Thou shalt be killed under the right circumstances?

February 1, 2007 10:10 AM

How many people are/have been executed for apostasy every year?

I'd like to find solid numbers describing how many people are killed by their religious institution, both presently and historically, across all religions. Is this available somewhere?

posted by mullingitover to religion & philosophy (2 comments total)

As someone who has spent far too much time seeking out and poring over statistics on religion I feel safe saying there is absolutely no possibility you will find what you're looking for.

There are a lot of reasons for this but it will all boil down to lack of data. Failure to record data and purposeful obfuscation of data because of the controversy of the topic and tendencies to secrecy in the sorts of societies that actually carry out these sorts of executions, genuine ambiguity over the definition of your highly specified subcategory of religiously motivated executions are all going to contribute to this.

If you're trying to make some sort of point you may find it more efficient to seek information about specific, significant historical events (i.e. the Spanish Inquisition) where academics may have come up with estimates on roughly how many were killed for what, and anecdotal accounts of contemporary executions. You may find some information searching around Amnesty International, you can certainly generate a lot of anecdotes simply googling "executed for apostasy" and such.
posted by nanojath at 11:46 AM on February 1, 2007

Catholic Inquisition records were very detailed, and the vast majority of them still exist in archival condition. They're stored in Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, maybe other areas too. You should probably start there.

According to Bernard Lewis, the Ottomans kept great records early in their Empire, not-so-great records later on -- and presumably contemporary religious records and firmans were in their files, too. They're sitting in Turkish archives, supposedly well-preserved, but the vast majority have not been translated yet.
posted by Asparagirl at 1:47 PM on February 1, 2007