Political elites have always looked to religion in order to access ideological, social, magical, or administrative power. But imperial expansion often generates acute dilemmas regarding the management of this relationship. Religion can be used to preserve important distinctions between the ruling group and their various subject populations (differentiation), or to unite them as a shared moral community (integration). Each strategy presents both opportunities and risks, and imperial elites such as the Mexica, Ottomans, Mughals, Ming and Qing dynasties, Portuguese, Spanish, and British have deployed variants of them both. Meanwhile emperors such as Ashoka, Alexander, or Akbar have sought spectacular ways of establishing sacred authority among diverse religious groups at the same time. While religion was the most powerful means of acquiring legitimacy in the premodern world, the “world religions” in particular also presented norms by which imperial powers could be judged and found wanting. Empires were therefore vulnerable to the sting of righteous rebuke and the threat of religious rebellion.
