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Description:
Today we'll learn about how people hated taxes so much that they were willing to change religions just to avoid them. And as a result, Aksum became a whole lot less awesome.
Transcript
- 00:04
Once upon a time, a great kingdom rose to amass great power and wealth… [Book turns page]
- 00:09
Uh…how does this story usually end?
- 00:11
Yep.
- 00:12
Eventually, every kingdom falls….for one reason or another. [Kingdom explodes]
- 00:15
In Aksum’s case, the reason was a new religion on the block called Islam.
Full Transcript
- 00:20
In the early centuries of the Common Era, Aksum was mega-Christian, and the rest of
- 00:24
North and East Africa was a hodgepodge of religions and traditions.
- 00:28
"Want to pray to Jupiter, or the Sun? [Jupiter approaches the sun]
- 00:31
Why not both?
- 00:32
Who cares?"
- 00:33
Aksum was closely connected to the Arab people across the Red Sea in what is now Saudi Arabia. [Aksum and Arabian man high-five]
- 00:38
They shared language, trade goods, and even religious concepts.
- 00:42
Written Arabic was similar to Aksum's classical language of Ge'ez, and it used some
- 00:47
of the same letters. [Ge'ez letters appear
- 00:49
If you were a Red Sea trader, you'd only have to learn like one and a half alphabets to
- 00:53
read stuff on both sides of the Sea.
- 00:56
Well here's a fact that might blow your mind
- 00:58
Ethiopian Christian churches even existed in Saudi Arabia before Islam. [Church in a desert]
- 01:03
By the 6th century, many Arabs were familiar with the ideas of both Ethiopian and Egyptian
- 01:08
Christianity.
- 01:09
But most Arabs still followed local polytheistic traditions, meaning they were into the many-god [Arab approach church]
- 01:14
view of the universe.
- 01:15
Then Islam happened.
- 01:17
In the beginning of the 7th century CE, Muhammad founded the religion of Islam and centered [Muhammad appears with camel]
- 01:22
it in Mecca…
- 01:23
…a bustling trade city just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Africa's east coast.
- 01:28
Soon after, things started getting real.
- 01:31
Islam spread to both Arab cities and Arab nomads. [Islam spreading to Arab cities]
- 01:33
And it united Arabia into a single religious empire called a "caliphate."
- 01:39
Like any good empire, the caliphate started to expand, barging into Africa and conquering
- 01:43
all the kingdoms in its path.
- 01:45
The first caliphate, the Rashidun Caliphate, fought Aksum for control of the
- 01:49
Red Sea.
- 01:50
Aksum said "let's go halfsies," and the caliphate and Aksum agreed to split control of the Red [Aksum and caliphate in discussions]
- 01:56
Sea trade routes.
- 01:58
But Aksum's days of dominance were numbered.
- 02:00
When the Rashidun Caliphate collapsed, a new and more aggressive empire took over, the [Caliphate soldiers take over empire]
- 02:05
Umayyad Caliphate.
- 02:07
In the seventh century, the Umayyads invaded Egypt and North Africa. [Soldiers in battle]
- 02:11
The Muslim conquerors got pretty far, too.
- 02:14
By 750 CE, they’d even conquered as far as Spain.
- 02:18
The Muslims had a pretty nifty way of converting people too. [Man preaching to muslim man]
- 02:22
According to the Quran, an Islamic government can’t use force to convert people
- 02:26
to Islam.
- 02:27
But the caliphates found a loophole. [Man running with a book]
- 02:28
While they were officially cool with Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Roman Christianity, as well
- 02:33
as Judaism…
- 02:34
The caliphates tried to encourage conversion by giving anybody who was Muslim a major tax [Tax form of caliphate conversion]
- 02:39
break.
- 02:40
Which worked like a charm.
- 02:41
About 90-95% of North Africans eventually became Islamic.
- 02:45
It turns out that, when offered a choice between their most deeply-held beliefs and a lower [People holding their tax forms]
- 02:48
tax rate, 9 out of 10 people will take the lower tax rate.
- 02:52
Islam spread gradually throughout the conquered territories, and eventually the Christian
- 02:56
kingdom of Aksum was surrounded.
- 02:58
Aksum still had biceps at this point, but it was isolated from its neighbors and shut [Aksum flexing biceps]
- 03:02
out of the Red Sea trade routes.
- 03:04
And without its major source of wealth, Aksum slowly started to fall apart. [Aksum explodes]
- 03:08
Man, Aksum.
- 03:09
This would’ve been a good time to break out the Ark and start melting faces...
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