AHC: Indianized Arabia

As others have said, there was plenty of trade contact to support cultural shifts, and India has such a higher population relative to Arabia that those cultural shifts are likely to move that way. I would argue the main reason for this not happening was Islam. Firstly, Islam gave Arab culture a huge self-sense of prestige that means it is unlikely to adopt the culture of foreigners. Secondly, like the other Abrahamic faiths, Islam is a very exclusive religion, in the sense that it doesn't really like other people converting to other religions. Both of these make cultural change towards foreign cultures harder. No Mohammed, and I think you would likely have this happen.
 
If you get a powerful enough Indian state to exist or even unite india with a pod between the time of indus river valley existing but before Islam you could use the creation of Indian proto trading colony's in the southern Arabia forced around the southern mouth of the red sea if the canal of the Pharo still exists making this a primary artery trade. By locking this land downdown Indian Cutler can radiate out from these colonies. Pulling from otl examples that could pull this off, in the top 3 pare 1. The Indus river valley civilization (longest pod flexibility) 2.Maurya empire (my personal pick because full control of south Arabia is a natural expansion of there westward territory 3. Gupta empire (most likely the latest pod you can use that can unite India or at least project outwards) attached below is a maps of the empires (1) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...ivilization,_Mature_Phase_(2600-1900_BCE).png (2) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Maurya_Empire,_c.250_BCE_2.png (3) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire#/media/File:South_Asia_historical_AD450_EN.svg
 
Buddhists did send missionaries West and were quite well received by the Indo-Greeks, who are praised in Buddhist sources for their piety, so I don't think the failure of Buddhism spreading west had anything to do with lack of trying.

I'd argue that the failure of Hinduism and Buddhism spreading to the West might have something to do with the rise of the Sassanid Dynasty. Whilst later Shahs would have a more tolerant attitude to other religions the first few Sassanid Shahs initially clamped down quite hard. Kartir, Ardashir's Moabadan-Moabad, actively boasted of stamping out the Buddhist and Hindu communities in the eastern parts of the Empire. Even as the Empire became more tolerant it was still going to put a limit on the spread of Buddhism within it's territories. Then Islam came and, well, that's not doing any old religions coming from the east any favours.

Frankly, the Sassanids were never tolerant in any real sense of other religions. Their policy it seems, came to be if the religion can assist the state policy of the Sassanid empire, then it is tolerated or promoted; if it does not, then it is actively destroyed. Zoroastrianism, was in the early Sassanid period, the favored of these state devices, however, by the middle Sassanid period (5th century CE), Sassanid ruling opinion tended to be hostile to the Zoroastrian priesthood, which opposed at various times, the power of the monarch and aligned most greatly to the 7 Noble Houses. It is in this period that we find that the Sassanid monarchs show favor to either Mazdakism or to Nestorianism as a way to increase the power of the monarch and or to diminish the power of the Great Houses and the priesthood. Religions in eastern provinces of the Sassanid realm and the Iranic polytheism, was itself opposed by the Sassanid authorities as a way to monopolize power in the hands of the monarch, general reform trends and enmity for this religious diversity that was a hallmark of the prior competing Kushanshah and Arsacid empires that preceded the Sassanid.

@Zwide It may not be that case that it was necessarily a Zoroastrian persecution, ultimately, Kartir was while a high priest, also an advocate of the absoluteness of the monarch of Eranshahr. His views of heterodox religions within the empire gifted themselves directly to the Sassanid notion of kingship and the new ethos that was to replace the weak and decadent Arsacid Parthians. Likewise, the fall of the Kushan empire to the Sassanid empire, broke the spread of Buddhism and Indic religions (such as 'Hinduism' of its varied forms), at least in the east-west fashion. Later, the Islamic conquests would not only disrupt the transfer of these Indic religions, but end their demographic existence in most areas that they co-inhabited.
 
Are you envisioning Alexander or one of his successors waging a successful Arabian campaign?

Yes, yet at the same time it would somehow manage to avoid being swallowed up by Rome (and to a lesser extent Persia) with a Hellenized largely unified Arabia via Indian Ocean trade eventually becoming a more isolated protected analogue of the Greco-Bactrians / Indo-Greeks / etc whose location encourages Indianization of much of East Africa.
 
Buddhists did send missionaries West and were quite well received by the Indo-Greeks, who are praised in Buddhist sources for their piety, so I don't think the failure of Buddhism spreading west had anything to do with lack of trying.

I'd argue that the failure of Hinduism and Buddhism spreading to the West might have something to do with the rise of the Sassanid Dynasty. Whilst later Shahs would have a more tolerant attitude to other religions the first few Sassanid Shahs initially clamped down quite hard. Kartir, Ardashir's Moabadan-Moabad, actively boasted of stamping out the Buddhist and Hindu communities in the eastern parts of the Empire. Even as the Empire became more tolerant it was still going to put a limit on the spread of Buddhism within it's territories. Then Islam came and, well, that's not doing any old religions coming from the east any favours.
But there’s still that window when Iran was in its hellenised phase where the elite could have converted probably to Greco Buddhism and spread that further west as well. Also maritime contacts with the west bypassed Iran completely and allowed India direct trade with the east coast of Africa, Ethiopia, Arabia, Egypt and by extension Rome.
 
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