| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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‘‘‘ The following quotes suggests the peaceful coexistence of different religions in Chenla, though Hinduism enjoyed a higher status. “Hinduism as an all-encompassing religion may have absorbed local deities into the Hindu pantheon, binding the two belief systems into one. Buddhism’s flexibility in allowing most types of worship to suffice as methods toward enlightenment would make this religion easy to ensconce in Southeast Asia as well. Thus, during the Chenla period, non-elites were careful to make their public and required offerings to the Hindu city temples and attend public ceremonies and rituals; in their own villages and homes, however, it appears that traditional worship of age-old deities, and lineage ancestors, was alive and well. [...] [K]ings continued to allow their subjects to practice local religions, although this liberal religious policy came to a halt with the establishment of the Khmer Empire in the early ninth century.”
[1]
[1]: Steadman, S. R. (2016). Chapter 14: From Hunter-Gatherer to Empire. p.234-235. Archaeology of religion: cultures and their beliefs in worldwide context. Routledge. Seshat URL: Zotero link: VIRUTCPJ |
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“Many scholars have felt impelled to emphasise the toleration of different sects and denominations evinced by Indian rulers. [...] It seems fairly clear that, traditionally in India, people readily transferred or distributed their allegiance between different sects, seeing no logical inconsistency in approaching different gods for different purposes, and that this apparently syncretic style of religious behaviour encouraged a relaxed attitude to what others did as well; evidently, too, rulers generally extended their acceptance of this practice."
[1]
NB, however: “religious animosities among the followers of Saivism, Vaishnavism and Jainism, also seem to have greatly weakened the unity of the Chalukya empire.”
[2]
[1]: (Copland, Mabbett, Roy, Brittlebank and Bowles 2012: 74-77) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ATSZ6QBU [2]: (Raychaudhuri 1948: 283) Raychaudhuri Golapachandra, 1948. The history of the western chalukyas (political and administrative) University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (United Kingdom). Seshat URL: Zotero link: NU7WQ5CD |
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“Many scholars have felt impelled to emphasise the toleration of different sects and denominations evinced by Indian rulers. [...] It seems fairly clear that, traditionally in India, people readily transferred or distributed their allegiance between different sects, seeing no logical inconsistency in approaching different gods for different purposes, and that this apparently syncretic style of religious behaviour encouraged a relaxed attitude to what others did as well; evidently, too, rulers generally extended their acceptance of this practice."
[1]
[1]: (Copland, Mabbett, Roy, Brittlebank and Bowles 2012: 74-77) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ATSZ6QBU |
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“Many scholars have felt impelled to emphasise the toleration of different sects and denominations evinced by Indian rulers. [...] It seems fairly clear that, traditionally in India, people readily transferred or distributed their allegiance between different sects, seeing no logical inconsistency in approaching different gods for different purposes, and that this apparently syncretic style of religious behaviour encouraged a relaxed attitude to what others did as well; evidently, too, rulers generally extended their acceptance of this practice."
[1]
[1]: (Copland, Mabbett, Roy, Brittlebank and Bowles 2012: 74-77) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ATSZ6QBU |
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As indicated in the following extracts, Kaplan argues that relationships between religious groups were likely cordial between the fourth and fifth centuries, and that there may have been an important shift in Jewish-Christian relations in the sixth, but not enough is known to determine the exact details of this shift, and indeed it may not have been accompanied by any kind of societal discrimination, especially given the polity’s reputation for religious tolerance in the seventh century. "It is difficult to know for how long the Judaized groups in the Aksumite population lived peacefully alongside their Christian and pagan neighbors. Fourth-century Aksum appears to have provided fertile ground for a variety of religious identities, none of which necessarily conformed to idealized notions of "normative" Judaism or Christianity. [...] The fortunes of the young Church took a dramatic turn for the better toward the end of the fifth century with the arrival of two groups of Syrian missionaries, one known as the Sadqan and the other as the Nine Saints. [...] In addition to their missionary activities, they were probably also responsible for major advances in the translation of the Bible and other religious books into Ge’ez. [...] As was indicated in the previous chapter, both the vocabulary and versions used by the translators reveal access to Hebrew and Aramaic sources. There is, therefore, every reason to assume that they were assisted in their work by Jews or those influenced by Judaism in Aksum. Consequently, this would appear to be further evidence for both a continued Jewish presence in Aksum and for cordial rather than hostile relations with the surrounding population. [...] On the basis of the information presented above, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the first quarter of the sixth century must have been an especially trying time for the most Judaized groups in the Aksumite kingdom. The extreme politicization of religious identity in South Arabia may well have made itself felt by a hardening of distinctions in Aksum as well. The hitherto vague differentiation between Judaized groups and the growing number of Old Testament oriented Christians may have become far sharper. Even if they were not subject to overt persecution (and it must be remembered that in the early seventh century Ethiopia enjoyed a reputation for religious tolerance), the position of the former could not have been an easy one."
[1]
[1]: (Kaplan 1992: 35) Seshat URL: Zotero link: PT9MJQBE |
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"With regard to the internal history of Ethiopia, the period from the seventh to twelfth century remains one of the most obscure and least understood. Hardly any contemporary sources have survived and those that have are frequently fragmentary and/or legendary in character. [...] The obscurity that characterizes much of Ethiopian history from the seventh century onward is only multiplied when we turn to the more specific question of Jews or Judaism during this period. Even the indirect sources of the kind used to make the tentative reconstructions suggested thus far in this book are, for the most part, lacking. We are forced, therefore, to rely on semi-legendary accounts of extremely limited historical value."
[1]
[1]: (Kaplan 1992: 42) Seshat URL: Zotero link: PT9MJQBE |
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The following quotes suggests that discrimination against religious groups taking up certain occupations or functions was absent. “Niane concurs with the seventeenth century French traveller Jojolet de la Courbe, who called Kaabu a pagan kingdom [around the 13th century]. However, by the seventeenth century it was very tolerant of Islamic dyula traders – this tolerance may itself have been because the dyula themselves leavened their Islam with non-Islamic rituals.”
[1]
“ils se rendaient compte de l’impact des ‘Mandingues’ en tant que propagateurs de la religion musulmane dans presque toutes les regions de la Senegambie. L’influence culturelle que les Mandinka (musulmans) exerçaient dans les pays biafada entre les fleuves Geba et Korubal, et par ailleurs le degree important de metissage, impressionna Almada dans la deuxieme moitie du 16e siecle. En ce qui concerne le Badoora (Degola), il nota comment les Mandinka et les Biafada vivaient la paisiblement ensemble, se melangeaient et communiquaient bien entre eux, sans que pour autant les Biafada (Sooninkee) autochtones renoncent a leur religion (paienne) au profit de l’islam”
[2]
[1]: (Green 2011, 42) Green, T. 2011. The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: Zotero link: DV3R5U4Q [2]: (Giesing 2007, 246) (Giesing 2007, 246) Giesing, C. 2007. Tarikh Mandinka de Bijini (Guinée-Bissau): la mémoire des Mandinka et Sòoninkee du Kaabu. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Seshat URL: Zotero link: VUXVSEFT "In Kaabu, the Muslims were expected to not interfere in state matters. Implicitly, this means there was some restrictions, even if limited, about the participation in state affairs." (Mariama Khan, pers. comm. to R. Ainsworth, September 2023) |
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Suspected unknown due to the antiquity of this quasi-polity, the nature of the data, and the fact that this aspect of the quasi-polity’s culture is not mentioned in a recent and comprehensive cultural history of the Yoruba, Ogundiran 2020.
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020) Seshat URL: Zotero link: ADQMAKPW |
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