Buddhism the official religion of the Mongols?

The Mongols seem to convert to the religion of their conquered people fairly readily. Would it be possible for them to have become Buddhists and promote it throughout their Khanates? I'm not saying using Buddhism as an ideology for conquest, more of as a means to unify their expansive empire. It's been observed that Buddhist despots tend to get seriously obedient subjects, ie Thailand, Tibet, WWII Japan, etc.

Perhaps Genghis grow more appreciative of the Tangut culture?
 
I don't think they'd be able to turn it into some unifying religion. They were hardly united in OTL. But it would have lot of impact on the evolution of religion.

If f.x. the turks that invade anatolia are buddhist, or the golden horde. Christians will have a different attitude to Buddhism in TTL and so'd muslims.
 
Buddhism already was pretty successful among the Mongols IOTL - several khans of the Il-Khanate were Buddhists, and AFAIK the only khanate that didn't have several Buddhist Khans at some point, was the Golden Horde.

IT is possible for the Mongols to use Buddhism as a unifying religion in their empire, but I don't think that this will work in the parts of the Mongol empire where Islam or Christianity are the dominant religions.

In the Il-Khanate, the Buddhist Khans were actively propagating Buddhism throughout their realm, but aside from a relatively small number of converts, this mainly led to great resistance from the Muslims.

Buddhism could have been more influential in the territory of the Il-Khanate if the Il-Khanate would have remained under non-Muslim rule for longer - but even in a best case scenario for a Buddhist-ruled Il-Khanate, I still don't see a large chunk of the (predominately Muslim) population converting.
 
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