Imperial Church

Submitted by gato branco (Lithuania), Dec 20, 2017 at 04:12

The biggest problem with Islam is that it has emerged right in the moment when the model of Imperial Church was prevalent in Byzantine(Roman) Empire (Christian variety) as well as in Sassanid Persia ( Zoroastrian variety). The empire of such kind, coupled with intransigent monotheist faith mandates strict religious conformity and suppression of heretics inside and war against infidels outside. Let's remember only the religious policy of Justinian and his wars against Ostrogoth, Visigoth and Vandal heretics.

Zoroastrian empire maybe was not so eager to spread its faith but it seems that dhimmitude and jizya are largely they invention in dealing with Christian and Jewish minorities, later adopted by Arabs.

Both empires were hardly pressing Arabs so finally the later braced up, adopted the imperial ideology of their opponents and in doing this they became very successful, too much successful... as we can see.

While in Europe, the model of the Imperial Church was largely discredited by Protestantism (which focused on early Christian faith communities rather than on empires of Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius or Charlemagne) and by Enlightenment, it did not happen yet in the Muslim world.

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