Genghis Khan and human freedom
Karam I
Religious toleration, meritocracy and ease of migration and trade. In today’s world, these qualities are essential necessities to a truly free society. We take a free society to be one where one can practise faith without the threat of recusancy fines, aspire to rise in professional ranks without cronyism, and benefit from efficient global links that permit us to exchange goods and culture with ease. Many contemporary figures dedicated their lives to improving one major form of freedom: John Locke focused on the separation between Church and state, Adam Smith on free trade, and Martin Luther King on racism. But there was one man who drove progression in all these areas and did so on a mammoth scale without the aid of social media, and that was Genghis Khan (1162-1227). In this essay, I will discuss why we should reconsider our understanding of a man often portrayed as a ruthless barbarian and self- proclaimed ‘punishment of God’. I argue that he used the influence of his empire to introduce theological, social and economic changes that offered unique freedoms far ahead of his time. The most pious of names bestowed upon Genghis Khan is the ‘defender of religion’. The Mongol empire under Genghis Khan and his successors was the first major empire to permit and even promote the acceptance and study of numerous faiths within an empire. Perhaps due to Khan’s Shamanist beliefs, or simply intelligent compromise, Khan and his successors displayed a sense of theological maturity that included indiscriminate religious grants, as well as open theological debates. The debates in particular were important and did not become a norm in Europe until as late as the 19 th century. The famous historian Edward Gibbon reflected on Khan's ability to have ‘established by his laws a system of pure theism and perfect toleration’, which compared well with the Catholics who, according to Gibbon, ‘defended nonsense with cruelty’ (Atwood, 237). Importantly, Khan’s religious policy did not die with him. Historians note that his legacy and example was used five centuries later by later rulers who wished to argue that religious freedom was essential to a progressive society. To expand on the essence of Khan’s religious toleration, we must look at his treatment of religious figures in more detail. I take insight from Christopher Atwood to help explain why Khan’s religious decrees were so beneficial to the religious freedom of his time and the future. First, they simply provided monetary relief to the clergymen in the occupied regions via universal tax exemption, which became more prominent later in his rule. This was crucial as it was a decree continued more formally, by his successors, such as Prince Mangala (Atwood, 242). Here, not only is Genghis given credit, but his teachings are passionately built upon by his successors. This implies that there was a positive progression in religious toleration over the coming centuries thanks to Genghis’ policy. Second, the decrees allowed essential parts of religious practice to remain in a regions culture. For example, one of Khan’s earliest encounters with a foreign cleric was with the Buddhist monk Haiyan in 1219. In this instance, the monk was allowed to maintain his shaven head after arguing that he could not grow out his hair in Mongol fashion, or he would ‘lose the marks of a Buddhist monk’ (Atwood, 244). This shows that Khan was not stubborn over details in his subject's culture and did not insist on forcing Mongol
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