Through time, people have utilized different things to motivate them to better themselves, especially religion. Religion gives people a sense of direction and strength that influences their perception of daily life. In the lives of people from 1500 to 1700, religion was one of the main ways to become motivated, create connections among people, gain control, and influence/change political authority. Some rulers from 1500 to 1700 used religion to help them gain power over their people. Akbar is a good example of this. He gained power after his father’s passing and soon took over the government and controlled much of India from the middle of the 1500’s to the early 1600’s. He was known to be an accommodating ruler because of his decisions towards his people and the people he had conquered. Instead …show more content…
This resulted in his empire growing rapidly because of both his military action and his accommodating way of ruling his current and new people. The next ruler that I want to mention is Ismail I, who was the Padishah or ruler of the Safavid dynasty in Iran and ruled for a couple decades in the early 1500’s. He was much the opposite of Akbar when it came to religion. He chose to make Islam the religion for everyone in his empire and was not tolerant of people who chose not to convert. If people did not want to convert, they had the choice of leaving the empire or dying. This led to their being only Muslims in the empire which created a sense of peace, but he may have been able to expand and conquer more if he had chosen to rule religion over his people more like Akbar. Just like nowadays, people do not like to be told what to believe and will resist more because of it. This resistance taking place when Ismail I ruler could have made him have a harder time because of the enemies he created while ensuring everyone believed in