alms of polity and culture, Byzantine and Sasanian, as well as two overlapping spheres of religious belief, Christian and Zoroastrian. These were marked by great differences in religious beliefs, but they also demonstrated underlying similarities in the organization of their empires, in religious beliefs, and in the structures of their religions and communal life. Both were marked by many small communities with social and cultural distinctiveness, and religion and empire were closely related in both cases. Over time, the two were drawn together into a single Middle Eastern civiliza
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