Longtime readers will recognize the name of independent scholar Ibn Warraq, author of the breakthrough work Why I Am Not a Muslim (1995) and nearly a dozen more technical scholarly books focused principally on the history and doctrines of Islam. He was also a Free Inquiry columnist from 2005 until 2011. He recently published a new work for general audiences, Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind: Atheism and Freethought in Islam (Schiller Hans Verlag, 2020). Richard Dawkins has hailed this book as “beautifully written” and “a tour-de-force of astonishing scholarship.”

In the course of his research, Warraq developed a series of articles examining traditions of religious unbelief in world cultures. Free Inquiry will present these articles at intervals over the next fifteen months. The opening installment concerns religious unbelief in Indian civilization.

—Tom Flynn