Abstract

This chapter discusses the concept of tolerance as found in Islamic sources, particularly in the Quran—the central foundational scripture in Islam—as well as in historical praxis. It points to a distinction between the concepts of “tolerance” and “toleration” after roughly the late ninth century of the common era due to changing socio-historical circumstances. The chapter further describes the efforts of modern, reformist Muslims to revisit pre-modern interpretations of the Shari’a (a term that comprises both religious law and ethics) in order to retrieve the early ethos of tolerance and revive it as an essential feature of contemporary Muslim-majority societies.