persia

A few threads here have postulated what could happen in Persia and Central Asia if the Arabs fail to break through the Zagros into the core of Persia. But what happens to the Caliphates in that scenario, in particular the Umayyads? Persia and Khorasan were the power bases of the Abbasids. Are...

From “A History of the Apostolic Church” by Afshin Khorami While it was during the ministry of Jesus that Christianity was born, it was after His death that the young Christian community began to truly grow into something of its own. Simply due to its origins in Judea, most of the early...

With a POD no earlier than 1745 have Iran become a Great Power by 2024 (have to be around level of Germany, France, Japan, etc)

The Safavid empire was the last Persian state to rule Iraq/Mesopotamia, whose history was linked with Iran's for centuries. Their rule over it was relatively short, however, and they lost control of the region to the Ottoman Empire during the 1530s. They briefly reconquered it during the reign...

“Shapur… Shapur my son, I ask of thee to once again free my flock.” It was that same ethereal voice again that Shapur had been hearing louder and louder in his dreams, it was a powerful but still very gentle voice and it reminded the monarch of the archery lessons with his father Ardashir...

Hi, welcome to my first alt-history fic. This will be primarily focused on Persia, but for those of you Rome fans there will be plenty of focus on the Roman Empire too. This TL is partially inspired by this thread which I recommend you read. You may notice me in that thread, arguing that Rome...

Wings of Islam 1st Chapter: Beginning 602 to 604: Ctesiphon, capital of the Persian Empire The Persian Emperor, Koshrow II, hears concerning reports about Turkic tribes amassing at the Empire borders. He decides to prepare his armies for an expedition to permanently deal with the...

Partly inspired by the discussion here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/sicilian-expedition-flight.541657/ The POD is that Antiochus, the kybernetes of Alcibiades' ship whom Alcibiades had appointed commander of the fleet in his stead while he was in Asia Minor, decided not to...

With the beginning of the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire from 632 AD onward, shah Yazdegerd III spent the rest of his reign constantly fleeing further and further east: first to Hulwan, then Isfahan, Istakhr and finally Merv, in Khorasan, where he was eventually murdered. Suppose the...

Instead of being sacked and murdered, Amir Kabir remains in the good graces of the Shah and continues to pursue reform. Many have suggested this is Iran's best shot at modernization/industrialization, do you think that is true? What happens to the nobility that resisted him? With a weaker Shah...

Suppose that Parthia manages to finish off the moribund Seleucids before Rome does. They were on the verge of doing so during the reign of Phraates II, but his plans were shelved by a major crisis on their empire's eastern border: nomads from Central Asia launched raids deep into Parthian...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeian%E2%80%93Parthian_invasion_of_40_BC As the ailing Roman Republic convulsed in a series of civil wars that would eventually lead to its dissolution, the Parthian Empire, backed by a rebellious Roman general named Quintus Labienus, invaded Syria and occupied...

Reading about the history of Zoroastrianism is a fascinating and tragic one. Once the dominant religion of Iran, after the Arab Conquests, Zoroastrianism slowly declined as its followers were persecuted in their own homeland. However, Zoroastrianism survives as one of the oldest religions in the...

The Safavids are arguably the most significant dynasty in modern-Iran. Under their rule, they reasserted Iranian identity in the region that hasn't been seen since the Sassanids, Persian culture flourished, and most significantly of all, made Shia Islam the official religion of Iran. The...

In the 1920s, then-prime minister Reza Khan and his followers were planning to turn Iran into a republic. He was stopped by the opposition of the clergy and conservatives, who were ironically the ones that pushed an Islamic Republic over 50 years later. How different would Reza Shah's rule be as...

The POD is that for one reason or another(different emperor or Shah, quicker end to the war, the war never starts to begin with) the last Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 doesn't happen or it could even end earlier, the important is that while both empires end up battered they don't have the...

I am a little bit tired of Scifi. So i'll start this new project (not new at all, being another setting for GURPS i'll created many years ago). In This timeline, Heraclius the Younger, instead of sailing from Carthage to Constantinople, decided to stay in African City, dooming the Empire in the...

Marcus Aurelius' reign was marked by hardship from beginning to end: Syria was invaded by a Parthia that got its act together (however briefly), plague ravaged the Roman Empire's population, and barbarian peoples invaded Dacia and even Italy itself, laying siege to Aquileia. What if Marcus, who...

The Battle of Samarra was the only defeat Nader-not-yet-Shah ever suffered in his entire career. Following Tahmasp II's disastrous offensive into the Caucasus in 1731, Nader sought to force the Ottomans to hand back the territories lost in that campaign by capturing Baghdad. Unfortunately for...

The Russo Persian War of 1804-1813 was simultaneous to, and deeply affected by, the Napoleonic Wars. The Qajar dynasty, young, unstable and weak, sought foreign aid to turn its army into a force capable of standing up to the Russians, but the shifting dynamics in Europe screwed them over: the...