Compare and Contrast Islamic Empires to China and Japan

One similarity between the Islamic empires and Ming/Qing China and Tokugawa Japan is that they both had small amounts of people traveling to other nations for trade or otherwise. This similarity stems from the fact that China began to become an isolationist nation and strongly discouraged any Chinese from leaving the country and killed most foreign merchants who landed in China. The partial isolationism in the Islamic empires came from a sense of grandiose over the European powers and they saw no need to visit Europe, as they felt they had nothing to learn from them. A difference between the Islamic and East Asian empires is the role of women. In the Islamic empires, although it wasn't explicitly stated, women had a significant role in politics as emperors' wives and concubines many times influenced the rule and sometimes controlled the rule of the empire. East Asian empires, especially China, continued on their trend of patriarchal dominance in which women had no say in any aspect of their life. This difference stemmed from the long standing tradition of male dominance in China and an adoption of Mongol customs within the Islamic empires.