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It was a bit of both, really. The Mesopotamian population was, IIRC, a very diverse mix of mainly Aramaic-speaking ethnic and religious groups, though there already was an Arab presence in the area. There were even a few Arab kingdoms in the area (such as the Lakhmid kingdom), allthough...

Al-Hind, a book about Medieval India and the expansion of Islam from the 7th to the 11th centuries. So far, this book is my best source on the Zunbils (and early Medieval Afghanistan in general, for that matter). Most of the book can be read online - just follow the link.

Quoted for truth - especially the last part. What's more, India east of Sind wasn't exactly "just a few Rajput petty states" during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods - roughly between 700 and 1000 AD, much of central India was dominated by the Pratiharas, a Hindu dynasty from Gujarat and one of...

You're gonna have to come up with a better reason than that - when islands so close to the coast of a continent remain virtually untouched by the local seafaring Muslims for that long (we are talking about a period of at least 700 to 800 years here), then there's bound to be a pretty good reason...

Indeed. Furthermore, there actually were primitive steamengine-like devices during the Medieval Ages. However, all of these devices were so primitive and inefficient (as a result of the lack of proper alloys and various minor technologies and inventions that people tend to overlook), that...

Indeed - and with the exception of the Muslim states in Morocco, all the Muslim states in the Mediterranean would have to get past Spain in order to even reach the Atlantic. And then there's the fact that the Muslims in Northwest Africa (and Spain) never seem to have had much interest in...

Not much - some captain or officer makes a footnote in his log/report that he encountered a few dozen people who appear to be the crew of a ship that must have been shipwrecked somewhere in the area at least a few years earlier, and the said crew was living with local Indians. At best, the...

Indeed - and to add to what Abdul and Epimethius said; in Pharonic and Ptolemaic times, there was, in addition to the garrison cities and the Sinai Desert itself, also a canal between the easternmost branch of the Nile Delta and the Red Sea. With all these barriers, building a wall would...

I don't think that's a good comparison - at the time, there were a lot more Nestorians than Jews in Central Asia, and unlike the Jews, the Nestorians already had a lot of experience and success with converting Central Asian nomads. Though it's still possible to have a Mongol khan convert to...

Ah, my bad. .. That said, the colour used for the Race on that map is normally used for Spain - hence the mistake.

About the map itself: I like how Spain managed to conquer two-thirds of the Old World (including almost the entire Ottoman Empire), and yet somehow still lost Texas, California, and a good part of Mexico to what seems to be the CSA and an overly wanked USA.

Indeed. If anything, preventing Australia from drying out might actually result in the (partial) survival of the Australian megafauna, including the giant kangaroo Procoptodon.

Forget about Baden - just what on Earth is the Il-Khanate doing in Kazachstan!? The OTL Il-Khanate was situated in Persia, and its centre was in Azerbaijan. The territory of Kazachstan was controlled by the Golden Horde. .. But other than that, it's a pretty good map.

As the title says; what if the Vandals would not have invaded North Africa in 430 or afterwards, and would have remained in southern Spain? How would the Western Roman Empire fare now that Geiseric's sack of Rome has been averted, and now that it remains in control of Roman Africa?

Hmm - a question; what about the Kharijite sects? I was under the impression that, whilst orthodox Islam didn't make much headway among the Berbers during the early centuries, several not-so orthodox sects (such as Kharijites, Shi'ites, and the more unusual heterodox sects) did manage to...

Getting a Shi'ite Gothic community will be pretty hard - I'd say that your best bets would be making sure that a large number of the Goths migrate southeast, into the Caucasus, and that at least one branch of them ends up surviving in the mountains eastern Azerbaijan. Then let things proceed...

That really depends on what kind of POD you use.[/Captain Obvious to the rescue!] I mean, seriously - if the POD is something that results in Britain being weaker during the 16th and 17th centuries (thus allowing various European nations, such as France, Spain, the Netherlands, and perhaps...

Just one question; exactly why would the local Egyptian lower classes convert to Islam if the Muslim invasion of Egypt failed? In that scenario, there would be no Muslims in Egypt to propagate Islam, and the Egyptian lower classes have no reason to convert to another religion out of...

With a bit of luck, it shouldn't be too hard for the Byzantines to hold on to Alexandria for a few decades, just like they did with Carthage in OTL. However, even if Alexandria remains a Byzantine enclave, then I see no good reason why this (or more precisely; this alone) would stop the Muslim...

The thing is; they did remember that in OTL - and yet, it didn't stop them from occupying the Ethiopian coast.