This section presents Part II of The Malleus Maleficarum, one of the best-known treatises dealing with the problem of what to do with witches, written in 1487 by a Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Institoris. Part II is intended for preachers and certainly contains a large number of anecdotes and instances which they could use in their sermons, but it is far from being a mere collection of useful stories. Its constant thrust not only repeats the messages of Part I, but also makes clear an important step in Institoris’s general argument – that the many popular beliefs and practices there presented, in one form or another, show that one cannot distinguish between a practitioner of magic of whatever kind she or he might be and a heretical devotee of Satan.

This section presents Part I of The Malleus Maleficarum, one of the best-known treatises dealing with the problem of what to do with witches, written in 1487 by a Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Institoris. Part I is addressed to fellow theologians, and is devoted to showing that the conspiratorial pact between workers of harmful magic and evil spirits is no fantasy but a present reality, and that the cause of the increasing numbers of witches lies in the sexual relations between women and evil spirits. It is thus an extended essay in demonology rather than a handbook.

In this introduction, translator P.G. Maxwell-Stuart sets out the key themes and features of the three distinct parts of The Malleus Maleficarum, discussing he intellectual ambience of the Malleus, magic in the fifteenth century, and inquisitors Heinrich Institoris and Jakob Sprenger. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the later history of the Malleus, and it's various printings and translations into German, French, English, and Italian.

This section presents Part IIII of The Malleus Maleficarum, one of the best-known treatises dealing with the problem of what to do with witches, written in 1487 by a Dominican inquisitor, Heinrich Institoris. Part III is indeed more like a manual. Addressed to judges both ecclesiastical and secular, it covers a large number of technical points anent the arrest, examination, and sentencing of workers of harmful magic, offering examples of the appropriate formulae to be used in whatever circumstance the examining and sentencing judge might fi nd himself. This part could, in fact, almost be detached from the rest of the treatise without affecting the other two.

The chapter explores the euphoria and optimism that the events of 2011 spread among Arab liberals, whose long and stubborn struggle to expand the sphere of personal freedom and democracy was confirmed as not being pointless and unproductive. It also examines the disappointment and frustration in their ranks in light of the success of Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Nahda in Tunisia in harvesting the political capital generated by these events.

This chapter analyzes the attitudes of liberal thinkers in relation to Islam, with an emphasis on the Qur’an and the Prophet’s era, the hard core of Muslim collective memory throughout the ages. Liberal writers provided rich scholarship and dynamic interpretations of the sacred sources, based on scientific exploration of the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which Islam emerged in the seventh century

The concluding chapter summarizes the Arab liberals’ alternative agenda for relations between individual and state, religion and politics, Islam and the West. The confidence of the liberals in the rightness of their path did not dispel doubts about whether the contemporary Arab peoples were ready for enlightenment. However, these liberals still sought internal renewal and continued to search for Arab enlightenment.

This chapter discusses the liberal endeavor to reduce the power of the state, and liberals’ intensive engagement with personal liberties and the empowerment of individualism in the Arab landscape. The defying liberal discourse regarding Arab politics also revealed internal tensions on such issues as the individual’s relations with the collective, the features of the socioeconomic structure, and the inclusion of Islamists in the democratic process.