Persecution & Toleration. The Long Road to Religious Freedom Quotes

“A poll tax (jizya) on non-Muslims was introduced. The details of how this tax was assessed and collected varied greatly across the Middle East, but it was an important element of the fiscal system of the early Islamic polities. It provided a strong incentive for Islamic rulers to deter forcible conversion to Islam, as this would hurt revenues.”
― Noel D. Johnson, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom

“the occupation of the Rhineland by French troops that followed in 1794. This invasion marked “a decisive break with the past, as centuries of traditional institutions, ways of thinking and acting were swept away” (Diefendorf, 1980, 23).21 The French eliminated the majority of tolls and standardized the regulation of the river.”
― Noel D. Johnson, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom

“by the early modern period “few Jews in any part of Europe had more than such a limited knowledge of the language of a country, namely the language of their gentile neighbors, as might be necessary to conduct commercial transactions with them. Even this rarely extended to the ability to read and write in the vernacular” (Vital, 1999, 21–22). It is important to note that this was not the case in the Middle Ages.”
― Noel D. Johnson, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom