http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zind%C4%ABqZindīq is applied by Muslims to individuals who are considered to hold views or follow practices that are contrary to central Islamic dogmas.[1] Starting in medieval times, Muslims began to refer to Manichaeans, apostates, pagans, heretics and those who antagonized Islam as zindiqs, the charge being punishable by death.[2] As of the late 8th century the Abbasid caliphs began to hunt down and exterminate freethinkers in large numbers, putting to death anyone on mere suspicion of being a zindiq.[3] They were extensively persecuted on an organized scale starting in the reign of al-Mahdi and then continued by his successors, al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid, although with diminished intensity during the reign of the latter. Starting with al-Rashid's successor al-Ma'mun, religious persecution in Islam took a different direction with the institution of Mihna.[4]
