How Religious Tolerance Affect The Legitimacy Of The Mongols

Caleb Stokes Ms. Katz History 9 4/20/24 How religious tolerance affects legitimacy.

The Mongols were a nomadic group who conquered most of Asia and parts of Europe and created one of the biggest land empires in history. The Mongols ruled during the 13th century. We studied the Mongols because their religious tolerance in their empire aided them in their conquest and helped avoid conflict. Constructive means serving a useful purpose or tending to build up. Their religious tolerance increased the legitimacy of the Mongols, which was constructive for their conquest.

The Mongols integrating themselves into other religions helped eliminate religious tension in the area, which increased their legitimacy. When the Mongols took over, they didn’t

Buddhism was by far the religion the Mongols admired the most, and most of them converted to it. The Mongols hired many Buddhist monks to help them lead the conquest and in return the Mongols imposed severe limits on Daoism. In 1281 the Buddhist monks and the Daoist monks had a meeting to debate the merits of their religions; the Mongols sided with the Buddhists. Daoism had been getting into conflicts with Buddhism for many years, so when the Mongols stopped it, the monks were very grateful. As Buddhism was the most supported religion in Asia, it was very constructive for the Mongols legitimacy to be such a big part of it. The Mongols gained a lot of legitimacy in the eyes of the Buddhists after they helped them with their problem of Daoism which was important because Buddhism was a very respected religion and for the Mongols to be seen and respected by them meant a lot in the eyes of

Since Islam was a very well supported religion in Asia, the Mongols wished to integrate themselves into it. Therefore, the Mongols offered tax benefits to Muslims to help win the higher ups over. In addition, the Mongols also brought agriculture techniques, porcelain, and artistic motifs to the Middle East. The Mongols appointed some of the Muslims to be their financial advisors. This was helpful because they had gained a lot of wealth from their conquests and needed help managing it. This helped the Mongols because it increased legitimacy with other Muslims outside of their domain. The Mongols bringing new things to the Middle East increased legitimacy with the Muslims. This was constructive for the Mongols because having more people of different religious backgrounds was good for connections and helping them increase legitimacy throughout other religions thus making expanding their empire easier. By tolerating other religions in the area, they gained more people to help them in the conquest because it gave them legitimacy. It gave them legitimacy because people saw how they decided to integrate themselves into other religions rather than just force a single religion on the whole