With any POD you choose, make Persia/Iran have a majority Christian population.
Bonus points if you can do this without making some form of "no Islam" TL.
Bonus points if you can do this without making some form of "no Islam" TL.
With any POD you choose, make Persia/Iran have a majority Christian population.
Bonus points if you can do this without making some form of "no Islam" TL.
around the 300s AD, the Persian Emperors were contemplating extending their protection to the Christians - have them do this before Constantine wins at Milvan Bridge, and Christianity might end up being viewed like other Persian faiths in the Roman Empire: tough to root out, but foreign nonetheless.
more and more Christians move to Persia over the next century or two, until they actually outnumber the adherents of other faiths there.
How? Conversion, or fighting him?...and when The Seal of the Prophets arrives from Arabia in the 600s, Rome seizes on the opportunity.
Didn't think of that. I was thinking Persia would stay Persian, ie, most Christians would be native converts.
How? Conversion, or fighting him?
Didn't think of that. I was thinking Persia would stay Persian, ie, most Christians would be native converts.
How? Conversion, or fighting him?
some thoughts:
- have a hellenistic successor state survive
- have Julian the Apostate beat the crap out of the Sassanids
- have Justinian beat the crap out of the Sassanids
the logic behind it would be that at that point the romans had somewhat of a chance of beating thei arch rivals. the fact that Julian happens to be pagan is of little importance, since it would be difficult to stop the spread of christianity at that point
Not really. By that time Christianity was easily the dominant social force within the empire(thus why Julian was called "the Apostate"), and many of the pro-pagan anti-christian laws that Julian enacted were ignored. Even if he wins, that doesn't stop the social pressures in general Roman society. The view of christian theoligians in that era was that God's will ruled everything even the "bad" results(IIRC St. Augustine said "God gave the empire to Augustus, the same as he did to Nero"), so they might see it as God using the current pagan emporer in order to spread the word to the Persian nation or something.Wait one moment, though, Julian beating "the crap" out of the Persians would mean his survival (he died from wounds from a Sassanid attack), thus, Paganism could have easily been on par with Christianity even after he is succeeded. As well, a Pagan emperor winning a large victory over the Sassanids would mean that many would take it as a sign from the Gods, and many would perhaps convert to Paganism.