11. November 2026, von AAI Webmaster

Foto: THE MET; Biblioteca Nacional de España; Cambridge University Library

Imperial Transformations - Comparative Strategies in Empires of Salvation Religions, November 11-14, 2026

Over the past six years, the RomanIslam Center fostered scholarly exchanges and debates on how the Roman and Islamic empires and civilizations transformed and governed the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, as a ‘sand box’ to compare both empires. Our final conference will synthesize our findings and take our questions a step further to examine the ‘family’ of empires of salvation religions: the Roman, Islamic, and Spanish empires.

Looking at historical empires seems timely. At least since the wars of 2022 and 2026, imperial policies have shattered the world of nation-states and discarded boldly old secular salvation ideologies in practice (communism, socialism, national socialism, fascism, etc.). These developments are also driven by states, proto-states, and anti-state movements whose motives are often rooted in salvation religions.

The Roman, Islamic, and Spanish empires all seem paradigmatic for our understanding of a transformative imperialism. Their imperial missions were driven by salvation religions of Middle Eastern Origins. Subsequent empires and political regimes until today have all drawn, in one way or another, on the common heritage of Roman, Islamic, and Hispanic imperial legacies. These empires were all understood multiethnic, despite some ruling ethnicities. They transferred a dominant imperial language and a dominant—if not exclusive—salvation religion to the regions they conquered.

These set them apart from other, later Imperialisms in Asia and Africa. Even more strikingly, they led to the complete transformation of their colonial subjects, who initially embraced different religions and languages, and in one way or another carried the imperial idea. The new imperial religion and language became an integral part of their identity: Romance languages and Christianity in Western Europe and the Mediterranean, Arabic and Islam in most of the Middle East and North Africa, and Spanish and Catholicism in the Americas.

There are also obvious differences between these three paradigmatic empires. Among other differences, one empire was maritime, one was primarily land-based, and one was oceanic. Comparing them provides a better understanding of their transformative power. Comparison does not only look at similarities and differences. It also involves examining the approaches of imperial elites to overcome challenges and strategies of conquered peoples to comply, resist, and become the new elites.

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Abstract Booklet