Mongolia is Awesome: Medieval Freedom of Religion (Wait, What?)

The Mongol Empire doesn't exactly have a great reputation for mercy or compassion or pretty much anything that’s not, you know, conquering the known world and then conquering the unknown bits and then finding another known world to conquer. I can’t say they didn’t have a great PR department, though, because actually their reputation for brutality and total war was deliberately cultivated; as a result of it, some cities would raise a white flag just because they heard the word “Mongol” in order to avoid suffering the same fate as Baghdad. But centuries later, in an era with different values, people tend to remember the cruelty of the Mongols and the destruction they wreaked. One word that probably doesn’t spring to mind when we hear “Mongols”: Tolerance.

Yet the Mongol Empire was a member of a rare  breed of medieval society, the religiously tolerant one. The khans, because they conquered such vast expanses of land, governed peoples of many different religions, and they pretty much had no preference as to what religion their subjects practiced. All major religions were allowed to practice freely in lands the Mongols governed, with the result that many towns had populations and of several different religions, mostly sects of Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Nestorian Christianity, and (in certain areas) Judaism. There were no forced conversions, no purges, and the khans, to ensure stability in their realms, even had to ensure that they did not offend any particular religious community. Some khans did practice their own religion--Chinggis Khaan relied heavily on shamans, and many khans  (including the originally Nestorian Teguder turned Ahmad) converted to Islam. But most khans were decidedly unreligious, and they catered to multiple religions to gain favor with different religious communities. Kublai Khan, for example, sent messengers to Jerusalem with instructions to worship there on his behalf, and many wives and mothers of Khans were Nestorians, as I’ve pointed out. According to the European diplomat William of Rubrick, who visited Karakorum in the 1250s, the Great Khan actually asked him to participate in a religious debate at the court with a Nestorian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. The Ilkhan Arghun is a near picture-perfect example of Mongol religious diversity, and the necessary flexibility of the Khans: He was a devout Buddhist married to a Byzantine Christian, and he had his son (who later converted to Islam) baptized into Nestorianism.

Of course, reading about the Mongol Empire of tolerance, my mind can’t help but draw comparisons between it and another tolerant realm—medieval Spain. There are plenty of differences between the nature of tolerance in the two kingdoms. The Mongol khans, as I pointed out, generally had no strong religious affiliations, and even if one did, a new khan would eventually replace him, and probably one of a different religion. In Spain, however, minority religions were usually ruled by the majority, with Christian kings allowing Muslims (and Jews) in their domains, or vice versa. This meant that although religions were tolerated, one was preferred. Furthermore, certain rulers or certain political climates would often have tragic results for minority religious communities, as eventually the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel did for tolerance itself in Spain. In the Mongol Empire, however, religiously motivated violence was not tolerated, keeping people mostly in line. Yet in both realms, the atmosphere could be tense, and outbreaks of religious violence did occur, though more frequently in Spain than in Mongol-ruled lands. Yet it was in the khans’ best interest to keep all religious communities happy, so the communities were, in a sense, forced to get along (or at least accept the existence of the others).

This is another similarity with Spanish tolerance—it was very much practically motivated. Simply put, the khans could not have held onto so much land if they insisted on a single religion. Their policy of tolerance was one meant to keep them in power, and their attempts to appease all religious groups (to gain their favor) demonstrates this. Khans who overstepped this boundary could be quickly ousted and replaced, while khans like Kublai who were careful not to step on any toes were more likely to last. The sparsely populated nature of both the Mongol realm and the Spanish meseta also necessitated this policy; there weren’t enough people to make any sort of religious demands, as everyone who could be spared was needed to work and protect the land. Furthermore, when people of certain minority religions had valuable skills or resources, it was in rulers’ best interest to accept these religions and keep these people around. This was the case with Jews in Medieval Spain; since they spoke Hebrew and often Arabic, and because of their vital position as money lenders (and their even more vital tax revenue), they were key figures in both Christian and Muslim Spanish courts. Similarly, educated Nestorian monks were valuable to Mongol khans, when neither literacy nor governance were strong suits of the Mongols. (This was likely behind Kublai’s request that Marco Polo send 100 Nestorian monks back to his capital so that they could “help convert people.”) And in both these cases, favoring minority religions could lead to unrest with the majority religions. In both Christian and Muslim-ruled Spain, courtiers often resented the presence and influence of Jews; this sometimes erupted in violence, as in the 1066 pogrom in Granada and the multiple pogroms of the fourteenth century. In the thirteenth-century Ilkhanate (the Mongol khanate governing Persia and sometimes, its surrounding lands), Islam was the majority religion, and Muslims often felt that the Mongols favored foreign religions, partially because courts were filled with educated members of the Nestorian clergy, and partially because most Ilkhans at that time were not Muslims.

So although the Mongol version of tolerance and the Spanish version of tolerance were different in significant ways, religiously diverse communities in the Middle Ages fell victim to the same sorts of woes: tension, outbreaks of violence, and a tolerance that was practical rather than ideological. I wonder if/how we have managed, in a modern world, to leave all of these woes behind.

But this isn’t a meditation; I just wanted to let everyone know that, though the Mongols may not have won Miss Congeniality at the pageant, while people (myself included) are looking to the “community of tolerance” in Spain for lessons, they may be missing out on something even more Awesome: an Empire of Tolerance.