How Did Islam Influence The Byzantine Empire

Religion spread throughout the world a long time ago, and was used for many various reasons. For instance, it helped the military, used to influence others, and sometimes, they were also used to affect the government in different empires. The Byzantine Empire’s major religion was Christianity and it has helped govern the empire in countless ways. Also, Islam helped out with the government in Islamic Caliphates. But the religions didn’t help similarly, instead, they lent a hand to each empires very differently. Also, the effects were not always the same, they were very divergent because of the different ways they helped the Byzantine Empire and Islamic Caliphate. Until 1450, the religion played many roles including a very important one for the
government in several empires such as the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates. First, in the Byzantine Empire, the major religion was Christianity. This empire was split into two in the beginning when Constantine, a Christian Roman emperor ruled the Roman Empire. He split the Roman empire, and one side was called the Roman Empire and the other was called the Byzantine Empire. Since the emperor was Christian, the government was obviously affected by his religion and beliefs. “Christians held important political and military positions, and imperial sponsorship helped their proponents attract more converts than ever before.” (Bentley & Ziegler, 2000, pg. 250) As you can see, Christianity helped govern the Empire and took part of important political positions. Just like the caliphates from the Islamic Caliphates, the rulers of the Byzantine Empire helped a lot by being Christian, their major religion. They were able to use the religion easily and was able to use the best of it to help govern the empire. It also states in history-world.org, “For whatever reason, in summary, Constantine's policies proved extraordinarily fruitful. Some of them--notably hereditary succession, the recognition of Christianity, the currency reform, and the foundation of the capital--determined in a lasting way the several aspects of Byzantine civilization with which they are associated.” It says how religion was a part of making the government and society successful. Overall, the Byzantine Empire’s government received a lot of help from Christianity. Next, the Islamic Caliphates.
As I stated before, the Islamic Caliphates’ main religion was Islam, referring to their empire name. Like Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, Islam also took a part of the government in the Islamic Caliphates. Just like the Byzantine Empire, the ruler of the Islamic Caliphate was Muslim, their most practiced religion. His name, as many of you probably know, was Muhammad (c.570-632). He is the person who found the religion and was the leader of all Muslims until his death. After his death, caliphs appeared, who were “successor of the Messenger of God.” Looking back at their name it is believable that they were the ones that ruled the Muslim community and the empire. Since they were the ones that ruled, Islamic Caliphates were mostly governed by the Muslims. The religion didn’t specifically help or effect the government, but actually governed the empire. Abū Bakr was the first caliph who ruled the Islamic Caliphates and as it states on britannica.com, “When the Prophet Muhammad died (June 8, 632 ce), Abū Bakr succeeded to his political and administrative functions as khalīfah rasūl Allāh, “successor of the Messenger of God,” but it was probably under ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the second caliph, that the term caliph came into use as a title of the civil and religious head of the Muslim state.” So it makes one understand that Muhammad was in charge of the politics and government while he was alive, and since it says that Abū Bakr succeeded to Muhammad, it means that they did the same as Muhammad, govern the Islamic Caliphates. Umar was the second caliph and he used his knowledge about politics and government that he received from the two rulers before him. This helped the Islamic Caliphates to stay put and hold itself together. This quote from www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org supports the fact that Umar was a great leader, “Umar, however, was one of the great political geniuses of history.” Under him, the empire expanded immensely and he was
able to keep the growing empire under control by building a political structure. It also states in www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, “Instead, he allowed subject populations to retain their religion, language, customs, and government relatively untouched.” This means that Umar really cared about their religion and culture. All in all, by having Muslims rule the empire, the Islamic Caliphates governments and politics were nicely taken care of. In the end, the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates and their major religion affected their government in many various ways. There were some similarities and some differences in the way the religions helped govern the two empires. One similarity they had was that the rulers were Christian and Islam, which are the major religions in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates. And because of this, the religion took part of the government a lot more than the other empires that had religions that barely took part. The rulers thought of many ways to make their religion help govern their empire. I am sure that both the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphates leaders, Constantine and the caliphs such as Umar and Abū Bakr thought about their religion along with their empire. So religion was a really big thing in both empires so it ended up taking large roles in the governments. Along with the similarities, there were a few differences. One of them is that while the Byzantine Empire had Christianity take a part of their government, the Islamic Caliphates technically had Islam take part of the whole government. This was because mostly everyone was Muslim there. But this made a great difference between their two government. Another difference was that all the rulers of the Islamic Caliphates were caliphates, which meant they were all Muslims, which meant that they focused religion on their government more than the Byzantine Empire who had some non-Christian emperors. Even though those non-Christian emperors allowed Christianity, the religion wasn’t as big as they were when Constantine was the emperor. And when the religion isn’t as focused, they probably didn’t take part in activities, such as the government, as much as they did before. As you can see, the two empires used the help of religions but in similar and different ways. In conclusion, the Islamic Caliphates and the Byzantine Empire used Christianity and Islam in many ways to help govern each empire, some similar and some different. They both governed the empire by using their major religions but in different ways. Even though they used the religions in dissimilar ways, the religions took a large part of the government and it did help by a lot. The Byzantine ruler, Constantine, and the Islamic Caliphate leaders, caliphates (and also Muhammad), really helped their own empires by being Christian and Muslim. Also, because the religions was a big factor in each empire, they were able to protect the religion and its culture and have people that are Christian and Muslim today. Overall, the empires, Byzantine and Islamic, used religions to govern their empire in some similiar and a few different ways but in the end, they both really did a great job to keep their empire in shape.