Christianity in Rome
Emperor Nero of Rome in 64 AD is who started the first large scale persecution of a religion, Christianity. The Roman Empire was an expansion, conquering force which inquired many forms of religions over the years. These religions were put into a melting pot and classified then as Paganism, “a fluid and amorphous collection” of religions. Christianity soon started to spread across the empire, loyalist did not take kindly to this because it was insulting to their God’s and endangered the empire. There was a huge fire that occured, it was suspected that Emperor Nero had caused it, to throw off the rumors Nero blamed the Christians. He ordered for them to be rounded up and killed. This led to years of persecution by other emperors against the religion, as they were often used as scapegoats. Accusations such as incest and cannibalism also followed the religion. Many Christians died violent deaths including; torn apart by dogs, hung, and being lit on fire. It took hundreds of years for Christianity to progress. “There was no ‘triumph’, no one moment where Christians had visibly ‘won’ some battle against pagans. Progress was bitty, hesitant, geographically patchy.”
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Pagans were suspicious of the Christian refusal to sacrifice to the Roman gods.
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Islam in Makkah
Muhammad arrived in Makkah, an Arab society to spread the message of Allah. Muhammad "told the Arabs not to worship the multitudes of inanimate objects made of stone or wood which they themselves had fashioned, and which had no power either to give anything to them or to take anything away from them." That "they ought to give their obedience to Allah, the One Lord of the whole universe. He also told them that in His sight, in the sight of their Creator, they were all equal, and if they became Muslim, they would all become brothers of each other." These ideas upset the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh, for they saw a threat to their social system built upon force and privilege. The Quraysh began persecution Muslims by insults, this soon turned to violence. This continued for years before the Migration of the Prophet to Medina.
Buddhism in the
Sassanian Empire
In 224 CE Zoroastrianism was the official religion of Persia (Modern day Iran). During this time no other religion was accepted in Persia and Buddhism was being targeted for persecution. These persecutions stopped the spread of Buddhism to the west side of Persia. In the second half of the 3rd century, the high priest of Zoroastrianism Kirder dominated the religious policy of the state and ordered the destruction of Buddhist monasteries in Afghanistan.
Hindu Persecution
Hindus have been part of religious persecution since early times. During 500 BCE to 1800 CE in India more than 2000 temples were destroyed and converted to mosques by the Goa Government. This government destroyed 100% of the temples by 1569 CE and made laws that forbid the repair of temples from 1566-1576 CE. The destruction of their temples was not the only way of persecution for this religion, during 1000 to 1525, the invasion of Mughal Empire in India caused a massacre of 400 million Hindus. More than 2,000,000 Hindus where placed for slavery in Sindh, Ujjain, Rur, Malva, Punjav and India during the rule of Mahmud of Ghazni in 997. Persecution of Hindus are still occurring today.