Being connected with other people and their beliefs is hugely important in today’s world, but in the past, we have too respected and honored other peoples’ religions and religious beliefs. In other words, we have been very interconnected in past civilizations with different people. Interconnectedness is a very important enduring issue because it allows people of different backgrounds and beliefs to connect with each other, and we see this in three different scenarios: King Ashoka’s rule of the Mauryan Empire in India caused people to be more interconnected through Buddhism and leaving a positive effect on the people, the Pact of Umar written by the Christians allowed Muslims and Christians to live peacefully together though they were sort of separated, and the Mongolian reign over China which caused the Mongolians to be interconnected with Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian culture, leaving an overall positive effect on the Mongolians.
King Ashoka, formally known as Ashoka Maurya, inherited the throne of the Mauryan Empire located in India in 269 BCE from his family. During Ashoka’s reign, he converted to Buddhism, and from then on based all of his government policies on Buddhist teachings. As a result of him converting to Buddhism, he also began to follow and honor the Dharma. According to Buddhism, if you follow the Dharma you will get good Karma, meaning if you treat others with respect, you will be treated well in return. Because King Ashoka followed and honored the Dharma and treated other with respect to achieve Karma and encouraged the people of the Mauryan Empire to do the same, he and the people had positive outlooks on people of other religions. According to Document 1, The Edicts of King Ashoka: An English Rendering, Ashoka has his new laws and policies inscribed on rocks and stone pillars throughout the empire, and they were known as Ashoka’s Rock and Pillar Edicts. An excerpt from one of his edicts reads; ‘Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought “Let me glorify my own religion,” only harms his own religion. Therefore contact (between religions) is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others’. This shows how even though King Ashoka was a Buddhist and had Buddhist values, he still respected other beliefs and valued contact between religions, telling us that the Mauryan Empire at this time was very interconnected with other religions. Though the Mauryans were connected with other religions and kept a positive outlook over them doesn’t mean that all other groups did the same. We see that with this next group, the Christians and the Muslims, that they had a slightly different way of being connected.
In the mid-600s CE, Islamic armies began to conquer huge regions in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. These areas were often home to non-Muslims. As an effect of this, Islamic Caliphates made agreements with non-Muslims based on the Pact of Umar, a document released in 637 CE. The Christians of Syria made a pact with the Muslims saying that they would practice their religion quietly in exchange for protection. Excerpts from Document 3, The History or the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons, state: “That we will not make show of the Christians religion nor invite anyone to embrace it,” and “That we will not teach our children the Qu’ran.” This tells us that the Christians respected the Muslims’ values and didn’t want to force their beliefs onto them, even though they may not have shared the same beliefs and values. This tells us that the Christians very interconnected with Muslims in the sense that the respected each other and found ways to live together peacefully through the Pact of Umar, but they weren’t very connected in the sense that there was some separation of religion occurring because of the Pact of Umar because the Christians couldn’t practice their religion as freely as the Muslim’s could. Though there may have been some tension with the interconnectedness of the Christians and the Muslims, the Mongolians were connected with both Islam and Christianity.
According to Document 4, Life in China under Mongol Rule: Religion, an important factor of the Mongols’ rule in China was their support of many religions. The Mongol Empire that stretched from Eastern Europe to Eastern Asia was a vast empire that lasted for about 50 years during the 13th century under the rule of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan. During the Mongolian reign, the Mongols invented and innovated many things, such as the composite bow and more sturdy saddles. Using their bow and horse fighting technique, the Mongols were able to conquer vast land areas, causing them to come in contact with many religions. As an effect of this, the Mongols built many mosques in China and recruited Islamic financial administrators, giving them good relations with the Islamic people. The Mongols were also very interested in Buddhism and recruited Tibetan monks to aid their rule of China and promote interests of Buddhism. Additionally, the Tibetan ‘Phags-pa Lama policy resulted in a huge increase of Buddhist monasteries and the translation of Buddhist texts. The Mongols even prompted Christianity, showing that the Mongols were incredibly interconnected with many different religions.
Being interconnected with other religions and beliefs is hugely important. We see that the Mongols of China, the Christians in Syria, and the Mauryans of India were largely connected with other religions and belief systems, resulting in peaceful interactions and support from each other. Because past civilizations have been able to connect and communicate with different religions, in today’s world we are also very interconnected with people of different backgrounds. For instance, the development of technology has allowed us to connect to new people from different backgrounds all the way across the world. Also, people around the world watch tv and movies that were created by different cultures, such as Anime, which originated in Japan but people all around the globe watch it. This just proves to show how people being interconnected with people of different backgrounds in the past has positively impacted us today, and will continue to impact future generations.
Ella Shaffer's High School Portfolio 