The Different Twins

Kyle Lu

As the years went by from the beginning of the time until now, countries have developed. For example, Rome started s a speckle on the world map in the Italian Peninsula. As time went by, it grew to a spectacle on the map. It was strong, wealthy, powerful, making people envy it. Islam also, started the same way as Rome did, becoming another powerful empire. They both had aspects of social culture, environmental, and political. Even though these two empires started the same, they used their resources differently.

Both Rome and Islam had main religions and other small religions in their empires. In the Roman Empire, Romans had many gods which they worshipped. However there was a new religion in the empire. It was Christianity and it troubled many Roman leaders. The Roman Empire couldn’t stop the spread of the new religion. The Empire couldn’t be stabilized. On the other hand, Islam was a So, they killed many Christians causing more problems. In my opinion, the Roman Empire should have kept the Christians, because they were wasting their time on them killing them. It was important for the Romans to socialize with others, getting new ideas from different point of view. On the other hand, Islam was a welcoming kind of empire welcoming all kinds of religions. The Islamic Empire consisted of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Unlike the Romans, they didn’t try to kill them. Instead, they treated them as noble people. In the textbook on page 101, they were called “people of the book”. This shows that the Islamic Empire was really kind, because they treated the outsiders as nobles. From the information of social culture, we can conclude that Rome was a harsh Empire, while Islam was a benevolent Empire.

Environment is important because it affects the people who live on that area. In the Roman Empire, Rome had acres of farmland because they had cool, rainy weathers. Rome was located around the Apennines Mountains, which protected Rome from harsh weathers and invasions. The Tiber River was the source of water for the Romans. Rome was located on seven hills, which later became an empire. In my opinion the Rome became into an Empire cause of the seven hills. The hills helped them defend and attack other people. This allowed Rome to expand quickly. However Islam’s geography is much different from the Roman’s. The Islamic Empire was practically filled with sand, really hard to have farmland. It was hard to find the sources of water too. Lucky for the Islamic people, they had oases. On page 86, it quotes “Some large oases can support an entire city. Others might simply be a small spring.” So not all of Islam is filled with deserts, part of it was water. Mostly, farmlands for the Arabs were up in the southern mountain. The Islamic Empire is on the Arabian Peninsula, between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea and the Persian Gulf provided them with water and trade routes. In my opinion, the Islamic empire expanded because of the food they got and the trade routes. This also shows that environment and cli mate can affect people both the good and the bad.
Every place needs a government to be controlled. The way that people run their government was much different from place to place. Rome was a republic, which meant that everyone had a voice and could vote, if they were an average citizen. They had emperors which they ruled by family. On page 49, it says “Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, emerged as the winner and unchallenged ruler of Rome.” Successors of Roman Empire had to be related to the former king by mirage, blood, or were adopted. It was probably not good to let a family rule. The family would have all the same war strategy or the way they governed. In my opinion they shouldn’t pass down their rule to their family members. They would have all the same kind of war strategy, which the enemy could easily foretold their attacks. Muslim’s styles of governing were much different from the Roman. Instead of successors that were relate to the former ruler, they had caliphs. They were successors too, but they were people that had to know the religion or Muhammad really well. Unlike the same kind of blood ruling, they had people that ruled that were not that related to each other. They promised to rule like Muhammad’s rule. In my opinion, both the empires should have chosen rulers who were worthy to rule by their smartness and war strategy. People who were in the empire for a long time, so they would know everything from the empire and from their enemies. The people who rule the empire affects the people who live in that empire.
Roman Empire and the Islamic Empire were like twins, growing up from the same thing, but later becoming much different from each other. There social culture, environmental, and political aspects were different from each other. Things that started the same will gradually become much different from each other.