|archive-date=January 15, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220115182624/https://tribune.com.pk/story/1585150/1-sikh-community-hangu-forced-convert|url-status=live}}</ref> According to reports, about 60 Sikhs of Doaba had demanded security from the administration.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/amritsar/conversion-of-pakistan-sikhs-cm-amarinder-seeks-sushmas-help/articleshow/62144128.cms|title=Sushma: 'Conversion' of Pakistan Sikhs: CM Amarinder seeks Sushma's help &#124; Amritsar News – Times of India|website=The Times of India|date=20 December 2017|access-date=8 March 2019|archive-date=14 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190114204406/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/amritsar/conversion-of-pakistan-sikhs-cm-amarinder-seeks-sushmas-help/articleshow/62144128.cms|url-status=live}}</ref>

Many Hindus voluntarily convert to Islam in order to acquire Watan Cards and National Identification Cards. These converts are also given land and money. For example, 428 poor Hindus in Matli were converted between 2009 and 2011 by the Madrassa Baitul Islam, a [[Deobandi]] seminary in Matli, which pays off the debts of Hindus converting to Islam.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/324799/mass-conversions-for-matlis-poor-hindus-lakshmi-lies-in-another-religion|title=Mass conversions: For Matli's poor Hindus, 'lakshmi' lies in another religion|date=January 20, 2012|website=The Express Tribune|access-date=July 11, 2021|archive-date=March 5, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305115204/https://tribune.com.pk/story/324799/mass-conversions-for-matlis-poor-hindus-lakshmi-lies-in-another-religion|url-status=live}}</ref> Another example is the conversion of 250 Hindus to Islam in Chohar Jamali area in [[Thatta]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nation.com.pk/16-Sep-2017/250-hindus-convert-to-islam-in-thatta|title=250 Hindus convert to Islam in Thatta|date=September 16, 2017|website=The Nation|access-date=August 26, 2019|archive-date=August 26, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190826091658/https://nation.com.pk/16-Sep-2017/250-hindus-convert-to-islam-in-thatta|url-status=live}}</ref> Conversions are also carried out by Ex Hindu Baba Deen Mohammad Shaikh mission which converted 108,000 people to Islam since 1989.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tribune.com.pk/story/325623/100000-conversions-and-counting-meet-the-ex-hindu-who-herds-souls-to-the-hereafter|title=100,000 conversions and counting, meet the ex-Hindu who herds souls to the Hereafter|date=January 22, 2012|website=The Express Tribune|access-date=July 11, 2021|archive-date=January 16, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116143749/https://tribune.com.pk/story/325623/100000-conversions-and-counting-meet-the-ex-hindu-who-herds-souls-to-the-hereafter|url-status=live}}</ref>

Within Pakistan, the southern province of Sindh had over 1,000 forced conversions of Christian and Hindu girls according to the annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in 2018. According to victims' families and activists, [[Abdul Haq (politician)|Mian Abdul Haq]], who is a local political and religious leader in Sindh, has been accused of being responsible for forced conversions of girls within the province.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://religionnews.com/2019/06/06/forced-conversions-marriages-spike-in-pakistan/|title=Forced conversions, marriages spike in Pakistan|date=June 6, 2019|access-date=June 7, 2019|archive-date=November 6, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191106185952/https://religionnews.com/2019/06/06/forced-conversions-marriages-spike-in-pakistan/|url-status=live}}</ref>

More than 100 Hindus in Sindh converted to Islam in June 2020 to escape discrimination and economic pressures. Islamic charities and clerics offer incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minorities on the condition that they convert. ''[[New York Times]]'' summarised the view of Hindu groups that these seemingly voluntary conversions "take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/asia/pakistan-hindu-conversion.html
|title=Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By
|newspaper=The New York Times
|date=4 August 2020
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814074954/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/asia/pakistan-hindu-conversion.html
|archive-date=2020-08-14
|last1=Abi-Habib
|first1=Maria
|last2=Ur-Rehman
|first2=Zia
}}</ref>

In October 2020, the Pakistani High Court upheld the validity of a forced marriage between 44-year-old Ali Azhar and 13-year-old Christian Arzoo Raja. Raja was abducted by Azhar, forcibly wed to Azhar and then forcibly converted to Islam by Azhar.<ref>{{cite web |title=Pakistan high court upholds forced marriage of abducted Catholic minor |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/pakistan-high-court-upholds-forced-marriage-of-abducted-catholic-minor/ |website=[[Catholic Herald]] |date=October 28, 2020 |access-date=November 10, 2020 |archive-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220115175912/https://catholicherald.co.uk/pakistan-high-court-upholds-forced-marriage-of-abducted-catholic-minor/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The ruling was overturned a month later, and Raja was returned to her home, with Azhar arrested.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-11-04 |title=Abducted underage Catholic girl rescued in Pakistan - Vatican News |url=https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2020-11/pakistan-minor-catholic-girl-arzoo-rescued.html |access-date=2025-06-21 |website=Vatican News |language=en}}</ref> Pakistan has been found in breach of its international commitments to safeguard non-Muslim girls from exploitation by influential factions and criminal elements, as forced conversions have become commonplace within the nation. This concerning trend is on the rise, notably observed in the districts of Tharparkar, Umerkot, and Mirpur Khas in Sindh.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Inam |first=Palwasha Binte |date=2020-07-10 |title=Forced Conversions in Pakistan |url=https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/07/11/forced-conversions-in-pakistan/ |access-date=2023-07-21 |website=Modern Diplomacy |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-07-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230721111941/https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/07/11/forced-conversions-in-pakistan/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

==== Indonesia ====
In 2012, over 1000 Catholic children in [[East Timor]], removed from their families, were reported to being held in Indonesia without consent of their parents, forcibly converted to Islam, educated in Islamic schools and naturalized.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/indonesia-12401/|title=Indonesia: thousands of Catholic children kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam|access-date=May 5, 2015|archive-date=September 27, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927012524/http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/indonesia-12401/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Other reports claim forced conversion of minority [[Ahmadiyya]] sect Muslims to Sunni Islam, with the use of violence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/11/06/sampang-shiites-forced-convert-sunni-kontras.html|title=Sampang Shiites forced to convert to Sunni: Kontras|access-date=May 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150430142144/http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/11/06/sampang-shiites-forced-convert-sunni-kontras.html|archive-date=2015-04-30|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/07/indonesia-inquiry-ahmadiyah-muslims-killed|title=Indonesian president condemns mob killing of Ahmadiyah Muslims|newspaper=the Guardian|access-date=May 5, 2015|date=2011-02-07|agency=Associated Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1547791/crouch_final_website1.pdf |title= Indonesia, Militant Islam and Ahmadiya |first=Melissa |last=Crouch |year=2010 |publisher=University of Melbourne, Australia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330172114/http://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1547791/crouch_final_website1.pdf |archive-date=2016-03-30 |url-status=live}} [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228298140 Alt URL]</ref>

In 2001 the [[Indonesia]]n army evacuated hundreds of Christian refugees from the remote [[Kesui]] and [[Teor (island)|Teor]] islands in [[Maluku (province)|Maluku]] after the refugees stated that they had been forced to convert to Islam. According to reports, some of the men had been [[Forced circumcision|circumcised against their will]], and a paramilitary group involved in the incident confirmed that circumcisions had taken place while denying any element of coercion.<ref>Maluku refugees allege forced circumcision, BBC News Online, Wednesday, January 31, 2001 [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1146224.stm] </ref>

In 2017, many members of the [[Orang Rimba]] tribe, especially children, were being forced to renounce their folk religion and convert to Islam.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41981430 |title=Indonesia's Orang Rimba: Forced to renounce their faith |first=Rebecca |last=Henschke |work=BBC|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117121109/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41981430|archive-date=17 November 2017|date=2017-11-17 }}</ref>

==== West Asia ====
{{Further|Genocide of Yazidis by ISIL|Persecution of Yazidis by Muslims|Persecution of Christians by ISIL|Persecution of Shias by ISIL|2015 kidnapping and beheading of Copts in Libya|Abduction and forced conversion of Coptic women}}

There have been a number of reports of attempts to forcibly convert religious minorities in [[Iraq]]. The [[Yazidi]] people of northern Iraq, who follow an ethnoreligious syncretic faith, have been threatened with forced conversion by the [[Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant]], who consider their practices to be [[Satanism]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=O'Loughlin|first1=Ed|title=Devil in the detail as Yazidis look to Kurds in withstanding Islamic radicals' advance|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/devil-in-the-detail-as-yazidis-look-to-kurds-in-withstanding-islamic-radicals-advance-1.1898441|access-date=16 August 2014|work=[[Irish Times]]|date=16 August 2014|archive-date=29 November 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129033926/http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/devil-in-the-detail-as-yazidis-look-to-kurds-in-withstanding-islamic-radicals-advance-1.1898441|url-status=live}}</ref> UN investigators have reported mass killings of Yazidi men and boys who refused to convert to Islam.<ref>{{cite news|work=The New York Times|title=ISIS Committed Genocide Against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, U.N. Panel Says|author=Nick Cumming-Bruce|date=June 16, 2016}}</ref> In Baghdad, hundreds of [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] Christians fled their homes in 2007 when a local extremist group announced that they had to convert to Islam, pay the [[jizya]] or die.<ref name="Radio National">{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2007/1937124.htm|title=Christian Minorities in the Islamic Middle East : Rosie Malek-Yonan on the Assyrians|work=Radio National|access-date=May 5, 2015|date=2006-04-18|archive-date=2008-07-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724211304/http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2007/1937124.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> In March 2007, the BBC reported that people in the [[Mandaeans|Mandaean]] ethnic and religious minority in [[Iraq]] alleged that they were being targeted by [[Islamist]] insurgents, who offered them the choice of conversion or death.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6412453.stm|title=BBC NEWS – Middle East – Iraq's Mandaeans 'face extinction'|access-date=May 5, 2015|date=2007-03-04|archive-date=2008-07-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080727010850/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6412453.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2006, two journalists of the Fox News Network were kidnapped at gunpoint in the [[Gaza Strip]] by a previously unknown militant group. After being forced to read statements on videotape proclaiming that they had converted to Islam, they were released by their captors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/27/fox.journalists/|title=CNN.com – Kidnapped Fox journalists released – Aug 27, 2006|access-date=May 5, 2015}}</ref>

Allegations of [[Coptic Christian]] girls being forced to marry Arab Muslim men and convert to Islam in Egypt have been reported by a number of news and advocacy organizations<ref name="Shanahan">{{cite web|url=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/no-going-back-for-egypts-converted-copts/story-e6frg6so-1226059884457|title=No going back for Egypt's converted Copts|last=Shanahan|first=Angela|date=May 21, 2011|work=The Australian|access-date=September 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823004408/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/no-going-back-for-egypts-converted-copts/story-e6frg6so-1226059884457|archive-date=23 August 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/missing-christian-girls-leave-trail-of-tears/ |title=Missing Christian girls leave a trail of tears |first=Cam |last=McGrath |work=Inter Press Agency |date=April 16, 2013 |access-date=July 28, 2013 |archive-date=August 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130822151210/http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/04/missing-christian-girls-leave-trail-of-tears/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.refworld.org/docid/519dd4ca61.html|title=Refworld – 2012 Report on International Religious Freedom – Egypt|author=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees|work=Refworld|access-date=May 5, 2015|archive-date=December 17, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141217082241/http://www.refworld.org/docid/519dd4ca61.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and have sparked public protests.<ref>Heba Saleh (BBC News, Cairo), [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4080777.stm 'Conversion' sparks Copt protest] . BBC News Online December 9, 2004.</ref> According to a 2009 report by the US State Department, observers have found it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, and in recent years no such cases have been independently verified.<ref name=us-state-dept>{{cite web|url=https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2009/127346.htm|title=Egypt|work=U.S. Department of State|access-date=May 5, 2015|archive-date=May 25, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525081049/https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2009/127346.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Copts|Coptic]] women and girls are abducted, [[forced religious conversions in Egypt|forced to convert to Islam]] and marry Muslim men.<ref name=bbcforcedmarriage>{{cite news | url = https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12014779 | title = Christian minority under pressure in Egypt | date = December 17, 2010 | work = BBC News | access-date = January 1, 2011 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170322014332/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-12014779 | archive-date = March 22, 2017 }}</ref> In 2009, the Washington, D.C.–based group [[Christian Solidarity International]] published a study of the abductions and [[forced marriage]]s and the anguish felt by the young women because returning to Christianity is against the law. Further allegations of organised abduction of Copts, trafficking and police collusion continue in 2017.<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2017/09/egypt-ex-kidnapper-admits-get-paid-every-copt-christian-girl-bring/ |title=Egypt: ex-kidnapper admits 'they get paid for every Coptic Christian girl they bring in' |date= 2017-09-14 |publisher= World Watch Monitor |access-date=2017-12-25 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180913115753/https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2017/09/egypt-ex-kidnapper-admits-get-paid-every-copt-christian-girl-bring/ |url-status= live |archive-date= 2018-09-13}}</ref>

==== United Kingdom ====
{{See also|Grooming gang|Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom}}
According to the UK prison officers' union, some Muslim prisoners in the UK have been forcibly converting fellow inmates to Islam in prisons.<ref>{{cite news |last=Withnall |first=A. |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-s-jails-facing-growing-problem-of-forced-conversion-to-islam-officers-warn-8892645.html |title=Britain's jails facing 'growing problem' of forced conversion to Islam, officers warn |work=The Independent |location=UK |date=20 October 2013 |access-date=4 July 2017 |archive-date=17 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180717090358/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-s-jails-facing-growing-problem-of-forced-conversion-to-islam-officers-warn-8892645.html |url-status=live }}</ref> An independent government report published in 2023 found that there have been multiple cases of Muslim gangs threatening non-Muslim prisoners to "convert or get hurt".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bloom |first1=Colin |title=Does government 'do God?' An independent review into how government engages with faith |url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1152684/The_Bloom_Review.pdf |website=gov.uk |publisher=Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities |access-date=26 April 2023}}</ref>

In 2007, a Sikh girl's family claimed that she had been forcibly converted to Islam, and they received a police guard after being attacked by an armed gang, although the "Police said no one was injured in the incident".<ref name=bm2007>{{cite web|last=Cowan|first=Mark|title=Police guard girl 'forced to become Muslim'|url=http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/mail/news/tm_headline=police-guard-girl--forced-to-become-muslim-%26method=full%26objectid=19253457%26siteid=50002-name_page.html|publisher=Birmingham Mail|access-date=19 August 2013|date=June 6, 2007|archive-date=4 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004221654/http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/mail/news/tm_headline=police-guard-girl--forced-to-become-muslim-%26method=full%26objectid=19253457%26siteid=50002-name_page.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In response to these news stories, an open letter to Sir Ian Blair, signed by ten Hindu academics, argued that claims that Hindu and Sikh girls were being forcefully converted were "part of an arsenal of myths propagated by right-wing Hindu supremacist organisations in India".<ref>{{cite web|publisher=[[Islamic Human Rights Commission]]|title='Forced Conversions' Myth Mongering By British Police|date=Feb 25, 2007|access-date=Jul 4, 2017|url=http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=2511|archive-date=September 29, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929044319/http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=2511|url-status=dead}}</ref><!-- I can't find it at https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters/2007/feb/25/all, but it's also at https://www.mail-archive.com/sacw@insaf.net/msg00559.html --> The [[Muslim Council of Britain]] issued a press release pointing out there is a "lack of evidence" of any forced conversions and suggested it is an underhand attempt to smear the British Muslim population.<ref>{{citation |author=Muslim Council of Britain |date=8 March 2007 |title=MCB calls for evidence of alleged 'forced conversions' |location=London, UK |publisher=Author |url=http://www.mcb.org.uk/mcb-calls-for-evidence-of-alleged-forced-conversions/ |access-date=4 July 2017 |archive-date=29 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929000805/http://www.mcb.org.uk/mcb-calls-for-evidence-of-alleged-forced-conversions/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

An academic paper by Katy Sian published in the journal ''South Asian Popular Culture'' in 2011 explored the question of how "'forced' conversion narratives" arose around the [[Sikhism in the United Kingdom|Sikh diaspora in the United Kingdom]].<ref name=Forced>{{cite journal | title='Forced' conversions in the British Sikh diaspora | first=Katy P. | last=Sian | date=2011 | journal=South Asian Popular Culture | volume=9 | issue=2 | pages=115–130 | doi=10.1080/14746681003798060 | s2cid=54174845 | url=https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/forced-conversions-in-the-british-sikh-diaspora(f4ec8dd2-198c-434c-b284-7f1562ae6d02).html | access-date=2021-12-28 | archive-date=2022-03-11 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311042231/https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/forced-conversions-in-the-british-sikh-diaspora(f4ec8dd2-198c-434c-b284-7f1562ae6d02).html | url-status=live }}</ref> Sian, who reports that claims of conversion through courtship on campuses are widespread in the UK, indicates that rather than relying on actual evidence they primarily rest on the word of "a friend of a friend" or on personal [[anecdote]]. According to Sian, the narrative is similar to accusations of "[[Human trafficking|white slavery]]" lodged against the Jewish community and foreigners to the UK and the US, with the former having ties to [[antisemitism]] that mirror the [[Islamophobia]] betrayed by the modern narrative. Sian expanded on these views in 2013's ''Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations''.<ref name="Sian2013">{{cite book|first=Katy P. |last=Sian |title=Unsettling Sikh and Muslim Conflict: Mistaken Identities, Forced Conversions, and Postcolonial Formations |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-9AZ2atcd-kC&pg=PA55 |access-date=15 June 2013|date=2013|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7391-7874-4|pages=55–71}}</ref>

In 2018, a report by a Sikh activist organisation, Sikh Youth UK, entitled "The Religiously Aggravated Sexual Exploitation of Young Sikh Women Across the UK" made allegations of similarities between the case of Sikh Women and the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/sikh-girls-abused-grooming-gangs-15492360|title=Sikh girls 'abused by grooming gangs for decades'|first=Josh|last=Layton|date=December 3, 2018|website=BirminghamLive|access-date=April 12, 2020|archive-date=March 11, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210311211229/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/sikh-girls-abused-grooming-gangs-15492360|url-status=live}}</ref> However, in 2019, this report was criticised by researchers and an official UK government report led by two Sikh academics for false and misleading information.<ref name="CockbainTufail2020">{{Cite journal|url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10087386/7/Cockbain_0306396819895727.pdf|doi = 10.1177/0306396819895727|title = Failing victims, fuelling hate: Challenging the harms of the 'Muslim grooming gangs' narrative|year = 2020|last1 = Cockbain|first1 = Ella|last2 = Tufail|first2 = Waqas|journal = Race & Class|volume = 61|issue = 3|pages = 3–32|s2cid = 214197388}}</ref><ref name="Jagbir Jhutti-Johal; Sunny Hundal (August 2019)p15">Jagbir Jhutti-Johal; Sunny Hundal (August 2019). ''[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841033/the-changing-nature-of-activism-among-sikhs-in-the-uk-today-221019.pdf The changing nature of activism among Sikhs in the UK today]''. The Commission For Countering Extremism. University of Birmingham. p. 15. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20200217022921/https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841033/the-changing-nature-of-activism-among-sikhs-in-the-uk-today-221019.pdf WayBackMachine Link]''. Retrieved February 17th, 2020.</ref> It noted: "The RASE report lacks solid data, methodological transparency and rigour. It is filled instead with sweeping generalisations and poorly substantiated claims around the nature and scale of abuse of Sikh girls and causal factors driving it. It appealed heavily to historical tensions between Sikhs and Muslims and narratives of honour in a way that seemed designed to whip up fear and hate".<ref name="Jagbir Jhutti-Johal; Sunny Hundal (August 2019)p15"/>

== Judaism ==
{{See also|Conversion to Judaism}}
Under the [[Hasmonean dynasty|Hasmonean Kingdom]], the [[Idumea]]ns were forced to convert to Judaism, by threat of exile or death, depending on the source.<ref>Flavius Josephus Antiquities 13.257–258</ref><ref>[[Aristobulus I|Aristobulus]]</ref>
In ''Eusebíus, Christianity, and Judaism'', [[Harold W. Attridge]] claims that [[Josephus]]' account was accurate and that [[John Hyrcanus#Economy, foreign relations, and religion|John Hyrcanus]]  (around 115 BCE) demolished the city of [[Pella, Jordan|Pella]] in [[Moab]], because the inhabitants refused to adopt Jewish national customs.<ref>Harold W. Attridge, Gōhei Hata (eds). ''Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism'' Wayne State University Press, 1992: p. 387</ref> [[Maurice Sartre]] writes of the "policy of forced Judaization adopted by [[John Hyrcanus|Hyrcanos]], [[Aristobulus I]] and [[Jannaeus]]", who offered "the conquered peoples a choice between expulsion or conversion,"<ref>[[Maurice Sartre]]. ''The Middle East Under Rome''. Harvard University Press, 2005: p. 15</ref> William Horbury postulates that an existing small Jewish population in Lower Galilee was massively expanded by forced conversion around 104 BCE.<ref>William Horbury. ''The Cambridge History of Judaism 2 Part Set: Volume 3, The Early Roman Period'' Cambridge University Press, 1999: p. 599</ref> Yigal Levin, conversely, argues that many non-Jewish communities, such as [[Idumeans]], voluntarily assimilated in Hasmonean Judea, based on archaeological evidence and cultural affinities between the groups.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Levin |first=Yigal |date=2020-09-24 |title=The Religion of Idumea and Its Relationship to Early Judaism |journal=Religions |volume=11 |issue=10 |pages=487 |doi=10.3390/rel11100487 |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 2009, the [[BBC]] claimed that in 524 CE the [[Himyarite Kingdom]], who had adopted [[Judaism]] as the ''[[de facto]]'' state religion two centuries earlier, led by King Yusuf [[Dhu Nuwas]], had offered residents of a village in what is now [[Saudi Arabia]] the choice between conversion to Judaism or death, and that 20,000 Christians had then been massacred.<ref>{{cite web|date=2009-09-18|title=Historians back BBC over Jewish massacre claim &#124; The Jewish Chronicle|url=https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/historians-back-bbc-over-jewish-massacre-claim-1.11404|access-date=2014-06-06|publisher=Thejc.com|archive-date=2020-12-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204071617/https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/historians-back-bbc-over-jewish-massacre-claim-1.11404|url-status=live}}</ref> During the reign of Dhu Nuwas, a political-power transferring process began and during it, the Himyarite kingdom became a tributary of the [[Kingdom of Aksum]], which had adopted [[Christianity]] as its ''de facto'' state religion two centuries earlier. This process was completed by the time of the reign of Ma'dīkarib Yafur (519-522), a Christian who was appointed by the Aksumites. A coup d'état ensued, with Dhu Nuwas assuming authority after the killing of the Aksumite garrison in [[Zafar, Yemen|Zafar]]. A general was sent against [[Najran|Najrān]], a predominantly Christian oasis, with a good number of Jews, who refused to recognize his authority. The general blocked the caravan route which connected Najrān with Eastern Arabia and he also persecuted the Christian population of Najrān.<ref name="bowersock">G.W. Bowersock, ''The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Kingdom in Arabia'', [[Institute for Advanced Study]], Princeton, 2011, [http://www.hs.ias.edu/files/Bowersock_RiseAndFall.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120128112148/http://www.hs.ias.edu/files/Bowersock_RiseAndFall.pdf|date=2012-01-28}}; 
''The Adulis Throne'', Oxford University Press, in press.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Bantu|first=Vince L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CUe4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA141|title=A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity's Global Identity|date=2020-03-10|publisher=InterVarsity Press|isbn=978-0-8308-2810-4|page=141|language=en}}</ref><ref>Jacques Ryckmans, La persécution des chrétiens himyarites au sixième siècle, Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Inst. in het Nabije Oosten, 1956 pp 1–24</ref>  Dhu Nuwas campaign eventually killed between 11,500 and 14,000, and took a similar number of prisoners.<ref name="RobinCJ_(2012)">Christian Julien Robin,'Arabia and Ethiopia,'in Scott Johnson (ed.) [https://books.google.com/books?id=GKRybwb17WMC&pg=PA289 ''The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity,''] Oxford University Press, 2012, pp.247-333.p.282</ref>

Some Ethiopian Jews (also known as [[Beta Israel]]) were forcibly converted to mainstream [[Rabbinical Judaism]] following their covert evacuation to Israel during [[Operation Moses]] and [[Operation Solomon]]. Their native form of Judaism, commonly called [[Haymanot]], is looked down upon by the Israeli government and the [[Chief Rabbinate of Israel]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burstein |first1=Alon |last2=Norwich |first2=Liora |date=Summer 2018 |title=From a Whisper to a Scream: The Politicization of The Ethiopian Community in Israel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/israelstudies.23.2.02 |journal=Israel Studies |publisher=Indiana University Press |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=25–50 |doi=10.2979/israelstudies.23.2.02 |jstor=10.2979/israelstudies.23.2.02 |url-access=subscription |access-date=4 May 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Barhany |first=Beejhy |date=5 February 2013 |title=Israel Must Apologize to Ethiopian Jews |url=https://forward.com/life/170532/israel-must-apologize-to-ethiopian-jews/ |access-date=4 May 2025 |publisher=Forward}}</ref> In 1973, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ruled that Ethiopian Jews are indeed Jewish according to Jewish law, which was a crucial step in paving the way for their immigration to Israel. Despite his initial ruling, the Chief Rabbinate, over the objections of many in the community, later required symbolic conversions for many immigrants to ensure full acceptance by all rabbinic authorities. In 2020, the Chief Rabbinate Council officially adopted the 1973 ruling of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, confirming full recognition of the Jewishness of the Ethiopian community without the need for conversion.<ref>{{cite web | title=Chief Rabbinate accepts position recognizing Beta Israel as Jewish &#124; the Jerusalem Post | date=20 January 2020 | url=https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/chief-rabbinate-accepts-position-recognizing-beta-israel-as-jewish-614694 }}</ref>

Other instances of forced conversion to Judaism are unknown.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199730049.001.0001/acref-9780199730049-e-0734|title=Conversion, Forced|date=January 2011 |publisher=The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion|isbn=978-0-19-973004-9 }}</ref>

== Atheism ==
{{See also|State atheism}}
[[File:St. Teodora de la Sihla Church, Chişinău.jpg|thumb|300px|"[[St. Teodora de la Sihla Church|St. Theodora Church]] in downtown [[Chişinău]] was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism".<br /> —[[:ro:Andrei Brezianu|Andrei Brezianu]]<ref name="BrezianuSpânu2010" />]]

=== Eastern Bloc ===
{{Main|Soviet anti-religious legislation}}
{{Further|Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc}}
Under the doctrine of [[state atheism]] in the [[Soviet Union]], there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to [[Marxist-Leninist atheism|atheism]]" conducted by [[Communism|communists]].<ref>Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival, by Christopher Marsh, page 47. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011.</ref><ref>Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History, by Dilip Hiro. Penguin, 2009.</ref><ref name="Adappur2000">{{cite book|last=Adappur|first=Abraham|title=Religion and the Cultural Crisis in India and the West|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=44DYAAAAMAAJ|access-date=14 July 2016|year=2000|publisher=Intercultural Publications|language=en |isbn=9788185574479|quote=Forced Conversion under Atheistic Regimes: It might be added that the most modern example of forced "conversions" came not from any theocratic state, but from a professedly atheist government — that of the Soviet Union under the Communists.}}</ref> This program included the overarching objective to establish not only a fundamentally materialistic conception of the universe, but to foster "direct and open criticism of the religious outlook" by means of establishing an "anti-religious trend" across the entire school.<ref>Statement of Principles and Policy on Atheistic Education in Soviet Russia, translation from Russian, Stephen Schmidt, S.J., transcribed P. Legrand, page 3</ref> The [[Russian Orthodox Church]], for centuries the strongest of all Orthodox Churches, was violently suppressed.<ref name="Viking p.494">[[Geoffrey Blainey]]; ''[[A Short History of Christianity]]''; Viking; 2011; p.494</ref> Revolutionary leader [[Vladimir Lenin]] wrote that every religious idea and every idea of [[God]] "is unutterable vileness... of the most dangerous kind, 'contagion of the most abominable kind".<ref name="MartinAmis">Martin Amis; Koba the Dread; Vintage Books; London; 2003; {{ISBN|1400032202}}; p.30-31</ref> Many priests were killed and imprisoned. Thousands of churches were closed, some turned into hospitals. In 1925, the government founded the [[League of Militant Atheists]] to intensify the persecution.<ref>Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.494"</ref>

Christopher Marsh, a professor at [[Baylor University]] writes that "Tracing the social nature of religion from Schleiermacher and Feurbach to Marx, Engels, and Lenin... the idea of religion as a social product evolved to the point of policies aimed at the forced conversion of believers to atheism."<ref name="Marsh2011">{{cite book|last=Marsh|first=Christopher|title=Religion and the State in Russia and China: Suppression, Survival, and Revival|date=20 January 2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|language=en|isbn=978-1-4411-0284-3|pages=13}}</ref>
Jonathan Blake of the Department of Political Science at [[Columbia University]] elucidates the history of this practice in the USSR, stating that:<ref name="Blake2014" />

{{blockquote|God, however, did not simply vanish after the Bolshevik revolution. Soviet authorities relied heavily on coercion to spread their idea of scientific atheism. This included confiscating church goods and property, forcibly closing religious institutions and executing religious leaders and believers or sending them to the [[gulag]]... Later, the United States passed the [[Jackson–Vanik amendment]] which harmed US–Soviet trade relations until the USSR permitted the emigration of religious minorities, primarily Jews. Despite the threat from coreligionists abroad, however, the Soviet Union engaged in forced atheism from its earliest days.<ref name="Blake2014">{{cite book|last=Blake|first=Jonathan S. |title="By the Sword of God": Explaining Forced Religious Conversion|date=19 April 2014|publisher=[[Columbia University]]|language=en|pages=15, 17}}</ref>}}

Across [[Eastern Europe]] following [[World War II]], the parts of the [[Nazi Empire]] conquered by the Soviet [[Red Army]], and Yugoslavia became one party communist states and the project of coercive conversion continued.<ref>Peter Hebblethwaite; Paul VI, the First Modern Pope; HarperCollins Religious; 1993; p.211</ref><ref>Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Viking; 2003; p.566 & 568</ref> The Soviet Union ended its war time truce against the Russian Orthodox Church, and extended its persecutions to the newly communist Eastern bloc: "In [[Polish anti-religious campaign|Poland]], Hungary, Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, Catholic leaders who were unwilling to be silent were denounced, publicly humiliated or imprisoned by the communists. Leaders of the national Orthodox Churches in [[Anti-religious campaign of Communist Romania|Romania]] and Bulgaria had to be cautious and submissive", wrote Blainey.<ref name="Viking p.494"/> While the churches were generally not as severely treated as they had been in the USSR, nearly all their schools and many of their churches were closed, and they lost their formerly prominent roles in public life. Children were taught atheism, and clergy were imprisoned by the thousands.<ref name="Viking p.508">[[Geoffrey Blainey]]; ''[[A Short History of Christianity]]''; Viking; 2011; p.508</ref>

In the [[Eastern Bloc]], Christian churches, Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques were forcibly "converted into museums of atheism."<ref name="FranklinWiddis2006">{{cite book|last1=Franklin|first1=Simon|last2=Widdis|first2=Emma|title=National Identity in Russian Culture|date=2 February 2006|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|language=en|isbn=978-0-521-02429-7|page=104|quote=Churches, when not destroyed, might find themselves converted into museums of atheism.}}</ref><ref name="Bevan2016">{{cite book|last=Bevan|first=Robert|title=The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War|date=15 February 2016|publisher=Reaktion Books|language=en|isbn=978-1-78023-608-7|page=152|quote=Churches, synagogues, mosques and monasteries were shut down in the immediate wake of the Revolution. Many were converted to secular uses or Museums of Atheism (antichurches), whitewashed and their fittings removed.}}</ref> Historical essayist [[:ro:Andrei Brezianu|Andrei Brezianu]] expounds upon this situation, specifically in the [[Socialist Republic of Romania]], writing that scientific atheism was "aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited"; he provides an example of this phenomenon, further writing that "St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism".<ref name="BrezianuSpânu2010">{{cite book|last1=Brezianu|first1=Andrei|title=The A to Z of Moldova|date=26 May 2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|language=en|isbn=978-0-8108-7211-0|page=98|quote=Communist Atheism. Official doctrine of the Soviet regime, also called "scientific atheism." It was aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited, and it was applied again throughout the subsequent decades of the Soviet regime, after 1944. ... The St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism,}}</ref> Marxist-Leninist regimes treated religious believers as subversives or abnormal, sometimes relegating them to psychiatric hospitals and reeducation.{{sfn|McGrath|2006|p=46}}<ref name="Froese2008">{{cite book|last=Froese|first=Paul|title=The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization|date=6 August 2008|publisher=University of California Press|language=en |isbn=978-0-520-94273-8|page=122|quote=Before 1937, the Soviet regime had closed thousands of churches and removed tens of thousands of religious leaders from positions of influence. By the midthirties, Soviet elites set out to conduct a mass liquidation of all religious organizations and leaders... officers in the League of Militant Atheists found themselves in a bind to explain the widespread persistence of religious belief in 1937.... The latest estimates indicate that thousands of individuals were executed for religious crimes and hundreds of thousands of religious believers were imprisoned in labor camps or psychiatric hospitals.}}</ref> Nevertheless, historian Emily Baran writes that "some accounts suggest the conversion to militant atheism did not always end individuals' existential questions".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Baran|first=Emily|year=2011|title="I saw the light": Former Protestant believer testimonials in the Soviet Union, 1957–1987 |journal=Cahiers du Monde Russe |volume=52|issue=1|pages=163–184 |url=http://monderusse.revues.org/9325 |quote=Atheist agitators hoped that such stories would help to convince believers and non-believers alike that the search for purpose in life could be solved with the discovery of atheism and communism. Yet some accounts suggest the conversion to militant atheism did not always end individuals' existential questions. To begin with, many former believers joined and left several religious organizations prior to renouncing faith altogether. Their life history could not be simply divided into two halves. One man recounted having joined the Baptists, Pentecostals, and the Seventh-Day Adventists before abandoning religion. Another man had been an Old Believer, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Witness. In other words, many believers had spent time as non-believers, but found life without religious faith somehow unsatisfying. As a result, some former believers admitted to having previously left religious organizations, only to return to them later. Many of them noted how after publicly denouncing Protestantism, they continued to receive visits from their former religious leaders asking them to reconsider. Indeed, atheist propaganda sometimes included complaints that once a believer had been convinced to leave his faith, atheist agitators lost interest in him, viewing the case as resolved.<!--|language=English-->}}</ref>

=== French Revolution ===
During the [[French Revolution]], a [[Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution|campaign of dechristianization]] happened which included removal and destruction of religious objects from places of worship; English librarian [[Thomas Hartwell Horne]] and biblical scholar [[Samuel Davidson]] write that "churches were converted into 'temples of reason,' in which atheistical and licentious homilies were substituted for the proscribed service".<ref name="HorneDavidson2013">{{cite book|last1=Horne|first1=Thomas Hartwell|last2=Davidson|first2=Samuel|title=An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures|date=21 November 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|language=en |isbn=978-1-108-06772-0|page=30}}</ref><ref>Latreille, A. FRENCH REVOLUTION, New Catholic Encyclopedia v. 5, pp. 972–973 (Second Ed. 2002 Thompson/Gale) {{ISBN|0-7876-4004-2}}</ref><ref>[[#Spielvogel2005|Spielvogel (2005)]]:549.</ref><ref>[[#Tallet1991|Tallet (1991)]]:1</ref>

Unlike later establishments of state atheism by [[Communist state|communist regimes]], the French Revolutionary experiment was short (seven months), incomplete and inconsistent.<ref>{{cite book | last=McGrath | first=Alistair E. | author-link=Alistair McGrath |title=The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise And Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World | publisher=Galilee | year=2006 | isbn=978-0-385-50062-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVCKDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA45 | access-date=9 May 2017 | page=45 }}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason= source is unreliable, not serious at all|date=November 2013}} Even though it was brief, the French experiment was particularly notable because it influenced atheists such as [[Ludwig Feuerbach]], [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Karl Marx]].{{sfn|McGrath|2006|p=46}}

===East Asia===
{{Further|Antireligious campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party}}

The emergence of [[communist state]]s across [[East Asia]] after World War Two saw religion purged by atheist regimes across [[China]], [[North Korea]] and much of [[Indochina|Indo-China]].<ref name="Geoffrey Blainey p.508">Geoffrey Blainey; A Short History of Christianity; Viking; 2011; p.508</ref> In 1949, China became a communist state under the leadership of [[Mao Zedong]]'s [[Chinese Communist Party]]. Prior to this takeover, China itself was previously a cradle of religious thought since ancient times, being the birthplace of [[Confucianism]] and [[Daoism]], and Buddhists arrived in the first century CE. Under Mao, China became [[state atheism|an officially atheist state]], and even though some religious practices were permitted to continue under State supervision, religious groups which are considered a threat to law and order have been suppressed—such as [[Tibetan Buddhism]] from 1959 and [[Falun Gong]] in recent years.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111803/China/258959/Altaic#toc258961 Encyclopædia Britannica Online – China: Religion]; accessed 10 November 2013</ref> Religious schools and social institutions were closed, foreign missionaries were expelled, and local religious practices were discouraged.<ref name="Geoffrey Blainey p.508"/> During the [[Cultural Revolution]], Mao instigated "struggles" against the [[Four Olds]]: "old ideas, customs, culture, and habits of mind".<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111803/China/71854/Attacks-on-party-members Encyclopædia Britannica Online – China – History: Cultural Revolution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150114054343/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/111803/China/71854/Attacks-on-party-members |date=2015-01-14 }}; accessed 10 November 2013</ref> In 1999, the Communist Party launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in Tibet, saying that intensifying atheist propaganda is "especially important for Tibet because atheism plays an extremely important role in promoting economic construction, social advancement and socialist spiritual civilization in the region".<ref>[https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/monitoring/253345.stm China announces "civilizing" atheism drive in Tibet] ; BBC; January 12, 1999</ref>

As of November 2018, in present-day China, the government has detained many people in [[Xinjiang re-education camps|internment camps]], "where [[Uyghurs|Uighur Muslims]] are remade into atheist Chinese subjects".<ref name="Beydoun2018">{{cite web |last1=Beydoun |first1=Khaled A. |title=For China, Islam is a 'mental illness' that needs to be 'cured' |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/china-islam-mental-illness-cured-181127135358356.html |publisher=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] |language=en |access-date=10 December 2018 |archive-date=10 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210012542/https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/china-islam-mental-illness-cured-181127135358356.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For children who were forcibly taken away from their parents, the Chinese government has established "orphanages" with the aim of "converting future generations of Uighur Muslim children into loyal subjects who embrace atheism".<ref name="Beydoun2018"/>

=== Revolutionary Mexico ===
{{See also|Plutarco Elías Calles|Calles Law|Cristero War}}

Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, and 130 of the [[Constitution of Mexico|Mexican Constitution of 1917]] as originally enacted were [[Anti-clericalism|anticlerical]] and enormously restricted religious freedoms.<ref name="lawreview.byu.edu">Soberanes Fernandez, Jose Luis, [http://lawreview.byu.edu/archives/2002/2/Sob12.pdf Mexico and the 1981 United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121019110819/http://lawreview.byu.edu/archives/2002/2/Sob12.pdf |date=2012-10-19 }}, pp. 437–438 nn. 7–8, BYU Law Review, June 2002</ref> At first the anticlerical provisions were only sporadically enforced, but when President [[Plutarco Elías Calles]] took office, he enforced the provisions strictly.<ref name="lawreview.byu.edu" /> Calles' Mexico has been characterized as an atheist state<ref>Haas, Ernst B., [https://books.google.com/books?id=ldKJ_Re6p8AC Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The dismal fate of new nations], Cornell Univ. Press 2000</ref> and his program as being one to eradicate religion in Mexico.<ref>Cronon, E. David "American Catholics and Mexican Anticlericalism, 1933–1936", pp. 205–208, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLV, Sept. 1948</ref>

All religions had their properties expropriated, and these became part of government wealth. There was a forced expulsion of foreign clergy and the seizure of Church properties.<ref name="ilstu.edu">{{cite web|url=http://www.ilstu.edu/class/hist263/docs/1917const.html |title=1917 Constitution of Mexico |access-date=2007-03-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070303014932/http://www.ilstu.edu/class/hist263/docs/1917const.html |archive-date=2007-03-03 }}</ref> Article 27 prohibited any future acquisition of such property by the churches, and prohibited religious corporations and ministers from
establishing or directing primary schools.<ref name="ilstu.edu" /> This second prohibition was sometimes interpreted to mean that the Church could not give religious instruction to children within the churches on Sundays, seen as destroying the ability of Catholics to be educated in their own religion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.myheritage.es/FP/newsItem.php?s=114433561&newsID=68&sourceList=dir|title=THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE MARTIN-DEL-CAMPOs Part II|publisher=myheritage.es}}</ref><!-- see also http://toolserver.org/~dcoetzee/duplicationdetector/compare.php?url1=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DState_atheism&url2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nairaland.com%2F723007%2Ftai-solarin-life-ideas-accomplishments%2F2&minwords=2&minchars=13 -->

The Constitution of 1917 also closed and forbade the existence of monastic orders (article 5), forbade any religious activity outside of church buildings (now owned by the government), and mandated that such religious activity would be overseen by the government (article 24).<ref name="ilstu.edu" />

On June 14, 1926, President Calles enacted [[anticlerical]] legislation known formally as The Law Reforming the Penal Code and unofficially as the [[Calles Law]].<ref name="Joes, Anthony James p. 70">Joes, Anthony James [https://books.google.com/books?id=buHXFDFdeoQC&dq=plutarco+calles+anticatholic&pg=PA70 Resisting Rebellion: The History And Politics of Counterinsurgency] p. 70, (2006 University Press of Kentucky) {{ISBN|0-8131-9170-X}}</ref> His [[anti-Catholic]] actions included outlawing religious orders, depriving the Church of property rights and depriving the clergy of civil liberties, including their right to a trial by jury (in cases involving anti-clerical laws) and the right to vote.<ref name="Joes, Anthony James p. 70" /><ref name="THE CRISTERO REBELLION – PART 1">Tuck, Jim [http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/jtuck/jtcristero1.html THE CRISTERO REBELLION – PART 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081221023407/http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/jtuck/jtcristero1.html |date=2008-12-21 }} Mexico Connect 1996</ref> Catholic antipathy towards Calles was enhanced because of his vocal atheism.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book
|title=Mexico's New Politics
|author=David A. Shirk
|year=2005
|publisher=[[Lynne Rienner Publishers]]
|isbn=978-1-58826-270-7
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WOBRb0wKpocC&pg=PA58
}}</ref>

[[File:Cristeroscolgados.jpg|thumb|250px|Cristeros hanged in [[Jalisco]]]]
Due to the strict enforcement of anti-clerical laws, people in strongly [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] areas, especially the states of [[Jalisco]], [[Zacatecas]], [[Guanajuato]], [[Colima]] and [[Michoacán]], began to oppose him, and this opposition led to the [[Cristero War]] from 1926 to 1929, which was characterized by brutal atrocities on both sides. Some Cristeros applied terrorist tactics, while the Mexican government persecuted the clergy, killing suspected Cristeros and supporters and often retaliating against innocent individuals.<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Plutarco_Elias_Calles.aspx Calles, Plutarco Elías] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150207084748/http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Plutarco_Elias_Calles.aspx |date=2015-02-07 }} The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05 Columbia University Press.</ref> In [[Tabasco]] state, the so-called "[[Red Shirts (Mexico)|Red Shirts]]" began to act.

A truce was negotiated with the assistance of U.S. Ambassador [[Dwight Whitney Morrow]].<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars">{{citation |last=Van Hove |first=Brian |date=1996 |title=Blood-Drenched Altars: Baltimore's Archbishop Michael Joseph Curley, Oklahoma's Bishop Francis Clement Kelley and the Mexican Affair: 1934–1936 |publisher=[[Eternal Word Television Network]] |url=http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/FR94204.TXT |access-date=9 May 2017 |archive-date=9 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171109012114/http://www.ewtn.com/library/HOMELIBR/FR94204.TXT |url-status=dead }}</ref> Calles, however, did not abide by the terms of the truce – in violation of its terms, he had approximately 500 Cristero leaders and 5,000 other Cristeros shot, frequently in their homes in front of their spouses and children.<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars" /> Particularly offensive to Catholics after the supposed truce was Calles' insistence on a complete state monopoly on education, suppressing all Catholic education and introducing "socialist" education in its place: "We must enter and take possession of the mind of childhood, the mind of youth".<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars"/> The persecution continued as Calles maintained control under his [[Maximato]] and did not relent until 1940, when President [[Manuel Ávila Camacho]], a believing Catholic, took office.<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars" /> This attempt to indoctrinate the youth in atheism was begun in 1934 by amending Article 3 to the [[Mexican Constitution]] to eradicate religion by mandating "socialist education", which "in addition to removing all religious doctrine" would "combat fanaticism and prejudices", "build[ing] in the youth a rational and exact concept of the universe and of social life".<ref name="lawreview.byu.edu" /> In 1946 this "socialist education" was removed from the constitution and the document returned to the less egregious generalized secular education.
The effects of the war on the Church were profound. Between 1926 and 1934 at least 40 priests were killed.<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars" /> Where there were 4,500 priests operating within the country before the rebellion, in 1934 there were only 334 priests licensed by the government to serve fifteen million people, the rest having been eliminated by emigration, expulsion, and assassination.<ref name="Blood-Drenched Altars" /><ref>Scheina, Robert L. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8aWQ_7oKJfkC&dq=cristero+war+priests+killed&pg=PA33 Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791–1899] p. 33 (2003
Brassey's) {{ISBN|1-57488-452-2}}</ref> By 1935, 17 states had no priest at all.<ref>Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo [https://archive.org/details/triumphstragedyh00ruiz/page/392 <!-- quote=Tomás Garrido Canabal. --> Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People] p.393 (1993 W. W. Norton & Company) {{ISBN|0-393-31066-3}}</ref>

=== Southeast Asia ===
{{main|Cambodian genocide}}

From April 1975 to January 1979, the [[Khmer Rouge]] ruled [[Democratic Kampuchea]] led by [[Pol Pot]] under an official policy of state atheism, regarding all forms of religion as “reactionary” and incompatible with the revolutionary ideology.<ref>Kiernan, Ben (2008) Kiernan, Ben (2008) [https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300144345/the-pol-pot-regime/] The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. Yale University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-300-14434-5}}</ref> The regime abolished religious institutions, prohibited worship, and criminalised the possession of religious texts or symbols.<ref>Harris, Ian (2005) [https://books.google.com.my/books/about/Buddhism_Under_Pol_Pot.html?id=p8DgAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y Buddhism under Pol Pot. Documentation Center of Cambodia.]</ref>

Buddhism, followed by the majority of Cambodians, was particularly affected. Monastic life was dismantled when monks were forcibly defrocked and sent to perform agricultural labour, pagodas were closed or destroyed, and statues of the Buddha were defaced or smashed.<ref>Chandler, David (1999). [https://www.ucpress.edu/books/voices-from-s-21/epub-pdf Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison.] [[University of California Press]].</ref> Estimates suggest that out of approximately 60,000 monks in Cambodia before 1975, fewer than 3,000 survived by 1979, with many executed or dying from forced labour, starvation, or illness.<ref name="harris2007">Harris, Ian (2007) [https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/cambodian-buddhism-history-and-practice/ Cambodian Buddhism: History and Practice.] University of Hawaii Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8248-2978-0}}</ref> The destruction extended to Buddhist libraries, manuscripts, and ritual objects, effectively dismantling the country’s centuries-old monastic traditions.<ref>Edwards, Penny (2007) [https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/cambodge-the-cultivation-of-a-nation-1860-1945/ Cambodge: The Cultivation of a Nation, 1860–1945.] [[University of Hawaii Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-8248-3188-2}}</ref>

These policies formed part of the Khmer Rouge's broader attempt to eradicate all pre-revolutionary cultural and social structures in what they called “[[Year Zero (political notion)|Year Zero]]”.<ref>Vickery, Michael (1984) [https://books.google.com.my/books/about/Cambodia_1975_1982.html?id=ZxBxAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y Cambodia 1975–1982. South End Press.]</ref> Although the regime did not use the term “conversion to atheism”, the enforced abandonment of religious practice, combined with indoctrination into the state's ideology, effectively compelled the population to adopt an atheist stance in public life.<ref name="harris2007"/>

== See also ==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Commons category|Forced conversion}}
{{columns-list|
* [[Al-Baqara 256]]
* [[Criticism of atheism]]
* [[Criticism of religion]]
* [[Crypto-Christianity]]
* [[Crypto-Islam]]
* [[Crypto-Judaism]]
* [[Crypto-paganism]]
* ''[[Cuius regio, eius religio]]''
* [[Forced conversion of minority girls in Pakistan]]
* [[Forced monasticism]]
* [[Forced circumcision]]
* [[Inquisition]]
* ''[[Kakure Kirishitan]]''
* ''[[Kirchenkampf]]''
* [[Love jihad conspiracy theory]]
* [[Pact of Umar]]
* [[Religious conversion]]
* [[Religious discrimination]]
* [[Religious fanaticism]]
* [[Religious intolerance]]
* [[Religious persecution]]
* [[Religious segregation]]
* [[Religious violence]]
* [[Sectarian violence]]
* [[Supremacism#Religious]]
* [[State religion]]
* ''[[Vorpahavak]]''
}}
{{Portal bar|Religion}}

== References ==
{{reflist|30em}}

{{Religious persecution}}{{Discrimination}}

[[Category:Forced religious conversion| ]]
[[Category:Christianization]]
[[Category:Islamization]]
[[Category:Persecution by atheist states]]
[[Category:Religious policy]]
[[Category:Genocide]]