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I don't think that there would be much interaction between the Russians and the Seljuks or any ATL Muslim Turkic dynasty in the Middle East, as the Caucasus and the pagan Turkic nomads that dominated the steppes of what's now southern Russia and Ukraine would be standing between Russia and the...

Though Buddhism definitely had a lot of influence in Central Asia at the time, that influence did, IIRC, not extend much further west than the city states of the Tien Shan and the Tarim Basin - not since the late Sassanid age, that is. There had been a fairly strong Buddhist presence in...

Eh? Xenos and TU were talking about the Middle East in general, not just Arabia. And there were several reasons why a new religion/religious movement would be more likely to emerge and become popular in Mesopotamia and Arabia. One of the main reasons for this, is that places like Egypt and the...

Indeed. In order to ensure the survival of the Crusader states, much larger developments will have to be altered or butterflied away. For example; in order to let any Crusader state survive in the Levant, the Aegean or North Africa, you'll have to butterfly the Ottomans away - and that alone...

The followers of Priscillianus - they were a Christian sect with (IIIRC) Gnostic leanings that emerged somewhere during the 4th century and thrived for a while in northern Spain.

...along with Arians, Priscillians and Manicheans - not to mention the Ismailis. :D Really, this whole "you shouldn't call Muslims Mohammedans"-thing has *a lot* to do with (relatively) modern attitudes, and fairly little with Medieval and pre-modern Islam.

There's a myriad of reasons why this is completely and utterly implausible. The main reasons are that; 1) horses - and particularly the Mongolian horses, which were adapted to the relatively cold dry climate of Mongolia - wouldn't thrive in the hot dry deserts and hot humid rainforests of...

The only way in which Timur Lenk could ever conquer an empire that's substantially bigger than his OTL conquests, is if he actually puts some effort in organizing and centralizing his empire, so he won't have to spend half his time putting down the local rebellions that popped up whenever he and...

It's just a detail, but isn't the Indian title 'samraat' roughly an equivalent of 'emperor'?

Actually, given the right circumstances, it really is possible to politically divide (in other words; balkanize) an ethnically homogenous, formerly united nation. BTW, at least on this board, "balkanisation" just means dividing a previously united polity in a multitude of new (and often...

You raise a good point about An Lushan's rebellion, but keep in mind that the Chinese defeat at Talas was also a factor in the Tang withdrawal from Central Asia. Without the defeat at Talas, the Sogdian city states and the Qarluq khanate would remain vassals of the Tang, and they would...

ray243's not talking about a continuation of the original Roman republic; he's talking about the short-lived republic that was established in Rome during the 19th century.

IIRC Tengriism actually does survive in a few forms; there's still a few Turkic peoples in Siberia that were never converted to Islam or Christianity, and the religion of the Mongols and Buryats is basically Tengriism with a Buddhist overlay. But I don't think that Tengriism (or any of the...

The Timurid empire indeed did fall apart quite quickly, but that was mainly because Timur Lenk never managed to establish a properly centralized administration in his empire. He usually forced subjugated kings and princes to become vassals, and as one can expect, most of those local rulers rose...

Indeed. Hell, "reich" is simply the German word for "empire", and there's no reason why the Holy Roman Empire couldn't directly or indirectly develop into a properly unified Deutsches Reich in a no-Mantzikert TL. As long as you're not considering a scenario involving the OTL Wilhelm II or...

Oh, come on - it's not as if the knowledge of making paper would never have spread to the Caliphate if Talas would have been avoided or won by the Tang. If the Tang would have won the battle of Talas, then the Chinese position (and cultural influence) in Central Asia would have become even...

For some reason, all the Caucasian languages have disappeared, along with the Celtic languages... I'm guessing that that nondescript Indo-European language in the northern Caucasus is Armenian, which is odd, as the Armenians mainly inhabited the southern Caucasus. But how did western Iran get...

I'd say no - they'd have to get past Axum, the deserts and mountains between the Red Sea and the Nile (which were coincidentally the territory of the Beja - a fierce, nomadic Christian African people) and the Christian Nubian kingdoms for that. Simply conquering Egypt would be much easier.

Making Zoroastrianism, Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism major religions isn't too hard; butterflying Islam away and Zoroastrianism and Nestorianism are bound to remain major religions, and Buddhism already managed to remain a major religion IOTL. Making Jainism a major religion will be...

There's a shrine dedicated to Jonah in Mosul - it was originally a church, but it was later (allthough I'm not sure exactly when) converted into a mosque. There's also a shrine dedicated to Abraham somewhere in northern Mesopotamia, but I don't recall exactly where. There were fairly large...