Primeval Reli-Trade?
During the 13th to 16th centuries African, Asian, and European States’ economy was mainly based on trade. Civilizations in these areas such as the Delhi Sultanate, Ming Dynasty, Mali Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, and the Spanish Kingdom used trade routes like the Silk roads, Sub-Saharan route, and the Indian Ocean trade route to gain resources from multiple parts of the world. Since most empires were using these trade routes, cultural diffusion took place by the mixture of religious beliefs and traditions. Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam were some of the many religions that took advantage of this belief sharing to preach their principles. The Holy Roman Empire sent Christian missionaries, converting a significant amount of people to the religion which made them expand by having more followers. Thus, some of these civilizations began to expand thanks to religion that took advantage of the trade routes which also made them rich by trading some resources such as silver, slaves, silk, spices, cotton, and ivory. Therefore, during the 13th to 16th-century religion and trade were connected by making states grow economically and territorially since they obtained riches to finance technology for the military and gain land by expanding beliefs to convert people.
States used trade routes for two main reasons: send merchants and missionaries. Merchants exchanged resources gaining riches for financing better technology for the military, resource extraction, and transportation. In addition, missionaries used merchants’ paths to spread beliefs and help the state gain territory. For example, we can see a clear example of this on a document when Christian monks that traveled to the Mongol Empire, through trade routes, spread their beliefs with the local people by sharing the things they received and traded in their lands. Gold, silver, and wearing apparel were some of the riches they were able to receive thanks to their religious ranks. Meaning that trade routes generate riches and open a way for people to spread beliefs with the purpose of expanding their territory. Supporting the evidence just said, the monks’ point of view reassures the main idea of the argument which was using the riches they got from those travelings to spread their beliefs. They were proficient by combining trade and religion to achieve a higher wealth overall. Moreover, this can also be seen in another document with the map that the Spanish built to locate the possible trade spots, empires, leaders, and their beliefs in order to see how much they could gain from those routes. Explaining the purpose of creating that atlas, which was to win riches through trade and expand religion through those routes so they could become wealthy. Continuing the idea, documents arealso another piece of evidence to the claim because of the fact that China merchants were describing a Muslim festival. Their purpose is trading, but through it, they were being preached about foreign beliefs such as the Islamic beliefs. In other words, the fact that Chinese merchants were repeating Islamic tradition testifies how empires use trade paths to spread their religion to all people with the goal of expanding their territory. At the same time, we can look at the Ming Voyages’ connection to this during the 14th century in China. The Ming dynasty wanted to increase their wealth in many areas like their economically and militarily. They sent numerous ships to find new trade routes so they could control them and gain many riches from them. Therefore, could obtain better finance for their military. And it did occur like that after foreign states weakened their mainland and had to stop the voyages. However, while those voyages were still sent, religious missions were inside them. Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist practitioners and missionaries traveled in those ships and started preaching their beliefs to all of the people in the new places the Ming Voyages reached. Trade made the empire grow economically, but also made religion spread and expand the state. We can conclude by saying that trade routes allowed religion to spread causing the empire to expand. Highlighting the great role religion and trade together had on the states during that time period.
As said before, religion and trade played an enormous role for these states. Religion attracted numerous people to the state due to beliefs and architectural innovations. And on the trade looks, merchants took advantage of this and traded with the people gaining riches from the commodity of their land. As a result, religion also won large amounts of money because of the attraction their structures and beliefs provoked. These can be seen in a document where it describes how Jerusalem sanctuaries attracted people from different places due to their religious meaning. The valley of Jahanna had many sanctuaries like multiple churches which taxed Muslims. Muslims visited these places as a pilgrimage since they had significant religious value, so the fact that they were taxed meant that notable profit for the state. Referring to my argument, the state won significant amounts of money and opportunities due to their religious value structures that attracted foreign people from the commodity of their land. Furthermore, Ibn Battuta realized this fact and wrote a document about this with the purpose of describing Asian and African civilization’s strategies and different characteristics. This research made by Ibn Battuta would help his home empire consolidate power by using some strategies gathered from his travels. Adding to that, a document as well refers to my argument when it describes that church economic representatives made religion win a lot of money due to their heavy interest rates. Religion attracted clients and people from distinctive parts of the world and took huge amounts of money from them. They did this at the commodity of their empire since the beliefs attracted the clients and their maneuvers made them gain money. They connected religion and trade and got, as a result, economic and territorial wealth. Furthermore, a similar example can be seen in the religious expansion and trade that brought Cristobal Colon the opportunity to take ships into creating new trade routes financed by the Spanish. They had the necessary amount of money to finance this trip with the goal of getting even more resources in creating new trade routes to India. Their religious expansion made them gain access to trade paths which brought them money which they used to finance essential trips like Cristobal Colon’s ship trip. As the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Kingdom realize how if they connected their religious values and trade system, we can understand their effect on history. Religion can bring wealth in multiple factors when spread in trade effectively, explaining the success of multiple empires in Africa, Asia, and Europe like the ones mentioned above.
Besides bringing the empire wealth in the form of territory or technology, spreading religion through trade routes to convert people also brought cultural diffusion. Christian missionaries reaching Mongolian lands, or Chinese merchants inspired by the Islamic beliefs demonstrates how cultures blend so easily without having a specific intention. Nations had a desire to expand their empire, and, as an effect, they got multiple cultures blended which was mainly positive at the time because it allowed people to educate from all parts of the world and develop technologies to help their communities. As well, in this part of history continuity took place by exposing nearby civilizations these strategies, which used to expand creating an even bigger cultural diffusion not only in the discussed regions which were Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Religion, as demonstrated above, spread in the trade routes used at the time like the silk routes or the Sub-Saharan trade route for the benefit of causing nations/states to gain military power thanks to the economic surplus they gain and expand territory due to the people converting from other countries. Moreover, the connection between religion and trade is bringing military and territorial power to the nations, and extra beneficial results like cultural diffusion.
