Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

laissez-faire attitude toward religious dogma seems refreshing when set against the bigotry of the crusading age—and one modern scholar has even argued that it set such a fine historical example that the principle of religious freedom enshrined in the west in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular had its origins in the philosophy of Genghis Khan.47 But alongside that, the Mongols also made sweeping changes to the religious composition of Eurasia. By converting to Islam, the Mongol rulers of the Ilkhanate, Chagatai khanate, and Golden Horde together created a vast Islamic zone that stretched all the way from the Tian Shan to the Caucasus, where it connected with the Turkish and Arabic realms of the eastern Mediterranean and north Africa. The strong Islamic character of central Asia and southern Russia today owes a huge amount to the Mongols. And this is not only observable with hindsight. The Christian princes and Franciscan friars of the west who implored successive Mongol khans to become “King David” and convert to Christianity realized that the religious identity of this vast and domineering imperial power would have a lasting effect on the balance of world faiths. Had they succeeded in convincing men like Möngke Khan to accept baptism, many more church spires than minarets might be in Asia today. And relations between modern states like the United States and Iran, or Russia and Turkey might look rather different. But that is speculation. What is certain, and w...