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How Did Religion Influence The Byzantine Empires

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Two empires arose during the postclassical period, before 1450, the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates. The Islamic Caliphate was influenced by Muhammad’s teachings and the Byzantine Empire was influenced by Christianity and each established their rule through their dominant religion. Christianity became the Byzantine Empire’s state religion as did Islam for the Islamic Caliphates. Both empires established their political leaders as their religious leaders so they would have more power over the citizens. They used religion to unite the people and to justify expansion for their government. However, these empires did not have similar legal systems. The laws of the Byzantine Empire were based off of Roman laws and the Islamic Caliphates centered their laws on the Quran. Neither empire failed to acknowledge the importance of religion in each society. Because of the importance, the leaders of both empires, the Emperor in the Byzantine and the Caliph in the Caliphates, were set as the head religious figures. This similarity between the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates shows how they each empowered their leaders by relating them with the beliefs of the …show more content…
Both of these civilizations the political leaders became religious leaders and held the most power. They used religion to justify expansion and to unite their people to prevent uprisings. Although religion had a significant role in both of these empires, the Byzantine Empire did not completely rely on it for their laws and legal systems. Differently, the Islamic Caliphates centered their laws and legal systems on their religious practices and beliefs. Both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates recognized the importance of religion in their society, although the Islamic Caliphates attempted to incorporate it in more aspects of their lives than that of the Byzantine

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