Exam 10: Becoming the World 1000-1300 Ce

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In India,Turkish warlords eventually conquered the rajas of India.There,they established the Delhi Sultanate,whose rulers strengthened the cultural diversity and tolerance that were already hallmarks of the Indian social order.They recruited local artisans to build mosques and palaces.The Turkish sultans did not force their subjects to convert and embraced the religious tolerance that was the hallmark of the Islamic empire.The newcomers practiced their faith while the locals continued to practice their own.But some customs began to merge.The local population embraced some elements of Turkish culture,adopting Central Asian-style clothing and some manufacturing and artistic techniques.The sultanates allowed the locals to worship as they saw fit and to administer their own communal law.The rulers did collect the jizya.Ultimately,in India,Islam demonstrated that it did not have to be a conquering religion to prosper. The Song dynasty reunified China after almost half a century of fragmentation following the dissolution of the Tang.Like the Islamic world and India,China began participating in long-distance trade.The Song emperors ushered in a period of social and cultural vitality.They established a central bureaucracy of scholar-officials chosen through competitive civil service examinations.At the top level,these examinations were eventually administered by the emperor himself.This meritocratic system weakened the influence of the old aristocracy.Militarily,the Song were weaker than their enemies from the steppes and had to bribe them with tribute and generous trade agreements.Paradoxically,increased exchange with outsiders hardened the lines between the Chinese and others.Residents of China's interior regarded themselves as a distinctive people possessing a superior culture.They referred to themselves as Han and considered themselves the only authentic Chinese.Thus,Song China lacked a culture of amalgamation and mutual recognition like the Turks had established in the Delhi Sultanate.