Commercial Tolerance; The Analysis of the Effect of the Sogdians’ Morale in trade on the Propagation of Various Religions in Transoxiana and China

With the burgeoning of the Silk Road from the first century AD, the Sogdians whose land, in Transoxiana, was located along this trade road, became traders, and traveled to other lands for business. Through trading with other peoples, Sogdians who had previously embraced Zoroastrianism became acquainted with various religions and beliefs, such as Manichaeism, Buddhism, Mazdakism, and Nestorian Christianity, and Some of them converted to those religions and started to propagate them. On the other side, not only did Sogdians were encountering various religions in their homeland and tried to understand the principles of their religions, but also their commercial and political preferences brought about the advertisement and promotion of those other religions freely and without any conflict in their territory. This phenomenon can be called "Commercial Tolerance".In this article, the various aspects of this commercial tolerance were analyzed by using some ancient sources, new studies, and archeological excavations. This phenomenon has never been seen in any other historical periods or any other lands unless in the contemporary era, where different nations with different religions have lived together. This phenomenon has brought about new consequences such as “the creation of unity between religions" in Sogdiana between the sixth and eighth centuries A.D. Based on this thought, the Sogdians tried to build compatibility between the various religions that were prevalent in their territory or between their colonies.