Holy War - Religious War: Sacralization of War in History. Introductory Remarks

The article outlines the underlying aims of the section's conference "Religious War Holy War: Sacralisation of war in History" (Tubingen 2013). Recent scholarship has demonstrated clearly that there is no universal trans-temporal concept of religious war. Therefore, the guiding theme of the conference is to inquire about the changing conceptions and different meanings of religious war and holy war in history based on synchronic and diachronic comparisons. The different contributions to the section, which are described briefly in the article, range from late medieval to modem Europe, taking into account the changing role of holy war in the Islamic world from the 16th to the 19th century.