The Byzantine Empire And Islamic Calliphates

The Roman Empire influenced the Byzantine Empire’s culture, mainly through the religion of Christianity. Christianity first appeared in the Roman Empire, with the birth, teachings, and supposed resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the beginning years of it’s arrival, Christianity was not tolerated and Christians were mainly, and most often brutally prosecuted. However, with Constantine’s Edict of Milan, Christianity was officially tolerated, and under Theodosius, it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire inherited this relatively new religion, continuing to follow the beliefs and traditions of the church, as well as spreading the word of Jesus Christ and the message of god. Churches sprung up in the empire, such as the mighty Hagia Sophia. Located in Constantinople and built by Justinian, this church especially exemplified

source of trade maps displaying trade wealth in 800 C.E. and 1500 C.E. of Islam and Christianity would

Though their ideas are similar, their roots of these are still different. Rome was basically influenced by the Etruscans with their monarchy and infrastructure of paved streets, public buildings, defensive walls, large temples, & geographic advantages of being near (i.e. easy access to the Mediterranean which helped in trade.) Though the Byzantine was much influenced by the Romans, they were also influenced by the Middle East. Like Islamic views which were spreading throughout north of Africa and the bulk of the Middle East. In addition, during the 7th century the Arab Muslims had built a fleet that challenged the Byzantine naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean while repeatingly attacking Constantinople. The Arabs quickly swallowed the empire’s remaining provinces along the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. This attack influenced the Byzantine empire’s pattern of life with Arab cultural and commercial influence. From attacks to religion, we see the religion between the Byzantine Empire and Ancient Romans are similar due to the fact they are associated with Christianity, but each civilization found ways to make it their own. The Romans, being that Christianity was becoming one of the major world religions, did of course arise during the time of Rome. However, Christianity was not really a product of roman culture & roman gods and goddesses were. The Byzantine Empire created a new branch of Christianity,

During the postclassical era many great empires arose. Two of the most powerful and influential groups of the time were the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate. Both the Abbasids and the Byzantines were places where important cultural hubs existed and where trade flourished throughout the whole empire. Even though culture was present in each area, the cultures were not the same and there were separate religious beliefs and practices; for example the Byzantine Empire was mainly Orthodox Christian while the Abbasid Caliphate was Sunni Muslim. Use of religion throughout the empire, methods of rule, and eventual ways of declining all caused the Byzantines and Abbasids to have a distinctive and lasting

Western Europe triumphed from their princes and the Pope ruling since they soon overcame The Byzantine Empire. This was because having more than one ruler can hold together an empire or countries better than one ruler. The princes had control of the government in their areas, and the Pope had control of the entire religion in Western Europe. Having the Pope and the princes dealing with separate issues is better than having just one emperor deal with all of their issues. Another difference of the two halves of Europe was the monasteries and nunneries. Western Europe believed that they should have both priests and nuns teaching and preaching to other people. The Byzantine Empire did not feel that nuns were needed in their empire to preach and to teach other people. This was the most likely cause for the many people in the empire converting to their barbaric enemies religions. If The Byzantine Empire had used nuns to preach and teach their people, instead of having just priests and monasteries, the people would not have converted the their enemies. Hence, The Byzantine Empire, and Western Europe were greatly different than each other.

Military conquest also played a big role in Islam’s growth. “In the year 636 the Byzantine Emperor… gathered an army… to resist the expansion of Islam. The people… are the… Syrians…

In addition to political and social structure, both civilizations share the same economy. Byzantine and Islamic civilization use similar approaches to promote their economy. They have engaged in trading with other civilizations. Byzantine was a large exporter of grain and silk. Their

Eastern Europe had begun its transition from the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine empire with the penetration of Christianity into all aspects of life. Both the Byzantine and Islamic Empires were defined by their use of monotheistic religion in governing their empires. They both used religion in their own ways as justification to spread their governorship. But their laws however were not the same, Byzantine laws were based off of romans and Christianity, However the Islamic caliphates laws were based off The Holy Book Quran. The Byzantine built churches so the people could worship and learn about the religion of Christianity where the Islamic Caliphates used the Sharia law where equal punishment is given to criminals. The difference between the two empires was that the Islamic Caliphates believed that the ruler should be related to prophet Muhammad. Whereas the Byzantine Empire believed that whoever was the most dedicated to the religion of

Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, a new empire rose up in the ashes. This new empire, the Byzantine Empire, was a culmination of Western Roman cultures and tradition, yet, it also contains many distinctive features. Originating from the same empire, the two empires display similar cultural roots.

Christianity experienced notable change during the Byzantine Era as a result of the fact that new ideas were introduced into the religion and because more and more cultural values from across the world started to pervade it. The religion was very different in Byzantium from how it was in the West principally because a series of Eastern ideas were adopted by Christian leaders. Christianity experienced a different development in the East when compared to the evolution that it experienced in the West. In the centuries lasting between the beginning of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire and the end of a small medieval state Christianity has practically been bombarded with Eastern ideas and with ideas that generally differed from the ones promoted in the West, eventually making it possible for "a distinct system of religious practice and devotion" (Krueger, 1) to emerge.

During the 17th to 18th century, The Roman Empire had gone through a cultural and religious metamorphous. Throughout this time, the roles of religion in the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds altered the period of 600-750 with their similarities adhering to monotheism for one, and differences in regards to perspectives. These three cultures were all pretty diverse but they also shared some of the same roots and became heritors of the Roman Empire, built on different ideologies. The different ideologies of the Islamic, Byzantine and Western European worlds, consisted of different founders, places, and elements of worship, thus portraying how religion was indeed prominently central to governmental and social structures because of the large impact towards political laws.

Vandal, Visigoth, and Ostrogoth people all had cultures heavily influenced by Rome and its Religion. During this era, feudalism developed, and Christianity divided in two - the Catholic Church in the west and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the east. In both cases, the Church grew to have a great deal of political and economic power.

Under the first emperor, Heraclius, the new empire struggled to keep its territory. Persia was conquering land rapidly, taking the empire’s territories in Syria and Palestine, along with Jerusalem. It took until 627 for Heraclius to gain a victory, recapturing Jerusalem from the Persians. It was not long, however, before Islam had sparked a desire for expansion in the Arabs. They quickly conquered Jerusalem, the entire Persian Empire, and headed to claim North Africa. In 677, the Arabs attempted to take Constantinople, the city along the port Byzantium was named for. Unlike Heraclius, the emperor during the second attempt on Constantinople had a better strategy, known as the “Greek Fire”. Leo III was able to not only defeat the Arabs at Constantinople, but also reclaim almost all of the Asia Minor, which was known as the Imperial Heartland for nearly three hundred years.

After Justinian another ruler named Heraclius ruled over the empire. Like Justinian he was successful in his battles. He faced invasions from Arabs, Avars, Bulgars, and Persians. His military arranged a new system first used in the Asia Minor. Heraclius divided the Byzantine territories into army districts. Each district had a commander, if a commander had a large army district they could have up to 10,000 men. These men were given land from the government and in exchange for the land they were required to provide a man, horse, and weapon when called upon for battle. In 610 a prophet started to preach a religion known as Islam to the Arabs which soon led to religious conflict.

historiography began to be famous and important. Islamic historians praised God at all times because of their religious views over other religions. At a point of Byzantine view, the Byzantines used to praise their religion, which was Christian Orthodox. For example, according to James, the study over Byzantine Iconoclasm is important to see understand the conflicts over Islam and Western European that means Catholics. The Byzantine Empire used to discriminate religions, and they had conflicts, especially with European Catholics, and they split their churches from Catholics. The Byzantines also were tending to expand to the East to fight Muslims and take their lands from them. That is why Islamic historians praised the victory by giving many thanks to God. This religious discrimination was one of the causes why the Byzantine lost