Islamic Empire and the Mongol Khanate: A Comparison
During the period 600 CE to 1450 CE, the process of by which the Islamic Empire and the Mongol Khanates built and maintained their empires was different in that the ways the leaders governed and what sets of laws were used to govern but was similar in that they both depended heavily on military force for expansion and security. A difference between the two kingdoms’ maintenance was how the leaders governed their land. The Islamic Empire rulers, also called caliphs, ruled both religiously and politically while the Mongol Khanate rulers were tribal. Because the Islamic Empire was started by a religious figure named Muhammad, it was natural that they would have to rule largely connected to their religion. Many aspects of a Muslim’s life were set to move according to their religious duties such as praying. On the other hand, the Mongols were very not very religious even though they had a tribal religion because they had to constantly hunt and fight for survival. Religion became a choice for them so many Mongols chose to be far apart from religion. But after they started to strengthen and expand their empire, they started to support other religions such as Buddhism. A proof for the way the Islamic Empires ruled would be that the kingdom was split to different groups based on who would have to rule after Prophet Mohammad who was the founder of their religion. The Mongols had a huge Empire during their peak which proves that the Mongols were focused on territory and power even though they embraced other religions. These differences occurred mainly because of the way the empires started. The Islamic Empire was started by the founder of the empire which meant that the government will be closely related to the religion and the Mongols were very far apart from each other making it impossible to share ideas of religion and even expanding their traditional religion. Another difference between the two kingdoms is that they had different sets of laws to govern their land.