One of the long-standing debates surrounding the Mongols is the issue regarding the Mongol practice of religious tolerance. Scholars such as David Morgan claim that the Mongols were known for a “firm policy of religious tolerance” (Morgan 37) whereas scholars like Peter Jackson assert the opposite, that the Mongols’ pluralism should not be confused with religious toleration. While both Morgan and Jackson make strong assertions regarding the religious policies of the Mongols, Jackson’s claim stands as for stronger reasoning in that I believe the Mongols were religiously tolerant, but only in a sense. I agree that Jackson is correct in saying that “religious pluralism is not to be equated with tolerance or indifference” (Jackson 273) on the basis …show more content…
This can be proven by examining the many documents by both travelers and educated officials who wrote down their encounters with the Mongols. However, while it is Jackson’s claim that deserves the central focus here on account of how Mongol rule was decidedly intolerant due to how there was both disdain and support for each different religious faith on the steppes, both the claims of Morgan and Jackson touch on a subject that seems a bit misconstrued. This subject rests on the notion that the Mongols were somewhat tolerant in that all faiths were seen as correct for equally approaching the Mongols shamanistic deities, most notably Tenggeri, the supreme God to the Mongols. The evidence for this rests in the multitude of sources detailing the complicated relationship, and the phrase “complicated relationship” is a most apt phrase to use here, the Mongols had with each of the major religious faiths on the Central Asian Steppe as well as how shamanism seems to be retained, if not syncretically fused with other religions, with the various khans and princes of the steppe. Every Mongol Khan and prince each had their own support for the religious faith they most associated with, but it can be unequivocally stated that Jackson’s claim is more correct than Morgan’s for the Mongols only chief concern involved homage to the great Khan, …show more content…
However, with the texts provided concerning Christianity, the ability of historians to accurately get a sense of how the Mongols were towards the religion becomes biased on account of the writers being biased towards the religion itself. For example, Marco Polo, in The Description of the World, views the Mongol world through a Christian lens when he says certain things, like how the Mongol Khan, Kublai Khan, “holds the Christian faith for the… better, because he says that it commands nothing which is not full of all goodness and holiness” (Polo 201). It is difficult to believe Marco Polo on account of this passage because the majority of his text serves as a piece that glorifies the khan, allowing many scholars and historians alike to question whether or not to trust Polo’s