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This article relates to Genghis: Lords of the Bow
As Genghis Khan consolidated the nomadic tribes of the Asian steppe, he realized that a consistent rule of law was necessary to maintain order. He accomplished this by creating his "Yasa" (or "Yassa"), a comprehensive set of rules governing nearly all aspects of Mongolian life and culture. The original
Yasa ("decree" or "order") is thought to have been written on scrolls bound into volumes, and kept in a secret archive to which only the khan and his advisers had access, but the rules were widely known and observed, and in
many cases were adopted by rival cultures. They codified religious tolerance and social equality, which helped promote peace between the diverse peoples who made up the Mongol Empire*.
Some examples:
*At the risk of pointing out the obvious, it had been common practice for rulers to lay down written laws for millennia before Ghenghis Khan. For example, the Babylonian Code of Hummurabi, the earliest extant set of laws, dates back almost 3000 years before Genghis. What is notable about Genghis's laws is the emphasis on religious tolerance and social equality.
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Filed under Society and Politics
This "beyond the book article" relates to Genghis: Lords of the Bow. It originally ran in April 2008 and has been updated for the
February 2009 paperback edition.
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